Brief synopsis of the readings: In the first reading Isaiah speaks of how the Lord opened his ear. In response to violence Isaiah offered no resistance to his enemies. He withstands beatings, insults, and spitting; he can do this because he will not be shamed or convicted. His strength is in God. Mark’s Gospel speaks of a scene known to most Christians: Jesus asks his disciples who they think he is. They offer different answers but Peter tells him: “You are the Christ [the Anointed One].” Jesus didn’t answer Peter directly but told all of them not to speak of this to anyone. He then told his disciples that the Son of Man was destined to suffer, be rejected by religious leaders, and be put to death. But after three days he would rise again. Peter was much disturbed by this; he took Jesus aside and promised this wouldn’t happen. Jesus rebuked Peter him and said: “Get behind me, Satan! Because the way you think is not God’s, but man’s.” Jesus then tells the disciples that anyone who wants to save his life will lose it but whoever loses his life for Jesus’ sake will save it.
Maybe I’m revealing my age, but how many of us have been asked: “Who do you think you are?” I smile when I think about this question because I have a favorite memory from the summer when I was a camp counselor at a day camp around 1984. One of my fellow colleagues had an epically hard day and by the time the day was over she had her fill of one of the campers. I don’t remember what the camper did, but it was past her last nerve and she screamed at him (at a decibel level that everyone heard): “Who do you think you are?”
As counselors we all experienced at least one encounter with a camper who danced on our last nerve and I understood exactly what she was going through. But I also remember thinking: “That’s a pretty philosophical question for a 10 year old boy.” In fairness she wasn’t interested in the answer: she felt he pushed the limits further than he should have and her question was more along the lines of: “You’re being too big for your britches and I’m calling on it.” His misbehavior led to her frustration and she yelled at him to recognize that he needed to back off. In the 31 years since then I’ve often wondered how each of them are telling the story. But the question of who we think we are presupposes the question Jesus asks his disciples. He’s really not asking about his place in the celestial hierarchy, but instead he’s asking how he fits into the relationship between his disciples and himself.
To their credit Jesus’ disciples make an honest effort to give him the answer they thought he was looking for. They reached high and named John the Baptist (who he couldn’t have been since several people saw Jesus and John together at the same time), Elijah, or another prophet. But when Jesus dismisses those answers, we find Peter giving the correct answer: “You are the Christ.” This takes some unpacking. “Christ” means “the anointed one” and everyone there recognized that Peter meant that Jesus was the Messiah.
For the rest of the disciples this must have astounded them. As Jews under Roman occupation, the idea that they were with the Messiah must have been too much to dream about. For hundreds of years they faced adversity and oppression and believed with confidence that the Messiah would come and end their suffering. They knew that when the Messiah showed up the Romans would either be defeated or disappear. When the Messiah arrived they would no longer need to fear that someone else will conquer them. When the Messiah came they would get to live “forever after ever.” If we’re having a conversation with the Messiah, woo hoo! It’s here!
Except it wasn’t. If their idea of the Messiah meant military victory, they were wrong. If their idea of Messiah meant an end to suffering, they were wrong. If their idea of Messiah meant they would never die, they were wrong.
But if their idea of Messiah meant that death would not be the final word, they were right. Jesus, to the puzzlement of his disciples, outed himself as a Messiah they didn’t recognize. Perhaps they should have looked back at the first reading, the 50th chapter of Isaiah, to understand.
When we think of leaders we think of strength. Most secular leaders claim leadership by proclaiming that he (or she) is stronger than any opponents (think about the candidates for President in 2016). They tell us that they are strong enough to defeat any competitors and we do well by following them without question.
But Isaiah gives us a different playbook: here “The Lord has opened my ear.” This leader makes “no resistance.” He offers his “back to those who struck me, [his] cheeks to those who tore at [his] beard.” This leader is different. This leader will not defeat his enemies through force, he will outlast their evil intent.
I’ve said this before but I’ll say it again: When we decide to chose Jesus, when we chose to live as a disciple, we choose a different path. We don’t join the path of greatest strength, odds on favorite to defeat any opponent. We choose to join the path of the One who strengthens the weak, who heals the brokenhearted, who loves the ones nobody else loves. The passage from Isaiah reminds many of us of the command from Matthew’s Gospel where he (in Chapter 5) commands us to “turn the other cheek” when spit upon.
Maybe only those of us who were assigned the book To Kill a Mockingbird will remember this, but the hero of the story (Atticus Finch) was confronted by the villan (Bob Ewell). Bob spit on Atticus’ cheek. Atticus, clearly claiming his truth from Matthew, makes a point of turning his head to offer Bob is other cheek. I’m not alone in thinking that I admired Atticus and hoped that if I was faced in the same situation I’d do the same thing.
To be fair, I haven’t been spit on. But maybe that’s not my call. As with most of you, I grew up hearing these Bible stories and it’s easy to believe that these stories and parables describe events we’ll never have to encounter. But the challenges given in these readings continue to matter to us today.
The call to understand who Jesus is calls us to continue to define who we are. Generations before me were called to be “alter Christus,” another Christ. This title was assigned to priests, but by extension to all Christian disciples. But it was never intended as a call to be king in the sense of the one who was treated the best.
The call to be “alter Christus” call us to live our lives in radical ways. We aren’t called to “glide through this life to enjoy the next.” We aren’t called to make the best of a greedy world by not engaging it. And we aren’t called to pretend this world doesn’t exist so we can have a better seat in the next.
We are called to be fully present in this world. We are called to recognize that God calls us to justice and mercy both in the next world and in ours. We are called to show no patience for injustice here even if we know that we are guaranteed justice in the next.
Finally we are called to understand and respect God’s call to justice and it means justice matters not only in Heaven but also here in earth.
I was an altar boy and master of ceremonies during all of my adolescence. The priest in charge Fr. Peter. I can’t describe how important Fr. Peter was in my life, not only as an altar boy, a master of ceremonies, but also a member of the liturgical committee, and a seminarian. Oh yes, and eventually a priest.
Fr. Peter held us to high standards and he gave us no slack. He saw in me something I didn’t: that I was capable of excellence. He saw who I was before I knew who I thought I was.
He knew that the question to who I think I am was this: “I am a disciple of Christ who will follow, even with quaking knees. I profess willingness to follow you to places that scare me because there are others who have more confidence in my gifts than I do.”
He also knew my path would fascinate and interest me for the rest of my life. He knew curiosity for my path marked not only the start of my search, but the fuel. He knew that in the course of my ministry I would find hard questions again and again, and that I wasn’t called to answer them but instead to dig deeper. He knew I would do more to advance the Kingdom of God by walking with other searchers than I would by having an answer.
And decades later I recognize Fr. Peter’s wisdom. Countless others have invited me on their journey to the question “Who do you think I am” and not one of those have faulted me for not having the answer. But countless have expressed gratitude for my willingness to journey with them on their quest. They have recognized, as have I, that Jesus’ question isn’t about the answer so much as the journey.
That journey has been fascinating, joyful, maddening, frustrating, and ultimately necessary. As disciples we are not called to easy answers but hard paths. The question “who do you say that I am” calls us not to Peter’s answer but to Peter’s starting line. If Jesus is the Messiah we aren’t called to wait for him to expel the Romans and cure disease, but to empower us to do justice by allowing evil to beat us, pluck our beards, and allow God to keep us as God’s own.
Let us continue that blessed and maddening journey.