Twenty-ninth Sunday in Ordinary Time – October 20, 2024
In Mark’s Gospel, the language about the cross and what it requires is violent and unambiguous. Jesus will suffer greatly and be rejected, killed, and handed over. He will give up everything and be the slave of all. This is not John’s Gospel. Jesus does not gloriously commend his spirit into the Father’s hands.
Mark’s Jesus fights to the end. He pleads for this cup to pass him by, and his last words, “Why have you forsaken me?” get no answer. The cross clearly involves real pain and suffering; it is not a metaphor.
As we’ve heard in various ways these last few weeks, all things are possible for God. What is needed is our desire to let God do what is impossible for us.
Most of us, however, will never come close to experiencing that kind of physical torture, agony, or discomfort—and it shows in our easy-to-consume religious art and language. But spend time with a faith community whose people have known poverty, violence, or systemic generational racism. There you will see a Jesus with followers who know what suffering feels like in their bones. You will hear cries and groans that meld seamlessly into the music they sing and the prayers they offer.
And you will discover the most generous, welcoming, joyful, and merciful communities you will ever encounter. For they know what rejection and anguish feel like and will give everything they have to keep anyone else from knowing that kind of pain. May this be so for us as well.
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