READINGS

Luke 9:18-24

HOMILY

Now we plunge back into the center of Luke's gospel.

This was where we left off a long time ago before Lent and Easter.

So several months have gone by, but we now move on from very close to where we left the last time.

Jesus had called the twelve together and gave them power and authority over demons and to cure diseases.

So he sent them out on the journey.

After that, questions arose as to who he was and herod, the ruler, heard about it and got perplexed and he got perplexed because some people were saying that John had been raised from the dead.

Some were saying that Elijah had appeared, which would be a sign that the final judgment, the day of the lord was about to appear because it was assumed that elijah came immediately before the end.

And by others that one of the ancient prophets had arisen but herod said "well, I beheaded John, so it can't be him; who is this about whom I hear such things?"

Herod tried to see Jesus, so there's a lot going on about Jesus's reputation in the wake of him sending out these disciples.

The fact that Jesus sent out 12 standing in for the tribes of Israel suggests that he's coming to fulfill something to do with Israel.

So you can see why people would have thought the way they did.

Jesus's messaging was getting across that he was doing something about the ransoming or the rest of restoring of ancient Israel.

The messaging was coming across.

After that, the disciples return and tell Jesus what had happened and then there follows the feeding of the five thousand.

During the feeding, Jesus enacts Moses and Elijah to other major prophets, thus adding to the sense that people were going like who is this what's he doing.

There's a sign there was definitely a mosaic element to the sign and definitely an Elijah element to the sign and that was what the crowd were left after the miraculous feeding.

It's at that stage after the feeding of the 5000 that we come to today's gospel.

Jesus and the disciples have moved away from the area of the five thousand.

Once when Jesus was praying alone, the translation says "with only the disciples near him", giving the impression that that Jesus was in fact alone, whereas the greek says "with only the disciples with him", suggesting that our notion of aloneness and their notion of aloneness were not the same.

Alone could mean with other people around you, but not in a public form of prayer.

So Jesus playing privately, meditating privately with the disciples around and without Jesus being bothered by that.

Then Jesus puts out this question to the disciples: "who do the crowds say that I am?".

He wants to know how his messaging is going, whether they're getting across.

What he has been signing, what he's been creating signs of by sending out his disciples by producing the feeding of the five thousand.

What is being understood by this and the disciples will reply in a manner that's very similar to herod because they've clearly heard the same stories, the same rumors have been going around.

They answered: "some say John the Baptist, but others Elijah and still others that one of the ancient prophets has arisen".

So all well and good.

There are the senses of the messaging going around and strangely Jesus doesn't seem to be concerned about that.

He says to them: "who do you say that I am?".

Are you merely being amplifiers of the common voice or are you filtering it.

Peter then answers: "the messiah of God, the anointed one of God".

Peter takes Jesus completely outside the realm of the prophetic, of the purely prophetic now - and again one wonders whether it wouldn't have been nicer if Peter wasn't such a blabbermouth and hadn't let some of the others answer first.

Peter notoriously jumps in and, of course, gets it both absolutely right and absolutely wrong at the same time.

Absolutely right in that this is in fact what Jesus is.

He has seen it; but, with this, Peter risks the terrible terrible misunderstanding, so Jesus sternly rebukes them and commands them not to say this to anyone.

Here the translation says "He's sternly ordered and commanded them not to tell anyone", but the greek is "he rebuked them and said do not say this to anyone".

It's that particular phrase "the Messiah of God" that he doesn't want them to say: not because it isn't true, but because it produces too much risk of radical incomprehension with all the expectations that were around concerning the coming of the Davidic high priestly royal figure that was expected to have announced it beforehand.

So this is how Jesus says effectively listen it's not the title it's the content that matters here and the content is going to be this: the son of man will must undergo.

The whole of this project, which has been told in the prophecies, implies the son of man undergoing great suffering and being rejected by the elders chief priests and scribes.

The elders (political elite) are amongst the Jewish people.

The chief priests and the scribes are the intellectual elite.

The messiah that Jesus was the holy one of god would be bitterly contested both by the political the religious and intellectual authorities.

They would find very good reason to say that's not who he was.

So the type of messiah that i will be will not be available until all that has happened and on the third day be raised.

The hebrews sometime shortly after be raised it is quite clear here that Jesus is referring to prophecies like for instance the one which is our first reading.

The rather beautiful one from zechariah about they shall gaze on him whom they shall have pierced and be covered with a spirit of compassion but also famously the isaiah servant songs the references to the son of man in ezekiel and in daniel.

