A Homily - The Twenty-first Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year A)

First Reading – Isaiah 22:19-23 ©

Responsorial Psalm – Psalm 137(138):1-3, 6, 8 ©

Second Reading – Romans 11:33-36 ©

Gospel Acclamation – 2 Corinthians 5:19

Alternative Acclamation – Matthew 16:18

The Gospel According to Matthew 16:13 - 30 ©

 

(NJB)

 

Listen!

 Be mindful when you are reading from the prophetic books; all too often the authors mistake their own sentiments and dynastic ambitions for those of God. It is a common human failing, to mistake one’s own desires for the will of the divine, and this is not the way.

 Know this:

 God does not intervene in human affairs or anywhere at all in the whole of creation, when you read from the book of Isaiah today, remember that God loves the house of David no more and no less than God loves your own house, or any other house so defined.

 God does not play favorites; God loves everyone.

 Consider the words of the psalmist.

 It is right to praise God, the creator of the universe.

 It is even better to praise mercy wherever you see it, because mercy is what God desires most from us; it is through the exhibition of mercy and compassion that we approximate most fully the will of the divine.

 Trust in God; trust in God who does not desire glory, have faith in God who points to the way that passes through humility.

 Listen to the apostle!

 Everything that exists come from God; know that God is opposed to nothing and that God’s ways are inscrutable.

 The apostle tells us in the simplest terms that the mission of the church is to announce the reconciliation of all things in God. This is the good news and we are meant to shares this hope with everyone, proclaiming the forgiveness of sins and the reconciliation of all things and beings in the divine.

 Paul instructs us that the church and its members are meant to serve as messengers and ambassadors of this good news, this is the work of Chrisitan mission.

 Know this:

 The church is not, nor should it ever be functioning as a recruiting agency, signing up members while holding out hope for the reward of reconciliation as a benefit that belongs only to those who join.

 Be mindful of Paul’s wisdom.

 He teaches that the reconciliation has already taken place, it occurred in Christ at the beginning of time and carries on through the end.

 The mission of the Church is not to effectuate reconciliation, but to proclaim it!

 Now consider the Gospel reading for today:

 Matthew’s Gospel was written roughly one hundred years after the death of Jesus of Nazareth.

 Saint Paul, the apostle, was the first person to call Jesus the Christ, the anointed one. This was not a term his disciples used of him, nor a term Jesus would have ever used of himself.

 You should keep this in mind anytime you refer to Jesus as the Christ. The appellation is a literary invention of Paul’s, a man who never met Jesus while he lived.

 Note well: Jesus and his disciples did contend with the title “Son of Man,” or attempt to dissuade people from using it.

 Among certain sects of the Jewish people the phrase “Son of Man” is associated with the coming of a messiah, an individual(s) who could represent humanity before the divine, as humanity was meant to be, as the human being in its most exalted state. The messiah was also expected to free the Children of Israel, Jerusalem and Judah (at a minimum) from the grip of foreign rule.

 Some groups believed that there would be two messiahs: one royal, and one priestly. Others believed that there would be a singular messianic figure with both the royal and priestly functions fully harmonized within them.

 The title, “Son of Man,” had been circulating in Jewish literature for about two-hundred years prior to Jesus, it is most closely associated with the books of Daniel and Enoch in the Old Testament. Apart from scripture, the “Son a Man” was a wildly popular archetype in a period of time known as the “inter-testamental era”, this heroic figure the “Son of Man” proliferated among non-canonical and apocryphal writers throughout greater Palestine.

 The authors of Matthew’s Gospel are doing a couple of things, they are connecting the ministry of Jesus, and so by extension their ministry, to this wider body when they refer to Jesus as the “Son of Man,” as well as when they call him the Christ in keeping with the very popular writings of Paul.

 Thy make these claims in order to redirect popular understanding of who the expected “Son of Man” might be, in order to say that the “Son of Man” was not John the Baptist, and neither is Jesus, John the Baptist returned.

