A lectionary meditation for our twenty-first week of Ordinary Time in 2026

It is an odd thing to realize my senses are lacking. Through my senses I experience my life, and yet each one of them is lacking. On the one hand, this makes sense. There are things I have never tasted, seen, heard, smelled, or touched before. This would expand the horizons of what I previously knew was possible. Within each sense there is also the potential for greater depth and appreciation. It is not simply enough to see with my eyes. All that is sensed is also interpreted. In today’s gospel reading, Peter saw Jesus – but also understood that he was looking at the “Messiah, the Son of the living God.”

The ways Simon Peter’s senses were experiencing Jesus in the moment of his Christological confession were not different from weeks or years earlier. He still saw the same person. The voice of Jesus still sounded the same. The way that Peter was experiencing the world had not changed, but our God had done something within him. Today’s reading from Romans is helpful in pointing us towards what may have changed within Peter.  “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God—what is good and acceptable and perfect.”

It is not difficult for me to believe that our God allowed Peter to see Jesus in a new way in today’s reading. I myself have had experiences like this, though they have nearly always been at the guidance or revelation of someone else. It was in art school where I learned how to see colors, shapes, shadows, and composition in ways I had never understood before. As I learned to cook, the meals that I ate became revelatory to their component parts and the process that transformed and presented them. The further I dive into the art of homiletics and preaching, the more I appreciate the structure and movements within a good sermon. As I learn more about a subject, it is normal to move from seeing the broad strokes into the finer and finer details.

Every one of these aspects already exists, but I don’t know how to interpret what my senses are giving me. Peter was asked by his rabbi and friend, “Who do you say I am?” Our God had revealed within the depths of Peter something new about who Jesus was. He was not simply a prophet who was anointed by God like so many who had come before. He saw Jesus as he did thousands of times before and now understood that Jesus was the Son of God. This revelation from God stood in opposition to all that Peter had learned about God growing up. Hearing and studying the Hebrew scriptures would not have led Peter to believe that God would walk the roads of the Levant with him. This had not happened before. It was beyond experience, story, and maybe even beyond their imagination.

It can be difficult to trust what might be a revelation from God. Whenever a thought, idea, or emotion arrives to me from beyond myself (often because it is new, unexpected, or out of context), I do a couple things. The first is that I see if it is in alignment with the fruit of the Spirit in Galatians, and the description of love in First Corinthians. If it is, the next thing I do is compare it to the person of Jesus I see and know from the gospels. Jesus is the Son of God, and these are the stories we have about Him. If there is something new that is unlike God, then I can let it go. What remains with me may be from God. All of this is held lightly and delicately. Whatever it is, it cannot be used to control others or to impose myself upon on others.

Urban Monasticism was one such thought that came to me in a time of prayer. It took years of conversation and ongoing prayer before we invited others to consider it with us and to eventually join us. In the years that have come to pass since, we have done the work and slowly built what is today and what will be tomorrow. Others have affirmed this work and have felt God’s presence through this monastic life. So we continue to move.

There will never be a time in our lives where we stand before Jesus and hear the voice of God clearly affirm the revelation of God within us. We are not as fortunate as Peter was. So we must be gentle, cautious, and loving. For we may be wrong. Yet, if we are right and we move in love, we are moving in the very character of our God.

May you believe what the Lord helps you to see.

Readings for the 21^st Sunday of Ordinary Time · Year A

Sunday readings according to the Revised Common Lectionary.

Photo Credit
Paul Prins on 23 October 2024 in Paris