12th Sunday in Ordinary Time
O-R-I-O-L-E-S
Okay, how many of you are Oriole fans, be honest?
I see some hands, but definitely not the majority.
We are off to another losing season: the Orioles have won 18 games, lost 49 and are 23 games out of first place. Camden Yards is virtually empty and the only time it gets filled is when the New York Yankees or Boston Red Sox come to town. But even then, Oriole fans are in the minority with Yankee and Red Sox fans easily out numbering and out cheering our home team.
It would seem that we are dealing with many fair weather fans. You see these fans when things are going well, winning seasons are being played and championships are just around the corner, but when losing seasons creep in and you find your team with the worst record in all of baseball this year…the fans are nowhere to be found.
Jesus asks an important question in today’s gospel, “who do you say that I am?” Even more importantly Peter answers, “the Christ of God.” However, Jesus gives them the shock of their lives…if he truly is the Christ, the Messiah, then suffering and death is part of the job description. This is not the Messiah that the disciples were waiting for, but this was the Messiah that God the Father sent.
Time after time Peter and the other disciples did not get it or even worse tried to talk Jesus out of it leading Jesus to rebuke and even scold Peter for thinking such thoughts and trying to get in the way of Jesus’ mission.
This has a profound impact on us as well, because Jesus asks us the same question, “who do you say that I am?” Our answer carries a lot of ramifications!! If we say that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God and the Messiah than there is no way of avoiding the paschal mystery…the suffering, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
Like Peter and the disciples we might want to talk Jesus out of it or when the going gets tough run away like in the garden of Gethsemane, but this is who Jesus is…a suffering messiah.
Archbishop Timothy Dolan of New York during Lent talked about how we have a real problem with a suffering Messiah. Like Peter we want no parts in it, like the jeering crowd on Calvary we want him to come down from the cross and yet there he remains, there he stays; there he reigns as a scandal for the world.
Luke tells us in today’s gospel:
Then he said to all, “If anyone wishes to come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it.”
We are so busy trying to save our lives that in the end we risk losing everything. I am reminded of another verse, “what good is it to gain the entire world, but lose your soul in the process.”
We get a pain and immediately we reach for the Advil, “come down from that cross!”
An unexpected life comes at an inconvenient or unplanned time of our choosing we look to get of it, “come down from that cross!”
Our marriage seems to be having more bad times than good we look to end it, “come down from that cross!”
Priesthood is not exactly what we expected it to be and the church is not changing to what we would like we leave, “come down from that cross!”
Serious illness or age is weighing us down and life seems to have become burdensome we look to terminate it, “come down from the cross!”
We look for the short cut, the easy way out or even the path of least resistance, but in trying to save our lives in the short term we lose our life in the end. Why? We are uncomfortable with a suffering Messiah. We want God to be made in our image and likeness, not we made in his. We don’t mind excepting Jesus on our terms or imagining him for what we would want him to be, instead of excepting him for who he actually is.
We cannot be fair weather fans in our life of faith, but must we willing to accept the entire paschal mystery, not just a part, but the suffering, death, and resurrection as a total package…we cannot separate one from the other.
I can only imagine what might happen to the players; mangers and even the executives of the Orioles if Camden Yards was actually packed with Orioles fans, not because they were going to win a championship this season, but because this is when they needed us the most. It says a lot more about a person, a franchise and even a city in how we weather the bad times, than how we celebrate the good.
Instead of running from the cross it might be time as a church to once again embrace it. To get to Easter Sunday we need to be willing to celebrate Holy Thursday and Good Friday as well.
We are baptized into Christ’s death and resurrection and we are claimed for Christ by the sign of the cross. It can no longer be a sign, a symbol or a gesture…it needs to be a way of life.
As the book of Zachariah proclaims:
On that day there shall be open to the house of David and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem,
a fountain to purify from sin and uncleanness.
The cross is the fountain of our salvation and the tree of true life that will never fade. Perhaps we have been so busy trying to save our lives that we are in the process of losing it. Instead let’s pick up our cross, follow Christ and in the end save it.
Thi is NO time to be a fair weather fan!!
O-R-I-O-L-E-S!!
I like this blog entry. It’s a winner.
I am an Orioles fan, even when we stink, and you reminded me in this blog not to be a fair weather fan, to my team, my church, or my family.
Sometimes a reminder on things you already know is a good thing.