Questions and Answers

We’ve all heard the expression, “There’s no such thing as a stupid question, just stupid answers.” Whether the phrase is literally true or not, we know what it is intended to convey – that asking a question is never dumb because it’s better to be honest than pretend you know something you don’t. But how you answer a question? That can be something else entirely.

In the Gospel today (Mt 16:13-20), Jesus asks two questions that, if not stupid, at least seem silly. He asks his disciples, “Who do people say that I am?” and then “Who do you say that I am?” On the one hand, there’s an obvious answer to the question: he’s Jesus from Nazareth, the one whom everyone was going to hear preach and perform miracles. Jesus, of course, isn’t asking them if they know his name. But the questions still seem kind of dumb: “Who do people – who do you – say that I am?” Is he asking them what kind of impression he’s making? Is he concerned about his public image?

Jesus, of course, isn’t asking anything nearly so superficial. His questions are not intended to boost his ego or satisfy his own interest – instead they are intended to make the disciples ponder what they have seen and heard. At this time, they have been with Jesus for a while. They had heard him preach like no one they have had ever heard; they had him do things no one had ever seen. The question then that Jesus asks is clearly one that they had already been asking themselves, one that they had been pondering silently – Just who is this Jesus from Nazareth?

Questions, and their answers, in many ways dominate our day to day. They range from the mundane – “What shall I have for breakfast this morning?”, “What will I watch on TV tonight?” – to the more serious – “How am I going to make the next payment?”, “How can I make this relationship work?” They can even be life-changing, “Will she say yes?” or “How long do I have, Doc?” The way we ask those questions, and the way we answer them, shape in large part the course of our lives.

As hugely significant as many of the questions we face are, none of them are as crucial as that simple question that Jesus asks the disciples, “Who do you say that I am?” Because far beyond just looking for the response of his name, or for an evaluation of what kind of impression he’s making, Jesus is asking them to form a judgment – a decision, an answer – about him, about who he really is, based upon all that they have seen and heard and understood. While the people – the crowd, the ones who witness him from a distance – think that he is a great preacher, a prophet in the mode of John the Baptist, or Elijah, or Jeremiah, Jesus implicitly encourages his disciples to answer more boldly.

Ariel Amegian, The Face of Christ (1935), based upon a negative of the Shroud of Turin

The questions of who Jesus is – not who was he historically, but what does all that he did and said mean ultimately about him – has been argued and debated ever since his own time. Many people today are content with answering that question by saying that Jesus was a holy man, a man of God, a preacher or a prophet ahead of his time, who wasn’t afraid to upend social convention. He taught things like “Love your neighbor as yourself” and “Judge not lest you be judged,” – ideas that all of us can take to heart more deeply and that our society should learn from.

But to answer the question of who Jesus is in that way is not sufficient. Numerous holy men and prophets – even from other religions – have given us bits of wisdom and insight into the human condition and have taught moral axioms that can help us. If that’s all Jesus is, then he’s not much different from John the Baptist, or Elijah, or Jeremiah – or from Confucius, or the Buddha, or Muhammad. But lest we be satisfied by that answer, Jesus asks again, to his disciples, to us, “Who do you say that I am?”

For the past two years, I’ve had the privilege of being the pastor at St. Thomas Aquinas parish in Fayetteville, the church that ministers to the community of the University of Arkansas. In that role, I’m often involved in a lot of the activities of our college students on the university campus. This past week, I was helping man our Catholic Campus Ministry booth at Razorbash, the annual student fair held outside the Union for all of the campus clubs and organizations. As our group was passing out flyers to new Catholic students, answering questions and handing out rosaries, a group of Muslim young women came up and asked us about the Catholic faith. Specifically, they asked us about Jesus – about what we believed about him. As we talked, it became clear that their particular branch of Islam holds Jesus in very high regard. They believe, for example, he is a prophet of Allah, that he has (in some way) ascended to heaven, and that he will return to earth prior to the Final Judgment. For these young women, Jesus was not just a holy man or a moral teacher – he was a figure of deep reverence.

