Homily Aug. 23 Fr. Barry 21st Sunday of Ordinary Time
Gospel: Matthew 16. Simon Peter said in reply, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” Jesus said to him in reply, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah. For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my heavenly Father. And so I say to you, you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build My Church, and the gates of the netherworld shall not prevail against it. I will give you the keys to the kingdom of heaven. Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.”
Jesus asked His apostles a key question about what they thought of His Identity. Who do you say I am? He was looking to pull out of them– in a voiced, public acknowledgement— a statement of faith, or what is called “a confession of faith.” He was opening up a time in this Matthew 16 record moment for an apostle to testify to the revelation he was receiving on Jesus’ full identity.
This key middle-of- Matthew’s gospel moment in Matthew 16 has been preceded by some conversation going on with the apostles. In Matthew 14 with the loaves and fishes miracle and the apostle’s wonder of what Jesus was doing, Matthew says comments were made in the boat at the calming—they said to Jesus: “Truly you are the son of God.” That shows an update to Matthew 6’s account, when the evangelists were astounded with Jesus in His teachings in the Sermon of the Mount, but had no confession or comment on Jesus made back then. Then in Matthew 15, it is a foreigner woman, who is serving tables, to Jesus and the apostles at a getaway break after the seacoast meal—who testifies Jesus to be “the Son of David.” Certainly there is a build-up going of people testifying to Jesus’ identity to this 16th chapter hinge moment, when Simon Peter will hit the home run of testifying. “You are The Christ, The Son of the Living God.” Boom.
(Like a Pete Alonso homer into the bleachers! 
Like I saw on Wednesday at an O’s game.)
Here is the context of the central moment of Matthew’s Gospel: All the apostles and the other disciples (and even outsiders now) were searching for the answer of “What do I make of Jesus?” or “What am I realizing about Him?” or “Who really is He?”
Jesus wants to lead us in the Gospel progression of our life to testify of Him (first to be made in our minds and hearts, but then to be out on our lips): This is Who I say you are! And I have heard other opinions of what the world says of You, Jesus, or what others don’t want to deal with of You. Even with some non-Catholic Christians not willing to fully acknowledge You, in a full gospel and of a 2 millennium Church begun by You, and yet—I know in my mind and my heart what You are to me, and This is who I say You are to me. And I can add: This is what we say as Catholics of Who You are, Jesus.
We have a Creed and full gospel, full faith testimony! And we really partake of You, in Your Body and Blood, in a dying/rising Mystery of You, which we profess, and we testify to.
Yes, right after this homily, we do the Creed—a public confession of our shared Faith—but it’s not a rote prayer. It is saying and testifying of our common tenets of The Body of Christ, in following of what we testify in our lives about our Head of All, Jesus.
He asks us again in this Summer Gospel and Mass: “Who do you say that I am?”
Jesus indeed wants to know what your search of faith has found. Have you come to know Him for Who He is? What or Who are you looking for in life? It is He Who has become the Answer. What is your ongoing reply to His question? (Your testimony.)
After saying: “You are the Christ, Son of the Living God,” Would you personally speak it as “Jesus, You are the Answer to all life’s meaning and questions?!” Would you answer and testify to Him now: “Jesus, You are Lord, You are God, come anew to my first in my heart. You are Mercy. You are Lord—You are first for me?”
In this Gospel moment of Matthew 16, the perfect answer (at that time) to the Lord’s question is testified aloud. Simon is the first one to speak it forth. “You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God.”
Do you ascribe to that answer by Peter, to “Who do you say that I am?” If you do, and if you follow in this Church of St. Peter, in Catholicism, then a confident word is shared to you by Jesus, The Christ. He says to you—that “the gates of hell shall not prevail against you,” all those of you who follow Peter—Jesus’ appointed Vicar for Him, and leader of Christ’ intended and emerging Church —that is told of in Acts 1-2. That Church would last, and will win over evil, all by the Triumph of Jesus’ Dying/Rising.
Let’s go on to another step. So often when we gather to worship, as believers, we are searching still more for the answers to the questions that vex us, yearning perhaps for a word of consolation, hoping for a phrase that will give clarity or direction to our path in life. We seek to hear, amid the many voices within and without, that final word—the words of our merciful and true God.
Many times, however, instead of a clear and forthright response-answer to our longings, we hear a question addressed back to us by Our Lord. Its simplicity may His positing for us to a deeper, more profound reflection on our faith, inviting us along and ahead with Him, like did happen in this Matthew 16 event. Jesus may be inviting us to something of which we may have thought unlikely to come to us at an earlier time. Yet the Father speaks and we hear.
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Today’s gospel contains such a question: “Who do you think I am?” It’s a question we carry in the heart and mind throughout our lives and one that must be asked again and again, as we are the ones who change in the passing months and years.
