Who is Jesus? 8-27-23
Who is Jesus?
Rom 12:1-8; Mt 16:13-20
Rom 12:1-8
I appeal to you therefore, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God—what is good and acceptable and perfect. For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of yourself more highly than you ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned. For as in one body we have many members, and not all the members have the same function, so we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually we are members one of another. We have gifts that differ according to the grace given to us: prophecy, in proportion to faith; ministry, in ministering; the teacher, in teaching; the exhorter, in exhortation; the giver, in generosity; the leader, in diligence; the compassionate, in cheerfulness.
Matthew 16:13-20
Now when Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?” And they said, “Some say John the Baptist, but others Elijah, and still others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.” He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?” Simon Peter answered, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.” And Jesus answered him, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father in heaven. And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.” Then he sternly ordered the disciples not to tell anyone that he was the Messiah.
Prayer – Lord Jesus, you ask us, as you did the disciples, who do people say that you are? Many who self-proclaim themselves as Christians, your faithful followers, rarely follow up their words of belief, their words of faith, with actions that reflect your teachings. Typically we find it easy to say who you are; our challenge is to live our lives as you have directed us, to live out our faith in the ways we act, the ways we show compassion, the ways we love. Give us the courage to live beyond belief, to act based on our belief – amen.
It has been some years ago when a woman I know walked out of church following a particularly rousing Sunday service and bumped into a thin, sort of lost looking young man who was standing on the sidewalk looking up at the cross on top of the church steeple. She excused herself and started to walk away, but the young man called her back – “Tell me,” he said, pointing through the front doors into the church she had belonged to most of her life, “What is it that you believe in there?” She started to answer him, but she paused for a few moments and realized that she did not know the answer, or did not know how to put it into words, and as she stood there trying to compose an answer, the young man said, “Never mind, I’m sorry if I bothered you,” and walked away.
He did bother her, and her story bothered me as I tried to decide how I would have answered if it had been me who encountered that young man. Why do I go to church, and what is it that we believe in there? What is my elevator speech on why I go to church? Do I quote the Westminster Catechism? The Apostles Creed? That is not exactly the kind of answer you want to recite on a sidewalk, even if you think someone might stick around until you are finished. That Jesus is my Lord and Savior? Sure, but what does that mean to a thin, lost looking young man standing on a sidewalk looking for answers, looking for something to believe in. That in spite of all appearances to the contrary; the world is in God’s good hands? Says who? So what? What is it that we believe? And perhaps most importantly, do we live out what we believe?
In our gospel passage this morning Jesus himself is the man on the sidewalk, the one who asks the question about what it all means, about what he means. He and his disciples have come from Caesarea Philippi trailing miracles behind them – feeding thousands, calming the storm at sea, curing of the Canaanite woman’s daughter, among many others. But Jesus hasn’t just been healing; he has been teaching and showing them how to live out faith, teaching them the difference between words and actions. Every now and then he quizzes his disciples to see how well they are absorbing what he is teaching, absorbing how to live a faithful life. And like so many of us, the disciples were left scratching their heads more often than not.
Small wonder, then, that they are a little anxious when Jesus gathers them all around and asks an entirely different kind of question – not one about anything he has said, but one about who he is. “Who do people say the Son of Man is?” he asks them, and they are relieved it is a question they have some answers to. “Similar to John the Baptist,” one of them answers, while the others rummage through their recollections for what they have heard, “Elijah,” someone else suggests, “Jeremiah,” says another, “or one of the prophets.” They pull the names out of their pockets like interesting stones they have found and hand them over to Jesus for appraisal. There is no great risk in repeating what you have heard, after all, in reporting what friends have said they believe. This is just a consultation among the staff to see how Jesus’ ministry is going as perceived by John Q Public.
I can imagine the disciple’s faces as they turn over the tidbits they have heard. So which is it, Lord? What is the right answer? A, B, C or none of the above? But Jesus doesn’t give them his answer; rather he asks them, “Who do YOU say that I am?” You can hear a pin drop. The “Oh crap” looks on their faces may have been a little disheartening to their teacher. “Who do you say that I am? What is it that you believe about me?”
IF this question doesn’t strike the fear of God into you, well, I am not sure what will. This is the question of the week, on so many levels. No, I think this is the ultimate question for any week and when it comes time to answer that question in public, I’m quick to join myself to Peter’s insight, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the Living God,” claiming it as my own, at least assenting to it. And each time I do it, I swear I mean it.