And yet, for us as Christians, even that is not enough. For we make a claim that even those women, who clearly respect Jesus deeply, would not dare to make. We say – as we hear Peter say in the Gospel – that he is “the Christ, the Son of the Living God.” That claim – that answer to the question of who Jesus is – distinguishes Christians, not only from those Muslim women, but from the more acceptable answer from our society and our culture to reduce Jesus to mere moral platitudes. To say that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, is to say that our lives are not merely informed by what he taught, they have been re-formed around him – he is the focus, he is the one by which we orient ourselves. Amid every other question that we are asked or must ask ourselves, the Passion, Death, and Resurrection of Jesus means for us that we have an underlying answer – an answer given by that mysterious reality, at once beyond reason but nonetheless consistent with reason, which we call faith – viz., that Jesus is God himself.

We don’t answer such a tremendous question in such a tremendous way alone. Rather, we do so as part of the community of disciples, as part of the Church which is founded upon the Rock of Peter and which speaks with the faith of Peter. To have faith in Jesus, as Peter did, does not mean that we will always get it right, that we will never again fall short of what God wants or that we’ll wonder why exactly he is asking us to endure some particular trial or challenge. We need only look to the life of Peter himself – who denied three times this friend whom he called the Christ – as proof of that. But what faith does mean – what believing as the Church believes does do for us – is that we always know where to turn back to, where to find again the Answer to our questioning. It means reminding ourselves, despite our failings and our questionings, that we have a Savior, a Christ, a God with us.

In hindsight, I’m not sure that I answered those Muslim women a few days ago in as full a way as I would have liked. Nonetheless, what I said to them I continue to remind myself of each day – Jesus is my Savior, my Redeemer, my God. Like Peter first long ago, we are always relearning how to approach each day and each challenge with faith – to respond to life’s questions not with stupid answers but with faith in the One who is the Answer to every question. Each day, Jesus asks us, “Who do you say that I am?”, and each day, he asks us to answer anew.

With Eyes Turned Upward*

You’ve no doubt seen the reports and read the stories, and you’re probably just about worn out from news of it. But, if you still haven’t heard, tomorrow our country will see a fairly rare celestial event – a total solar eclipse that will sweep across our country from Oregon to the Carolinas. They say hundreds of thousands, maybe millions, from around the world will head to locations within the vicinity of the total eclipse to see it … including, I’m somewhat embarrassed to say, yours truly. Millions more will be watching from their own homes, schools, and businesses. Scientists will be observing and taking measurements, news channels will be broadcasting, and eyes around the hemisphere will be turned upward toward the sky.

I thought of this rush of attention preparing for Mass today because I imagine the scale of interest in the eclipse is something similar to that which Jesus would have generated in his day. People weren’t buying special sunglasses to go see him, of course, but they certainly were leaving their homes, heading out into the countryside to hear him and follow him, and above all spreading word about what he said and what he did. In his day, Jesus was something more than just rockstar famous – to meet him was a once-in-a-lifetime experience.

The Gospel we heard today (Mt 15:21-28) is evidence of this. Jesus enters into a foreign territory, the region of Tyre and Sidon, and he is immediately confronted by a Canaanite woman. Though she would never have met, never even have seen Jesus, she clearly knew who he was. With a daughter tormented by a demon, she had heard of his power of healing; though not a Jew, she refers to him as “Son of David,” a clear reference to the Messiah awaited by the Jews. It’s evident this is not a chance encounter – this Canaanite woman has come with a purpose to find and confront the only one who can help her.

Limbourg Brothers, Christ and the Canaanite Woman (detail, c. 1412) from Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry

It’s not just unexpected, then, how Jesus responds – indeed, it seems shocking, even cruel, that he treats her as he does. Notice he does not at first address her directly; when he does speak to her, he refers to her and to other non-Jews as “dogs”, a common epithet used to refer to Gentiles. To understand Jesus’s behavior, we have to add a little more context to the story. His disciples, like other first century Jews, awaited a Messiah – the one foretold by God to restore Israel to right relationship with God and to prominence before the Gentile nations. The Messiah would be the champion of Jewish identity – from the Jews and for the Jews alone.