“Who do you say that I am?” It is a question that can grow and deepen in us as tragedies and achievements, misunderstanding and clarity, mark us, shape us, and lead us into an unknown future. Yet God has an ongoing conversion going on for us.
What do we know to say fundamentally about Jesus? We know Jesus as the child in His mother’s arms, bringing Christmas. We then know Him as the Rabbi figure who walked the land of Israel two millennia ago, and to a covenant commitment to be our crucified Savior, then as the Risen One who denied death’s power and asserted the victory of life over death. He is the First-born of the Many—as Scriptures says. He is the Vine, we are the branches. He is the Head of the body, the Church—as Scriptures says. We dare testify to that!! He is the Hope of Humankind. He is Eternal Life for us. (Do you say Amen to that?”
How different the world would be if we believed more freely, more totally in it all. How different we would be if we answered this question in the light of the Incarnation, the power of The Crucifixion, the life of the Risen One: in a unity within a Trinity, a simplicity within complexity, a oneness with diversity. Yet here Simon blurts out what had been given him from Abba Father—real revelation. “You are The Christ, the Son of the Living God.” He speaks. He testifies. That is now the voice for the Church.
Jesus will stand in the way of our life at some time— posing to us a crux moment, a defining time, a challenge period for our fundamental faith. God does people a favor by asking you some important questions about what your “take” is on the Blessed Son sent by the Father into the world to save and redeem us.
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Beginning with: “Who do you say that I am?”
You can’t avoid Him—and it’s best for people to not wait until the Lord Jesus stands before you in judgment at the end of your time and of the world’s. So God does you a favor by having you ponder His questions—those ones swirling around in our minds and calling from our hearts.
I was at an Orioles game and they had “Christian faith night” at the close of the game. Ballplayers shared of their Christian practice and then a Christian band played a short concert. I applaud the following O’s players for standing up and testifying to Jesus. They were Colton Cowser, Gunnar Henderson, Jackson Holliday, Trevor Rogers, Alex Hoppe, Leody Taveras, Rico Garcia, Josh Walker and Danny Coulombe.
God has His Christ-alive believers witnessing or speaking to the world of His reality and importance. So that people can respond.
After you acknowledge Him as Lord and Savior, then He will come into the many areas of your life and of your experiences of faith, and have you and stop and consider your response to Him in all of it. He asks: So what more do you say of Me?
If I called on a dozen of persons from the congregation of this Mass, to come up and testify your answer—then could you answer well to “Who do you say Jesus is?” Or, so what more do you have to say of Jesus? What does He mean to you and to your church—to all of His followers? What has happened in our lives because of Him? Has it been a marvelous discovery or any enlightening revelations? Do you know Him by His Name, and by some of His titles? Is He a present reality to you?
Lastly, here’s an example of an answer to the ongoing question—when the testimony is moved past the Savior and Lord identity of Jesus to a then deeper, real personalized answer to the question, “Who do you say that I am?”
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I heard someone answer it: “Who do I say Jesus is? Marvelously and surprisingly, He is a prisoner with me, even a criminal with me!” I asked for more clarity to that statement, and they said: “Jesus is the so called criminal in the middle cross of three crosses, between a thief called Gestas and a thief called Dismas. He is the innocent one in the middle and I, a convicted criminal, I am the crying one to his side, saying: Lord have mercy on me, a sinner! Please remember me, when You come into your Kingdom.” For I have been incarcerated and I found Jesus here in the prison. He came to me and shared my cell and showed me His love. Praise to Him, such a Savior and Delivered of souls!
This person’s response of “criminal” to who they see Jesus is—this might strike you as strange, even irreverent retort, but if you have been ever a criminal yourself, then you might have heard a prison chaplain explain to you: Was not Jesus labeled a criminal? Was He not tried and convicted? And wasn’t He not executed between two other criminals? And did He not offer salvation to Dismas, the repentant one, and say: “This day you shall be with Me in paradise?” And will not Jesus do the same offer to you?
The person came to Christ in their prison sentence because Christ came to them there. He came in the person of a ministering Catholic, reaching out to these cut-off men and women—saying that Jesus clearly taught that those who love and know Him will do such things as visit others in prison, to bring light in darkness. Who do you say that I am? A new believer in prison testifies: You’re the one who came beside me in prison. A fellow criminal to help me out of my darkness. It was Jesus. It was Him working through a prison ministry in His Church. He, the only blameless victim to be charged as “criminal,” says that He went through that to stick up for me, and to release me from the bars of sin & death. In naming Jesus as criminal, let’s also note that He’s used even Dorothy Day, Nelson Mandela, Saints Peter and Paul, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, St. Maximillian Kolbe, and Catholic and Protestant chaplains in our DC area to lead people to come to Christ. Chuck Colson said: I went into prison as a Watergate criminal and came out a good believing Christian on to lead a prison chaplaincy. I knew knew Jesus in my prison time, because I met Him in there!