Year A / Ordinary Time / Week 21 / Sunday
Readings: Isaiah 22.19-23 / Psalm 137.1-2a, 2bc-3, 6, 8bc (R/v 8c) / Romans 11.33-36 / Matthew 16.13-20
“I am disturbed.” Sisters and brothers, have you ever felt like this? Felt disturbed when family or friends you have known for the longest time stopped you one day and asked you, “Who am I to you?” Did this question make you doubt everything you are to each other as family or friends? Did you feel disturbed?
“I am disturbed.” I imagine this is how Peter and the apostles might have felt when they were confronted by Jesus’ question, “But who do you say I am?” Disturbed because here is Jesus, the teacher they followed and the Messiah they hoped for, asking them about the meaning of his life in their lives.
I think we would be small minded to interpret Jesus’ question to be only about identity and recognising it. I’d like to suggest that this question is really about opening oneself to a fuller relationship. Because hidden in Jesus’ question is this unsaid invitation: “Do you want to enter into deeper friendship with me?”
We have all experienced similar moments when someone’s question led us into deeper relationship. Perhaps, it was an acquaintance in school or at work who asked that question that led to a lifelong friendship. Or, it was the woman or man you dated who one day asked you that question that led to lifelong commitment and marriage. It could one day be that question you and I will ask our loved ones as death draws near because we want to hear them say, “Papa, mama, grandpa, grandma, you loved me; I love you too.”
“Who do you say I am?” This is that question into deeper, fuller relationship Jesus asked his disciples in today’s gospel story. Peter answered, “You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God.” You and I believe that Peter replied from the depths of his being about who Jesus is in his life. I am not sure if Peter knew the correctness of his answer then, but he took a stand in faith and declared what he really thought in belief. That was all Jesus wanted.
I’d like to suggest that Jesus’ question is very good for us too. It should make us pause right now on our journey of life and faith and really take stock of our friendship with Jesus.
We hear Jesus’ question in the gospel reading. It is not meant for the apostles only. He is really addressing us: “Who do you say I am?” He demanding our honest answer. He is challenging us to consider how willing we are, and how much more, we want to let him enter into our lives and transform us. Beware: our answer will shape the kind of Christian life we want and the kind of Christian charity we hope to share. This is why Jesus’ question must disturb us.
And disturb us it must in this time of the Church’s Liturgical Calendar we call Ordinary Time. During the expectant advent joy and the delight of Christmas, the sobriety of Lent reflection and the Easter rejoicing, the solemnities and feast days, we find ourselves having more time to pay attention to Jesus in our lives. In Ordinary Time, however, our everyday life, our daily chores and our weekend recreation tend to distract us more. This everyday ordinariness sweeps us along a rhythm of life that seems the same, day in and day out. This is a rhythm that can comfortably lure us into complacency: nothing needs mending; everything is fine; I come to Sunday mass; I go to confession if I need to; I pray when I can; I give to the poor when I am asked to. And so, it is very easy for you and me to forget that we are being called to attend to Jesus who asks us at every moment, “Who do you say I am?
Yes, even now. “Who you say I am?” Jesus is asking you and me right here, right now. He wants us to consider how much we want to enter into friendship with him. What will our answer be? Are we ready to answer? Will we answer, or will we stand by and wait for another time? Or, will we slowly step back and away from answering?
However we will respond to these questions, we need to keep in mind that Jesus’ question is God’s grace: it gives us another chance to enter into deeper intimacy with Jesus. This is why Jesus keeps asking us the same question. If we truly hear Jesus’ question and we really want to answer him as Peter did, “You are the Christ”, then we must be prepared to be disturbed. Disturbed because Jesus is making us account for our faith in him, our belief to follow him, our love for God with him.
But we must be disturbed too because something more profound is being revealed in Jesus’ question. We believe that Jesus is God-made-man. In asking this question and leaving the answer to us, Jesus reveals the utter vulnerability of God before us: we have freedom to choose our answer. We have freewill to say, “You are the Christ” or not. Jesus only asks the question. In Jesus we have a God who does not demand our love; we are free to love him, or not. Which other god would make himself so vulnerable to us to choose God in our human freedom, to act for God with our human freewill, and to love God with our human love, or not at all?
This surprising revelation of who God is and what God does for us is indeed the hidden surprise in Jesus’ question. His question must disturb us because God’s vulnerability is indeed his gift to us. Only when we embrace God’s vulnerability will we know the magnitude of God’s love. The love of God to become like us so as to give himself over to us in trust—believing as only God can—that we, in our dignity, will welcome him freely and rightly into our lives, and so, let him transform and save us. Which other god will make himself so vulnerable to do this for us?
In return all God asks of us is to do what Peter once did: to take a stand in faith, and to profess in belief who Jesus is in our lives. Peter said, “You are the Christ”. We too are being invited to make the same profession of faith.
Jesus responded to Peter with these words: “Blessed are you, Simon Son of Jonah!” Jesus says, “For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my heavenly Father”. I believe we will hear these same words because Jesus will see in us what he saw in Peter: the grace of God enlightening all who seek him into deeper relationship with Jesus. This openness to God moved Jesus to give Peter responsibility beyond his imagining, appointing him the “rock” on which his church is to be built. How can Jesus not do the same for us who profess faith in him as the Christ? We too are his rocks to strengthen the church in building up God’s kingdom.
Professing faith in Jesus as the Christ promises intimacy with God and service for God. If this is what Christian faith leads us to, how can we not welcome Jesus’ question—however disturbing it is because it saves us to live Christian lives and to practice Christian love for all?
This is why it is good that we have considered the grace of being disturbed by Jesus’ question this morning. This prayer by Bishop Desmond Tutu sums up the goodness of this grace:
Disturb us, O Lord,when we are too well-pleased with ourselves;when our dreams have come true because we dreamed too little;when we have arrived in safety because we sailed too close to the shore.
Disturb us, O Lord, when with the abundance of things we possesswe have lost our thirst for the water of life;when, having fallen in love with Time, we have ceased to dream of Eternity;and in our efforts to build the new earth have allowed our vision for the New Heaven to grow dim.
If you agree with me then that Jesus’ question, “Who do you say I am?” is grace-filled in drawing out of us this right and good answer, “You are the Christ”, then join me in saying these closing words: “Yes, Jesus, you do disturb me, and it is very good that you do. Amen”.
Preached at St Ignatius Church and the Church of the Transfiguration
photo: daniel and the waves by adrian danker, sj
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