Facing Hard Truths of Being Christian

HOMILY: Twenty Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time (B)

Mark 8:27-35

12 September 2021 

Fr. Ricky Cañet Montañez, AA

A friend recommended that I watch the American adaptation of the South Korean medical drama series, The Good Doctor. The plot revolves around Dr. Shaun Murphy, a young physician with autism and savant syndrome, who joins the surgical unit of a prestigious hospital.  All throughout the series he is depicted as a super-smart diagnostician and a very skilled surgeon who struggles with picking up on social cues and dealing with emotions. His lack of empathy and sensitivity to the feelings of others usually gets him into conflict with patients and his colleagues. He does not understand how his words or actions upset people. He does not mince words. He says what he thinks and bluntly tells patients what they must hear. For Dr. Murphy there is no need for the usual niceties and sugarcoating. He openly declares all pros and cons of any procedure. His brutal honesty can be quite off-footing at times but it also endears him to the audience. One fan posted on IG: “Really wish everyone speaks honestly like Shaun does… It would surely make life much easier…” 

In the gospel passage from Mark this Sunday, we see Peter who balks at Jesus’ revelation that as the Christ he must “suffer greatly… be rejected… be killed…, and rise after three days.” When Peter was confronted with this hard truth, he could not simply bear the thought of the hoped-for Messiah being tortured and dying like a common criminal. Overwhelmed by his immediate reaction, Peter failed to see the complete picture of Jesus’ identity and what Jesus was meant to accomplish through His death. He failed to grasp that through His death Jesus would bring about new life. Dismayed at his imprudence, Jesus addresses Peter in the same way He admonishes “Satan” in the Temptation narratives and orders him “to get behind Him” for “thinking not as God does, but as human beings do.”  

If we are honest with ourselves, we too are no different from Peter at times. We also recoil at comments that make us uncomfortable. We tend to hear only what we want to hear— only those feel-good, complimentary and self-patronising comments of others about us. On the other hand, we refuse to hear what challenges us. Though unsettling and contrary to our whims, we immediately dismiss as mere criticisms any honest to goodness opinions of others. But if we take a hard look at most of our experiences, we realise that more often the things that we initially did not want to hear are the very things that usually have paved the way for our growth and improvement. In one of the first episodes of The Good Doctor, Dr. Shaun Murphy praises his boss Dr. Neil Melendez, but poses a straightforward question. He says “I saw a lot of surgeons in medical school. You’re much better than them. I have a lot to learn from you… You’re very arrogant. Do you think that helps you be a good surgeon (a better person)? Does it hurt you as a person? Is it worth it?” 

As followers of Jesus, we cannot simply sit back, stay put and be content with what seems agreeable. The one who truly wants to follow Jesus… the one who takes heed of Jesus’ teachings of carrying his/her cross cannot just close off to one’s self and remain the same. We do not want crosses. We do not want to be challenged. We are all invited to step outside of our comfort zones and humble ourselves in order to be able to truly hear the call of Jesus and bring to action what we learned from Him. We have to live out the demands of our faith that directs and leads us where we should go and what we have to do. St. James warns us today in the Second Reading, we are to be wary of those people who have “faith”, that is, they claim to be Christians and lovers of the Scriptures but their lives speak the contrary. 

I am sorry to say this but I believe we would have been or will be in a much better state in our Covid 19 Pandemic Response if we have learned how to truly listen to one another, to value each other’s opinions, and to work together for a common cause. We have become too divisive to have a common ground. We have become too unreasonably reactionary to the point that we consider every contrary opinion as a personal attack to our integrity. Let us set aside our egos at this crucial time when many people are getting sick and are dying. Let us be courageous enough to accept that we need to listen to the voice of reason in order for us to truly rally our people out of this pandemic.    

We pray therefore for God’s grace that we will not be rash and dismissive of other people’s suggestions, opinions and ideas especially those different from ours that might prove to be helpful for the common good. Let us be honest with ourselves, to recognise our failings, and to learn from the path of Jesus how we can be more like Him.