Twelfth Sunday
One of the advantages of a name like 'John' is that is so
common. There were 4 Johns in my class at primary school and sometimes the
teacher would ask a question I wouldn’t know the answers to. I am sure looking
back one teacher got great pleasure in asking ‘now who will I ask? John…’ the four Johns would gulp and be on hold, and
a sigh of relief would come from this John who didn’t know the answer when
another John surname was called out because he hadn’t his learning off homework
done!
A teacher asks questions of course out find out how much the
pupils understand what they have learned (if they have taken the trouble to
learn!). That is in fact what to educate means ‘to draw out from’.
Jesus was, among other things, a teacher
to his followers. He was often addressed as ‘Rabbi’ which means ‘teacher’. Someone once counted how many
questions Jesus asks in the 4 Gospel accounts and there are about 200 questions
he asks, often rhetorically, but all ultimately directed at all Christians for all
times and at us today, addressed to us, and He wants an answer from each
person.
Jesus asks two questions today
Who do people say that
I am?
And of course opinions are divided and none of the answers
turn out to be correct. People’s opinions are not necessarily right. Popular
opinion is very elusive. So much for what people think of us.
But Jesus is not really that concerned what people think of
him (unlike us!). This was simply a lead in question to the real question: ‘who do you say that I am?’ That is a
very different prospect altogether! Jesus is getting personal.
This is a crucial question. After all we know that He will
meet with us one day and ask us the very same question! It is Only Peter who
comes up with right answer – ‘The Christ of God’. Likewise in class there was always someone who knew the right answer to every question!
We come to realise then in the account of what follows that
then Jesus teaches us who he says He is Himself! And that we cannot have Him without the cross. And all of us have one, which can be external or internal,
even unknown to a spouse or family member.
The inescapable reality of the
cross in all its forms – spiritual, physical, emotional, mental, in relationships,
the cross can take the form of everyday criticism, anger, trials,
contradictions and humiliations. To be a disciple is to be a follower
of the Lord Jesus not in a piecemeal fashion, picking and choosing, but with
hardships and ordeals and all sorts of unexpected challenges and trials. There
is no-one who escapes suffering. To be a follower means to be open - and to be
willing to be opened to the very likely possibility of suffering.
It only begins to make sense when
love is brought into the equation. Even on the happiest day imaginable in a
person’s life, in two people’s lives in fact – on their wedding day, a couple
exchange vows. The good and the bad are accepted in equal measure, in a
balanced equation as it were. - For better or worse for richer, for poorer, in sickness
and in health, till death do us part. Often a couple are quite moved by this
exchange. What a married couple effectively say is: we will face the future
together and we will suffer together. It is love, as well as prayer, duty, mutual trust and tenacity
that help them to persevere and not to give up on each other.
People sometimes
wistfully say to themselves or aloud – ‘if I knew then what I know now!’ Each choice
in life, single, married, religious or priestly, brings its own cup of
suffering in unexpected ways. The grass is always greener elsewhere. No matter
what life we choose, we bring our personality, our temperament, our upbringing
with us. We will make our share of mistakes; we will have our coping
mechanisms, bad habits and good. We will have good days and bad days, sunshine
and rain. In marriage two personalities must work for a lifetime, religious
must lives their vows in a community setting, a priest and even single people
must find it in the sacrifices to their comfort, convenience and control.
With the passage of time we begin to
see all the implications of that first yes, but it was a free yes, made in love
and hopefully now even more mature and developed, made stronger and with more
resolve. The permanent and lasting cost becomes
clearer to us, especially at milestone events, ages or anniversaries, with the renewed and deeper sense or realisation of what
we have accepted as well as given up, renounced or surrendered. Sometimes growth
involves the more complete 'yes' that entails a fuller surrender of self, a stripping off of vanity and
pride, of self-centredness and control. But the 'terms and conditions' that bind us
at one level are meant to free us at another.
Now today, Jesus asks: ‘Who do
you say that I am NOW? After all these years? Or will you too go away?’ At
every stage of life we must face the daily cross, not back-sliding, but denying
ourselves, making sacrifices, doing our duty. Obedience, the calling and
sacrifices that our state and age in life brings. Take up your cross, whatever
that may be!
Andrew said to Bartholomew – ‘we
have found the Christ.’ We too must find Him, but He must find us - in prayer. Jesus says firmly
and finally that we must ‘lose our lives’ in order to find them. Therefore we
must regularly die to self and surrender
the three C words of our Convenience, Comfort and Control. With the help of prayer
we realise that:
‘When you have found the Cross, it is I you have found’ (Our Lord
to Bl Josefa Menendez).
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