It is tempting to assume our journey of faith is supposed to be linear: moving at a steady clip toward greater love. However, this week’s reflection reminds us that no one’s journey is only straight and narrow. Instead, we often find Love among the slippery and fretful steps that risk a fall, or even in the healing that comes after it has already occurred.

September 15, 2024: Twenty-fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle B

‍Isaiah 50:4c-9a

Psalm 116:1-2, 3-4, 5-6, 8-9

James 2:14-18

Mark 8:27-35

The Treacherous and Tremendous Journey of Faith

A Reflection by Jon Schum

Years ago, I took a journaling workshop using the style developed by the psychotherapist Ira Progoff. Participants were asked to list 12 “stepping-stones” in their lives: significant awakenings or passages leading to growth and transformation. Subsequently, we were asked to list 12 stepping-stones in our spiritual lives. Yes, just 12 and only 12. As I toiled over my choices, I found it to be a deeply insightful exercise.

The gospels are, in part, a journey narrative. The readers journey with Jesus not only from Galilee to Jerusalem but also from the beginning of his public ministry to its tragic end. There is a climactic moment and turning point in today’s gospel passage, which literally happens “on the way.” It’s a steppingstone kind of moment, or perhaps better characterized as a leap of faith. As the band of disciples walked the road, Jesus poses the question: “Who do people say that I am?” Of course, the larger question is “Who do you say that I am?”. Peter gets it right and is the first to identify Jesus as Messiah, the promised Anointed One of God. Faith is not treated as something abstract in the gospels; Jesus does not talk about faith as much as respond to it in others. It’s the interior journey, the journey of the heart and the soul, that matters.

This is not the apostle’s first nor last faith episode. Peter and his brother literally drop their fishing nets when summoned by Jesus, “Follow me!” Peter, along with James and John, behold the glorified and transfigured Jesus on the mountaintop. Peter’s faith would waiver in Gethsemane and during Jesus’ trial when he three times denied knowing Jesus. After his own martyrdom, Peter was later venerated as a pillar of the church at Rome.

Likewise, our own faith-lives rarely proceed along an orderly and predictable course. And yet the Divine Lover never ceases beckoning us, breaking into our lives, or emerging out of our experiences, sometimes tenderly, sometimes harshly. Often, only in retrospect do we acknowledge such experiences as divine grace. If I were to list 12 spiritual stepping-stones today, they would be quite a contrast to earlier ones. The good news is that, anchored in history by Jesus, the Anointed One, God graciously approaches us, enfolding us in an ultimate and radical love.

As the discussion with the apostles continues, Jesus gives a strict order not to announce Peter’s confession of faith publicly, lest greater confusion be sown around a very unsettled topic, the appearance of the Messiah. Jesus continues with the troubling prediction of his suffering and death at the hands of the authorities, followed in three days by the resurrection. Peter pulls Jesus aside basically saying “Hey, let’s not go looking for trouble, OK?” Peter has taken this huge leap of faith but wants to go back to a place that feels safer but is really an illusion. He is not ready for what awaits. Jesus refers to Peter as “satan,” meaning “tempter.” Any comparison of Jesus to the Suffering Servant figure of Isaiah was far outside Peter’s grasp.

Jesus has no misgivings about what awaits. Jesus’ entire teaching and ministry rests on “the Reign of God is among you.” The ultimate outcome for Jesus is to turn over his very self, extending his arms on the cross in an unmistakable embrace of all humankind. Jesus makes it clear that if we embrace the reign of God and follow its mandates, we can expect to encounter resistance.

The call “to deny the self” (Mark 8:34) is unfortunately often taken literally. The Church has a long and painful practice of telling its LGBTQ+ members that to be acceptable in God’s eyes we had to deny our very selves, i.e., be invisible and be silent, rather than living and loving authentically as God has created us. Jesus is not demanding self-negation but simply asking all believers to not place themselves above one another.

Today’s passage from the Letter of James reminds us that faith is barren and hollow unless it moves us out of ourselves and toward the neighbor, the outsider, and the stranger. Yet even such generosity can encounter resistance. Note the backlash today against religious and humanitarian groups welcoming and ministering to the immigrant peoples who come to our borders seeking safety and dreaming of a new life for their families. Compassionate generosity arrives as a courageous act in the service of justice.

Ron and I often go hiking in his native state of Hawai’i. One trail we’ve trekked leads to beautiful Makamaka’ole Falls on the slope of the West Maui Mountains. It’s known more popularly as the “13 Crossings Trail” because it crisscrosses a mountain stream at thirteen different spots. There is no alternative path. The stream is not deep but chilly, fast moving, and dotted with rocks profusely covered with slippery green stuff.

So, on the trail we looked for steppingstones. We had to proceed with both caution and abandon, between testing our balance and taking a daring leap. I fell once, fearing I might have broken something, but I got back on my feet, intact and grateful. The reward at the end was a spectacular view of the waterfalls. And since it’s an “out and back trail” we had the same thirteen crossings waiting for our return.

Faith is often a daring, trusting leap, but also a vigilant and painstaking walk on slippery rocks in fast moving rapids. We may fall. We may have to pick ourselves up and continue or wait for healing and a fresh restart. But it helps if we remember our faith journey is not a solitary one. We walk the road in the company of faith-companions. And we journey both toward and with the One who never ceases to beckon.

Jon Schum and his husband Ron Lacro are longtime Dignity Boston members. Jon has served on its board and liturgy committee and is one of the chapter's ordained presiders. For many years he supervised and provided arts-based therapeutic programming for an elder services agency in Boston. He is currently a co-facilitator of the Aging with Dignity caucus and board member at DignityUSA.