Reflection for the 21st Sunday in Ordinary Time Year A.
– By Fr Ugo Ikwuka
Archway, London
Specsavers optical services often theme their advertisements to highlight the embarrassments that could come with mistaken identity caused by poor vision. Poor sighted people end up hugging and kissing the wrong guests at airport arrivals or bus/train terminals.
To ensure that his disciples are not following the wrong person, Jesus had to ask them in today’s Gospel: “Who do you say I am?” Instructively, he asked this question in the region of Caesarea Philippi, a city known for its many gods hence the right place to determine people’s true religious affiliations and resolve any crises of religious identity.
In a way it mirrors our society today where so many compelling voices compete for our attention that we may not know which to follow or the true content of things we sign up to. After the recent Brexit referendum for instance, many have confessed that the true implication of Britain leaving or remaining in Europe was not clear to them before they voted.
Going from the public to the individual Jesus began by asking them: “Who do people say I am?” The disciples repeat the various speculations of the crowd: “Some say you are John the Baptist, others say you are Elijah, others one of the ancient prophets …” None of this is correct.
The mob is usually wrong. It was Joseph Goebbels, Hitler’s Propaganda Chief who observed that the crowd has no intelligence. And he spoke from experience given his success with brainwashing the German public that saw to the extermination of six million Jews!
You therefore need to hold your own personal convictions. Hence, Jesus pointedly asked them: “But you, who do you say I am?” Speaking on behalf of the others Peter declares: “You are the Christ (the Messiah), Son of the living God!” And he is correct! Yet, as the dialogue progressed (as we shall see next Sunday), it will become clear that they lacked the full understanding of what being the Messiah will mean for Jesus – and for them.
St. Paul in the Second Reading dramatically came to surrender that the mind of God is inexplicable (unexplainable) and his ways unfathomable (unknowable).
As a core Jew, Paul is trained in the religious conviction of his people as the Chosen of God. But he has also received the revelation of Christ. Hence, he tried so intellectually to reconcile the position of Israel as the Chosen people of God and that of Christians as the new people of God which is confusing for a Jew that is becoming a Christian. Paul argues that God has chosen both groups but he knows that his position makes no logical sense.
However, in a twist of fate, the dilemma suddenly enlightens him that God’s ways transcend human reasoning. Hence, throwing up his hands in awe-inspired surrender he broke into poetry “How rich are the depths of God – how deep his wisdom and knowledge – and how impossible to penetrate his motives or understand his methods …!
Friends, some things in our faith make sense but there are loads that don’t make sense. For instance how can God allow the innocent to suffer – we see children die of cancer.
Recently landslide claimed about 500 innocent lives in Sierra Leone. Now and again earthquakes and tsunamis flatten lives and communities. Like St. Paul, I think these things through but at the end I can only come to a prayerful surrender. Pushing further will be like a 4-year old trying to understand the actions and motivations of his parents. He can’t reconcile his parents’ love with some of their behaviour, for instance, why they refuse him the things he want; why they send him to the doctor to prick him with a needle; why they send him to school dislodged from the comfort of home. There are world of things which a 4-year old trying to understand the motivations of his parents finds incomprehensible.
The child finds his parents so frustrating and so mysterious because there is a yawning gap between what he can grasp and what they are up to.
Now, multiply that gap to an infinite degree and you begin to imagine the gap between our insignificantly tiny minds and the infinite mind and purposes of God.
Yes, it would be naive and superstitious if we as intelligent humans don’t ask questions but it makes sense that we recognise and appreciate the limit of our comprehension and surrender in faith trusting that ultimately everything works unto good for them that love God (Romans 8:28).
When the belief that we know God’s mind lacks the corresponding acknowledgment that we do not fully know God’s mind, there is arrogance of faith, intolerance and extremism. But when belief that we know God’s mind goes with the corresponding acknowledgment that we do not fully know God’s mind, we are humble in faith, open-minded and balanced.
