God-Thinking
September 22, 2024 25th Sunday in Ordinary Time - B
by Dcn. Bob Bonomi
Have you ever experienced a time in your life where you were trying to focus on something or get something done but kept getting interrupted or side-tracked? Of course you have. We all have. Whether it is a mother with small children who’s trying to get work done but has to stop and tend to some need of her child, or the teacher in the classroom that struggles with the different personalities and learning styles of their students, or the employee that gets pulled away from doing their job in order to attend another boring meeting, we’ve all been there. And it can be even more frustrating when we sense the urgency of what needs to be done but we can’t convey that urgency to others.
I see that in the opening of today’s Gospel. Jesus knows that his time is running out, and he needs to impress upon his disciples the urgency of his mission and to prepare them for what’s coming. He’s trying to avoid interruptions by traveling with them privately as he teaches them – and they just don’t get it. And he knows it.
If there is a common theme between all of today’s readings, it might be the emphasis on “right-thinking”. And all three readings point out our conflict between God-Thinking and Man-Thinking.
Our brief reading from the Book of Wisdom, while emphasizing what the wicked want to do to the just one, unfortunately misses the context of the verses leading up to and immediately following it – namely, that the wicked are only thinking within an earthly context. Chapter 2 opens with “For, not thinking rightly, they said among themselves: “Brief and troubled is our lifetime; there is no remedy for our dying, nor is anyone known to have come back from Hades…“
They use that earthly rationale as justification for the evil they were going to do to the just one, a prophetic message concerning Jesus.
The chapter ends with: “These were their thoughts, but they erred; for their wickedness blinded them, and they did not know the hidden counsels of God; neither did they count on a recompense for holiness nor discern the innocent souls’ reward. For God formed us to be imperishable; the image of his own nature he made us…”
It's the difference between Man-thinking and God-thinking.
James, too, emphasizes the struggles we cause ourselves through our earthly passions and desires without understanding that true wisdom and its fruits – the rewards – which come with it are not earthly, but spiritual. But since we do not seek Wisdom from God first, we allow the conflicts we face to come from within us, from those same passions, since they are not oriented rightly toward God.
We are still at war today with those same conflicts – and not just externally with world conflicts or our own struggle for survival. We place ourselves in conflict with ourselves and those around us when we want what we don’t have, and it often disturbs us when others have something – health, wealth, power – that we don’t. We’re frustrated when we think we’re doing everything right and we still don’t get what we think we deserve.
Even when we ask that God take away the trials we face, to intervene and take our side in our daily conflicts – we usually do so from a self-centered viewpoint. We can’t help it. We are raised and indoctrinated by society to seek “the good life” here on earth, and like the Jews of Jesus’ day, we think that any evil that befalls us, any time our prayers appear to go unanswered, it’s because we’ve done something wrong or we aren’t trying hard enough. Again, Man-thinking, not God-thinking.
Finally, we hear Jesus tell his disciples, for the second time, that he is going to be murdered in a very short time, but it won’t be the end of his mission – their mission. The Kingdom of God is coming, and it won’t be like anything they thought it would be. But they are so busy with Man-Thinking they did not understand. They just didn’t get it.
Who can blame them? Jewish beliefs of the time always talked about the coming of an earthly Messiah and the glory and majesty of God’s Kingdom and its earthly rewards. The death of Jesus would be contradictory to what they’ve been taught to believe. After all, if he was the Messiah, and the Savior had to be one who wielded great power and authority, right? And as his chosen ones, they would share in that power and authority. No wonder they were arguing about who would be in charge of what.
Jesus is blunt. He tells them that in order to be in charge they would have to be servants, and the one who would be the greatest would have to be the servant of all the rest.
We might say that he was trying to “bring the disciples down to earth”. Actually, he was trying to raise them up to a greater awareness of God-Thinking, and break them of their earthly thoughts.
To reinforce that awareness, he takes a small child and places it in the middle of the group. Now in Jewish society, a child was definitely not a sign of authority. But Jesus used the child not only as a sign of humble servitude, but by putting his arms around the child, Jesus emphasized God’s love for them.
That is God’s message to us as well. In the midst of the conflicts of our lives, we are called to be Children of God. That doesn’t mean that the conflict will leave us, only that our response to it should be to entrust it to God Himself.
It is hard to see the big picture from God’s perspective. We often can’t understand His will for us, or we don’t want to. And how often do we just ignore something that we don’t understand?
Our challenge today is the same one that faced the disciples – learning to think as God. Scriptures tell us that we cannot completely know the Mind of God, but we can always pray for that Wisdom, as St. James points out, which comes from above – from God. And despite the distractions and demands of our earthly life, with God’s help we can work to accept His Will in our lives, which through His Love is meant to orient us toward heaven. And after all, isn’t it a heavenly kingdom that we should be seeking, not an earthly one?
