Homily 24th Sunday OT 15th September 2024

The Gospel this weekend has Jesus asking a number of questions beginning with, “Who do people say that I am?” The focus of the question isn’t on an identity crisis on Jesus’ part, but on the state of the apostles’ faith. The apostles initial answers reflected the confusion that existed in the minds of the people.

Jesus followed up with a question which has to be answered by every person who takes the Gospel seriously: “Who do you say that I am?” That question was so important to Mark the evangelist that everything after it explains what it means to be messiah and to be his followers.

Moments of breakthrough in life are hard moments in which all presumptions of the past lie broken and we have to turn in a different direction. This was so a moment for St Peter. He bluntly answered, “You are the Messiah.”

Jesus then teaches them the new understanding of what Messiah means and the role of a suffering servant. Then and now, it seems there is no situation in life more guaranteed to focus on God and religion than that of suffering. If suffering comes our way, we ask, “Why did a so-called loving God allow this to happen?”

Jesus reminds hem that Messiahship was connected with not just power and joy but also suffering and death. In the final analysis, the solution to the question of the encounter between suffering and joy is to love greatly, because if we truly love, we find joy in sacrificing for the beloved.

Today’s reading from St James presents another important question. The connection between faith and good works. If our faith is strong do we need anything else? Or, on the other hand, if we do good things, is any kind of faith necessary at all?

James’ letter says that faith must include good works or its dead. Jesus taught that people should live in a way that the world seeing the goodness of their acts, would give praise to our heavenly Father.

The question of today: Does liturgy have echoes in our lives? As we try to answer Jesus’ question, “Who do you say I am? Our temptation is to look for someone of power; one who claims the earth, rules it with strength. We find it easer to believe in a distant God of power than in the suffering servant of Isaiah who cries out in pain on the crosses of the world and suffers in humanity.

The truth is that the profession of faith and the practice of good works are, like joy and sorrow, not an ‘either-or’ proposition, they are a ‘both-and’ proposition. The well designed life has both joy and sorrow, thought and action.

A life of joy with no sorrow can become like terrain with all sunshine an no rain; a baron dessert. Both suffering and joy, and both faith and works, are necessary for the life of the good Christian.

FR Andrew