Today’s gospel reading leads us into a section of Mark’s gospel that explores challenges confronting all disciples on their journey of faith. The first challenge is to clarify the nature of our commitment as disciples of Jesus. If we fail to understand who Jesus is, then we have little chance of understanding the nature of our own call to follow him. To know and follow Jesus as the Christos or Messiah is to seek and support more moderate and lasting responses to both perceived and real injustice. It is to listen to the wisdom of those with insight and experience, to calculate with the utmost care the consequences of violent reactions to the problems in our world, in contemporary society, and in our homes. That may well involve hard work, personal misunderstanding, physical and emotional trauma or, in other words, it may mean “losing one’s life” for the sake of the gospel. It may call us to ensure that all have access to a more equitable share of earth resources. It certainly calls for profound trust in the saving power of God. In this Season of Creation, the gospel calls us into the ways of respect, of commitment, and of peaceful negotiation, to ever deeper insight into the ways of Jesus the Christ, the anointed agent of God’s empire.