Sunday, September 22, 2024
God-Thinking
Sunday, September 15, 2024
Follow the Leader
by Dcn. Bob Bonomi
“Who do you say that I am?”
With these seven words, Jesus puts his disciples on the spot.
Picture yourself as one of the disciples. Or better yet, picture yourself as Peter. How would you answer? You have been a follower of Jesus for some time now, and up to this point, through the first 7 chapters of Mark’s Gospel, you would have seen Jesus in action as he:
- Cured many people including YOUR (Peter's) mother-in-law, a leper, a paralytic, a man with a withered hand, a woman with hemorrhages, a Syro-Phoenician woman’s daughter, a deaf man who also couldn't speak, and a blind man
- Freed men who were possessed by evil spirits
- Preached many parables and then explained them to you
- Rebuked the wind and calmed the violent sea - twice
- Walked on water
- Fed 5000 men with five loaves and two fish, then later fed another 4000 men with seven loaves and a few fish
- Raised Jairus’ daughter from the dead
- Selected you and 11 others to be his Apostles
Pretty impressive, don’t you think? Now, after all of these signs, Jesus turns to YOU, and asks, “Who do people say that I am?”
I try to imagine how he might have asked that question. I mean, you’re all walking along the road, right? Headed for another town, kind of chatting among yourselves. No cell phones or other electronics to distract you.
So, would he have asked the question in a casual sort of way? “Hey guys, what do you think – who do people say that I am? Or, would he have been more direct: “OK, tell me – who do people say that I am?”
In either case, the answers your fellow disciples give echo the same answers given to King Herod when he asked about Jesus earlier in Mark’s Gospel, shortly after he had John the Baptist executed. His counselors tell him that Jesus might be John raised up from the dead, or he was Elijah, or he was just another prophet. (Herod’s choice – Jesus was John whom he beheaded come back from the dead. From a guilty conscience, no doubt.)
But then, Jesus stops and puts you on the spot.
“But who do YOU say that I am?”
As Peter, in your usual brash and impulsive way, you jump right in. “You are the CHRIST!” Boldly! With a sense of pride, maybe? That sense of privilege that comes from being part of the elite inner circle? In Matthew’s Gospel Jesus even blesses you and promises you the keys to the kingdom of heaven. You’re probably feeling pretty smug about now, right? You are Peter. The Apostle. The Rock.
But NOW, after all you’ve seen and heard, Jesus begins to teach you about how he has to suffer and die. He’s being brutally honest with you, not hiding anything or pulling any punches. He will rise again but he will be murdered. You refuse to believe it.
Who would blame you? After all, think of all the wonderful signs that you’ve seen Jesus do, what you have heard him say. How could anything happen to him? He’s the CHRIST! He can do ANYTHING!
I think Peter may even be a little bit condescending. He REBUKES Jesus! And, isn’t there times in our own lives when we are so sure that we know more than those around us, especially to those closest to us, we presume we need to help them, correct them?
But Jesus is swift to turn on Peter and condemn his attitude of arrogance. “You are thinking like a creature of earth, not of heaven. Not as God does.” Ouch.
Often, we don’t want to think like God. We tend to develop a false sense of security and confidence when everything is going so well that we believe that it won’t change, and we refuse to believe that anything could possibly go wrong. We would rather live in denial than admit that something tragic could happen to someone we know. To someone we love. To US. Jesus senses this in his followers and so he knows he must prepare them for the reality that is coming – His Passion and their own future crosses. Not a future of earthly kingdoms and treasures, but a future of heavenly promises and an eternity with God.
Jesus turned from his disciples and called the rest of the crowd to him. He challenged them - just as he challenges us – with a tough command: Whoever wishes to follow me must deny himself and take up his own cross, and bring it to me. It sometimes reminds me of the old children’s game, “Follow the Leader”, where we may not know where the leader is going, but we must do whatever the leader does, or risk losing the game.
THAT’S who Jesus is. He is our leader, and where he goes, we must follow.
One final point. When we think about what is “our cross”, we may have a tendency to assume that Jesus only means our own personal problems. That would be thinking as human beings do, but not as God does. In God’s eyes, the cross we must pick up is often the cross of another, as Jesus points out in the parable of the sheep and the goats: “Whatever you do for the least, you do for me.”
And in his message today, St. James is blunt. You cannot have faith in God if you do not act when you see someone in distress and you have the ability to do so. If we profess to be Christians - and to be a Christian is to follow Jesus our Leader - then when we see someone in distress, we must act according to our abilities. That is our Cross, and we must embrace it willingly. That is the only sure way to save our lives for eternity.
So, what is the correct answer to the question: “Who is Jesus?”
The Messiah? Our King? God?
All of the above. He is our leader. Follow Him.