Not What We Do, But Who We Are

Who do you say that I am?...
You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.

This last week I had the opportunity to go to Los Angeles,
to our twin parish, Saint Monica’s in Santa Monica.
I was giving a presentation there on artificial intelligence,
much like the one that we had done here several weeks ago.

I had the wonderful opportunity to visit
my close friend and mentor,
Monsignor Lloyd Torgerson.
Lloyd is a towering figure in the American church,
especially in Los Angeles.
He is eighty-six years old, still pastor,
and he has been pastor over thirty years.
He is still as sharp as a tack.
His body is giving in, but he is not giving in.
He is going down with his boots on.

He has this wonderful way.
He is so hospitable.
He is such a generous human being.
He meets me, and it is always the first thing he says:
“Brendan, you are so wonderful. I love you.”
And it warms you up on the inside,
because he is looking straight into you.
It looks like he is peering right into your soul
when he says it.
He means every word of it.

Then I noticed how he greets everybody
coming into the presentation,
young and old,
the highly educated and those under-educated,
those who have just arrived and those who have been here for years,
native born or immigrants,
the homeless or wealthy,
and he greets every one of them the same way.
“You are wonderful. I love you.”
And he means it, absolutely means it.
It oozes out of him, his love for his people.

Now, what struck me about that is this.
After thirty years of being a pastor and so revered,
you expect him to be revered by his people.
Of course he is.
But he reveres them.
He absolutely loves them.
And it shows in every conversation.
You see, he can really see the Christ in every single one of us.
It is a powerful gift.

As I flew back, I thought to myself,
I want to be a pastor just like that.
I wish I could teach my people,
not only for me to do that, but for all of us,
to be able to see into each other’s souls
and see not the stuff that we carry,
but who we are,
that we are loved by God.

It is a challenge for us to see here in Silicon Valley,
because we have two hungers.
The first hunger is to be recognized for who we are:
not by our quarterly reports,
not by our productivity,
not by our latest deadlines,
not by our latest innovation or numbers,
which is what we are typically judged by,
but for just who we are.

I would love just to be seen for a moment as a child of God,
and to be recognized simply as a child,
not for what we do,
not for a title,
not for a position,
not for how much we have,
not even for what school we went to,
but for who we are,
a child of God.

The second hunger is equally important,
and that is to see others that way.
Here in Silicon Valley,
we are incredibly gifted and smart at assessing things,
sizing things up very quickly,
getting to an immediate solution that is not only innovative,
but profitable and makes sense.
The challenge is we sometimes turn that on people,
and we size them up in a matter of a minute.
We have them figured out.

Are they valuable or not valuable?
Will they be part of our team as a contributor, or will they not?
Are they going to be a good neighbor? Are they not?
Are they part of us, or are they not part of us?
And we have this sense of immediately assessing people.

And the hunger ought to be:
can I see them as a child of God?
Can I see into their soul like Monsignor does,
to recognize their humanity
and the dormant divinity within their soul?

See, if you look at these readings today,
this particular gospel, a beautiful gospel,
Jesus asks his disciples,
“Who do people say that I am?”
And they say, “Oh, one of the prophets.
You are great. You are Elijah.”
They see just what we have been talking about.
They see the things he does.
They say, “Oh, you are a great prophet.
You do this. You can see it.”
They are calculating.
The exact same calculator two thousand years later,
and we are still calculating the same way.

And then he asks a deeper question:
“Who do you say that I am?”
Peter speaks up, thankfully, boldly.
He says, “You are the Christ.
You are the Son of the living God.”
He sees him.
He really sees him for who he is,
not for what he has done,
not for what he has,
but for who he really is,
the Son of God.

But here is what happens next.
It is really important.
Jesus immediately levels the playing field.
He tells him you did not come to know this
because you achieved it.
It was given to you as a gift by your Father in heaven.
This was revealed to you.
He did not earn it either.
He is not the smartest of the lot.
He is not the one who achieved it.
He was given the gift of faith,
and he accepted it and spoke from his heart.

Then he pronounces,
“You are going to be the rock.”
Peter, which means rock.
Cephas means rock.
And on this rock we are going to build a church.
In other words, the call is that you and I must do the same thing.
Realize that our gift of faith is just that.
We do not earn it.
We do not achieve it.

That is not what we come here on Sunday morning for.
This is not some checkmark that we say,
“Yep, we have done it. We have got it.
We achieved it.”
No, no, no.
We have been given this as a gift.
And why we come here is to accept that humbly,
and to recognize that God sees me as a child,
as His child,
and He loves me just for who I am.
Not what I have accomplished,
not my title,
not my position,
not how much I own,
not how much I have earned.
None of those matter.
He just sees us.

And here is the most beautiful part of it.
He sees every one of us
regardless of what our titles are.
He sees those who are broken and wounded equally.
He sees us Americans in the same way He sees the Iranians.
He sees the people in Gaza and the people in Israel,
the people in Ukraine and the people in Russia.
He sees them all as children of God.
And I am sure He has a tear in His eyes
that we are fighting with one another.
It makes no sense to Him that my children are fighting.
He laments it, but He loves us.
And He continues to love us,
because He peers into our soul
and sees us as a child of God.

So, what is our challenge?
Our challenge is first to acknowledge
that when we come to this table,
it is not our achievement.
It is the grace that God has given us.
And to accept that we are loved and beloved by God
just the way we are,
broken and wounded,
wonderful and great,
whatever it is.

But here is the second challenge.
Can we see one person in our life this week
and peer into their soul?
I mean really see them and acknowledge who they are.
Maybe it is somebody that we have already judged
and we do not want them in our spectrum.
Can we really look at them again
and notice that they are a child of God?
They are wonderful.
And break open this valley
to not be measured by all the stuff,
but instead to be seen and to see.

That is my challenge for all of us.
And maybe we can learn a thing or two
from Monsignor.
So I say to you, I love you.
You are wonderful.
You are wonderful.

And who do you say that I am?...
You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.