At the beginning of a recent homily, I didn’t ask a question, and a few people were concerned I might have run out of them. No such luck! In fact, I thought today I would ask a question about questions. So here it is: How many of you watch quiz programs? I guess most of the shows now come on in the afternoon or early evening. Programs like Jeopardy or Wheel of Fortune. But there was a time when they were on at prime time. Back in the days of the sixty-four-dollar question or, after inflation, the sixty-four-thousand-dollar question.
It appears all of us like questions, or quizzes, except, maybe, for those pop-quizzes you kids get at the beginning of the school year to see how much you remember from last year, which, often, isn’t very much. I wonder what it is about questions that makes most of us, if not all of us, interested in them? Perhaps, we really do have a need to get information, to seek answers. While puppy dogs and kittens seem to be curious, I think it’s only humans who really ask questions and act on the answers they get.
Are there any kids who have not driven their parents to complete frustration by asking the question: “Why?” Why is the sky blue? Why is the grass green? But finally, when they grow up and get paid for asking questions, we call them scientists and engineers.
It, also. seems to me there are two kinds of questions which people ask: those we know the answer to and those we don’t. When a young child comes home, covered with dirt, and we ask, “Where have you been?” we pretty well know the answer. A few years later, when the teenager comes home, and we ask, “Where have you been?” we don’t know the answer, and, sometimes, wish we never asked the question. Somewhere, I once heard the longest title for a book written in English is: Where Did You Go? Out. What did you do? Nothing.
So, by now, how many of you may be asking yourself: what do questions have to do with today’s scripture? Well, I’m sure many of you have recognized today’s gospel reading has, perhaps, the central question of all of Christianity. There are, of course, many questions in the Old and New Testaments. All the way from the very first question asked in the Book of Genesis: “Did God really tell you not to eat from any of the trees in the garden?” through the rich man’s question: “What must I do to gain eternal life?“
Jesus, of course, posed many questions in his parable stories. Yet, as important as all of them are, I believe the question we heard today is the most important of all. “And you,” he went on to ask, “Who do you say that I am?” The disciples had already responded to his earlier question: “Who do people say I am?” They had replied some thought he was a prophet, like John the Baptist or Elijah, who was to return at the end of time. But Jesus was now more interested in who his friends said he is than in who other people said he is.
His twelve closest followers had been with him for some time now. They had seen his miracles, his wonders over nature and over demons. How he had cured those who came to him. More importantly, they had heard him teach the crowds who sought him out. They knew what he taught so that they might live, live in the kingdom. Any one of them could have responded by calling him “wonder worker” or “most esteemed teacher.” Instead, it was Peter who said: “You are the Messiah!”
Messiah. Anointed One of God. The one whom all of Israel awaited. The Savior. Some thought the Messiah would come as a warrior king, like David, and lead them to a worldly victory over all their enemies. Others expected a “Prince of Peace” who would bring spiritual harmony to all of the righteous.
However, these were not the images which Jesus the Christ, Jesus the Anointed, had in mind. Rather, he thought of the Suffering Servant we heard about in today’s first reading from Isaiah: “I gave my back to those who beat me, my cheeks to those who plucked my beard; my face I did not shield from buffets and spitting.” Jesus spoke of a Messiah, a Son of Man, who would suffer, be rejected, be put to death and rise three days later. Peter rejected this response. Peter wanted a Messiah who would live, not die.
Of all the questions posed by humans, the ones we fear to ask, because we fear the answers, are: “How am I to die? When will I die?” These were the terrible questions Jesus was now answering about himself. They were answered because of Peter’s response to that all-important question Jesus asks: “Who do you say I am?”
Yet, all of us realize this question, spoken some two-thousand years ago to Peter, is the same one Jesus addresses to each one of us today: “Who do you say I am?” But now, the situation is different. Now, the answer prompts further responses from each one of us rather than from him.
If I say Jesus was a major philosopher of the Western World who had some good things to say about how people should treat one another, my future actions will follow a certain course. However, what happens if I say he is God-Incarnate, that the entire power of the universe became enfleshed and suffered human pain for my sake, for my safety, for my salvation? Then my future actions must be very different.
It is one thing to say Jesus was a nice guy, someone I’d like for a friend or brother, someone who gives me warm fuzzies when I think about him. But, if he is, indeed, God-Enfleshed, then my response demands awesome piety. What do I mean by “awesome piety?”
For me, “awesome” is the feeling I have when I see a glorious sunrise or a magnificent sunset, draped in pinks and violets and silvers and golds. “Awesome” is the feeling I have when I see the power of a major storm with its winds, slanting rains and darkness. “Awesome” is the feeling I have when I see a butterfly unfold its wings or a baby move its fingers.
As for “piety,” well, for some, it has a limited connotation. What I mean by piety does include a picture of the little old lady praying quietly in the corner of a darkened church. Piety, also, includes a picture of that same woman walking hand-in-hand with her elderly husband along a quiet beach. Piety includes the image of a tired parent helping a child with homework. Piety includes the person who helps out in a soup kitchen, or sorts clothes for Northwest Assistance Ministry.
For me, piety is practicing the faith I profess. It is living out the instructions we heard in today’s reading from the Letter of James. It is more than wishing a person well, it is doing well for someone else. It is living out the instructions of Jesus we heard a few minutes ago: “If you wish to come after me, take up your cross and follow in my footsteps.”
I began this reflection talking about questions and quiz shows. Life, it seems, is full of questions, many sixty-four-dollar questions. Sometimes, we know the answers. Sometimes, we must continue to seek them. Yet, all of our questions of life and death, of happiness and despair, of action and inaction, all of them lead back to a final question. When Jesus turns to you and asks, “Who do you say I am?” how will you respond?
Twenty-fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time; September 11, 1994, September 17, 2000
Is 50:5-9a; Jas 2:14-18; Mk 8:27-35