The love of Christ urges us on – Mark 8:27-35

 Twenty-fourth Sunday of Ordinary Time, Year B; St. Ann's.

Mr. Rogers used to say that whenever some disaster strikes and we feel scared or dejected or hopeless, the place to look is to look for the people who are helping, and its in them that our hope can be reawakened. Recent extreme weather events, close to home and further away, have provided yet another opportunity to do that. One story that really moved me came out of Tennessee when they were hit by flooding in late August. I read of Jeff Burkhead who went out in his boat to travel round deeply flooded streets to try to rescue people, and I read of Hope Dretska, a nurse who was perfectly safe herself, but flagged Jeff down and asked to come along in his boat to be able to provide care to anyone he rescued, and I read of people they were able to get to safety. Now I don’t know Jeff or Hope, I’ll probably never meet them, but I’m guessing they didn’t go out because they like danger. No, they went out because they had a love for their neighbor that was greater than their perfectly rational fear of danger.

 

That’s the kind of bravery that Jesus commits to today. And that’s the kind of bravery that Peter isn’t ready for. Peter has a certain kind of bravery; he’s willing to contradict Jesus to his face. He also very definitely has a heart full of love, for Jesus at least. One option for him is to walk away, to give up on all of this, and escape any hint of danger for himself. His love for Jesus makes that not an option. But, there’s a kind of courage he doesn’t have, the courage to let Jesus keep on loving us even in the face of mortal danger. The kind of courage I’m guessing Jeff and Hope’s loved ones have.

 

Jesus doesn’t seek out danger for the sake of danger, or pain and suffering because he thinks those things are good. They aren’t. But he refuses to shirk from danger when danger stands in the way of loving humanity and expressing that love in concrete action. On his first day of public ministry, he healed, and he proclaimed the nearness of God’s kingdom, and despite going to a deserted place, people flocked to him. That makes him a threat to structures of power, like the Roman Empire, that oppress and don’t heal, but claim total control. That puts him in mortal danger. He doesn’t need to use any supernatural divine knowledge of the future to know that what he’s doing will probably get him killed. He just needs to look at all the other crucifixions around him. But to claim that he’ll rise again, that his love for us is stronger than even death, death at our hands, that takes special knowledge, knowledge it doesn’t seem Peter is ready for.

 

But that’s what true bravery, the Christian virtue of courage, really is. It’s not discounting danger, it’s not a lack of fear, it’s certainly not seeking out pain and suffering for their own sake, but it’s refusing to let any of that keep us from loving. And, as our reading from James reminds us, love is a concrete set of actions, not a feeling. Bravery also isn’t a refusal to ask for help. There’s a bravery needed to call for rescue. Part of Christ’s bravery is being willing to call on these humans to help him, to stand by him, even though he knows they’ll let him down.

 

Peter won’t be ready for that when it comes to the crucifixion either. He’ll flee. It’s only after the resurrection that he’ll be emboldened, when he’ll let the love of Christ urge him on to bravely build up the Church, and finally die for it. But Mary’s already ready by the Crucifixion. Later this week, on September 15^th, the Church celebrates the feast of Our Lady of Sorrows. My religious community, the Congregation of Holy Cross, was placed by Bl. Basile Moreau, our founder, under the patronage of Mary under that title, Our Lady of Sorrows. Under that title we trust in Mary who was prepared to experience so many sorrows as Mother to our Lord, almost all of which she could have shirked if she just stopped caring, if she ran and gave up on him.

 

But, she didn’t. She kept on loving, and St. Bernard describes her experience of standing by her Son’s cross as her own martyrdom. She stands by us in our sufferings too, and she urges us to do the same for one another. She urges us to not give up on loving, even when love opens double gates on suffering, as it will.

 

And it’s by the cross, where Jesus entrusted her and the Beloved Disciple to one another. It’s by the cross where church, where community is formed, where love begets love, when it dares stand next to death, because it trusts that love is stronger.