Who Am I To You?

12^th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Zech 12, 10-11 – 13, 1 / Gal 3, 26-29 / Lk 9, 18-24

“Who do you say that I am?”  I can’t hear that question from Jesus without thinking about something that happened to me once at Kennedy Airport in New York.  I was returning to the U.S. on a flight from Frankfurt.  The plan was to land at Kennedy, get to Penn Station in Manhattan and go to Philadelphia for a family visit.  Not knowing New York well at all, I asked a policeman for directions to get to Penn Station.  He turned to me, came real close and said in a loud voice: “What am I to you – a signpost?”  I thanked him for reminding me so clearly that I was in New York.

But it’s that same “in your face” quality that we get from Jesus’ question.  What am I to you?  And the emphasis is clearly on the “you”.  To really hear his question is to let Jesus get up close – get in your face.  And it’s to let yourself be questioned in your depths.

What am I to you – really?  Jesus’ question wants to go deeper than all the answers we have been taught to give.  Our learned answers come easily:  Jesus, you are the savior, the redeemer of the world!  Jesus, you are the son of God sitting at the right hand of the Father!  But Jesus replies: “Those are what others say that I am.  But who do you say that I am?”  And we need to ask ourselves honestly:  what do all these names we give to Jesus – what do they really mean to us?

The way we answer that question comes not so much from our creeds and catechisms – though they may help to get us started.  Our real answer must come from our lives – from the way we really live.  The early Christians referred to their Christian faith as simply “the way”.  Who do I say Jesus is?  Watch the way I live.

 
The question Jesus puts here in the gospel of Luke he actually answers in the gospel of John.  In that gospel Jesus says to Thomas – to Thomas who is a wonderfully honest disciple who admits he doesn’t know the way to God – to this disciple Jesus says: “I am the way – and the truth – and the life.”[Jn 14, 6]  He isn’t speaking theoretically.  He is saying to Thomas and to us who call ourselves disciples: I am the way: I am God’s way to you and your way to God.  You must walk my way – my way of living.  I am the truth: I am God’s true presence.  You enter into God’s real presence by doing what you see me doing.  I am the life: I am God’s own abundant life.  You will live that abundant life by living as you see me living.  And you can actually see the way I live in the gospels – in the sacraments – and in the people who now are my body.

Who do you say I am?  Am I your way?  Am I your truth?  Am I your life?  Neither he nor his questions will go away.  Jesus wants to get in our face.  He loves us too much to be satisfied with our easy words and programmed piety.  He wants us deeply.  He wants to get into where we really live, love and make decisions.  And thank God for that.  It’s the only way we can begin to stop talking about the Kingdom of God and begin to actually do something to live in the Kingdom of God.

Let us thank God when we begin to question our easy answers to Jesus’ challenging questions.  Let us thank God when we begin to yearn that God’s Kingdom come down to earth – in our own lives.  That’s when we will be walking our talk.  That’s when we will be walking the Jesus-way.

Who do we say Jesus is?  Watch, Charlotte.  Watch the way we live!

 

Fr. Pat Earl, SJ