“Who do YOU say I am?” (Mark 8:27-38)
Life is full of questions. There are the routine, mundane questions of “what should I have for breakfast this morning?” There are questions with perhaps greater significance like “Where did I park the car?” Or much more important “Who will win the election?” There are questions such as “Is there life on Mars or Venus?” that capture our imagination and leave us waiting for definitive answers. There are questions of timeless and eternal mysteries like “Where does the missing sock in the dyer go? But then, there are questions that we must each answer for ourselves and only we can answer. Questions like “What are you going to be when you grow up?” “How will you choose to spend your life’s energies?” “What do you think God’s dream is for your life?”
Jesus asks two critical questions in our story. One is “who do people say the Son of Man is?’ and the other is a more direct and immediate question “Who do you say I am?”
It is interesting to notice the order is which Jesus asks these questions. He begins his inquiry with a more general type of question, wanting to know what the people thought of him. Often, with complex or difficult issues, it is easier to name what other people think or say rather than offer a self -revealing response. (I don’t know what I personally think about a given issue but I know that 85 % of “Seven Sharp” viewers are against it)
Jesus asks the disciples “who do the crowds say that I am?” He wants them to be poll reporters. They answer him; some say John the Baptist, some say Elijah, some say one of the ancient prophets. Jesus has learned some valuable things and he has opened a conversation of great significance. Let’s notice and observe what each of these answers have in common to the other. Each of their answers places Jesus as a forerunner. As one who is preparing the way for the Messiah who is yet to come.
Though Jesus has proclaimed and demonstrated that the kingdom of God is at hand. The people must not have quite believed it and thought that the day was still yet to come, it hasn’t happened quite yet. Always coming – but never here. It is a very convenient answer. It allows people to keep searching. It allows people to keep defining the Messiah the way they want to, it allows them to keep looking and not have to decide the truth. If the Messiah is still coming and not yet here, then we do not have to commit our lives to him.
Fred Cradock, an American preacher and author, writes, that to believe that Jesus has come means that we can no longer shape him to fit our dreams. The first and very difficult task of the Messiah is to stop people from continuing to look for one. I sometimes wish he would just say “Ta Da!” Here I am. And so Jesus moves the disciples toward a moment of decision by asking “who do people say I am?” The answer to the question is important to Jesus but even more so to those who answer the question. With their response they tell of how they are living their lives, will they look past the Messiah in their midst or will they embrace the love and grace that is before them and with them?
If we were to ask that same question on the streets today, who do the people say that Jesus is? What would we hear? Jesus is an illiterate peasant trying to save a few others, he is another Buddha, he is just a special man who lived and died thousands of years ago. One comic I enjoy says “I love Jesus, it is his fan club I can’t stand” And some may never have heard of him.
In spite of how much the world hears about “American Evangelicals”, more and more people speak of America as becoming a post-religious country. As a culture, religious roots are being left behind – or certainly not holding the sway and influence churches may have had. In some ways this may be a very good thing. For it moves us out of our comfort zone, we as Christians have to be more deliberate and intentional about expressing our faith. And when we do, we stand out from the culture as a whole. I remember how strange I felt when I was staying with a family in New Zealand who did not go to church, even on Christmas, and I wanted to go to service even if that meant going by myself. They thought it quite strange that I would give up Sunday mornings in my pajamas and drinking coffee with the paper just to go hear some windbag in stain glass windows.
Bringing the question closer to us as followers, who, do we as a congregation, say that Jesus is? How does our relationship with him guide us as we grow in faith? Do we trust that God has a dream for us as a church? What do we feel Jesus is calling us to do and become? What does our sense of Jesus cause us to do today? Following Jesus is the journey of
giving up control, surrendering to the gift of grace, sacrificing our delusions of glory, joining in God’s ongoing operation to salvage a broken world.
This is what it means to “give our lives,” to “take up our crosses,” and to “deny ourselves.” It is the move to step off the throne and put Jesus there, where he rules with crucified hands and a heart overflowing with love. This is a continuing journey for all of us. We never master it. We never become experts. Over time, we realize that’s OK, because it’s not our job to rule the world, or increase our little corner of turf, or even to become impressive. We are here to love and serve, to lift up and encourage, to look out for the interests of other, and to let each person know that they are eternally valuable in the sight of their God.
In the journey of faith, the most crucial question is the one that Jesus puts to Peter. There is no more important issue than one that Jesus raises. Who do you say that I am? Who do you say that I am? It is not a question that the church can answer for us. It is not a question our families can answer for us. It is not a question that we can put off forever and say I’m still thinking about it.
The journey of faith is not one that searches forever, it comes to some answers along the way. We leave the starting blocks and strive on, seeking to know God deeper, (or to borrow from Godspell, we hope to see God more clearly, day by day). Every day we need to have a sense of who we are calling on when we call on God. We make decisions about where God fits into our lives. The question is not just one of theological debate and reflection, it is a question that probes the very center of our souls. It calls us to faith. It is the essential question. Who do we think Jesus is?
In seminary, a story was circulated that helped keep us humble, if we got to thinking that theological knowledge would somehow exempt us from growing in our own faith,. In the story Jesus has suddenly returned to earth, with the question “who do you say that I am” and all the religious leaders of the world gathered and they formed a committee, of course. and they study the question for two years, they are seeking to find the “right answer”, when they are done they come to Jesus and say..”you are the eschatological manifestation of the divine logos who has transcended the numinous and appeared in the space-time continuum to declare God’s parausia” and Jesus said “what?!!” Jesus is not looking for a theological response here, he is looking for an answer of the heart. He is looking for a commitment of a life, he is looking for what Peter said, You’re the Messiah. You’re the Christ, the anointed one, the redeemer. Later, Jesus begins to unfold what this means that he is the Messiah that he would be have to be killed and that he would rise again.
And coming even closer, Jesus asks each of “who do you say that I am? We don’t answer the question so much with our lips as we do with our lives. Where do we place our emphasis and priorities? How do we serve others, especially the poor? What do we do with the gifts that God has entrusted us? Do we live as though Jesus has come, and shown us what the Kingdom is like? Who do we say Jesus is with our lives? These are some of the deep, centering questions of faith that call to each of us, that begin a dialogue, that move through time, changing and challenging us and always calling us to faith. Amen.