Homily for Saturday, Week 7 of Easter

Homily for Saturday
7th Week of Easter

May 18, 2024
John 21: 20-25
Missionaries of Charity, Bronx

“Jesus said to him, ‘What if I want him to remain until I come?  What concern is it of yours?  You follow me.’”  (John 21: 22)

Jesus with Peter at the shore (Tissot)

Have you ever heard a passage of Scripture, a piece of spiritual reading, a homily, or an examination of conscience and reacted something like, “Oh, I hope so-and-so was listening to that.”

It’s quite true that we are our sisters’ and brothers’ keepers.  We are members of Christ’s body.  We do have responsibilities of concern, sharing, support, and correction toward each other.

On the other hand, Christianity is also an intensely personal religion.  Historians of the early Church tell us that its personalism, as well as its brotherly love, was a sociological reason for Christianity’s flourishing so soon after its birth.  Belief in Jesus as Lord involves a keenly personal relationship with the Father thru the Son.  It also means personal responsibility:  every person is ultimately responsible for her own destiny in conjunction with God’s grace.

What I like about Peter as we see him in the gospels is his plainness.  He’s an ordinary human being like me:  now straightforward, now perplexed, now courageous, now overcome by fright, now selfish, now generous.  The Peter we see this morning is, in a word, nosy.  He’s just had a personal encounter with Christ, been made responsible for pasturing the flock, been told his earthly destiny, and been instructed to follow his master.  So he turns around, sees the beloved disciple, and wants to know, “Lord, what about him?”

Why do we get so curious, so nosy, so gossipy about other people?  There are a variety of reasons that motivate us, such as escapism, dominance, and judgment.

By escapism, we mean to avoid our own selves—our problems, our struggles, our weaknesses, our shallowness.  We distract ourselves by looking outward at others.

By dominance, we mean to satisfy our self-importance, to make ourselves the center of attention, by what we know and what we can say about others:  “Guess what I know that you don’t know.”  Sometimes we even use that knowledge as a weapon against others.

By judgment, we mean to find out who’s doing what, or why she’s doing it, so that we may make comparisons and pass judgment upon her deeds and upon her.  Maybe that’s just a variation of self-avoidance and self-importance.

Whatever.  Jesus sets Peter straight at once, bluntly.  “If I want him to remain until I come again, what business is it of yours?  You just worry about following me.”  Leave your idle curiosity behind and concentrate on discipleship.

May the Lord give us wisdom to sort out nosiness and gossip from genuine sisterly concern.