When I was in high school there was a hallway poster that said, “Not to decide, is to decide.” It challenged me as a teenager. It was demanding that I face up to the truth of putting off the decision to go to college or not. The message wasn’t that I should go, but that I should recognize a decision was being made by ignoring the choice.
Choices and decisions fill our lives and it seems a decision is always a yes to one thing and a no to another. That sounds simple but when we are making decisions and choices, what we are saying no to is not so clear. And sometimes what we are saying yes to … is only a cover up for what we really are choosing.
This whole matter of choosing and deciding and facing up to the truth is at the heart of our Gospel. For what we choose tells others who we are, what is important to us, what we believe in.
Those that do a good job at choosing, know how to find there way and make an impression on the rest of us who might be struggling with major questions..
There was another occasion during my high school years that I remember… made me face my true choices in life and who I was.
It was the early 70’s and everything was different then. Long hair was in, bell bottoms and hip huggers were the style and if it feels good do it was the message of the world.
Well maybe it wasn’t that much different from today.
But one thing that was different was that I was not Catholic, in fact I did not convert to Christianity until later when I was 19 years old and, in the Navy, but that is another story.
But on this occasion in the hallways of my high school a beautiful young girl named Sherry LaRue was involved.
I had wanted to go out with Sherry for a long time but never had the courage to ask her out. I thought about it and tried to talk to her many times only to be met with pleasant, friendly responses but nothing that would let me know she was interested. Tough work for a shy introverted teenage boy.
So, one day I just walked up to her and asked her straight out if she would you like to go out with me that Saturday. She had been in the middle of putting her books in her locker and was very busy but she immediately stopped and turned to me, which I thought was a good sign, but instead of saying yes, no or even some made up excuse to spare us both anxiety, she said it depends. So I asked her what it depended on.
But what she said next, I was not in anyway prepared for. She looked directly into my eyes and said, “I don’t go out with boys unless they believe in Jesus Christ.”
That stopped me in my tracks. That changed the whole playing field. In those words, she told me, she knew who she was, she knew where her priorities were, she might be interested but she would suffer no fools, not anyone that was not committed to the values and the truth that is Jesus Christ.
I know how she would have answered Jesus’ question to Peter today.
That is what our Gospel is about. Jesus question to his disciples and us about who we say he is….is about who we are, what our priorities are.
It is the foundation we must use for how we live, how we love, how we work and how we make decisions.
I did learn a couple of things as a teenager. That we must face up to each decision we make for what it is and that even the decision not to decide is to decide with a yes for one thing and a no for another. I also discovered that people who know who they are, people who have a SOLID belief and trust in the teachings of Jesus and believe him to be the Christ ….don’t have the struggles that others have in living their life and making choices.
Maybe today we aren’t quite there yet. Maybe our decisions are difficult and we truly struggle to find the right answer.
Tough decisions and challenges can be found everywhere and not just in the hallways of high schools although many life changing decisions are made there and sometimes the seed of faith is planted.
As a Deacon for over 25 years… I often meet wonderful young men and women full of hope and love and expectations for the future who are coming to the church to prepare for the Sacrament of Marriage.
They are mesmerized by their feelings for each other and want to spend the rest of their lives together. They face tough decisions too. Whether to have sexual relations before marriage or whether to live together before the wedding.
So many of their friends are doing it. So much casual sex is on TV, in the movies on social media forums… They get desensitized to the perversion it is to the sacrament, and they do not see that when they are choosing to live together before marriage, they are saying yes to one thing and no to another.
They may be living together for convenience, to be closer, or for financial reasons, or what is usually not discussed, for the sexual pleasure that is available to them. Unfortunately, the truth is they are saying yes to, sex, money, and convenience and at the same time saying no to God.
Which is the tragedy, since they usually truly want a permanent relationship within marriage which only God can help two poor human beings create. But by living together they are taking a step away from God and his Grace.
As parents we have many more difficult choices to make too, don’t we?
Where do we live, where is it best for the kids? Is it better to be close to the aging parents, or to go where the money is good or the best companies located.
Places where our kids will have to live around other transient, nomadic workers where dysfunction is the norm. We rationalize by thinking of all we can provide them with a better job and more money and how we will be better able to take care of mom and dad with the extra income.
But it never seems to work out that way. Kids don’t seem to be better off with more “things.” Our parents would rather have us around that a check in the mail.
Once again, we need to face up to the truth of our decisions and priorities. Should we put our trust in more money or in God?
When Jesus asked the disciples the first question in our Gospel today “who do the people say he is,” he really wasn’t interested in that answer.
He knew the crowds of people were doing what crowds of people always do, follow anyone and misunderstand most things. The crowd then, like the world now always takes what seems like the easy way. Always seeking immediate satisfaction, the next big thrill or recreation that will take their mind off of their fears, doubts, and troubles. Crowds are like that and Jesus knew it. He knew the same crowds praising him now would be shouting crucify him later.
No, his first question was only a set up for the second question, the real one. The one he pulled the disciples aside to ask them. “Who do you say that I am?”
For they were men who had followed him, knew him, lived with him. It was their response he really cared about. It would be Peter that He would give the keys to the kingdom. You bet he wanted to know who they said he was. Did they get it yet!
Do we get it yet?
Today, 2000 years later, after everything we have seen, been taught and lived, if Jesus came to us, looked at us eye to eye and said: ‘Who do you say that I am?’ What would our response be?
Would our decisions and choices in life echo and reflect our answer?
Would we be like the Jews and say Jesus was a Teacher but not a Messiah. Would we mirror the Muslims and say Jesus was a prophet, but not God.
Or like our society, say…Jesus is just another myth believed by those that are weak, certainly not God since there really isn’t any God except maybe Money, Sex and Convenience.
We know that is what the world outside believes because our world tells us what pleasures to love, what new cars to venerate, what new set of clothes to hide our obsessions in and to not worry about our selfish lives because we work hard and we deserve it.
The reality is our choices in life reflect our answer to Jesus question.
If we have chosen the values of the world, ahead of his values, if we have chosen to live together outside of Marriage, if we have chosen to accumulate more and more money without giving back, if we have chosen to allow lust and sexual pleasure to dominate our lives we are not answering like Peter did.
If we put convenience ahead of worship and teach our children that it is okay to miss mass … if we are too tired, too hurried because of the soccer game, or the football game later on or we have taught them that it really isn’t that important, we are being a false teacher to our children and have not and cannot answer as Peter did.
It’s a yes or no answer.
If we can answer like Peter does, we are faithful followers who know how to answer the question. We have freedom from following the crowd because we know who we are children of God and we know that nothing out there can touch the peace and love Jesus Christ offers us in us here.
If you came here tonight with a difficult decision to make. If you have been pressured to do what you know in your heart is wrong. Give the decision to God and pray about it.
We all need to make good decisions and give our answer to Jesus by the way we live our lives.
Everyone of us must say yes to Jesus Christ by how we live our our lives together. Anything that takes us away from that answer is a no. To not decide to give all of our life over to Jesus is actually a decision. Once we truly confess with our actions and decisions a commitment to Jesus Christ everything changes. The whole playing field changes once we make the change. The decisions are easy. The path forward already planned for us. Who do we say Jesus is? Our life tells all. †
Deacon Tony Pynes 
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