THE READINGS (The Message)
FIRST READING— Isaiah 51: 1-6
"Listen to me, all you who are serious about right living and committed to seeking God. Ponder the rock from which you were cut, the quarry from which you were dug. Yes, ponder Abraham, your father, and Sarah, who bore you. Think of it! One solitary man when I called him, but once I blessed him, he multiplied. Likewise I, God, will comfort Zion, comfort all her mounds of ruins. I'll transform her dead ground into Eden, her moonscape into the garden of God,
A place filled with exuberance and laughter, thankful voices and melodic songs.
“Pay attention, my people. Listen to me, nations. Revelation flows from me. My decisions light up the world. My deliverance arrives on the run, my salvation right on time. I'll bring justice to the peoples. Even faraway islands will look to me and take hope in my saving power. Look up at the skies, ponder the earth under your feet. The skies will fade out like smoke, the earth will wear out like work pants, and the people will die off like flies. But my salvation will last forever, my setting-things-right will never be obsolete.
SECOND READING—Matthew 16: 13-20
When Jesus arrived in the villages of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, "What are people saying about who the [One sent from God] is?" They replied, "Some think he is John the Baptizer, some say Elijah, some Jeremiah or one of the other prophets." He pressed them, "And how about you? Who do you say I am?" Simon Peter said, "You're the Christ, the Messiah, the Son of the living God." Jesus came back, "God bless you, Simon, son of Jonah! You didn't get that answer out of books or from teachers. My [Holy Parent] in heaven, God, let you in on this secret of who I really am. And now I'm going to tell you who you are, really are. You are Peter, a rock. This is the rock on which I will put together my church, a church so expansive with energy that not even the gates of hell will be able to keep it out. "And that's not all. You will have complete and free access to God's kingdom, keys to open any and every door: no more barriers between heaven and earth, earth and heaven. A yes on earth is yes in heaven. A no on earth is no in heaven."
He swore the disciples to secrecy. He made them promise they would tell no one that he was the Messiah.
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God of many names, bless us this day as we gather in Your presence to hear what You would say to us this day. God, use my voice and the thoughts of our hearts to bring Your blessings into this place, today and always. Amen
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Have you ever played that game at a party or the beginning of a meeting called Two Truths and a Lie? It goes like this—you write down three things about yourself—two of them are true and one is completely made up. Then everyone has to guess which one is the lie. Now the crazier your life experiences have been, the better chance you have at fooling everybody. I, for some reason or another, am really good at this game—just saying…
We spend a lot of time in our lives, perhaps more so when we are young, but maybe not, wondering who people say that we are—are we good at what we do? Are we next in line for that promotion? Are we meeting our boss’ expectation? Our partner’s, our kids’ or our parents’? What do people think about us? It makes sense to us that Jesus would ask the question that he asks today. We have asked it many times ourselves.
Of course, this question about Jesus is different for everyone. While this is not a place where you will be told what you have to believe or what you should believe, we do spend quite a lot of time in this place we call church talking about who Jesus is. For some of you, we spend too much time, for some, not nearly enough. But I want to suggest that however, you go about thinking about the question, it is a question worth asking with an answer worth pondering. And the way you answer that question may well suggest quite a lot about the other question as well. You know, that “Who am I?” question.
Our story today recites no theological treatise from Jesus, no lengthy sermon. This exchange between leader and disciples is a cut and dried, let’s get to the bottom of things discussion. Today, Jesus himself calls us to look at who he was to his disciples and who he is in our lives today. And in a very interesting story, Jesus wants to know what the disciples think.
Although there was no Facebook, no YouTube, and no easy way for the deeds of this Jesus to “go viral”, still his preaching and teaching and miracles were being spoken of far and wide throughout the countryside. He and the disciples have just arrived in Caesarea Philippi. He’s being gossiped about and we can safely assume that Jesus wants to know what the people are saying. So he asks the folks who would know—“who do people say that I am? What are they really saying?” The disciples respond in what seems to be almost nonsensical answers—“well some say John the Baptist”—a little hard to pull off unless you believe that Jesus, who was previously baptized by John, somehow became the reincarnation of John once John was beheaded. Then other disciples suggest—“well, some say you are Elijah”. This answer makes more sense since the Jewish people believed that the prophet Elijah would come back to earth to announce the coming of the true Messiah. Nevertheless, it does not jive at all with what Jesus is saying about himself—seems like confusion permeates the gossip.
