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 15th, 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.
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