The deacons preached this past weekend, and they introduced our new message series, “Next STEPS.”
In the Gospel, Jesus asks the Apostles, “Who do you say that I am?” Of course we know that Peter answers, “You are the Christ, the Son of God.” How we answer that question is very important because it really does determine how we live our lives. Of course most of us would say that we agree with St. Peter’s answer, but do we really? We need to do more than just say so with our lips; it must be more than an intellectual consent to an idea. It must be an adherence of our heart.
St. James talks about this in today’s second reading. St. James says that there cannot be any true faith without works. Now this has caused a lot of problems in Christianity, and it has been a point of contention between Catholics and Protestants for a long time. Mostly it was due to a misunderstanding. Like St. James, Catholics have never taught that we can earn our salvation and redemption through good works. Nope, it does not matter how many Rosaries you say, how much money you give to the poor, or how many meals you give out to the hungry. Our salvation is a completely free gift from Jesus Christ – He won it for us. We accept the gift of our salvation by putting our faith in Jesus. As God, Jesus is love, and love is never forced on someone. Jesus loves us, and through His Passion, Death and Resurrection, has saved us and He does so without asking us, but He will not force us to accept His love and what He won for us. We must make an act of faith.
However, as St. James was pointing out, that act of faith has consequences; it changes how we live our lives. So the good works that we do are the fruit of our faith in Jesus. Because we have accepted Him as our savior, as disciples we want to live as He lived, to move as He moved, to love as He loves. As it says elsewhere in the Gospels, it is not enough to just say “Lord, Lord.” We must live our faith.
That gets us back to how do we answer Jesus’ question in today’s Gospel, “Who do you say that I am?” If we truly have faith, we will say with St. Peter, “You are the Christ, the Son of God,” and like St. Peter and the other Apostles we will make following Jesus THE priority of our lives, even if that means leaving family, friends, career, and property behind. Like the Apostles, we will not be perfect – we will take two steps forward, and one back at times – but we will be always striving to follow Jesus.
Our new message series will look at these basic steps of following Jesus, of being a disciple. STEPS is an acornym.
“S” is for service. As the saying goes, it is better to give than to receive, and so it is true that being a disciple means being of service. We can group service into two general categories; ministries and mission. Ministries are those services that we provide that help within the parish. The most of these are the various liturgical ministries like being a lector, Extraordinary Minister of Holy Communion, musician and singers, ushers, and altar servers. But there are other ways that we can serve in the parish, especially when we are having one of our special events, such as the Bountiful Breakfast which will happen in November, Lunch with Santa in December, and of course our Spring Fling. Mission has more of a focus on outside the parish. Our biggest program here is the St. Vincent de Paul Society.
“T” stands for tithing. Yes, I am using the “t” word. The Bible is very clear that we are expected to support the Church materially. We are to develop a heart as generous as God is generous to us. Such giving also teaches us to rely on God, to have faith that God will always give us what we need.
“E” stands for engage, and this mostly has to do with small groups. Faith is a very personal thing, but it is not suppose to be a private thing. Recently I heard a Scripture scholar talking about Jesus’ parable about the man who had a bountiful crop and just planned to build bigger barns. What I found so interesting is the point that the man just talks with himself and about himself. The scholar pointed out that that was very contrary to the culture of the time. All big decisions were discussed with the other people in the community; OK, usually the other men of the village, but still the point was that we are a part of a community. As a parish we are going to look into forming more small groups, but you don’t have to wait for us. Make a point of getting together with friends who share your Catholic values, and talk about what God is doing in your life.
“P” stands for prayer. We cannot follow Jesus if we do not spend time with Him. If we truly believe that Jesus is the Christ, then spending time with Him, every day, will be a priority. I recently saw a post that Mark Wahlberg (the actor) made about his daily schedule. Besides the fact that he gets up at 2:30 AM every day, what impressed me was that the first thing he schedules is 30 minutes of prayer. We should all schedule personal prayer everyday, and not just to tell Jesus about our needs, but to listen to Him. This personal prayer then leads us back to our community prayer, centrally Mass on Sundays.
The final “S” stands for sharing our faith. Through our baptism, we are all called to be evangelists. We should be eager to share with friends, family, and co-workers all the good things that God is doing in our lives. We should want everyone to experience the Good News of knowing Jesus Christ.
Of course we will talk more about each of these steps over the coming weeks.