23rd Sunday in Ordinary Time

For where two or three are gathered in my name, there I am in the midst of them.

            Three weeks ago we heard Jesus’ exchange with the disciples at Caesarea Philippi where Jesus gave to Simon the name “Peter”, which means “The Rock,” and then declare to him that, “upon this rock I will build my church.”  Jesus provides for the Church’s future by laying a foundation for its growth and expansion as it carries on Jesus’ message.  

            Of course, this passage plays an important role in the life of the Catholic Church.  It is closely associated with the office of the papacy and the Church’s insistence that in elevating Simon to the status of “the Rock,” Christ established an office that was given the divine guarantee of infallibility.  This doctrine of the Church is a stumbling block for many, of course, but perhaps it can be understood in light of the pressing need it addresses.  Christ is the Word made flesh, and over the course of his life, he makes himself known as “the Way, the Truth, and the Life.”  After his earthly life comes to a close the possibility arises that this Word of Truth, having been spoken clearly and fully in one brief moment in one remote corner of the world, would fall away, be forgotten, or fall into hopeless confusion.  Christ, in laying a solid foundation for his Church, guarantees the purity and precision of its teaching.  He gives to the Church the means by which to carry out its vocation to ensure that his Word will be known and proclaimed to every generation, so that the passage of time will not see the diminishment of what Jesus’ first disciples saw and understood. 
            Christ himself constitutes his disciples in a hierarchical structure, a characteristic of all institutions.  In today’s Gospel he warns us that problems will arise, and he provides some advice regarding how to deal with it.  He equips the Church with more institutional features: procedures and protocols.  When someone causes a problem, that person should be approached in person and in charity.  Hopefully it is the result of a misunderstanding, and if no one overreacts and allows the process of dealing with it, the problem may be taken care of quickly.  If that does not work, bring a few others to settle the matter so the facts can be fully investigated.  If that doesn’t yield a result and the problem remains, a separation may be required. 

            At one point in his letters St. Paul addresses a difficult situation where someone must be excluded from the Church, what we would call today “excommunication.”  He makes it clear that the person is being excluded from the communion of the Church for the person’s good, so that he can be helped to acknowledge a rupture with Christ that the person is not able to see.  The hope is that sending the person away will alert the person to the fact that he has alienated himself from the source of authentic fellowship and will then seek to be reconciled.  It may seem ironic, but the Church’s recourse to exclusion is an essential tool by which it carries out its ministry of reconciliation.  At another point in his letters, St. Paul refers to the Church as “the household of God.”  Like any household, the Church must be managed and ordered, and as will happen in households closer to home, this sometimes requires “tough love.” 

            Christ addresses the need to manage and order the inner life of the Church, to develop protocols and procedures for dealing with problems.  In other words, he makes clear the need for the Church to function as an institution.  It is easy to be cynical about the Church’s institutional aspect.  I myself joke with the couples that I prepare for marriage that nothing combines God and paperwork quite like the Catholic Church.  The heretical French bishop Alfred Loisy once remarked, “Christ came proclaiming the kingdom, and what arrived was the Church.”  But the institutional aspect of the Church is fundamental to the accomplishment of its historical mission. 

            I have in mind an example first pointed out to me by a professor of theology from a university in Australia.  On one occasion he described to me a brief and bloody episode of history that occurred in his part of the world and which he researched extensively.  It had to do with a genocide that occurred in a place called East Timor, a tiny island in Indonesia that used to be a Portuguese colony and so has a sizable Catholic population that now constitutes most of the island’s population.  In the mid 1970s Indonesia invaded East Timor and began to wage a war of extermination that included vicious attacks on the Church.  A few days before Indonesia invaded East Timor, the American president, Gerald Ford, visited Indonesia on an official visit it is widely thought gave at least tacit approval to the invasion.  The American press had no interest in the matter, and the invasion and its atrocities went completely unreported.  The whole matter, including America’s involvement, is still largely unknown by Americans.

