Homily for the Twenty-first Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year A).
It’s hard to imagine a better Gospel reading with which to end an Ignatian retreat. We find this episode at the middle point of Matthew’s Gospel, and the question that Jesus poses to his disciples is the hinge on which everything else turns: “Who do you say that I am?”
We have heard the episode before, so perhaps we don’t register what a strange question Jesus asks. When I test my students at the end of the semester, I ask them about the content of the course, not about my own identity. But Jesus asks about himself, not his message. Were he any other teacher, such a question would be pure arrogance. But Jesus is not like anyone else, and everything depends upon our recognizing the difference.
Public opinion, as the disciples tell it, seeks to put Jesus into a recognizable category; he is one of the prophets, like Elijah or Jeremiah. Perhaps he is the reincarnation of John the Baptist. But Jesus does not let such answers go, and the disciples themselves have been with him long enough that they are not satisfied with such an answer, either. There is a right and a wrong answer to the question Jesus asks. It is not a matter of opinion. Jesus is not administering a Rorschach test to prompt the disciples to look more deeply into themselves. The question is not what is inside, but who is standing here before you.
Simon Peter’s confession of faith is why: “You are the Son of the living God.” Who Jesus is matters more even than anything he says because he is God among us. He is not merely someone inspired by God, taught by God, or near to God, but the Son of God, the same substance as the Father. Were we to use a modern metaphor, we might say that the DNA of Jesus is the DNA of God. We can say that of no one else, not even John the Baptist, the greatest of the prophets. Who Jesus is, his incarnation, coming into the world, the infinite self-giving love that he shows at the Last Supper—“This is my body, given up for you”—and the self-sacrifice of Calvary on the next day, is the message. His message is: “I am with you.” More than a message conveying information or understanding, he is God acting among us, with us, and for us. Indeed, even Peter’s correct confession is more than the work of “flesh and blood,” but the gift of God.
Pope Paul VI uses the image of men with their hands raised to the sky, reaching for something above, to describe all the world’s religions. But, he says, they cannot grasp what they reach for. Their hands remain empty. The gap between God and man is infinite, and only the infinite power of God can close that gap. Only when God becomes man does the distance close. Only when God reaches down to seek us can we grasp what we reach for. Without God’s revelation, without his incarnation, without his entering into communion with us, it really does not matter how spiritual or moral or virtuous we are—nothing we do can close an infinite distance.
At the end of today’s Gospel reading, Jesus tells the disciples not to repeat who he is. We know that this is a temporary command, which will change dramatically after the resurrection. But before that day Jesus still needs to fulfill his mission, to reach down into the depths of human existence when he is killed and laid in the tomb. The giving of his life is the one action necessary for our salvation, an action which has more value than all of the other healings and sermons and miracles in his life and in history combined. Above all others, this action reveals who God is and makes him present among us. If we were to describe the DNA of God, we could say that it is infinite self-giving love.
Immediately after today’s passage in Matthew’s Gospel, Peter tries to dissuade Jesus from the path of his passion, earning one of the harshest rebukes in Scripture: “Get behind me, Satan!” Jesus will not allow anything to deter him from the central act of his salvific mission, the greatest expression of who he is. Today, however, Jesus gives Simon a new identity, Peter, and with it a new mission. Peter is the rock on which Christ will build his Church, and it is no coincidence that since the days of St. Paul we have referred to both the Church and the Eucharist as the Body of Christ. The Church and the Eucharist make Jesus really and truly present. The message, the proclamation, would be incomplete without the presence of Christ himself. Who he is still surpasses what we can say about him.
And that is why the sacrament that we celebrate today is the sacrament of salvation—it is the place where we meet him. We don’t remember a prophet or memorialize a teacher; we encounter he who is. And we don’t just learn from him or thank him or worship him—though we do all those things. We are transformed by him; we enter into communion with him, so that who we are changes too. Just like Simon Peter, if we were to ask the question “Who am I?” before and after our encounter with Christ, the answer would have to be different.
“Who do you say that I am?” Everything depends on our answer. How we answer Jesus determines who we are and who we will become. To Peter’s confession, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God,” we can do nothing better than offer our own “Amen.”
Readings: Isaiah 22:19-23; Romans 11:33-36; Matthew 16:13-20
August 23, 2026
Cloisters on the Platte
Gretna, Nebraska
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Tony Lusvardi, S.J. 