Twenty-Fourth Sunday in Ordinary
Saint Boniface Parish
September 16, 2018
How many conversations do you think you have daily? What about in a week, a month, a year? Hundreds? Thousands? For those who are younger, we're also talking about an electronic communication. Those certainly counts as well; as ineffective as electronic communication can be at relaying everything that we must communicate. We communicate with one another on a regular basis. It's kind of what we do as human beings. We are creatures who are in relationship one to another. We live in a community and we can't help but communicate at least in some way with others and with the outside world on a somewhat regular basis. We have conversations, conversations throughout the day with many different people about many different topics. If we look at the kind of conversations that we have, one with another, we can put them into a sort of hierarchy. Now, there are plenty of ways of categorizing conversations, I imagine the communication majors out there might correct me, or offer another way of categorizing conversations, but this three-tiered system seems to fit, especially considering today's gospel. In this way one might categorize conversations in terms of talking about who we are, especially in relationship with one another, followed by what we do, also in relationship to who we are – often who we are informs what it is that we do. Thirdly, basically everything else: other, people, places, and things. Sometimes these third category conversations can lead toward gossip, sometimes they are informational, sometimes it's just small talk. First and foremost, who we are, and what we do, followed by conversations regarding other people, places, and things.
These first two, and more integral, types of conversations are the kind of conversation that Christ is having with his disciples as they are going about their way. They are going from one town to the next and Christ starts one of these first-tier conversations: ‘Who do people say that I am?’ We're not sure what they were talking about before he asked this question. Perhaps it could have been one of those third level conversations. They could have been talking about the latest scandal in Rome, some things never change, they could have been talking about their political leaders, or their religious leaders in Jerusalem. They could have been talking about the latest gossip from the town that they were coming from, or the gossip of the town they were going to; maybe whatever it was that so-and-so had done, whatever it was hat seemed so important at the time. They could have been having all these sorts of conversation when Christ interrupts with his question about himself. He wants to talk about who it is that people think of him as, not in a selfish way, but in a way that's important and meaningful. In-fact, much of the Gospels are trying to answer that very question: Who is Christ? Who is he, what has he come to do, what is he, what is going on? In the midst of the daily and ordinary Christ aks: ‘Who do people say that I am?’ His disciples could have come up with all sorts of other explanations: ‘some say you're a great political leader, some say you will free us from a Roman captivity, some say you’re an entertainer, that you've come to distract us, to offer us some entertainment, some say you're insane, you're crazy, perhaps even trouble, you are stirring things up, you are causing difficulty for yourself and for those around you!’
Christ listen to all these possibilities and then asks them ‘now, who do you say that I am?’ Peter speaks up, and he gets it right, he says ‘you are the Christ! You are the Messiah, the promised one, the one we have been waiting for!’ Peter doesn't have a full understanding of what that means, but he has, through God's grace, seen Christ for who he is. He's answered that first question: Who is Christ. The conversation then turns to what he is there to do. The reason Christ has come. He has come to die for our sins, he will be put to death, he will suffer and die, and on the third day he will rise again. Peter having recognized the answer to the first question doesn't really like the answer to the second question. And how often is that similar with us? We approach God through conversation, through prayer. Truly prayer is a conversation with God, and I imagine that often those conversations dwells in the first two categories: Who am I, and what am I supposed to do? And we may not always like the response we get in prayer. We may not always agree, at least at first, with what God has to offer us in prayer: the answers to who we are, and what we are called to do. Peter has his own idea. We don't know exactly what that is, but somehow he sees the Messiah as something else, probably someone who is there to set them free from physical captivity - the Captivity of the Roman Empire, the rule of a foreign government. Whatever it may have been, for Peter, that's as far as his vision goes. He does not want to go any further past that. Christ knows what he is here to do, he knows who he is, and what that calls him to do. He has a mission that goes far beyond the vision of Peter or the other disciples. He is there for a different reason. He is not there to fulfil Peter's smaller understanding of the mission of the Christ, he has a much larger mission, a wonderful mission: to set all of us free, not only from our current captivity but from our captivity for the rest of our lives, for all eternity.
Prayer is a conversation with Christ. We approach Christ through conversations. But first and foremost, we must be willing to have the courage to even have those conversations. We could get stuck in the third category: conversations about other people, other places, other things; or instead: Who am I? What am I supposed to do? These conversations with God help to clarify our relationship with God, and with one another. The third category conversations may be important, but they will be clearer if we have first entered into the first, and second, conversations. We may not always like what we receive in prayer. We may have our own ideas about who we are and what we are called to do. God will, hopefully, use a little more gentleness than he did with Peter in guiding us, helping us to recognize the truth. God guides us to see what it is we are called to do with our lives. We have our own ideas of course. We think as human beings do, we can think in no other way. We're not angels, we are not gods, we are human beings - we think as human beings do, not as God does. The turning point is being opened to that correction from God. Having God turn our vision, just a little, so that we see a little more of God's plan for us, and our lives, so that we can continue that conversation, that prayerful conversation with God about how we fit into God’s salvific mission for the world. God is still working. God’s mission for our salvation had a pinnacle at the crucifixion, at the cross, but Christ is still working. He is working through each and every one of us. So let us, in prayer, ask God who it is that we are, and what it is that we are called to do.
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