21st Sunday Year A - Homily 1

Homily 1 - 2005

Peter’s confession of faith got high praise: It was not flesh and blood that revealed this to you but my Father in heaven.  But, as we shall see as the Gospel unfolds over the Sundays that will follow, it was still only half the story.  In the story so far, there had been opposition to Jesus but basically, being on board was perhaps even a bit exciting – at least comforting.  Given the sorts of things Jesus had been doing, you could even feel important belonging to the “in-group”.  Peter and the others had undoubtedly been quite generous, enthusiastic.  They had left all and followed him.  No mean commitment!  But still only half the story! - and perhaps the easier part.

From now on in, Jesus would share with them, ever more insistently, the fact that he was going to fail, to be humiliated, even to be killed.  In a sense, they could not hear that.  They could not take it on board.  But then he went on to try to get them to face the personal consequences of genuine faith.  It would mean acceptance of his vision and his hopes for the Kingdom – a renewed world, not produced by the wave of a wand, but, with God’s help, produced by people coming to respect each other profoundly, and to relate in justice, compassion and love.

As Peter said: You are the Christ.  According to the best of Hebrew tradition, certainly in line with Isaiah’s vision, Israel’s Messiah would be the one anointed by God’s Spirit to bring good news to the poor, to set captives free, to proclaim the Lord’s Year of Favour.

In the face of my own sometimes puzzling insensitivity to the state of the world, I find value in asking myself from time to time: How strongly do I believe in the Kingdom really?  in its likelihood? even in its possibility?

The disciples probably thought they weren’t too bad at loving humanity.  Their problem was more loving the three-dimensional each other.  Jesus insisted that living from the Kingdom vision meant being prepared to serve – and not on your own terms, and even to see yourself as least of all in importance.  They had problems arguing about: Who’s the greatest?  They had to learn to forgive – each other.  Basically they had to learn how to love, and what loving – unconditionally – meant in practice.  Until they did, they were closing themselves off from the Kingdom experience.  You are the Christ, the Son of the living God, said Peter.  You are the one whom God’s Spirit anointed, chose, gifted appropriately, and set loose in a messed-up world.  

But it’s hard to move from pious language - that says all the right things and knows all the right words - to face the stark reality of taking him seriously, more seriously than anything else, than any other ideology or political persuasion.  It takes a lifetime, encouragement, support.  We’re all unfinished business, work-in-progress.  And to the extent that we have cottoned on to the vision of Jesus, and are in the process of living it out, we each of us begin to verify personally the experience of blessedness, happiness, togetherness and wholeness indicated by, among other things, the Beatitudes.  Let’s keep on encouraging and supporting each other in the interests of our common blessedness.