Go Deeper Than What Has Been Said About Him!
Rev. Marcel Divine Emeka Okwara, CSsR

Homily for the 21st Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year A

St. Gerard Majella Church, Baton Rouge, LA

August 24, 2014

The practice of opinion poll usually conducted in political and economic fields can help us understand today’s Gospel taken from Matthew 16:13-20. In this Gospel passage, Jesus conducted an opinion poll about himself, but it wasn’t for political reasons but for educational and spiritual reasons.

Jesus had gone into the region of Caesarea Philippi; after settling down, he asked his disciples: “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?”  One after another, his disciples replied, “Some say John the Baptist, others Elijah, still others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.” But Jesus wasn’t done yet. He wasn't interested in computing and calculating his popularity or in knowing how high he was regarded by the people. He had a different reason and purpose. So he immediately fired a second question: “But who do you say that I am?” His second question seemed to have thrown his disciples off balance. When he posed the first question, several of his disciples had something to say. But when the second question came, only Simon Peter responded: “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” With great joy Jesus replied, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah. For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my heavenly Father.”

To answer Jesus’ first question is easy. It does not take a personal experience with Jesus to answer it. It does not take the reading of the Bible, meditation, prayers, and an encounter with Jesus to answer it. A person does not necessarily need to have an ongoing relationship with him to attempt to answer it. To answer it, what a person needs is to simply look around and listen to public opinion, to gossip, to what people are saying about Jesus. But to be able to answer the second question, one must look inward, to listen to a completely different voice, a voice that is not of flesh and blood but that of the heavenly Father. The answer we give to Jesus’ second question will be determined by how each of us relates to him. Is Jesus someone we can make out time to visit and speak to in prayer? Does he worth our time on Sunday, on Holy Days of Obligations, and even during the week? Is he someone we can trust? Does he deserve our love? Does Jesus worth falling in love with? Do we see him as someone whose love for us is exceeding, whose compassion for us is profound, and whose forgiveness for us is matchless? Do we see Jesus as someone who has the authority to tell us how to live, what to do, what not to do, how to relate with others, and how to honor God? Do we see Jesus as our Best Friend? Is he someone we are looking forward to spending eternity with? If you haven’t been in touch with him, do you miss him? And do you think he misses you?

It’s not enough to say that Jesus is the Savior, Jesus is the Son of God, Jesus is the Messiah, Jesus is God, or as we recite in the creed every Sunday: Jesus is “God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten, not made…” But are we ready and willing to connect our mind and heart to those words to the point of saying with St. Paul: “I have been crucified with Christ, it is no longer I who live but Christ lives in me. And the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me” (Galatians 2:20). Are we ever-ready to say those words, mean them, connect to them, live them out in our daily lives to the point of saying with St. Peter: “Lord, you know every thing; you know that I love you” (John 21:17). When we say that Jesus is our personal Lord and Savior, do we really mean it like St. Thomas, who after his initial doubt to the appearance of Jesus to his Apostles declared on seeing Jesus himself: “My Lord and my God!” 

Like the Apostles, we could also tell what others are saying about Jesus. That’s alright! There’s nothing wrong with that. That’s the starting point of learning who Jesus is. Our relationship with him most probably started with what others told us about him. But we have to move beyond that. We have to move beyond what others have told us about him in order to know him more personally and more intimately. If you are asking yourself how you can know Jesus personally and intimately, it’s the same way we get to know a person in a personal way, that we get to know the Lord. That is, by spending time with the person. Now, spending time with God and with Jesus is called Prayer. There is no other way of knowing him personally and intimately. There is no shortcut! 

As Catholic Christians, we should not be satisfied knowing what others  have said about Jesus, we must know and encounter him personally. An encounter with Jesus changes and transforms lives. It was such an encounter that prompted St. Augustine to declare: “Late have I loved you O Ancient Beauty. Late have I loved you. You were with me, but I was outside, and it was there that I searched for you…I have tasted you, now I hunger and thirst more.” The Psalmist felt so comfortable in the presence of the Lord that he proclaimed: “How lovely is your dwelling place, Lord God of host” (Psalm 84:1). Just like the story of the poet and the monk, we should know Psalm 23 and also the Shepherd.