Education in Faith
The first followers of Jesus saw the teachings of Jesus as a way of being a better Jew. They didn’t think that they were beginning a new religion; just a new way of interpreting their faith. Gradually, as the years passed and the followers of Jesus began to clarify their understandings and beliefs, the term, Christian, came into use and their differences from Judaism became more apparent.
In this week's gospel Jesus laid out a fairly difficult teaching to the crowd and many followers couldn’t cope with what he was saying and they walked away. Jesus then turned to the Twelve and demanded of them, ‘What about you, do you want to go away too?’ Peter declared that Jesus has the message of eternal life and is the Holy One of God. Peter still didn’t quite have the full picture but he knew that he needed to stick with Jesus.
We live in a world that is saturated by advertising and marketers trying to persuade us to think certain things, want certain things and even act in certain ways. At times the message and the medium of the message blur and it’s not always clear where one stops and the other begins. For Christian people the medium – the person – IS the message (or at least should be!). We are called to live what we believe. That can be tough at times, especially in our modern world, but the challenge comes from the example Jesus gave.