October 3, 2019

The Holy Priest-Martyr Dionysius the Areopagite

Read
Ephesians 4:14-19; Mark 11:27-33

I teach an Intro-to-Theology course for first-year students at my university, and today we studied the genealogy of Matthew. The question raised and, to a certain extent, answered in that long list of names is: “Who is Jesus?” The answer is that Jesus is the messiah who has bound himself to humanity in all its potential and sinfulness, fulfilling in his own life, death, and resurrection the covenants made by God with Abraham and David.

In today’s gospel, a similar question is raised: after all, the Pharisee’s challenge to Jesus’ authority is really a challenge to his identity, to who or what he claims to be. Jesus’ identity as messiah has been expressed both in his entry into Jerusalem and in the cleansing of the Temple – in both cases, Jesus is indicating by his actions that the holy city and its temple are really under his authority.

So today’s gospel gets at Jesus’ identity, the question of who he is, by pointing to his authority over all worship of his Father. It’s not a coincidence that the priests and scribes ask their question in the temple, a place where humanity is supposed to come into relationship with God, but also where Jesus poses the greatest challenge to their authority. It’s their dishonest answer that cuts them off from a real conversation with Jesus about who he is. When we approach the Lord, to learn who he is, and how to be in a relationship, let us ask him to reveal himself to us as he really is, not as we imagine him.