Twenty-first Sunday in Ordinary Time
I have lived in the United States for fourteen years now. I am a permanent resident. Numerous people have asked me if I am ready to get citizenship. Today, nothing about this great country stops me from applying for citizenship. There is one problem, however. If I do apply for citizenship, I have to discard my Indian citizenship and surrender my Indian passport. I have to shift my allegiance to the flag that I love saluted for 48 years and pledge my allegiance to a new flag. I have not been able to bring myself to do that as yet. I wish I could be the citizen of both these countries but that is not a possibility. So I have decided that as long as my parents are alive, that I will continue to hold an Indian passport and be an Indian citizen.
We all know the power and meaning of allegiances. In marriage, when we change jobs, when we move to new places, in having children, buying new homes, we constantly create and forge new allegiances. When Jesus asked his disciples, “Who do you say that I am,” perhaps he was not asking his disciples to forge an alliance with him as yet. Just as I am not ready to shift my allegiance from my country of birth to a new country, perhaps neither were the disciples ready to pledge their allegiance to Jesus. But as the events of his life would unfold and his true identity would emerge, the disciples would be compelled to pledge their allegiance to him. And they would have to do this not only for his sake and theirs, but also the sake of the church, which Jesus said he would build upon Peter, the rock. So today, as we hear God’s word and worship God in this Eucharist, we too are compelled to reflect on the mother of all allegiances – our allegiance to Christ and his Church. Here are three points for us to reflect upon.
a) Have You accepted Jesus as Your Personal Lord and Savior? As Catholics, your evangelical and non-denominational friends may have at some time asked you the question, “Have you accepted Jesus as your personal Lord and Savior?” There is no other question that bugs our Catholic sensibility than that one question. We Catholics consider this question the anti-thesis of everything Catholic. Yet, that is the most important question that Jesus asked his disciples, “Who do you say that I am?” This question contains a very significant reality – the reality that faith first and foremost is about a relationship; that at the center of our faith is the person of Jesus Christ. Even though this question is often seen as primarily a non-denominational question, it has always been central to Catholicism. The two most recent popes, for example, have this to say about Jesus as our personal Lord and Savior: Pope emeritus, Benedict in his encyclical, Deus Caritas Est, writes, “Being a Christian is not the result of an ethical choice or a lofty idea, but the encounter with an event, a person, which gives life a new horizon and a decisive direction.” (EG 7) Our present Pope Francis has further emphasizes the personal dimension of our relationship with Jesus Christ when he says, “I invite all Christians, everywhere, at this very moment, to a renewed personal encounter with Jesus Christ, or at least an openness to letting him encounter them; I ask all of you to do this unfailingly every day.” In other words, anything and everything Catholic remains but another social reality without our personal encounter and relationship with Jesus Christ.
b) "On this Rock I will Build my Church" If the evangelical and non-denominational emphasis is on the personal relationship with Jesus Christ, the strength within Catholicism is her emphasis on the church within which one’s personal confession of Christ is lived out. It is important to note that in the gospel reading, immediately after Peter makes his confession, Jesus grounds his confession in two things: God the Father and the Church. So Jesus says to Peter, “… flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my heavenly Father. And so I say to you, you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church….”
How do we understand the church? The church, like the earthly Jesus is both human and divine. The church is earthly yet holy, created yet called by God, a community of disciples yet fulfilling the work of God. The church is at the same time the body of Christ and Christ’s body in the world. This church is both an expression of God’s love for the world and of the believer’s allegiance to God in Jesus Christ. The purpose of this divine-human church is twofold: first, the church becomes a place where our faith in Christ is lived out. In other words, it is in the church and through the church that our personal confession of Christ finds expression. Second, the church furthers the saving work of Christ in the world. Christianity without the church is only half-a-Christianity.
c) Allegiance in Christ & the Church in a Modern World. But there is another reality that is also evident in the world. Both atheism (which is the opposite of a personal confession of faith in Jesus/God) and organized religion (which is the opposite of grounding ourselves in a church community) are on a speedy growth. The Global Index of Religiosity and Atheism in 2012 found that the number of Americans who say they are "religious" dropped from 73 percent in 2005 to 60 percent. The fastest growing religion in the world today is “no religion.” Similarly, the percentage of U.S. Catholics who consider themselves “strong” members of the Roman Catholic Church has the lowest in 2012. Only 27% of American Catholics called themselves “strong” Catholics. What does all this mean? On the one hand, today Christ is asking us the same question he asked Peter, “Who do you say that I am?” and assuring the church against destruction. On the other hand, we have a world in which the power of religion and the church are declining. How should you and I respond? Sometimes we can find fault with the people who have since become atheists and non-religious. I am suggesting rather that today we reflect on the depth of our personal confession of Christ and the authentic living out of our faith in the through Christ’s church. What is the quality of our own allegiance to Christ? Does this allegiance show itself in our own compassion, the mercy, the love, and the selflessness of Christ? And what about the Church? As the church of Christ do we bear witness to the same compassion and mercy of Christ? Are we willing to be what Pope Francis calls a “bruised, hurting and dirty because it has been out on the streets,” rather than a church that is unhealthily concerned about its own security? Is our idea of a church one that is welcoming, open, compassionate, merciful and dynamic?
Today, when we come to receive communion, Christ will ask us the same question he asked his disciples, “Who do you say I am?” Like the disciples we are compelled to make our allegiance to Christ and to his church. Amen.
- Fr. Satish Joseph