Jesus, observing how befuddled everyone seems to be, tries again—“who do you, my disciples, the ones who have been going through all these things with me, say that I am?” Now this I understand—I would always want to know what those who are closest to me think; and, after all, if the disciples don’t get it, how could anyone else even come close. A disciple named Simon steps right up and answers: “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.” We don’t know what Jesus expected this disciple to say, but an interesting thing happens after his statement. Jesus responds to Simon: "God bless you, Simon, son of Jonah! You didn’t give me just any answer or try to make one up. You listened to God who told you who I am. And I’m going to tell you who you really are. I’m going to change your name to Peter, which means ‘rock’ and this is the rock on which I will build a community—a community so vast and energetic that nothing can stop it. Not only that, you will have complete and free access to God's kingdom, keys to open any and every door: There are no more barriers between heaven and earth—nothing to separate this community from God.”
Wow! I’m just guessing that if the other disciples had known what the reward was for the correct answer they might have tried a little harder, listened a little better, or prayed a little longer for the answer Jesus sought. That, I think, would have missed the point. Immediately after Jesus gives this blessing to the disciple now called ‘Peter’, he tells all the disciples not to tell anyone that he is the Messiah.
This is hard for us to figure out—I know it is for me. Why wouldn’t Jesus want the disciples to go back out into the countryside and try to straighten out all these misinformed, misguided folks? Some very well known scholars argue that it is because Jesus was not ready to deal with the authorities yet and that may be the case. However, if we look closely at Jesus’ response to Peter, we see a larger truth—that only God could reveal who Jesus was to the world and only when each person was ready. Peter was ready and Jesus gives him the keys to eternal life, giving him complete and free access to the goodness and abundance of God’s kingdom.
What does this say about our own journeys with Jesus? I believe, most of all that it says that we must answer Jesus’ question for ourselves. It doesn’t work for anyone other than God to tell us who Jesus is to us. Preachers can’t and shouldn’t dictate and theologians can only tell us what others have thought along the way. This is a profoundly personal journey—one well worth the taking—one which results in complete and free access to God’s exceeding abundance. Take one more look at Simon-now-Peter’s experience. All the others tell Jesus what other people are saying—Peter has done the work for himself, listened to God’s voice and determined that Jesus is, in fact, the long-awaited Messiah.
So, it is not enough for us to talk about who others say Jesus is. We will find ourselves in a “heap of trouble” when we muddle through all the various thoughts about this Jesus—this will lead us to many definitions and descriptions, but little or no experience of the life altering-name-changing encounter with Jesus of Nazareth. God loves us so much that we are allowed to work out our own understanding of Jesus as we come to experience what his teachings and presence means in our own unique ways. Jesus did not ask Peter: “Who do you think I ought to be in your life? Or how should you describe who I am? Jesus asked then and asks now: “Who do you say that I am?”
Peter had walked with Jesus, had seen the healing, the changes of heart, the conversion, if you will, of people who formerly cared only about themselves to people who cared about the community. So, Peter was ready—ready to make his own decision about who Jesus was. This is not a sermon that will end with an answer, it is a sermon that will end in a question—one important enough for us to spend some truly important time in our quiet places and in our together places—some time in studying and learning about this Jesus. You may come to the end of that time and decide that He was a great teacher or the good shepherd. Or, you may come to the place of seeing that Jesus was, first and foremost, a child of God just like us—but a child of God who cared so deeply about all the other children of God that he was willing to be a living sacrifice so that we could know what it was to be loved. Wherever you arrive, I invite you to hear what really mattered to Jesus in Simon Peter’s answer. He says this: “You didn’t give me just any answer or try to make one up. You listened to God who told you who I am.” This, then is our calling—to stay away from the easy answer or, worse yet, just making one up. The call is that we listen to God and that we be in fellowship with the children of God—that we be open to the moving of the Holy Spirit among and within us. Then, and then only can we truly hear the question: “Who do you, each and every one of you, say that I am?” Amen and amen
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