Twenty-fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time, September 12, 2021 – Isaiah 50:5-9A; James 2:14-18; Mark 8:27-35

During the 1950s, the first big decade of television programming, there were two quiz shows with fairly similar themes. One was called “What’s My Line?” The other was called “I’ve Got a Secret.” On “What’s My Line?” people would appear on the show and the panel of celebrity contestants would have to guess what the person does for a living. Now, since they often had famous people come on the show, they sometimes had to blindfold the contestants so that they would not see the person. Sometimes the person would have to disguise his or her voice because their voice was so familiar that just listening would cause the panel to figure out almost right away who the person was. On “I’ve Got a Secret,” people came on the show and they may have been famous for something else, but they came because they had a special hobby, or secret talent, or maybe they were related by blood or marriage to a famous American of a century ago; something else that no one would guess about them and the panel had to figure out what that secret was.

Every now and then, you see an article in the celebrity magazines about the children of stars. To be the child of a famous person can be very challenging. When children are very little, they don’t know what their parents do for a living, really, and their parents, no matter how famous they are, are just “Daddy” and “Mommy”. But after they begin to become more aware of the world around them and find out that their parent is a famous sports figure or famous movie star or something else like that, they are conflicted about their relationship with their parents. Maybe they get teased in school about their parent, or maybe they get glamorized in school by classmates who want to be near somebody who’s near somebody who’s famous. But either way, it becomes a hassle for them. If they grow up successfully, sometime in young adulthood they resolve the conflict, but it’s very difficult sometimes to be near the famous.

In the Broadway musical “Jesus Christ Superstar,” the scene we just heard in today’s gospel is done very cleverly. All of the chorus begins to sing the words “What’s the buzz? Tell me what’s happening. What’s the buzz? Tell me what’s happening.” As though Jesus simply wanted to know about the latest gossip concerning Him.

There’s all different ways of looking at the story that we heard this morning. But the thing we have to understand about the story is the climate in which Jesus was born and raised. The Hebrew people had suffered tremendous losses over the centuries. They were taken into exile, and after they were released, and it looked like their society was about to flourish again, their territory was conquered by Alexander the Great. And then the Greeks were defeated by the Romans, and so the territory was occupied again by Roman troops. This led to what the historians refer to as “Messiah Fever.” The people longed for someone who would finally overthrow these foreigners who kept controlling their territory. The Old Testament scriptures - the only scriptures there were - lent credence to this expectation. The expectation came in two different forms. One was the Warrior King - somebody would come who was just like the famous David, who would unite all the people and, by the might of the sword, drive out the conqueror once and for all, and create a free people. The other version was that, in this world, it was hopeless that the Jewish people would ever be free, and so they had to expect someone who would come at the end of time, destroy the wicked, destroy the planet as we know it, and take all of the faithful into another life entirely. And those two concepts of rescue moved side by side through the society.

That’s why I asked you to pay attention to how the story this morning may differ from the story as you remember it. The way we usually remember the story is that Jesus asks, “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?” And then the answer, “Some say John the Baptist,” and so on and so forth. Then Jesus changes the question. He says, “Who do you say that I am?”  And Peter says, “You are the Christ, the son of the Blessed One.” That’s the phrase that’s missing from this morning’s story, “... the son of the Blessed One.” And Jesus says back to Peter, “No human being has revealed this to you, but my Father in heaven. And I, in turn, give you a new name. You shall now be called “Peter, the Rock,” the one on whom I will build my church.” And it’s only after that great interchange, where Peter is elevated by Jesus, that Peter makes the fatal mistake of telling Jesus that he shouldn’t die. And then Jesus says, “Get behind me Satan!”

So how come that’s missing from today’s gospel? Because today’s gospel was the first one written, and Saint Mark had a particular scheme in mind in writing his gospel. The problem was, what is the real identity of Jesus? So at the very beginning of Mark’s gospel, the very first miracle that Jesus performs, is to drive a demon out of a possessed man. Jesus doesn't even expect that this is going to happen. He's speaking in the synagogue when his speech is interrupted by this wild man. And Jesus says, “Get out of him!” And the demon says back to Him, “I know who you are, you are the blessed one.” And Jesus commands him to silence.

And all through the gospel, whenever Jesus works a miracle, he asks people, “Please don’t tell anyone about this”. Until we get to today's story. And Peter answers the question, “Who do you think I am?” with one of the two most popular answers. Peter picks the Victorious Warrior expectation. “You are the Khristós - the Anointed One, the Mashiach - the one who is coming. And notice that, in today's gospel, Jesus does not praise Peter for that answer. He simply says “Don’t tell anyone,” and then Peter makes that fatal mistake of saying that the Messiah should not die; he can’t die, he’s supposed to be our hero. And Jesus corrects him bruskly, and moves on.

At the very end of Marks' gospel, when Jesus has died on the cross, a Roman Centurion standing guard looks up at the dead body and says, “Truly, this was the Son of God”. Finally the secret is out. What the demons had said at the beginning, is finally revealed by someone who is supposed to be a Pagan and a non-believer. That's Mark’s story, he has the story that way because the identity of Jesus was still a problem for the early church. They recognized that he was someone unique, but what exactly that someone was, was a learning process. That’s why Matthew’s gospel finally has Peter say, “You are not only the Messiah, or the Khristós, You are the Son of the Blessed One.” They’re getting closer to understanding the mystery of the Trinity.

So what does this gospel got to do with us today? All of us have incomplete images of Jesus. Not to say that we don’t believe the doctrines of the church. I mean, if you can nod your head in compliance to the Apostles Creed and the Nicene Creed, you’ve got everything you need to know. The problem is not up here [pointing to his head], the problem is here [pointing to his heart]. The problem is how we think of Jesus when we relate to Jesus. The question that comes down to us through the gospel can be rephrased this way: Do you have the Jesus that you want, do you have the Jesus that you need, or do you have the Jesus that Jesus wants you to have?