            During the course of the genocide, East Timorese Catholic bishops asked for the help of American bishops who lobbied their governmental authorities in the United States to intervene and to stop the genocide.  This occurred, and the genocide was stopped.  The Church could work effectively to provide a solution in this case precisely because it is what people so often complain about: precisely because the Catholic Church is a global institution it could promote global solidarity and bring the reconciling power of Christ to bear on an international crisis.  Because the Church is a global institution it can bring the Gospel to bear to every aspect of human culture at every level of human civilization, at the level of the individual and the family, and at the level of superpowers. 

            The Church can promote solidarity on an international level because individual Christians do it at the level of neighbor and community.  Each of us must take up this work of promoting fellowship by finding ways to reach out to one another.  We are to come together to worship as we do now, and to find other ways to seek out each other and to strengthen one another’s faith.  Christ encourages us with an emphatic promise: “Where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I in the midst of them.”  We have to be present to one another.  We have to seek each other out in order to draw strength from the faith of each other, as well as from the presence of Christ who promises to be with us when we are with each other.  We are told that there is strength in numbers.  For Christians there is the strength of Christ in numbers.

            And the world resists this.  One of my favorite spiritual writers is a man named Josef Pieper, who lived and wrote in Germany during the Nazi period.  He commented that it is the characteristic of totalitarian regimes to keep persons apart in order to preserve the power and prestige of the regime and its leadership.  In the totalitarian regimes of the 20^th century, the force of the all-powerful state was used to accomplish this: free speech was stifled by law and dissent meant imprisonment.  We do not face this sort of oppression, but our culture has its own ways of stifling the faithful from coming together and supporting one another.  Public expressions of faith are met with condescending looks, and Christians are made to feel out fashion and behind the times for their fidelity to the Gospel.  Many choose to remain hidden for the sake of avoiding scorn.  Christ’s words today tell us that we must not let ourselves be discouraged.  I recall one occasion when I was at Whole Foods eating lunch and saw a mother and her daughter make the sign of the cross and say grace before eating their food.  They made their gesture and prayed their prayer as if it was entirely natural for them to do so, and as though no one were watching.  But I was watching, and it was kind of thrilling to see it.  They never knew the encouragement they gave to me, and who knows who else saw it and drew strength from their expression of faith.  In that moment two or three were gathered, and Christ was there. 

            I recall also a story told to me by an undergraduate at the University of Pittsburgh who was in a class where the teacher spontaneously launched into a diatribe directed against the Church.  Priests came in for particular scorn.  Finally, this student I describe raised his hand and asked the simple question, “Do you know any priests?”  The answer, of course, was “no.”  The student proceeded to insist that he knew many priests, and that none of them are as she describes.  The teacher changed the subject and got on with her lecture.  After the class, several of his classmates approached him and thanked him for speaking up.  If he hadn’t said something – and what he said was actually quite simple – those people might have imagined themselves to be alone, to be the only one among the 200 persons in the class to think differently.  Because someone took a risk and spoke up, even if just to register a modest bit of dissent, those believers could find each other and encourage one another.  A small risk yielded a great result.  Those who would have remained in isolation could gather strength from each other and share with one another the presence of Christ. 

            We are not all called to witness in the same way.  But we are called to the virtue of courage, and we must, even if only in small ways, find ways to witness our faith to our generation.  Not in order to provoke confrontations with those who disagree, but to reach out to those who share the faith so that Christ may be present among us. 

            

22nd Sunday of Ordinary Time

He turned and said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan!  You are an obstacle to me.” 

