Zechariah 12:10-11; 13:1 Galatians 3:26-29 Luke 9:18-24

The Gospel message is literally “good news,” but sometimes the “goodness” of that news is a hard pill to swallow. At the risk of bursting the bubbles of pious assumptions often held dear, the Gospel as a way of life is most effectively lived by those who consciously and actively engage life’s messy realities as fully and energetically as they are able. The Gospel is neither a denial of, nor an antidote against, reality. Neither is it a magical balm which softens reality’s harshness. To engage the Gospel fully requires the hearer to become a disciple. And with discipleship always (!) comes suffering. Life is messy. A Gospel life means to willingly suffer reality. The great sign of the Christian faith, the cross, reminds us that reality is an absolute necessity, not to be rationalized away. Theological reflection is the intellectual and affective process of engaging the Gospel message while living in reality, and doing both at the same time. Devotional practice is related to this, but not coterminous with it. A devotional life is not always the same thing as an intelligent spiritual and theological engagement of the Gospel.

Today’s Gospel text is set in the solitude of Jesus’ prayer interrupted by his disciples. He challenged them by two questions, questions that must have sounded rather odd to them. Rather than hearing them and wondering what’s wrong with Jesus, let us hear them from Jesus’ point of view as an enquiry into the motivation of his disciples’ companionship. Jesus seemed to be testing how they and others had perceived his teaching, ministry and behavior. Did they see and perceive beyond their own biased preferences? Thus far in Luke’s Gospel narrative (chapter 3) Jesus had been baptized and marked by the Holy Spirit. He had been (chapter 4) tempted in the desert, had taught in synagogues throughout Galilee causing some controversy in Nazareth, cast out a demon and healed Peter’s mother-in-law, and had then cast out numerous other demons before departing Galilee to preach and teach in Judea. Then, (chapter 5) he preached from a boat and supervised a miraculous catch of fish, cleansed a leper, healed a paralyzed man, called Levi the tax collector to discipleship and taught him and a large crowd of tax collectors and Pharisees. He then (chapter 6) violated the Sabbath law against work by picking grain and healing a man’s withered right hand, chose and called more close disciples, and preached his Sermon on the Plain. He demonstrated (chapter 7) tremendous kindness by healing the servant of a Roman centurion, pronouncing the Gentile centurion’s faith the greatest he’d so far encountered, restored life to the deceased son of a widowed mother, and came to the attention again of the disciples of John the Baptizer. He also dined with and among Pharisees where he was anointed by a public sinner who’s sins he publically forgave. Going further (chapter 8), he taught extensively in parables, restored to life the recently dead daughter of Jairus, and inadvertently healed a woman’s hemorrhage causing some puzzling self-consternation. Then (chapter 9), he gave his close disciples the opportunity to engage in ministry by sending them out, and while they were on mission, his reputation was brought to the attention of Herod the Tetrarch who wondered aloud whether Jesus might be John the Baptist reincarnate whom he had ordered beheaded. Upon the disciples’ return, he provided food for five thousand men plus others. Thus, after all this, Jesus had retired to solitude and posed the questions we hear today. Who was he who could do all this? Who could fail to wonder about who Jesus was? The lectionary leads us to this point in Luke’s Gospel narrative only to skip over the Transfiguration (a feast which we celebrate annually in August) which is, in the literary flow of the Gospel, a “eureka moment!” to parallel the slightly milder “eureka moment” of his baptism (chapter 3). In today’s narrative, the disciples parroted what the larger crowds had said. But, in the early Church’s memory, it was Peter who had the personal insight, “You are the Christ!” Actually, in the Aramaic of the original event, he would have said “You are the Messiah!” i.e., the anointed of God! But strangely, Jesus’ retort was a collective rebuke! Peter and the disciples were scolded for giving a correct answer! Jesus effectively omitted the reply and immediately predicted his necessary (read: inescapable) suffering, death and resurrection with which he made a necessary connection to true discipleship. Luke hints that Jesus’ future suffering was on his mind in an all-consuming way. Discipleship always entailed the cross, then and now. This prediction of his future passion and death is a hint that this story was elaborated upon after Jesus’ death which anachronized (i. e., read details from a later era back into the earlier story) the idea of a cross into his teaching on discipleship and ministry. Remember, the Gospel narrative was written in hindsight. The mystery of losing one’s life in order to save it was the foundation of Gospel generosity, personified in Jesus’ own life. It is the individual-personal-human dimension of the Paschal Mystery.

The lines from Zechariah were written centuries after Zechariah’s brief historical prophetic ministry of around 520-518 BC. Today’s text predicted that the Jewish people who had come under the hegemony of the Greeks by this time (thus, written after 330 BC and the conquest by the Greek Alexander the Great) would someday be renewed by one whom God would send, a messiah (i.e., a leader anointed or chosen by God) to save them for all time. It was in the Greek era that the messianic expectation increased tremendously. It was also in this era that the idea of “resurrection” developed and spread among the Jews who were known in Jesus’ day as “Pharisees.” This coming “of him whom they have pieced” would be as great as any of the most elaborate of pagan worship rites (“mourning of Hadadrimmon”) and would result in a metaphorical “fountain to purify from sin and uncleanness.” This whole text is a rather obscure example of messianic expectation, a prediction of a future event, parallel to the passion prediction of Jesus in today’s Gospel text.

The second readings for last week, today and the next few Sundays, are excerpted from Paul’s letter to the Galatians. This whole letter is generally underused and, thus, under-appreciated, by Catholics (a Catholic Counter-Reformation reaction ever since Martin Luther seemed to make it among his most preferred Pauline letters). But, it is crucially significant. It describes the position to which Paul, formerly a extremist religious zealot, had come to see the necessity to lay aside the Torah of Moses and to replace it with the Gospel message. The Torah had begun centuries before Paul’s day as a profound guide to the newly constituted religious Judaism about how to be a thoughtful, holy and faithful people, recently freed (through the efforts of Moses from the Egyptians) by the God who Saves! Over centuries, through normal human behavior and a sad shift from respect for God to an overly simplistic fear of God, the Torah had been reduced in the minds of many to important yet habitual cultural observance of rules, the original reasons for which had often been lost to history. But Paul appreciated and announced that the same Spirit of God who had provided the original Torah (meaning “teaching”) to Moses centuries before, had now come upon the early followers of the Risen Jesus Christ, with few rules to encumber them, and free from cultural baggage. The sign, for Paul, of embracing the Gospel was the significant step of Baptism into the Crucified and Risen Christ. This initiation eliminated all contrived human distinctions, either cultural or natural – Jew or Greek (i.e., Gentile), slave or free, male or female. In Christ all are included, equal, loved and valued. Last week we heard Paul proclaim that no one was saved by keeping rules, even those of the Torah. The consequence of rejecting the Torah and embracing the Gospel was profoundly responsible Gospel freedom. This message is still the foundation of the Gospel message today! What difference do most rules make? Too often not very much! But, to be faithful to Christ and the Holy Spirit . . . now, that makes saints and heroes, and embodies salvation! Next week’s second reading will nuance this message a bit. Prepare to hear further with ears and hearts of genuine disciples!