Readings: Acts 12.1-11/ Psalm 33.2-4,4-5, 6-7, 8-9 (R/v cf. 5) / 2 Timothy 4.6-8, 17-18 / Matthew 16.13-19
Perhaps the hardest action we have to make as Christians is to allow things to fall apart. Yes, to let things fall apart. And as things fall apart, to notice.
However things fall apart, whether slowly over time, as in a debilitating illness, or dramatically, as in senseless terrorist attacks and racist murders, our faith calls us to notice.
To notice how our hearts in these moments -- sometimes, pained and fearful; and at other times, insensitive and small-hearted -- begin to crack open, and we become more available for Christ's mercy.
An important part of Christian discipleship is for you and me to help each other make sense of this fragmentation in our lives and world. To make sense of things falling part with eyes of faith. If we allow ourselves to do this, we might begin to understand that this falling apart is the very means, a graced and holy way, to a most glorious end -- life in Christ Jesus.
This effort to make sense is not a careless, presumptive laziness: “I’m broken, you’re broken; Christ will rescue us. No problem!” Neither is it that of the blind leading the blind into a catastrophic freefall. Rather, it is the weak leading the weak -- you and I in our sinfulness -- into the willing acknowledgement and celebration of this Good News: that our vulnerability when things falling apart is the very space that God always chooses to come and labor even more intensely for our transformation in Christ.
What should we do in when things fall apart? Pray more? Fast more? Do more acts of kindness? Confess and repent even more?
Perhaps, nothing more than this simple act St Edith Stein teaches us: come and stand naked before the Lord. Stand with our fragmented lives. Stand naked in our vulnerability, our brokenness, our hope. Stand totally as we are before the Lord of our lives, with all that is bright and beauty about us and all that is dark and ugly in us. Stand before the Lord and to await a question we must answer.
How we answer the Lord’s question is important: it reveals what the wellspring of our living is and the goal we want to orientate our lives towards.
I believe the question Jesus will ask is more profound than those questions we so often associate with judgment day: have you fed the hungry? have you clothed the naked? have you visited the imprisoned? have you freed the unfree for life?
No, the first and very first question Jesus will ask you and me every time we stand before him -- be it when things fall part, or at the end of each day, or even now right here -- is the same question he asks Peter in our gospel passage this evening.
We do not just overhear this question. We too are the unseen actors in this gospel scene for we are in fact placed with Peter, poised to listen to Jesus, our Master. And what do we hear?
Jesus whispering this haunting question that penetrates into the depths of each of our hearts: “Who do you say that I am? Who am I for you? What is your experience of me in your life, in your history? How do you experience me now?”
What will your answer, my answer, our answer be?
Perhaps when we come to understand that our answer has something to do with how we are first and foremost sinners desperately beloved by God in Christ, we will find ourselves as we really: God’s creation. And the radical beauty of this truth is that in this truest of moments when everything that is false, everything that is fake and everything that is untrue in us falls apart, we find ourselves as we have always been, and always will be, God’s own.
Yes, this is who we truly are when we are totally naked before the Lord: not sinful, always beloved, forever redeemed.
Then, we can say with Peter, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.” And we can also echo Paul who once wrote to the Philippians: “All I want is to know (you) Christ Jesus and the power flowing from (your) resurrection. Now nothing else matters.”
Yes, nothing else should matter: only he, the Christ of our lives.
(Inspired by the writings of the Cistercian monks)
preached at St Ignatius Church, Singapore
photo: www.improvisedlife.com
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