Twenty-First Sunday in Ordinary Time
“Who do you say I am?” Mt. 16:14
Today’s gospel begins in a rather unusual way. It starts with a statement about geography, about a certain city way north in Galilee called Caesarea-Philippi, and a particular site within it.
Caesarea-Philippi contained one of the most prominent pieces of landscape in all of Israel. Built on a towering wall of rock more than 100 feet high and 500 feet wide was a marble temple erected to honor Caesar, who considered himself a god. Through the years, hundreds of people had traveled to this wall to carve niches into its sides, place statues of their pagan gods in them, and worship them.
Small wonder then that Jesus took his disciples some 25 miles out of their way – all on foot! – for the sole purpose of asking them a single question. He surely wanted the backdrop of massive rock, of a marble temple, and of all the honors given to the emperors and their gods to ask a question, possibly the most important question in all the gospels: “Who do you say I am?”
Of course, that same question, was not addressed only to his first followers thousands of years ago, but it is one that echoes through the centuries until it lands on each of our ears today.
Who do you say I am?
Actually, that same question really is no longer about Jesus. It’s about us.
Who am I? What do I believe? What do I stand for? Where is true North on my compass? What statue would I place in the niche on the tower of my life?
Because, let’s face it, you and I are like those earliest disciples. We have all kinds of answers to the question of who Jesus is. We each can find a way to clothe Jesus in our own self – to project on to him our own wishes, and, our own aspirations, our own interests. To put it another way, we can easily find ways of reshaping Jesus to best suit our own purposes.
But just like Simon, son of Jonah, who stood there with his back to this massive wall of rock, who will deny Jesus three times, who doesn’t understand so many things – this same Simon is given a new name: Peter, the Rock.
And that’s what can happen for each of us. Jesus can make new openings in our lives, break the molds we’ve shaped for ourselves, draw us toward new realizations, fashion new understandings.
He can re-name us.
If we allow it.
If we allow it, Jesus can create within each of us a passion for justice that will shake up our certainties, our privileges, and our self-interests. If we allow it, Jesus can mold within each of us a tenderness that puts our pettiness to shame, and an experience of freedom that will release us from all our enslavements.
But only if we allow it.
“Who do you say I am?”
Too often we answer easily that he is our God, even when he is not at the center of our lives. Too often we answer easily that we confess him to be our Lord, even when we live with our backs turned to his project of forgiveness and mercy. Too often we answer easily that he is our Teacher, even when we barely listen to his lessons.
In the end, though, whether tomorrow or decades from now, we will all have to face the wall of Caesarea Philippi, and answer honestly this single gospel question:
“Who do you say I am?”
How will you answer?
Ted Wolgamot, Psy.D.
11809194.1
8/21/17
