Hi, I'm Matthew Kelly, and welcome to Feed Your Soul. This Sunday is one of my favorite readings-- I remember the first time I went to the Holy Land-- I was so excited to go to this place. And when you go to this place, there's almost nothing there. But I was excited to go to this place because of this reading. I think it's such an important reading for us all to reflect on from time to time. "Now, when Jesus came into the district of Caesarea, Philippi, he asked his disciples, 'Who do men say that the Son of Man is?'" Now sometimes, we're reading the scriptures and we forget, I think, the humanity. We suck all the humanity out of it. And this is one of those passages that if you look at it from a very human point of view, it's sort of a little bit comical. Because Jesus-- he's saying, "Who do people say that I am?" And the disciple said, "Some say you're John the Baptist. Some say you're Elijah. Some say you're Jeremiah. And others say you're one of the prophets." And Jesus said, "But who do you say that I am? Who do you say that I am?"

I don't know about you, but the human aspect of this for me is like, "Okay. These guys have left everything behind to follow Jesus, and then one day he's like, 'Hey, guys. I'm having a bit of an identity crisis here. I'm just wondering-- let's take a poll. Who do people say that I am?'" I'd be freaking out. I'd be like, "Okay, Jesus, I left everything behind to follow you under the assumption that you were very clear about who you are. And now you're asking me, who do people say that you are and who do I say that you are?" And the reality is that the humanity of that situation would actually be quite amusing. 

Jesus says, who do you say that I am? I call that the Jesus question. I call that the Jesus question because sooner or later we all have to answer that question. Now all Christians have to answer that question sooner or later. Every person in the history of the world has to answer that question. And it's not, who do my parents say that Jesus is? Or, who do my friends say that Jesus is? Or, who does my priest say that Jesus is, but who do you? Deep down, at the core, who do you say that he is? Is he a great teacher? Is he a wise man? Is he a sage figure? Is he a lunatic? Is he truly who he claims to be? Is he the Messiah? Is he the Son of God? It's the Jesus question. And it's not enough to answer the Jesus question once. Because we can answer it once, we can answer it very sincerely, we can answer it in a cursory way or in a serious way, but we can be dragged away from our answer. And the pull of the culture to pretend that Jesus is a figment of Christian imagination, to pretend that he isn't a specific person who lived at a specific time in a specific place, the cultural pull of that is enormous. And so it is important for us, from time to time, to return to the question and ask ourselves, all right-- or allow Jesus to ask us even better, "Who do you say that I am?" And Simon Peter replied, "You are the Christ. The Son of the Living God."

And so what we see in these weeks of gospels is you see these great declarations of faith. You see this group of very human individuals grappling with themselves, this new situation, Jesus, their own brokenness, their own struggle to believe, their own doubts. You see them struggling with all of that. But on the end of each of these struggles, you see these massive declarations of faith. Peter says, "You're the Christ. The son of the living God." And you've got to understand that at that moment in history, that was absolutely a radical and revolutionary statement. We read that now and we think, "Oh, yeah," because we're desensitized to it. But at that moment in history, it's a massive statement. And Jesus answered him, "Blessed are you, Peter Bar-Jonah, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my father, who is in heaven." Flesh and blood hasn't revealed it to him. So it wasn't human learning. It wasn't, "Oh, he went off and did a doctorate in theology or philosophy or scripture studies."

It wasn't human learning. There are some things that come to us direct from God. And I tell you, "You are Peter and on this rock, I will build my church and the powers of death will not prevail against it."

I love this line and I really don't love this line sometimes. The powers of death will not prevail against it. The reason I really don't love it sometimes is because sometimes I think we use it as an excuse for mediocrity. I think sometimes we're like, "Okay, we've got the church and the church has got a lot of problems. But we already know the powers of death aren't going to prevail against it. So it's all going to be fine in the end." And I think that's a tragic lapse in judgment. I think that that's a tragic misappropriation of the scriptures to justify our laziness, our procrastination, our unwillingness to push ourselves a little bit further toward excellence. And Jesus goes on to say, "I'll give you the keys to the Kingdom of Heaven. And whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven. And whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven." It's a powerful reading. It's eight and a half lines, eight and a half lines. Who do you say that Jesus is? And what mediocrity in your life are you justifying or making excuses for and what excellence is God calling you to beyond that mediocrity?