The God of Being:

 

The Twenty-First Sunday of Ordinary Time 2026 

August 23, 2026

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Isaiah 22:19-23; Psalm 138; Romans 11:33-36; Matthew 16:13-20

 

 Who do you say that I am? Peter gets it right, while the other disciples give some good, plausible answers. Notice that each person has a different answer and distinct experience of Jesus. Peter answers “The Christ, the Son of the Living God.” Those are almost two answers. Let us start with the first one – The Christ. 

 Who is the Christ? We know the title means Messiah, so what do we expect the Messiah to do for us? Most would answer, “To save us.” From what? Sin and guilt. That has not happened. It kind of presupposes that we are problems to be fixed. That is a difficult starting point for theology. Is it possible that Jesus did not come to fix us, but to be in communion with us?

 We sometimes project Jesus Christ to be the new powerful Goliath instead of the resilient underdog, David. The Church is a manifestation of Christ. In our perceptions, the Church is supposed to be huge, important players on the national stage, the acknowledged voice of the people, all the things Goliath was, and all the things that David was not. The irony is that David became the inflated, bullying Goliath he sought to defeat. Many want the Church today to be Goliath, while it is turning back into the smaller David, the one who was full of hope, confidence, and not needing any power or bombastic big talk. 

 Jesus was the disarmed young David who faced the Goliath of empire and death and remains that young armor-less David, armed only with trust in God. Jesus asks his disciples, “Who do you say that I am?” because he wants to make certain they do not turn him into the King David of power, politics, and conquest. We may turn Jesus into Goliath in our imaginations, our politics, our rhetoric, and even in our worship, but Jesus never became Goliath. He remains the little guy. 

 The second part of the answer, the Son of the Living God, provides a fuller portrait. The role of Jesus was to be the utter embodiment in time of God’s purpose to be with us forever. We do not need to be fixed. Christ comes into communion with us as a conversation partner. The purpose of Christ’s incarnation was so that we would perpetually be in a relationship with the Triune God. God, through Jesus, showed us that “being with” us is what is important. It is what God wants most of all. The heart of our faith is that the mystery of the living God, revealed in Jesus Christ, is love itself expressed by sharing communion. If Jesus Christ were to ask me today, “Who do you say that I am?” I would have to answer, “You are God’s love and essence shared with each of us. You call us into communion and relationship with one another. You are the one who wants to be “with us.” You help us to become completely free, open to others, people who can build healthy and beautiful relationships, and you call us to embrace others as God does.” Who are you? You are God “being with” us.