What did you know? When ...? (2024-09-15, Sunday -24)

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2024-09-15 --  24^th Sunday ● Isaiah 50:5-9a ● ● Psalm 116 ●● James 2:14-18 ● ● + Mark 8:27-35 ● ●    

Title:  What did you know? Who do you say that I am?

 

 

[__01__]    There was once an investigation in which it seemed that there had been a cover-up and a concealment by a government leader of what really happened. And, the lead “detective” asked a famous question.

 

The investigator or “detective”, speaking before reporters and being recorded, not only wanted to know what happened by a particular witness but also asked:

 

“what did he – the witness - know and when did he know it?”

 

For what do you and I expect of LEADERS - whether that leader is your school principal, your manager at work, your mayor, me as your pastor, your child’s teacher ….?

“What did the leader or person in charge know and when did the leader  know it?”

 

You expect to be told the truth.

 

And, even if a leader does not have all the answers during a crisis or difficulty, you expect to be told “hey, we do not have all the answers but we are working on it.”

 

[__03__]    This same question might be asked of Peter the Apostle in the Gospel today who had some data, some revealed truth that none of the other Apostles were privy to.

 

In other words, to Peter, “what did you know and when did you know it?”

 

Jesus had been asking: “Who do you say that I am? Who do you say that he Son of Man is?”

 

And, Peter replies:  “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God”

 

Peter is praised for this correct response, for telling what he knows.  We should also not overlook to praise Jesus for making this prediction of his Passion, Death, and Resurrection.

 

By doing so, he enables us to prepare to meet him in our own sufferings, in our own dying and to trust that we have a life beyond this world, and a personal relationship with him.

Jesus will later say, “I no longer call  you servants because a servant does not know what his master is doing. I call you friends because I have told you everything I have heard from my father. There is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends”

 

Peter, despite, “knowing this intellectually” is not yet ready to the TRANSPARENT and humble leader to share this information with others about the personal cost of suffering.

 

Unfortunately, right now, Peter is all about covering up what he in fact knows or denying what he knows.

 

 

[__04__]   Do you struggle at times to know what is God’s will and what is the meaning of your suffering and struggle?

 

You might want to give up.  I might want to give up.  We have all been there.

 

[__05__]   Sometimes we struggle to discover what is God’s will in our lives.

 

This was also expressed as a question by Jesuit Father Walter Ciszek in his missionary experience in the mid 1900’s in Russia, a missionary experience that also led to his imprisonment for over 2 decades.:

 

Father  Walter Ciszek, S.J. (November 4, 1904 – December 8, 1984, author of “He Leadeth Me”) was a Polish-American Jesuit priest of the Russian Greek Catholic Church who secretly conducted missionary work in the Soviet Union between 1939 and 1963.

 

He was, in fact, under investigation and considered a spy and enemy of the state for his missionary outreach.

 

After a few years, he was arrested in Soviet Russia, thrown in jail and also did hard labor in what was called the Gulag in Siberia.

 

For 24 years, he was imprisoned and not heard from. In fact, in accordance with the law, he was given up for dead.

 

Then, in 1963, he was released and returned to the United States

 

(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Ciszek)

 

This appeared in America magazine (Jesuit publication):

(https://magazine.nd.edu/stories/what-im-reading-he-leadeth-me-walter-ciszek-s-j/#:~:text=%E2%80%9CTo%20predict%20what%20God's%20will,places%2C%20people%2C%20and%20problems.)

 

[At the time of his release to the USA, Father Walter was not recognized as alive. His fellow Jesuits had said Masses for the repose of his soul. If you can imagine the shock — and then the joy — relatives and friends felt when news came that he was still alive, you begin to get some pale inkling of the apostles’ joy and exultation that first Easter morning, when at last they dared to believe the news the women brought them from the tomb.”

 

 

Father Walter is also known for articulating to us – the disciples of Jesus today – how we might receive and regard and recognize God’s will  which is sometimes mysterious but not necessarily impossible to realize.

 

What do we look for from a leader in a crisis? We look not for toughness but for transparency – and in this regard we can say Jesus is a leader and Savior with transparency who wishes to share his will with us, his Cross with us, not to punish us but to remind us that our sufferings have meaning.

 

You and I are invited ask what do we know and when did we know it, of God’s mercy and love, of Jesus’ suffering and death. If we seem to have forgotten, there is still time to get back on track.

 

Father Walter writes of what he came to recognize in prison also applied to life beyond prison:

 

“"God’s will for us was in the 24 hours of each day: the people, the places, the circumstances He set before us in that time. Those were the things God knew were important to Him and to us at that moment, and those were the things upon which He wanted us to act."”

 

God also wishes for you  and me to act, to pray, to fast, to give charitably and also to be willing to recognize that our sufferings – united to Christ – make Him present not just in our hearts but in our relationships and in our travels to many destinations.