In today's Gospel we see Jesus do something that He does often-- He tells His followers not to call attention to who He is or what He has done (Lk 9: 18-22). We see Him work miracles, like restoring sight or enabling someone to walk, and tell the person who has been healed not to talk about it. Today Peter has somehow realized that Jesus is the "Christ of God" (no doubt through the work of the Holy Spirit) and Jesus "rebukes them (the disciples) and directs them not to tell this (who He is) to anyone." There are lots of reasons we can imagine why Jesus so often wants not to draw attention to who He is. Perhaps He thinks people will jump to the conclusion that, as the Messiah, He has come to restore the Kingdom of Israel in an earthly sense, and, since that is not His mission, things won't go well. Perhaps He is worried that all the publicity about His miracles will cause people to focus on the miracles, and not on the good news of the Kingdom. Maybe He fears that all sorts of adulation will cause Him to start believing what people are saying about Him, and stray from His mission. Whatever the reason, in a time when people seem so focused on self-promotion, measuring their success in "followers" or "clicks" or "likes," it does seem pretty remarkable that Jesus' actions are the opposite of self-promotion. Perhaps there is a lesson there for us. We might ask ourselves if it really is such a good thing to spend so much time "blowing our own horn," as my grandmother would have said. Doesn't that sort of thing risk making us egotistical, narcissistic, self-absorbed? How can we care for others if what we really care about is ourselves and how we are perceived by others out in the ether? Since Jesus was the perfect human, without sin, how He approaches the issue of adulation and self-glorifying publicity ought to be an example to be emulated. It teaches us that really good people don't spend time on self-promotion; they sit at the foot of the table, rather than the head; when they do something, it isn't all about them. Many of the role models around us do just the opposite. We would do well not to follow them, but to follow Jesus.