And so when Jesus is approached by this pagan, Gentile woman, his disciples are dismissive of her; surely, Jesus the Messiah, the King of the Jews, will have nothing to do with her. Jesus plays along – he is the Jewish Messiah, and he has come first to redeem the lost children of Israel. But, as the Canaanite woman correctly points out, with her statement of great faith, the mission of Jesus is ultimately one for all peoples, one that breaks down barriers and divisions and unites, that offers reconciliation with God to Jew and Gentile alike. By testing the faith of the Canaanite woman, Jesus shows his disciples that they must move past their previous, narrow way of thinking and come to understand the full breadth of God’s plan of salvation.

We may look at the attitude of the disciples toward the Canaanite woman and wonder how they could be so prejudiced. And yet, as we have seen in our own time, in recent weeks, there is a terrible tendency among humans of any age to descend into tribalism. The violent clashes in Charlottesville a week ago, including the act of terror that resulted in a young woman’s death, have left many of us wondering whether the legitimate debates that mark our public discourse are being unraveled by unbridled hatred and fear. More and more, it seems we are giving in to the all-too-human weakness of defining ourselves by our differences, to see in the other not a potential friend and ally, not a fellow human being, but a stranger and a threat.

In the wake of Charlottesville, we’ve seen many who have spoken out in resistance to this mentality, and rightly so. Fortunately, the reality is that people of good will and decency still far outnumber those with more malicious intentions; but that does not mean we are excused to stand idly by and let someone else deal with the problem. What do we as followers of Jesus have to say in this new cultural climate? What does our Christian faith ask of us?

First, we must speak out against blatant evil. As our bishops have done throughout the past week, we must decry racism as the sin it is. There is a natural tendency all of us have to take interest in and have pride for where we come from, what our history is, and who our ancestors were. But if that interest and pride morphs into something antagonistic – something which opposes or does violence to another – then we must denounce such ideology as the false prophet that it is. As Christians, we believe in the dignity of every human being as created in the image and likeness of God, and this must be always forefront in our minds and respected by our actions.

Second, we should not be afraid to take account of our own spiritual houses. The way to combat evil is to work for good, but that is only done well if we have searched within ourselves and rooted out the evil found there. Conversion of heart is a central message of our Christian faith, and one that we must learn again and again. We may not be able to remake the world single-handedly, but we can seek to start with ourselves. Perhaps each of us could reflect upon where we are tempted by the forces of division: perhaps, to view the person across the quad a particular way because of how they look; or to judge our roommate or our classmate because of a slight we’ve perceived; or to dismiss a group of people because they think or act in a way different from our own. Jesus challenges us, just as he challenged his disciples, to look beyond outward differences and find in the other our common humanity within.

Finally, I think that we as the Body of Christ, the Church, have a special role to play in the cultural and political climate of today. In an era in which we both celebrate diversity but also desire unity, too many are giving into the forces of factionalism and sectarianism, defining themselves by a party or ideology or background that emphasizes division rather than commonality. As Christians, though we know that these are narrow-minded ways of thinking. God doesn’t look at the color of our skin or our political tendencies or our cultural background when he looks at us; he peers instead into our hearts, to know and love us as the individual he has created us to be. The family of God is defined not by the outside but by what lies within.

Many today are speaking out against being excluded and marginalized – that they or those they care about have been victims of forces of injustice and fear. As we seek to hear their voices and understand their concerns, we as Christians also must point them to a reality beyond this one. Our fallen, sinful world is not going to be fixed by merely adjusting our way of thinking. We need salvation, redemption, what Jesus offers and the world cannot give. Jesus may have been rockstar famous in his day, but it seems that in our day we've forgotten that only he can give true freedom. In the end, the voices we hear rising around us, speaking out… we recognize that they are clamoring, ultimately, for Christ.