But if actions speak louder than words – and you and I both know that they do – then I have to admit that my confession is pretty hypocritical because most of my actions don’t any more confess Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of the Living God. Rather, most of my actions confess that Jesus is a good man, a great man, even, an example to follow, someone to be inspired by, kind of like John the Baptist, Elijah or Jeremiah, or perhaps any of the modern prophets like Dietrich Bonheoffer or Martin Luther King, Jr.
And here is the thing – I suspect that I am not alone in sensing the Monday through Saturday disconnect between my public confession on Sunday morning and my every other day of the week actions. I think most people also know that there is a gap between the words they say on Sunday morning and the lives they lead the rest of the week. Not intentionally, of course, and certainly with no malice forethought. In fact, I suspect that most of us would like the words we say on Sunday not just to align with the rest of our lives but actually matter day in and day out.
I think it is really hard to align ourselves with our confession when we don’t really understand what that confession means. And I’m pretty sure most of us don’t really know what it is we believe, I thought I knew what I believed but I’ve spent much of the last 8 to 10 years unpacking my beliefs and reconstructing them. So we come up with titles and formulations and all the rest, trying to get to the mystery of what God has done in and through Jesus. But all too often I fear that those words only keep the wild and unpredictable God of love and grace at arms distance from us, and Jesus remains inspiring and exemplary, but ultimately rather tame and eminently safe, kind of like the prophets of old.
So perhaps the question to think about for reflection this morning is what do you mean when you speak of Jesus? What does it mean to you to when the man or woman or child on the sidewalk asks you what do you believe in this place Trinity Grace Church? How would you not only describe what it is you believe, but how do you live out that belief each day, to a child . . . or an adult . . . or a friend . . . or the stranger who happened to ask you what you believe about Jesus.
I think Jesus is God’s Plan A – God’s way of showing us how much God loves us and all people. God is so big that I think we have a really hard time connecting with God. And so God came to be like one of us, to live like one of us, in order to really and truly show us just how God feels about us. In this sense, Jesus revealed God’s heart, a heart that aches with all who suffer from mental illness, a heart that is upset and angry when one group of people think they are more special and deserving than another simply by the color of their skin, a heart that is torn up in grief at the desperate situation and violence that rips apart the land we’ve named Holy, a heart that loves like only an adoring parent can and so not only wants the best for us but is always eager to welcome us home in grace, forgiveness and love.
But it’s more than that, too. I think Jesus also came to show us what’s possible when we put our belief, our faith, into action. And so rather than give into the threat of disease, Jesus healed. Rather than surrender people to their demons, Jesus showed compassion. Rather than let people starve because there’s not enough to go around, Jesus fed the people who were hungry. Jesus refused to be satisfied or limited by the status quo and invites us to do the same, because if Jesus’ life and death indeed show us how much God loves us, then Jesus’ resurrection shows us that love is more powerful than hate and fear and even death. Jesus shows us, in short, that God’s love wins.
So there it is – who I say Jesus is, it’s not perfect – there should probably be more about forgiveness – and maybe shaped more about what is going on in the world today. As a preacher it is probably a little wordy – and I can imagine it changing as my faith continues its reconstruction. But at least when I formulate it in this way I have an easier time imagining what it means to not only confess who Jesus is to me but how I can try and live it out as well. It means that I try to live my life, filled with and sharing God’s love with both the most and the least of these, being aware of the brokenness in the world but even more aware of God’s grace and power of resurrection. It means that I look at all of my life – my time, my relationships, my hopes, my dreams, my finances, all the rest – through the lens of both the power and the possibilities created by seeing God’s heart laid bare in the Christ.
It may be much easier to say what we believe in about Jesus – it is much more difficult to live out what we believe about Jesus the Christ. So perhaps my task, and yours, is to move from a belief/faith based spirituality to a belief/faith practice based spirituality. In other words, is what we believe about Jesus the Christ transforming the ways we live? As a very smart person said one day and I’m paraphrasing – “If you want to know what someone believes about Jesus, watch where their feet take them.” Then when the person on the street asks us what does it mean for the way we live to believe in the Christ, then our answer is simply reflected in the actions of what we believe, of where our feet take us – may it be so – amen.