Twenty-fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time, September 15, 2024 - Isaiah 50:5-9A; James 2:14-18; Mark 8:27-35

One of the first games we play with children after they are able to talk is Who’s That. It starts out with, “Who am I?” A little giggling, “You’re Mommy. You’re Daddy.” And then, “Who’s that over there?” “That’s Pop-Pop” “Who’s that?” “That’s Mee-Maw.” And slowly, children begin to learn two opposing things that are equally important, socialization and interiorization. They learn that they are part of a community of people who are important to them and to whom they are important. And they learn how relationship works and what it means to them inside. Keep that in mind as we begin to talk about today’s Gospel.

So, I asked you what was missing from the Gospel. There was no, “You are Simon. I’m going to name you Peter because on this rock I will build my Church.” “There was no, “Blessed are you, Simon, son of John, no mere man has revealed this to you, except my heavenly Father. And I say to you, you are Peter. And upon this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of hell will not prevail against it.” Where’d that go? That’s in the gospel of Matthew, which was written fifteen years after Mark’s gospel, for a different Church with a different problem.

The story that Mark tells us is of complete misunderstanding. Notice how there are a whole bunch of wrong answers that the people have as to who Jesus is. This silly idea that John the Baptist will come back from the dead was not so silly for ancient people who lived a great deal by superstition. There was a promise in the scriptures of the Old Testament that, before the final coming of God, Elijah would return. “But maybe it was one of the other prophets instead,” said the crowd. When Jesus asked for a differentiation he says, “Okay, that’s what they say. Who do you say that I am?” Peter gives another wrong answer. He says, “You are the Christ.”

I looked up the Greek because the Greek language, like English, has an article - the, a, an. The Latin language doesn’t. So, when Greek was translated into Latin, something changed. But the Greek says, “Su es o Christos.” O is the article. You are the Christ. The Christ. Why the Christ? Because the real meaning of the word Christ, from Hebrew, is messiah. The anointed one of God. The chosen one. And people, at the time of Jesus, were expecting someone to be anointed as political leader or, better still, military leader.

When the Romans conquered the Greeks, that was both good and bad for the Jewish people. Bad, because they were still under the thumb of a foreign ruler, but good, because commerce and travel were greatly increased by the efficiency of the Roman government. Not only that, but through the conniving of the family of the Herods, the Jewish people alone, among all of the people of the Mediterranean Basin, were granted by Rome freedom of religion. But it came at a terrible price. The price of paying exorbitant taxes to the Roman treasury. So, all during the time just before the birth of Jesus and as Jesus was growing up, there were people trying to overthrow the Roman government.

Remember when Jesus was on trial, there’s another guy in prison. And Pilot says to the crowd, “How would you like me to release Jesus to you.” They say, “No, give us Barabbas instead.” Barabbas was one of those people who tried to overthrow Rome. And he was on death row, waiting to be executed, the morning that Jesus was brought to trial. It happened all the time. And it never worked. These insurrectionists always wound up being crucified.

So, what Peter says to Jesus is triggered by Peter’s hope of a military leader who would overthrow Rome. That’s exactly what Jesus was not. That’s why, in Mark’s gospel, right after Peter gives his answer, Mark tells us deliberately, there was complete silence. Not a word was spoken. This awkwardness hung over the crowd because Peter had said what everybody believed in Jesus’ crowd. That Jesus was O Christos, the chosen one, the messiah.  

When it got translated to Latin, the article went away, “Tu es Christos.” Which is why we think about Jesus Christ as like John Smith, Christ’s other name. But it wasn’t. It was supposed to be Jesus, the Messiah, Jesus, the Christ.

In order for Peter and the other disciples to understand who Jesus was, they had to understand the one thing they were unwilling to understand. That Jesus had to suffer. And so, Jesus begins, right after this, to tell them that he is going to be arrested, tried, convicted and executed, but that he will rise on the third day. At the beginning, that’s completely meaningless to them. So, he gives them a key to understanding it. He says to everybody in the crowd, “Those who try to hold on to their lives will wind up losing them. Those who let go of their lives for my sake, will wind up saving them.” So, this is the beginning of a long journey. But no one will get the right answer to, “Who do you think I am,” until Jesus hangs dead on the cross and a Roman centurion, a Pagan, looks up at the dead body and says, “This was truly God’s Son.”

The question for us this morning is the same question that Jesus asked Peter, “Who do you say that I am?” You see, all of us Catholics, especially any of us raised before the mid-1970’s, were given a head-full of information about everything having to do with Catholicism, especially everything having to do with Jesus. But we weren’t given enough of this.

Remember what I said about that game we play with little, little children? It’s not an intellectual game. It has socialization and interiorization. Belonging to a group. That group meaning something to me. Me meaning something to them.

Jesus asks each one of us, every day, “Who do you say that I am?” And it’s easy enough for us to rattle off the answers we learned in Catechism or religion class. The answer Jesus is looking for is the real one. The one that you feel He is to you. And, day by day, that answer may change.