Homilies & Thoughts

Many of the Fathers of the Church say that we have to read this passage alongside the encounter between the Lord and Saint Peter, when Peter asks him, “How many times must I forgive my brother?” The Lord tells him, “Seventy-seven times”—that is, an infinite number. No matter what happens, we have to keep forgiving.

They say these passages need to be read together because they complement one another. In that other passage, the Lord tells us that, for our own sake and our own holiness, we always have the obligation to forgive. Here, however, he reminds us that we also have obligations to one another. He intends to establish a Church, a community, and that gives us responsibility not only for ourselves but also for our brothers and sisters.

When the Lord tells us that we need to be like these children, many images may come to mind, often shaped by our own experiences of children. But I think his point is demonstrated in the scene itself. He calls out to the little child and says, “Come here,” and the child actually does it. In his innocence and his trust in the Lord, he walks into the midst of all these strangers—what should be a very intimidating scene.

Fear is a corrosive force. It slowly eats away at all that is good. When fear takes control, it increases greed and selfishness, leading us to hoard things that are needed by all. It tears apart relationships and replaces compassion and care with suspicion. We watch fear slowly tear apart societies and nations. Wherever fear reigns, we can be certain that even greater evils will soon follow.

When Saint Peter sees the Lord in the distance, he calls out to him. In a moment of great courage and faith, he walks upon the water. He is taking part in a miracle that defies the very laws of nature.

The phrases “come after me” and “follow me” struck me this morning as I reflected on this Gospel passage. I have to give our translators credit: “come after me” is very close to what the Lord is actually saying. Yet I don’t think we always stop to consider what that phrase means.

In modern English, “Come after me” can sound negative or confrontational—as though someone were saying, “Let’s fight. Come after me!” But the Lord is not inviting us to a wrestling match. He is speaking physically: follow him. The expression uses two different words, a verb and an adverb. The verb means to move in a direction; the adverb means after or behind.

I’ve long wondered how Peter knew that the two men with Jesus were Moses and Elijah. The Gospel doesn’t say they introduced themselves. It seems they were speaking only with the Lord. Peter would never have seen a picture of them; photographs didn’t exist, of course, and Israelite religion—with the exception of the Ark of the Covenant and a few minor items—was aniconic. It did not depict God or people. To Peter, these might have seemed like two random men talking with Jesus, and yet he somehow knew who they were. Clearly, the whole event is supernatural.

One of the challenges in understanding this particular Gospel scene is the difficulty of rendering it into English. The Lord says, “It is not right to take the food of the children and throw it to the dogs.” But the word he uses is not the normal word for “dog.” It is actually the diminutive: “little dog” or “lap dog”—precisely the kind of dog you would keep in the house.

We often criticize Saint Peter because he fails so often. He can be outspoken and quick to jump into things. In today’s Gospel, he speaks and acts quickly: he gets out of the boat, and he fails. It is easy to focus on that failure.

But it is also important to see that he did it: Peter got out of the boat. No one else even tried. No one else had enough faith to begin. Peter at least made it that far. And the Lord does not rebuke him in quite the same way he does elsewhere. His question—“Why did you doubt?”—implies that faith had already been there: Peter wavered. There is certainly a rebuke, but there is also, I think, a kind of praise for Peter’s faith and willingness to try, even though he ultimately fails.

It is easy to sympathize with the disciples in this moment. They are tired. The Lord himself has already endured so much this day. His relative, John the Baptist, has been killed—beheaded.

The Lord withdraws to a deserted place to be alone, surely to spend time in prayer and to prepare for all that is to come. But the crowds hear of it, and they follow him. It does not matter what he is going through; they have needs too. And the Lord has pity on them. He heals their sick. He continues to labor for them.

The Lord tells us that not one letter—not even one mark—will pass away from the law. In that moment, he is speaking of the law of Moses: nothing will pass away until it finds its fulfillment in him. Christ came to fulfill that law completely and thus bring that covenant to completion.

Yet the Church presents this Gospel to us on the feast of Saint Alphonsus. In a spiritual sense, she is applying these words to the law of the Gospel and, in particular, to the moral law God has given us. That moral law will not pass away, because it is an expression of God’s nature and is inscribed in his creation.

The Gospel tells us that the people took offense at him. I think a couple of things are going on.

The first is simple familiarity. They are saying to themselves: We know this man. We remember him growing up, and he was not special then. We know his parents and family; they are not special. So how could he be special now?

We all have some of that tendency in ourselves. Once we have known someone for a long time, we do not always allow that person to change. They have to remain whatever we once knew them to be.

The statement that every scribe instructed in the Kingdom of heaven brings out what is new and what is old refers, I think, in its immediate context to both the old law—the Law of Moses and the books we know as the Old Testament—and the new Gospel that Christ proclaims.

The word “scribe” is exactly the same word Jesus uses when he speaks about the scribes and the Pharisees. There is no difference; it means the same thing. A scribe could have been a major administrative expert or, more specifically, an expert in law—in this case, Jewish law. That, I think, is the immediate context in which Jesus speaks.

Ordinarily, we do not want to conflate the Gospel accounts. We should not take the same scene from two different Gospels, merge the accounts, and try to make every detail fit into a single coherent historical event. Each Gospel was written fundamentally as a self-contained work with its own perspective.

Nonetheless, the Church received all four of them into the canon. So sometimes it does make sense to read across the Gospels, as long as they are showing us different moments.