            Today’s gospel is a continuation of last week’s gospel, which recounted for us the discussion between Jesus and his disciples at Caesarea Philippi.  There we heard Jesus ask his disciples, “Who do the people say that the Son of Man is?”  All the disciples respond by saying, “Some say John the Baptist” (who had already been executed at that point in the life of Christ), “others Elijah, and still others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.”  So the leading popular opinions concerning Jesus’ identity involved regarding him as some kind of reincarnation of John the Baptist or one of the long dead Old Testament figures.  Finally Jesus addresses the disciples more personally: “Who do you say that I am?”  Only St. Peter responds: “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”

            For this response Jesus praises Peter in the highest possible terms: “Blessed are you Simon, son of Jonah, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you but my heavenly Father.”  Peter is praised as one inspired directly by God.  And Jesus bestows on him a new name: “So I say to you, ‘You are Peter, and on this rock I will build my Church.”  Jesus’ admiration seems absolute. 

            But in today’s gospel we hear of the sharp turn taken in this encounter between Jesus and his disciples.  Jesus predicts his own suffering and death.  After Peter’s confession he describes the events of Holy Week: his arrest, condemnation, and his physical anguish and death.  He adds, too, an indication of his resurrection, but this passes his disciples by unnoticed.  Peter notices only Jesus’ predictions of his suffering and death and clearly cannot stand the thought: “God forbid, Lord, No such thing shall happen to you.”  For this objection, Jesus condemns Peter in terms no less absolute than his former praise: “Get behind me, Satan.  You are an obstacle to me, because you are thinking not as God does, but as human beings do.”

            Having been condemned as “Satan” must have been pretty shocking after having been extolled moments before as “The Rock.”  Perhaps the most basic lesson we can glean from this 180 degree turn is that it is one thing to know the truth of an abstract principle, and quite another to understand the practical implications of that principle.  Peter understands very well that Jesus is “the Christ, the Son of the living God,” but he cannot yet see how this is not only consistent with, but even demands all that Jesus indicates regarding his suffering and death. 

            I once heard a comedian describe what a poor basketball player he was when he was in high school.  He said that in his own mind he was very good at basketball.  In his mind he knew exactly how to dribble the ball down the court, shoot, score, and everything else that requires.  The problem he had was that his mind had to “outsource” the job of actually playing basketball to his awkward body that was incapable to doing all that his mind was telling it.  He was describing something we all experience, the gap between what we understand and what we are able to do.

            Perhaps we should understand this in terms of the word “obstacle” that Jesus uses to describe Peter.  Peter is an obstacle to Jesus because he has within himself an obstacle that prevents him from recognizing, let along enacting, the practical consequences of his faith.  His confession of Jesus as the Christ encounters an obstacle as it tries to move to an understanding of what Jesus’ status as Christ will mean in terms of the living out of that vocation. 

            We, of course, deal with something similar.  We make brilliant confessions of faith.  We recite the Creed precisely every Sunday.  We address Jesus as Lord and Savior, we kneel before him in the Eucharist.  All of us, though, are forced to admit that our lives are not fully intelligible in terms of the faith we profess.  There is something inside us that prevents the faith we have in our minds from translating itself into the concrete fabric of a life lived.  We cling to attitudes contrary to the gospel; we harbor and feed resentments and prideful sentiments.  In ways we cannot fully perceive, we maintain within ourselves obstacles to a full expression of our Christian faith, and so, to varying degrees, we must all admit to being an obstacle to Christ.  We can tell people about the faith we profess, but the lives we live in our bodies are less than transparent to that faith. 

            In his letter to the Romans St. Paul us “to offer our bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God.”  This he says will be our spiritual worship.  The offering of our bodies, bringing our bodily actions – the things we do and say – into line with the faith we profess is the progress of our sanctification.  This is the offering we struggle to complete every day as disciples of Jesus.  This offering requires that we clear away the obstacles that exist within us, and Jesus today refers to the means by which we are to do that.  He tells us to take up our crosses every day.  By disciplining the body in order to conform it to the example we have in Christ we will bring our outward behavior into conformity with the faith we profess.  By receiving generously the example given to us by Christ in his sacred humanity we will bring the flesh and blood of our lives into conformity we the faith we have received from his Spirit.

