Both the prophetic context of our theme and its echo later in the Gospel call us Trinitarians to become – ourselves! – a living prophecy: From These Stones we live as an embodied witness to God’s hopes, past and future …

When the world feels like it is falling apart, where do you see hope? Where do you see the fractures coming together? Today’s gospel reminds us that God is always seeking to restore humanity through presence, love, and compassion. Where are you seeing that love today?

If I’m honest, more than once I have prayed: “Lord, please lead me, but please don’t lead me there.” And when we follow Jesus with conditions, when we set the terms of our discipleship, our prayer becomes an echo of Peter’s rebuke. Before we know it, we’re no longer followers, but stumbling blocks.

The Confession of Peter is our reminder that when we believe we have figured it out, when we believe we have arrived, that it is actually not of our own doing, and we are never not impacted by the world around us, which will always offer us a better, an easier deal.

How often do we miss the point because we are trapped in our own perspective? How often do we dismiss the “other” because we think we already know the end result? Today’s gospel reminds us that God seeks us all out, not just the chosen, ALL of us to walk this path together. One step at a time.

No matter or situation or status, we identify ourselves as the hungry Jesus has come to feed – the captives Jesus has come to set free.  Making a show of our suffering, we bring the world’s puritanical, polarized tactics to our altar … not for renewal but for retribution, anywhere we can get it.

While we find ourselves traveling this way of faith, no matter where we are, God is there with us and invites and empowers us to welcome people to travel with us.

God doesn’t live in an easily-parsed B-movie world, type casting each of us into either hero or villain roles. God lives in the very entanglements, lives with us, and loves us, weedy as we might be, with the same abundance as the sower who throws seed every which way, placing hope even in the more incredulous of places.

We don’t choose the Kingdom of Heaven because it’s easier or softer. We choose it because every other kingdom buckles under the weight of broken promises and false hopes. These other kingdoms promise to satisfy our deepest desires, but in the end, they leave us empty and unfulfilled.