It’s always amazing to me that when we gather here on Sundays each week, we do so in a way that stands in great contrast to the forces of division that seem to dominate the headlines. We come from every ethnic background and cultural tradition, from every walk of life and political ideology; we come as young and old, as rich and poor, as man and woman, as the Jew and as the Canaanite woman – and yet, here, we gather as the one People of God. The Church is the most diverse social group known to history, and yet we are the most united as well, raised out of every difference by our common faith in Jesus.

Friends, as we start a new semester here at the university, let’s not allow the forces of darkness to eclipse the light that Jesus gives. We must speak out against evil where it rears its head, but we can never condemn as evil the person who differs from us. Just as Jesus taught his disciples by drawing out the faith of the Canaanite woman, he seeks to teach us now as well. Each day he gives us the grace to look beyond the categories of “us” vs. “them” and to see instead the other as a fellow human, a likely friend, and a potential brother or sister in Christ. He came to unite, not to divide, to turn our eyes upward toward him, to grant us the peace and justice that many so ardently now desire. What he started, we are called to continue – across our campus, across our city and state, and beyond – to point others to Jesus, again and again. As we share in a few minutes his Sacrament of Holy Communion, may it empower us to go forth from this church to proclaim to the world his Good News.

*This homily for the 20th Sunday of Ordinary Time was crafted partially in response to the violent events in Charlottesville, VA, on August 12-13, 2017.

Tending Our Houses Like Mary

When I was a kid, my mother – like many mothers – made us kids do chores around the house. These usually weren’t too demanding – dusting or vacuuming mostly – but we moaned and groaned about them as kids do. My siblings and I noticed that Mom always seemed particularly keen on having a clean house when company was coming over. Relatives from out of town, family or friends visiting, even the Terminix man – it didn’t really matter who was stopping by, the house needed to be immaculate.

And of course, it’s not just women who are like this. My dad was just as fastidious about the yard, if not more so. Of course, as I got older, I understood much better where they were coming from. The external setting of our lives – our homes, our lawns, our neighborhood – reflects something about ourselves. Where we live – and the condition it is in – says something about who we are.

The Dormition and Assumption of the Virgin (c. 1432), Fra Angelico

Today, we celebrate the Solemnity of the Assumption – our belief in faith that at the end of Mary’s life, Jesus brought her body and soul into heaven. She who was the Ark of the New Covenant – the vessel which God had chosen from all time to bear his Incarnate Son into the world – was preserved from sin and from its every effect because of whom she bore. From Mary, Jesus receives his humanity; within Mary, Jesus first dwelt among us. Just like a house can tell us something about the person who lived there, so too can Mary reveal to us something about Jesus.

What do we learn? At least two important things:

First, we learn that the Risen Jesus can indeed save us from eternal death. Mary, conceived without sin and perfect throughout her life, was saved from any corruption or decay; but she is not the only one who is destined to live body and soul for all eternity. You and I are sinners, but Jesus also desires to bring us to himself in heaven, to raise us body and soul on the last day. What he has done for Mary is a promise of what he desires to do for us.

Second, from Mary, we learn something about the kind of disciple that Jesus wishes us to be. Mary bore Christ physically within herself, bringing him into this world – that was her vocation and her glory. You and I are charged with carrying the Lord in our hearts, bringing him to the world and those whom we encounter at each moment. The vocation to holy discipleship that we all share by virtue of our baptism goes far beyond merely believing in Jesus or following him in some abstract way – rather, he wishes us literally to bear him, to bring him to others in all that we do.

My friends, what is the state of our spiritual houses? Does our life on the outside – before family and friends and neighbors – reflect the presence of the One who is to be at the center of our existence, who is to dwell in our hearts? We can’t carry Christ to the world, as we are called to do, if we refuse to let him be the Master of our own spiritual home. Let us ask continually for the intercession of our Blessed Mother to open our hearts to the Lord, that he may reign always in our hearts here on earth, so that at the close of our lives, he may bring us too to the joys of his heavenly kingdom.