            Daily prayer, examinations of conscience, the practice of sound disciplines: these help us accomplish the far greater task of what St. Paul describes as “taking every thought captive for Christ”: of biting our tongues when harsh criticism leaps to mind, of reining in lustful thoughts, of working to see the best in others.  The substance of our spiritual offering is what has been called “spiritual combat,” the daily struggle to bring our passionate responses into line with the faith we profess with our lips.  The daily commitment to this undertake this combat is our contribution to the work of removing from within ourselves the obstacles that stand between our faith and the holy life we are called to live. 

            We are not left to our own devices in this work.  God makes his contribution as well.  God works within us to remove obstacles, so long as we are open to this work, which can be painful.  One of my favorite passages from St. Paul is from his letter to the Philippians where he writes that he does not regard himself as having attained the goal of a perfect likeness to Christ.  Even so, he says he “presses on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.”  In the next line Paul exhorts all to think this way, and notes that “if on some point you think differently, that too God will make clear to you.”  I take this to mean that if we remain faithful to our striving after Christ, if we remain faithful to the work of discipleship, God will, in time, bring to light the obstacles that exist within us.  Perhaps by growth in wisdom and purified vision, perhaps by being subjected to painful trials, he will help us recognize what we have placed between ourselves and him, and we will be able to confront formerly hidden obstacles head on.  And as this process moves forward over time, we will arrive at a more perfect integrity as disciples of Christ. 

            We see exactly this occurring in the life of St. Peter.  In the course of the wild swing between praise and humiliation that Peter experiences at Caesarea Philippi, Peter becomes aware of an obstacle that exists within him.  Something similar happens in the far more painful experiences of Holy Week.  On Holy Thursday we hear his protests before the Lord that “Even if all fall away, I will not.”  We can hear in these words, I think, a subtle indication of what may be the worst sort of abuse among those in authority, to lord it over subordinates.  Peter says, in effect, “All others may be liable to betrayal and treachery, but I am not.  They may very well be inadequate, but not me.”  Instead of insisting vainly upon his superiority to the others, he might have looked for ways to shore up his brothers’ weakness.  

            The events of Holy Thursday are, of course, a prelude to Peter’s betrayal of Christ, and this prelude provides a glimpse of the obstacle on which he will stumble just a few moments later when he denies Jesus.  On Easter Sunday, when Jesus forgives and restores Peter, he asks Peter, “Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these?”  Jesus’ question recalls Peter’s boastful claim from Holy Thursday.  Does he still regard himself as superior to the others?  Peter shows a small but significant increase in maturity.  “Yes, Lord, you know that I love you.”  He declares his love, but not at the expense of the others.  Peter’s stumble at Caesarea Philippi and his stumbles during Holy Week are not without progress.  We see that with the Lord’s help, Peter is recognizing and overcoming the obstacles within him.  The Lord is making known to Peter the obstacles within him, and so long as Peter remains eager to work to over come them, the Lord grants him progress. 

            This continues throughout the whole of Peter’s life.  There is a well known story concerning St. Peter that people are sometimes surprised to learn does not come from the Gospels.  The story occurs during the time of Emperor Nero’s persecution of the Christian church at Rome.  Peter himself is fleeing along the Appian way when suddenly he sees the risen Lord walking the other way, back towards Rome.  Peter asks him, “Where are you going?” (Quo vadis?, in Latin).  Jesus replies by saying, “I am going to Rome, to be crucified again.”  Peter receives this as the Lord’s indication of what he should do, and so Peter turns around and walks back to Rome where eventually he is crucified.  In the end, therefore, after many mistakes and failures, after many efforts at beginning again, Peter is finally is conformed perfectly to the example of Christ.  There, his body, like that of Jesus, is offered upon a cross.  Finally, at the end, after many stumbles, Peter is able to offer himself fully - body and spirit - as a sacrifice to the Lord.

            During the Gospels and beyond, throughout the whole of Peter’s life, he struggled with the obstacles that stood in the way of expressing his faith fully in the manner of his life.  He never gave up, and we too must never give up.  We too must always be ready to start and start again in our lives as disciples, always confident that the work begun in us by the Lord will come to completion.