Can’t you just see it? Jesus staring at his followers, his students, all of them a work in progress, and asking essentially, “hey, what’s the buzz out there about me?” It was a way of assessing how it was going, maybe getting some feedback on the mission and ministry.

Today’s Gospel story comes right on the heels of John the Baptist’s death, the feeding of the five thousand, and the apostles seeing Jesus walk on water. Things were definitely getting serious now. The authorities were noticing and showing signs of displeasure, his reputation was spreading, crowds were growing, and the disciples were beginning to understand that this wasn’t some kind of interesting side hustle they had fallen into. No, this was a radical, all-in, life changing collision course that they were on. And so, Jesus wanted to check in by asking them: “Who do people say that I am?”

And then the twist. He asked them: “But who do you say that I am?” Peter replied: “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” From there, Jesus declared he was the rock upon which he would build his church. Remember Jesus’ parable about building a house on sand versus rock? Peter was the rock now.

Sure, but that’s not what this homily is about…

And then Jesus made the comment about handing him the keys to the kingdom, which the people back then would have heard differently than we do today. Back then, kings and kingdoms were commonplace and so they understood full well exactly what having the “keys to the kingdom” meant. It was about Jesus granting Peter authority.

Sure, but that’s not what this homily is about either.

It’s about the keys. To a kingdom. The kind of keys we all would like to possess.

I believe two things about this:

First, Jesus asks us all this same question. “Who do you say that I am?” And we’re going to need to answer that question.

Second, the answer to it is the very keys to the kingdom.

Despite the vivid visual of us someday standing at the pearly gates and being asked this question in one singular pass-from-one-place-to-another moment in time, I think the actual answer to this question is… the sum total of our lives.

If we are asked: who do you say that I am?… and if we answer as Peter did, then the real question is going to be: did we act that way? As though Jesus truly is the Christ, the Son of the living God? And then, most importantly, is there any evidence to back that up?

Is there any evidence?

What does evidence look like? I’d say it looks like this:

In our lives…

We trusted. We held Christ close in our hardest times and then that and that alone gave us hope and confidence.

We walked through a sometimes confused, sometimes threatened, sometimes furious popular culture with our heads held high because we know that this Christ, the one we are bound to, has our backs.

We led with love. When we ourselves were confused, threatened, or furious… we decided to just go with love.

We cared about the least, the saddest, the most judged, the ones with no voice and without much of a chance.

And we glowed like a restless flame fighting its way out from under a bushel basket and let others see that we’re just simply not like all the rest.

Is there any evidence of such things?

Because in that moment, when he looks into our eyes and asks: “But who do you say that I am?”… wouldn’t it be great to be able to answer exactly as Peter did. Not with our words though… but with our lives.