24th Sunday of Ordinary Time - September 11, 2021

 

24^th Sunday Ordinary Time Year A Sep 11, 2021

This is a day of many memories, trauma, fear, and trepidation.  20 years ago over 3000 people died in the attacks on the World Trade Centers Twin Towers, the Pentagon and a remote field in Pennsylvania, or the numbers would have been even more devastating.

 

Trauma of this magnitude does not heal quickly.  It is not an easy journey for many.  We pray tonight for all those who live daily with the effects of trauma and the life altering decisions it brings forth.  

 

In many ways, this anniversary and this Gospel fit like a hand and a warm winter glove.

You see before the attacks of the morning and throughout the day of Sept 11, 2001 we all were pretty much doing what we always do.  We were doing our jobs, going to school, teaching, nursing, flying, traveling, or what ever was required.  Then the tragedy began to unfold and we were left stunned, perplexed, puzzled, fearful, wondering,  questioning, and disorientated.  All those are characteristics of trauma.  The disciples in our Gospel today were much like us on the morning of Sep 11^th.  They were following Jesus throughout the region, listening, learning, teaching, encouraging, and figuring out their next steps.  They thought they had a grasp of reality, of what this was all about, how things would go, what would happen.  Then Jesus says….you got it wrong…you are journeying on the wrong road.  

 

And the disciples, with the carpet pulled out from under their feet, are left stunned, perplexed, fearful, wondering, questioning, and disoriented.  Suffer, take up the cross, lose my life….what?  And much like Peter we want to say….Hey dude you got this all wrong…you are the Messiah….triumph, peace, transformation, joy, happiness….what are you talking about?

But there must be something to the message of Jesus…even Buddha understood it…Buddha says…life is suffering, all of life is suffering.  And Jesus says we must lose our life in order to save it.

 

It would be easy to conclude,….if its all suffering and I must give up my life in order to save it…then nothing I do, or nothing I can do will make any difference, I just need to accept everything.  The good, the bad, the ugly, the evil, the good.

 

Yet to do so would be to ignore a whole point of the ministry of Jesus…follow in my footsteps….Jesus said, if we are to follow Jesus, then we will have to accept certain things and search for other things.

If we are to follow Jesus, we will have to ask others….who do you say that I am?  We will have to struggle to understand the three primary questions of human life….who am I, where do I belong, and what is my purpose?

Those three questions of identity, belonging and purpose lay at the core of the Spiritual Life….they envelop the Gospel and they are also infinitely patient.  They never go away…no matter how long we refuse to explore or strive to answer them.

Let me share an example of what I mean.  My clerk, my coworker in Prison is a man who grew up in Edina Minnesota, could have had anything he wanted almost.  His life took him down a path that ended him in prison, with three consecutive life sentences, 75 years of incarceration. As of this day he has spent 45 years of his life incarcerated.

Many of us, including me can hardly fanthom such an existence.  Despite what the courts have passed in their judgement, I have come to know him much differently.  We had a discussion this week.  We were talking about the questions of identity, belonging and purpose.  I said to him. 

Sam…not his real name….what keeps you going?  He looked at me and after a few moments he said….what keeps me going is the hope that maybe, just maybe I can make someone else’s life a little bit better.  And then he said one of the most profound things I think I have ever heard:  He said:  I try every day to transform my pain into someone else’s joy.

And I couldn’t help but think of the message of Jesus in the Gospel, If you wish to come after me, you must deny your very self, take up your cross and follow in my footsteps.

Sam is not a Christian…he does believe in God…and he believes that what he is doing with his life is answering those three fundamental questions….who am I, where do I belong, and what is my purpose.

It leaves us with the same question just phrased a little differently.  Who is God/Who is Jesus for us in our lives?

Is God our crutch or is God our Core?