Episode Transcript
[00:00:05] Speaker A: This is Sundays with Bishop Ken.
Thanks for sharing some quiet time with the Lord today. Our guest reader is Father Burt Gome, a senior priest from the diocese of Saginaw in Michigan. Father Burt was a priest in the diocese when Bishop Ken was its shepherdess.
[00:00:33] Speaker B: A reading from the Holy Gospel according to Mark, Jesus and his disciples set out for the villages of Caesarea Philippi.
Along the way, he asked his disciples, who do people say that I am?
They said in reply, John the Baptist, others, Elijah, still others, one of the prophets.
And he asked them, but who do you say that I am?
Peter said to him in reply, you are the Christ.
Then he warned them not to tell anyone about him.
He began to teach them that the Son of man must suffer greatly and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests and the scribes, and be killed and rise. After three days, he spoke this openly.
Then Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him.
At this, he turned around and looking at his disciples, rebuked Peter and said, get behind me, Satan. You are thinking not as God does, but as human beings do.
He summoned the crowd with his disciples and said to them, whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross and follow me.
For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it. But whoever loses his life for my sake and that of the gospel will save it.
The gospel of the Lord.
What an insight it is to realize that the cross Jesus is talking about that we must take up is not some special kind of religious suffering.
It's the suffering connected with just trying to live your life.
The gospels are always fresh, never stale, and they always make you think the cross is the stuff connected with everyday life in this imperfect world, with us imperfect people in our sufferings.
Our sufferings are just part of loving.
Jesus wants courageous people. He wants people who will look life in the eye and not try to duck the sufferings of living, but will wade right in and pick up the cross and take it on their shoulders and deal with it. And he promises to help us do this every step of the way.
He did it, believing God would help him, and God did.
And that's why the cross is our logo. It's not some bizarre suffering of a trappist monk who spends half of his life fasting. It's trying to live everyday life and not trying to dodge the suffering by drinking too much or taking drugs or pretending it's otherwise or blaming it on someone else.
That's what Peter tried to do.
Peter said something like, look, lord, you can get around this. You're big enough, we can get people to help you. You don't have to go through all that rejection and suffering.
And Jesus said, you, devil, I'm trying to face life square in the eye, and you're trying to prevent me from doing just the thing that I'm getting the nerve to do because I believe my father is with me.
My prayer for you is that you will be about helping one another deal with the stuff of real life.
Sometimes we have unusual situations. Sometimes our solutions look foolish to the world.
For example, it looks strange. When it comes to solving a difficult pregnancy, the world says abort it. We say no.
It's when we're dealing with a tough financial situation. The world says lie.
We say no.
When we're dealing with anger, we say forgive.
The world says, you deserve revenge. But our solutions are better because they come from God.
May God help us help one another to face the crosses and bring out of them life and happiness.
[00:04:59] Speaker A: Thanks for joining us today. If you like this week's reflection, subscribe on your favorite podcast platform.
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