Homily for the Twenty-fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B Isaiah 50:5-9a/ Psalm 116/ James 2:14-18/ Mark 8:27-35 THEME: To be a disciple is to be truly human

In what does the essence of our being consist? Today’s liturgy gives us an answer. In the First Reading, man has three traits according to the plan of God: man is a being "who listens", who suffers, who experiences the presence and help of God. The Gospel presents Jesus as the perfect fulfillment of the human person: the One Anointed by God, the man of suffering, the servant obedient unto his death, he who loses his life to save that of others. Finally, in the Second Reading James teaches that in man, faith and works are combined in an indissoluble union to achieve perfect human fulfillment. The first reading from the prophet Isaiah is the third of four servant songs found in the book of Isaiah (Is 42: 1-4, 49:1-6, 50:4-9, and 52: 13-53:12). These servant songs are found in Chapters 40 -55 of Isaiah often called the book of consolation because the prophet offers no judgment and condemnation of Israel, but only trust and confident hope that God is about to end the exile. The situation presupposed is that life in exile has become burdensome for the Israelites. In their dejection, it was the Word of God, spoken through the prophet that sustained them. The word of God sustains the weary. As he puts it, “The Lord God has given me the tongue of a teacher so that I may know how to sustain the weary with a word” (Isaiah 50:4a). Indeed, God never grows tired of speaking through the prophet; giving him words of encouragement. And so the prophet says “Morning by morning he wakens – wakens my ear to listen as those who are taught” (Isaiah 50:4b). The determination of the prophet to deliver the Word of God to wearied hearts brings him suffering. Yet, he must deliver it at the cost of his personal suffering. So he says “The Lord God has opened my ear, and I was not rebellious; I did not turn backward. I gave my back to those who struck me and my cheeks to those who pulled out my beard; I did not hide my face from insult and spitting’ (Isaiah 50:5-6). People who proclaim the word of God face stiff opposition. They must not be deterred under any circumstances. However, the prophet is confident that God will eventually prove him right; that God will vindicate him someday. Therefore, the Servant firmly relies on God. Thus he puts it beautifully “The Lord God helps me; therefore I have not been disgraced; therefore, I have set my face like flint, and I know that I shall not be put to shame” (Isaiah 50:7). As if that was not enough, in the midst of the stiff opposition he faces in the discharge of his duties, the Servant of God is confident that his vindication is imminent. He says, “… he who vindicates me is near. Who will contend with me?” (v.8). He was so confident that he challenges his adversaries but he affirms the fact that God is his help. This should be the attitude of the Christian. We must recognise that our help comes from God. He alone fulfills for us our deepest longing. Indeed, the attitude of the servant in the first reading is what Jesus fulfills in the Gospel reading of today and invites all his followers to do likewise. The focus of the gospel reading is the theme of dying to self so that others might live. By dying to self, Jesus meant taking up our crosses daily in order to follow him. So he says to his disciples, “…if any wants to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their lives will lose it and for those who lose their life for my sake and for the sake of the gospel will save it” (Mark 8:34-35). This is the crux of the readings for today. We are invited to accept that true Christian fulfillment is found in accepting the will of God even if it means suffering so that through you others may be liberated. In Christ, our humanity and our divine nature find true fulfillment. Jesus is first and foremost the Messiah, the One Anointed by God, who subjects his entire being to the mission that God has entrusted to him, going as far as the obedience of the Cross. This is why in Jesus the Anointed One and the Servant of suffering are combined, not like two contrasting titles of his human condition, but like two names of the same person that define and characterize him. Even when Jesus is compared with other figures of the Bible (Moses, Elijah, John the Baptist, Solomon, Jonah...), he remains distinct, unique. As he himself will say, "Here is someone greater than Jonah; here is someone greater than Solomon." On the other hand, in his condition of suffering, Jesus is not self-destructive. He experiences no denial in the face of death; rather, he continues to have absolute trust in God, who will assist him in his pain and will make him rise from the dead. This is why Jesus calls Peter Satan when Peter tries to make him stray from his redeeming mission and his perfect human condition in accordance with God. In Jesus we find a trait pointed out by James in the second reading: consistency between faith and good deeds. Here we are not talking about the deeds of the law, but the deeds of faith. We could say that Jesus’ self-consciousness coincides with his self-fulfillment. In Jesus, we see a man of faith and action. He feeds the multitude with physical bread and at the same time, he gives them his body and blood as food for eternal life. Therefore, in Jesus we find a Person and a Christian. These two realities have traveled down separate paths. It seems to some that one cannot be a complete man if one is a perfect Christian. In anthropological terms this is the dilemma which has existed for centuries between faith and reason, between science and faith. In our cultural and spiritual climate, John Paul II, in keeping with Catholic doctrine, has categorically asserted that "faith and reason are like the two wings with which the human spirit elevates itself to the contemplation of truth." Translated into anthropological terms, it may be stated that "the person and the Christian are like the two wings with which the human spirit elevates itself to the fulfillment of its humanity." Perhaps it may be useful to ask ourselves why in the past, and probably today as well, "being a person" has been separated from "being a Christian", and vice versa. What aspects, what traits of Christian life have succeeded in overshadowing and even alienating us from an authentic conception of the person? What models of Christianity have been presented or are presented in our time, that may seem to others, both Christians and non-Christians, less human or even dehumanizing? The Council declared beautifully that Christ reveals man to man, but we should ask ourselves, as Christians, are we all following Christ’s footsteps in this respect? There is no doubt that there is still a long way to go as far as this aspect is concerned. Following this path is a task for each and every Christian. Jesus lays bare the Christian paradox as he concludes the gospel reading today: "Anyone who wants to save his life will lose it; but anyone who loses his life for my sake, and for the sake of the Gospel, will save it" (Mark 8:35).This is the great Christian - in other words, human - paradox. In paradoxical terms, Jesus presents the great battle of human existence. It is the battle between selfishness and self-giving, between the seduction of the ego and the attraction of God, between the worshipping of one’s own personality and the worshipping of true humility. Normally, but wrongfully so, one thinks that by being selfish he can fulfill himself, he can save his identity, achieve a great personality. But after some time one becomes aware that he is chasing after the impossible, and then comes the frustration of having wasted so much energy uselessly, of realizing that one has gone down the wrong track. In conclusion, the only way to be fully human is to tread the right track. This implies an emptying of the self in order to fill oneself with God, giving oneself to others disinterestedly without seeking compensations of any kind, the deep humility of those who know and accept that all that they are and have comes from God and must be placed at the service of others. This is the way of salvation. This is the way of our authentic self-fulfillment. This is the way of the Christian paradox. Let us walk together and be happy through Christ. It is the way that he has shown us, his disciples.