September 16 // 24th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Reading I: Isaiah 50:5-9a
Responsorial Psalm 116:1-2, 3-4, 5-6, 8-9
Reading II: James 2:14-18
Gospel: Mark 8:27-35

In this Sunday’s Gospel, Peter declares Jesus to be the Christ (the Messiah); Jesus affirms this but says that he will have to suffer and die. Then, after Peter gives him a hard time, Jesus speaks to the crowd, saying that whoever loses their life for his sake, will be saved.
Poor Peter. He just didn’t get it. It’s what we often think when we hear this Gospel proclaimed. Peter knew that Jesus was the Christ—the anointed one. But he shared the “conventional” view that the Messiah would go from victory to victory—liberating his people from the Romans and from those who collaborated with them.

Wrong.

For Jesus to be faithful to his mission—and he could not be otherwise—he would have to be arrested and executed in Jerusalem. But he assured his disciples that his death would not be the end.

Jesus said to Peter that he was thinking like a human being, and not like God. He could have said this to all of us. We are not God. And if we see God as a “superman” in the sky who chooses to intervene in some events on earth but not in others, we are probably wrong.
I am not saying that prayer is useless. Far from it. But we must remember Jesus’ admonition that we do not think as God thinks. And if we live as if the world revolves around us, we will lose our lives.

But there is good news in this Gospel. Jesus promised his disciples that he would rise from death. Oppression, injustice, violence and death are not the end. God has the final word. And God’s final word is love.

Will we choose to live, truly live, in God’s love?