So Jesus is saying forget the title for the moment.

For this to be comprehensible i'm going to have to do these things first or else you're going to get it quite wrong.

It actually makes it more difficult if this is going to be done publicly.

So here again we have a scene of Jesus alone in prayer then surrounded by the disciples to whom he knows have understood something but who need to control the message lest that produce a terrible misunderstanding.

If any of you want to become my followers let them deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me.

For those who want to save their life will lose it and those who lose their life for my sake will save it.

That's the translation which i'm going to question.

So here he's saying the project which i'm going to live into and which is going to be very painful and full of rejection and ultimately death and only then will it become clear who I am.

That's something that everyone who wants to follow me lives into you only become me by following the same path as i.

I'm not saying that you are necessarily going to have to die for this.

That's why this translation is not a good one but the pattern of your life has very much got to be a pattern of life lived as if you were going to.

In other words, to work out what I am and what i am doing.

Then let them deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me.

This is a daily thing Jesus is here specifically not urging people to rush out quickly and become martyrs.

He's urging people to do the much more difficult thing which is to live this day with a light-heartedness towards your end being able to give yourself away in the midst of whatever circumstances you face which of course is a much more difficult thing to do than suddenly to give yourself away to martyrdom.

One of the comments made about the crusades were the number of these norman and english knights who got off to the holy land in order to to die as they were unable to live which is for the gospel.

Here the important thing is not the dying it's the living into death.

Let's look at these words Jesus says for those who want to save their life will lose it and those who lose their life.

The foreign is for those which is often translated those who save their soul will lose it to those who lose their soul for my sake will save it.

The background hebrew word and the aramaic equivalent is nephesh.

Nephesh means a way of referring to your body. it's the whole bodily dynamic.

The notion that you externalize yourself in part of yourself that doesn't actually mean something vague.

It means very concretely the whole of you as an intentional deliberate body excuse my saying this but the nearest thing at least in modern american slang is your ass get your ass over here or it's your ass on the line that is the self externalized as it were into a body part.

No one thinks that the rest of the body is not going to come to the meeting if you say get your ass over here but it means get the really important part of yourself over here.

That's really implicated in this and every culture has a word or a phrase by which we externalize what is really important to us what we would call in in english ourself into a bodily movement an intense bodily movement.

That's why the reason I stress the bodiliness of this is because that's more or less obvious in the semitic languages but not at all obvious in our translations.

If your life suggests that it's a request for martydom your soul has become such a vague term for us that it means something ethereal but no this means for those who want to save their asses and as silly as that sounds really we'll lose it.

If you are frightened if you are run by anxiety and want to run away fight for instance the people of israel in the desert who wanted to go back to egypt because it felt safer than wandering through the desert for such a long time can't you lose it and those who are prepared to take a risk and throw themselves light-heartedly into the future being perfectly prepared to lose their life to get their asses handed to them as it were.

Those people are the ones who are going to save their asses.

In other words, those are the ones who are going to be brought to life, but this is punchy bodily stuff about where your heart is where your ability to to sit lightly to yourself something like that we would say but the point of it here is that Jesus is saying it's the content that counts not the title just as he had explained after peter said you are the son of the the christ of god.

The risk was the misunderstanding of the title because it's the content.

This is what it's going to look like to be the messiah of god.

Don't you use that word until it's done and anybody who wants to be like me.

It's the content.

It's the being able to sit loosely to yourself.

To give yourself away.

To live an ablation the whole time.

That's the only thing that's going to make you like me.

That's going to make me alive in you.

So this is quite strong stuff, quite stern stuff, but Jesus is engaging in strong message control here.

We are learning what it's going to be like to become his follower.

What's it going to be like to give ourselves a way, to sit light-heartedly to loss, to deprivation, to the thing referred to as denial here, because we are receiving who we are from someone who is other than us.

It's as we let go that we are given.

SUMMARY

Jesus: Who does the crowd says I am?

Disciples: Same say Elijah or John the Baptist. Who do you say I am?

Peter: The messiah, the anointed one of God.

Jesus: The son of Man must undergo great suffering (by the military, intelectual and religious authorities).

The project is something that everyone who wants to follow me lives into. You only become me by following the same path as I.

Jesus is urging people not to become martyrs, but to do a much more difficult thing: live this day with a light-heartedness towards your end, being able to give yourself away in the midst of whatever circumstances you face which of course is a much more difficult thing to do than suddenly give yourself away to martyrdom.

The important thing is not the dying, but the living, according to the Gospel.