Who Do You Say?
Some of us are “mature” enough to remember the hit song “I heard it through the grapevine” which was popular in the 1970s (Creedence Clearwater Revival) and 1980s (Marvin Gaye). The grapevine is what Jesus asks about in Sunday’s gospel (Mt 16:13-20). Who do they say he is? What’s the gossip out there about Jesus? Jesus was well aware of the power of reputation, rumor, for good or for bad, better or less, best or worst.
The grapevine of gossip was very powerful when I served as a missionary in Paraguay, South America. Paraguay is a very tight-knit culture with the native Guaraní people and language predominating over Spanish. You may remember the 1986 film “The Mission” starting Robert De Niro and Jeremy Irons, about the experiences of Jesuit missionaries in 18th century South America and their efforts to protect the Guaraní natives from enslavement.
In Paraguay, Guaraní is 'the people's language', an indigenous language that has no Indo-European roots. In the Guaraní language the grapevine or gossip/rumor mill is called “radio so’o.” Radio stands for, yes, your simple radio. So’o sort of rhymes with “toe-oh” and it means gossip, the grapevine, rumor mill. And, yes, we certainly have our own “radio so’o” all around us in our culture, don’t we?
While I was serving in Paraguay, it was through radio so’o that the poor people, Guaraní speakers, were able to spread the word, the good news about human dignity and human rights which ultimately overthrew the brutal dictatorship of NAZI admirer and dictator Alfredo Stroessner in 1989. The Jesuits on mission there were part of that “radio so’o” network, but it was the empowered Guaraní people and their grapevine, their radio so’o that brought down the powers of evil at that time.
The grapevine, radio so’o is what today’s Gospel is all about. Jesus puts his disciples on the spot by asking them what’s the gossip about his identity and their own: “Who do they say, and who do you say that I am?” Talk about being put on the spot! Have you ever had a friend look you in the eye and ask: “What do you think of me?” How potentially embarrassing it can be!
How are we to approach such questions? This is what we face in Sunday’s Gospel. This is what Jesus asks of his disciples and us: “What do you think of me?” If someone asks us such a question, we might hide behind the details that belong in a résumé, mentioning professional, social or athletic accomplishments. Getting a little more personal, we might refer to vague qualities and remain on the superficial level with adjectives like “nice, good-looking, strong,” or venture into more relational descriptions such as “my friend, my beloved, my hero.” That’s pretty much the challenge in Sunday’s Gospel.
Jesus led his friends away from their normal stomping grounds and then started to ask questions that, ultimately, led them to explain who they themselves were as they continued to follow his lead. When Jesus asked, “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?” he started innocently enough by getting them to report on what they were hearing about him. In the days before Twitter or NPR, their grapevine relied on what they picked up in synagogue patios, open air markets and city gates, plus a little of what gossip was heard around the local well. Then, yanking them right out of the role of impartial reporting, Jesus put his disciples on the witness stand by asking one direct question: “But you, who do you say that I am?” One can imagine that the dirt beneath the disciples feet suddenly seemed very attractive, even fascinating, as they stared down, pondered and stuttered in response.
Eventually bold Peter spoke up. “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” That was a great answer and so direct that he could hardly have been wrong.
Peter’s statement in the name of the group effectively declared that their relationship with Jesus was the commitment that defined their lives. It gave them the power of faith that can open locked doors.
In conferring the keys to the kingdom, Jesus gave the responsibility to unlock and open doors as he had done throughout his ministry. While the official religious authorities were often quick to decide who was “in” and who was “out”, Jesus excluded no one but rather mourned the plight of those who excluded themselves by rejecting the free gifts he offered.
And you, what’s on radio so’o about you? Who do they say you are, and who do you say you are and want to be? What doors are you called to open to let loose those who are locked up, excluded, oppressed, rejected, maybe starting with yourself? May our ongoing experience of Jesus through the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius help us answer these most important questions. And you might use these questions for your own awareness examen on a regular basis:
1) Who do you say Jesus is? 2) Who do you say you are? 3) What do those most important in your life have to say about you on radio so’o?
-Fr. Ted Arroyo, SJ