Reflection for Sunday – June 29, 2025
Readings: Acts 12:1-11; 2 Timothy 4:6-8, 17-18; Matthew 16:13-19
Preacher: Marilyn Catherine
“Who do you say that I am?”
I wonder why Jesus posed this question to his disciples. Was he acting the part of a teacher springing a pop quiz on his students to test how well they were doing? Jesus was pretty aware he had chosen a bunch of slow learners (aren’t we all when it comes to our spiritual journeys.) I wonder if his question was meant for them to probe their own thoughts more deeply—a prompt hoping to draw forth a conscious awareness of what they actually did believe and why?
Before Jesus asked, “Who do you say that I am?” he first asks the disciples, “Who do people say that the Son of God is?” Our beliefs do not take root in a vacuum.
It’s important to recognize and name what beliefs belong to the people who surround us, the culture in which we are immersed, the authorities that shape us, and the viewpoints we absorb without question, before we can truly own our own.
At the end of this passage Matthew goes on to say: “From then onwards Jesus began to make it clear to his disciples that he was destined to…suffer grievously…and be put to death and be raised up on the third day.”
If these were the people who would become the foundation of his church then they would need to be rock solid in their faith. I remember a period in my life when I was struggling within my faith. I was conflicted by two utterly divergent understandings of who God was. I felt attracted to God and at the same time repelled.
Then one evening I was struck by a bolt of grace. It occurred to me that the source of this pushing and pulling, away and toward, was the picture of God that I envisioned. The picture I was looking at was like a double exposure—the
image created in a photograph when two exposures are made on the same piece of film. In the process of developing the photo a second image is transposed on the original. It was the imposed image that repelled me and the original that attracted me.
That God given revelation granted me a clarity that allowed me to at long last open up to trusting God for real. Jesus needed his disciples to really know and trust him. The same is true for us.
What is the bedrock of my belief and how did I come by it? Jesus is pleased with Simon Peter’s answer and names him the rock upon which he will build. Yet it’s not long before Peter is contradicting Jesus, incapable of accepting that Jesus will not be preserved from suffering and death. And when that does come to pass it is Peter who three times denies knowing Jesus at all. A pretty shaky rock it would appear.
So, what does Jesus see in Peter that gives him faith in Peter? Have you ever had the experience of recognizing God’s doing exactly because the perfect answer to your prayer comes out of the blue in a way that you could never have conceived of on your own no matter how much you wrestled with the issue? Jesus recognizes in Peter’s response a belief to which Peter, alone in his humanity, could not have reasoned his way. It was a blessing from God that would saturate his being despite his fears and frailties.
The challenges to manifesting the kingdom of God that Jesus proclaimed, the
work of upholding the values he embraced, the difficulties of uplifting and enacting his instructions, are just as real for us today as they were in the age of the martyrs. We need to ask ourselves what is the ground of my belief and how certain is it?
This exchange between Jesus and Peter clearly indicates that naming Jesus the Christ, the Son of the Living God is not meant to be a matter of personal salvation alone. Jesus’ expresses his concern for the assembly and his intention to care for the continuing creation of community. In these days when the shadow of white Christian nationalism looms over our culture and government, it is critical that each of us identifies our spiritual touchstone and unfolds our lives with the courage of conviction.
Who and what do you picture when Jesus asks you: “Who do you say that I am?”
She is active in her parish and founded the Creation Stewards Ministry there in 2007.
She is a writer and storyteller with "Women of the Well."In her opinion some of the best homilies come to us through the arts.
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