Enter Passcode

21st Sunday in Ordinary Time (A)

(Lay Apostolate Sunday)

Readings: Isaiah 22:19-23; Psalm 137:1-3,6,8; Romans 11:33-36; Matthew 16:13-20

Picture: cc Pieter Ouwerkerk

Sisters and brothers, when you pick up a smartphone to use it, what do you usually have to do first? Typically, most people have to unlock the phone. They tap a passcode onto a keypad. Or, in newer phones, they trace a prearranged pattern on the screen. Which is easy to do. Since we usually use our phones frequently enough for us to remember the code. But what if, for some reason, the device you are using is not your own? What if you’re borrowing or answering someone else’s phone. What then? How do you gain access to it? Well, quite apart from taking extraordinary measures to hack into it, what you need is, of course, to get the owner to reveal the security code to you. Only then can you gain access to the phone. Only then can you enjoy the wonders of modern communication.

I mention this, not because I want to sell you a phone. But because our Mass readings today are really all about gaining access. Gaining access not just to a smartphone. Not just to any ordinary means of communication. But to something far more important. Something on which our happiness, indeed our very life, depends. The same thing that St. Paul is writing about in the second reading. How rich are the depths of God… and how impossible to penetrate his motives or understand his methods! Gaining access to the depths of God. Penetrating God’s motives and methods. Tapping into the very life and mystery of God. Finding and using the one all-important passcode that unlocks for us the secret to true happiness in life. This is what our Mass readings are offering us today. Are you interested?

If you are, then consider carefully what is happening in the other readings. Notice how, in both the first reading and the gospel, God chooses privileged people to whom a secret passcode is entrusted. In the first reading, this person is Eliakim. The newly appointed master of the palace. The one through whom everyone else gains access to the king. In the gospel, this privileged person is Peter. He is the new master of the palace. The holder of the keys to the kingdom of God. The one entrusted with the passcode that gains us access to the depths of God. Access to true happiness in life.

And notice the process by which this appointment is made in the gospel. It involves three steps. The first step is highlighted by Jesus, when he says that Peter is a happy man, because Peter has received a revelation from the Father in heaven. Just as we cannot use someone else’s phone without that person revealing the passcode to us. So too we gain access to God only by receiving God’s revelation. But what is it exactly that God reveals? What does God’s passcode look like? Well, it looks like the answer to the crucial question that Jesus poses to his disciples in the gospel today. Who do you say I am?
Who do you say I am? In the gospel, it is Peter who gives the right answer. It is Peter who enters the correct passcode. You are the Christ, the Son of the living God. This is the revelation Peter has received. The realisation that this very ordinary-looking man, standing before him here and now, is actually the very presence of the eternal God. The One who is beyond space and time. The same God who created the whole universe out of nothing. And who cares for his creatures as a loving Father cares for his beloved children.

And, in answering Jesus’ question, Peter also takes the next step. First revelation. Then recognition. And a truly marvellous, even miraculous, recognition. A recognition of the Divine in the human. The Eternal in the temporal. The Extraordinary in the ordinary. And then, beyond recognition, there is a third step. There is a call to respond. Having answered Jesus’ question correctly, Peter is invited to continue committing his life to the Lord. To continue following the One he has recognised wherever He may go. And we know, of course, exactly where Jesus is going in the gospel today. He is making his way to Jerusalem. Where He will lay down his life so that all might be saved. In the gospel, Peter is called to receive, to recognise, and to respond to, the revelation of God in the humanity of Jesus. Not just the Jesus who speaks powerful words and works amazing miracles. But also the Jesus who will be arrested and tortured. Killed and buried. Resurrected and exalted.

Revelation, recognition and response. Receiving the revelation of God in Christ. Recognising the presence of God in Christ. Responding to the call of God in Christ. These are the three steps that characterise the appointment of Peter as the holder of the keys to the palace. The rock on which the Church is built. The screen on which the passcode is entered. The one through whom access to the kingdom is granted. Whatever you bind on earth shall be considered bound in heaven; whatever you loose on earth shall be considered loosed in heaven.

But that’s not all, sisters and brothers. Our readings today are not just about Peter. For what is true of Peter, the representative of Christ, is also true of us, members of the Church, the Body of Christ. Just as Peter is called to recognise and to respond to the Lord. So too are we called to do the same. To look at the ordinary, even difficult, situations of our lives. The daily routines of work and worship. The interior struggles with desires and fears. The external interactions with the strange and the familiar. To look at all these, and to recognise in them the face of Christ. The Cross of Christ. The Joy of Christ. In particular, to hear the cries of the many suffering people in our world. And to recognise in them the call of Christ. Who continues to pose to each and to all of us the same question posed to the disciples in the gospel today. Who do you say I am? A question capable of penetrating the hardness of our hearts. If only we let it. Begging us to make a generous response.

And isn’t this also what we celebrate today? On this Lay Apostolate Sunday? Today we remember who we are. What we are called to do. For, as Peter is for us, so too are we for the rest of the world. We are the keepers of the keys to kingdom of God. We are the witnesses to the Mystery of the Dying and Rising of Christ. We are the bearers of the passcode that gains access to the fullness of Life in God. And we live up to this our awesome calling only to the extent that we continue to do as Peter was called to do. In the ordinary circumstances of our lives, to continue receiving the revelation of God. To continue learning to recognise the face and the voice of Christ. To continue responding to the promptings of the Spirit. Urging us to share with others the joy that we are gathered here, in this Eucharist, to celebrate. This, my dear sisters and brothers, is what it means to be a lay apostle. One appointed and sent by God into the world. To share Jesus with the world. So that the world might live.

Sisters and brothers, how are you being called to do this? To help others gain access to the joys of the kingdom of God today?