 They also wanted to make clear that the “Son of Man” is not Elijah or one of the other prophets, neither is Jesus the second coming of any one of them.

 The Authors of Matthew are clear that the “Son of Man” is Jesus, the Christ, uniquely able to claim the mantle of sonship in relation to the living God…this is their most artful piece of propaganda, speaking in a symbolic language that all of the Jewish people, and their northern cousins, the Samaritans, understood.

 It is important to know these things and to be mindful that the Gospel for today propagandizes the ministry of Jesus, the ministry of the disciples and the faction of the church most closely associated with Saint Peter. There are no cosmic truths being disclosed here, there is only the record of the Church’s struggle lay claim to that symbolic language and through it to establish an identity for itself that both carries on the most popular traditions in and around the apostolic era, while differentiate itself from those traditions at the same time.

 It is instructive.

 

First Reading – Isaiah 22:19-23 ©

I Place the Key of the House of David on My Servant's Shoulder

Thus says the Lord of Hosts to Shebna, the master of the palace:

I dismiss you from your office, I remove you from your post, and the same day I call on my servant Eliakim son of Hilkiah.

I invest him with your robe, gird him with your sash, entrust him with your authority; and he shall be a father to the inhabitants of Jerusalem and to the House of Judah.

I place the key of the House of David on his shoulder; should he open, no one shall close, should he close, no one shall open.

I drive him like a peg into a firm place; he will become a throne of glory for his father’s house.

 

Responsorial Psalm – Psalm 137(138):1-3, 6, 8 ©

Your love, O Lord, is eternal: discard not the work of your hands.

I thank you, Lord, with all my heart:

  you have heard the words of my mouth.

In the presence of the angels I will bless you.

  I will adore before your holy temple.

Your love, O Lord, is eternal: discard not the work of your hands.

I thank you for your faithfulness and love,

  which excel all we ever knew of you.

On the day I called, you answered;

  you increased the strength of my soul.

Your love, O Lord, is eternal: discard not the work of your hands.

The Lord is high yet he looks on the lowly

  and the haughty he knows from afar.

Your love, O Lord, is eternal,

  discard not the work of your hands.

Your love, O Lord, is eternal: discard not the work of your hands.

 

Second Reading – Romans 11:33-36 ©

All that Exists Comes from Him; All is by Him and from Him.

How rich are the depths of God – how deep his wisdom and knowledge – and how impossible to penetrate his motives or understand his methods! Who could ever know the mind of the Lord? Who could ever be his counsellor? Who could ever give him anything or lend him anything? All that exists comes from him; all is by him and for him. To him be glory for ever! Amen.

 

Gospel Acclamation – 2 Corinthians 5:19

Alleluia, alleluia!

God in Christ was reconciling the world to himself, and he has entrusted to us the news that they are reconciled.

Alleluia!

 

Alternative Acclamation – Matthew 16:18

Alleluia, alleluia!

You are Peter and on this rock I will build my Church.

And the gates of the underworld can never hold out against it.

Alleluia!

 

The Gospel According to Matthew 16:13 - 30 ©

You Are Peter and On this Rock I Will Build My Church

When Jesus came to the region of Caesarea Philippi he put this question to his disciples, ‘Who do people say the Son of Man is?’ And they said, ‘Some say he is John the Baptist, some Elijah, and others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.’ ‘But you,’ he said ‘who do you say I am?’ Then Simon Peter spoke up, ‘You are the Christ,’ he said, ‘the Son of the living God.’ Jesus replied, ‘Simon son of Jonah, you are a happy man! Because it was not flesh and blood that revealed this to you but my Father in heaven. So I now say to you: You are Peter and on this rock I will build my Church. And the gates of the underworld can never hold out against it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven: whatever you bind on earth shall be considered bound in heaven; whatever you loose on earth shall be considered loosed in heaven.’ Then he gave the disciples strict orders not to tell anyone that he was the Christ.

 

The Twenty-first Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year A)