“Who do people say that I am?” asks Jesus of his
followers. They proceed to give him the lowdown on the gossip in the bars and
markets of Galilee. There’s obviously a whole lot of speculation going on. He
is John the Baptist, people are saying, or Elijah, or one of the other Old
Testament Prophets. It’s likely that there were other opinions too. From hints
in the New Testament we think that some saw him as a new Joshua, the great
leader who brought the Israelites into the Promised Land – Jesus and Joshua are
the same name in Hebrew. The name means “God saves”. Some saw him as a new
Moses, especially when he fed people miraculously on loaves and fishes in the
middle of nowhere, just as Moses had fed them on Manna in the wilderness. For
others, Jesus may have been seen as a new King David; born in David’s hometown
of Bethlehem, descended from his family. He talked a lot about the kingdom too,
so maybe there was going to be a return to the glory days when Israel had been
at its most powerful. “Who do people say that I am?” Jesus knew that everyone
had their own pet theories.
But this question, with all its potential for theological
argument and learned discussion is really just a conversation starter.
“Ok, so that is the gossip that’s going around about me, but
what about you? Who do you say that I am?” he asks his
disciples. That’s what really matters.
When the rubber hits the road and they have to stand up for their faith, it
will be no good if all they have are second-hand opinions. Their understanding
of Jesus will have to be their own.
It’s Peter who jumps in first with an answer – he’s often
the one who is first to open his mouth, even if it is only to put his foot in
it. But this time, for once, he is spot on. “You are the Messiah” he blurts out.
What does he mean? And how does he know?
Let’s start with the first question. What does he mean? We
can’t be completely sure. Ideas about the Messiah varied. But the essence of it
was that the Messiah was God’s representative, chosen to do God’s work. Messiah
means “anointed one”. You were anointed for a task – as a king or a priest, for
example, set aside for something distinctive. In Matthew’s version of this
story, Peter doesn’t just acclaim Jesus as Messiah. He says “ You are the
Messiah, the son of the living God”. Again we can’t be sure what he understood
by this. When the early Christians called Jesus God’s son they weren’t talking
about biology or genetics, because they didn’t have any knowledge of them. They
knew at some deep level, though, that when they
looked at Jesus, they saw a family likeness to God, someone who was at
home with God, at one with God, someone who knew the family business and did
it. That is probably what Peter meant by his answer.
Peter had travelled with Jesus, eaten with him, seen his
exhaustion at the end of the day. Above all he had seen the constant stream of
people who had come to meet Jesus, people who had gone away changed. With very
few exceptions when people came to Jesus they went away different. People
met him and were healed. People met him and were welcomed and accepted. People
met him and were called into new ways of life. He didn’t just change their
ideas, what happened in their heads. He changed their hearts, souls and lives.
They left their fishing nets and their tax collecting booths. They gave away
their money and their security. They turned their backs on destructive ways of
life in which they had felt trapped. They learned to see themselves and others
in a whole new light. They didn’t just end up with a new theory about who Jesus
was, or with new ideas about God, but with lives that had been transformed
because of his love.
Peter hadn’t only seen this happening to others. It had
happened to him too. He had been changed. Jesus had called him, an ordinary,
impulsive fisherman who didn’t seem to have given a moment’s thought to
anything religious in his life. As far as we can tell all he had cared about before was making a go of his fishing business
and looking after his family. But Jesus had given him a new sense of purpose, a
sense that his life mattered.
Changing people, creating and recreating. This was the kind
of thing God did, and Peter knew that. As our psalm this morning put it “you
have rescued my life from death, my eyes from tears, and my feet from
stumbling.” (Psalm 116) Jesus was
doing what God did, and Peter had seen it and known it for himself . It was real, it was authentic, and that was
what mattered.
And I think it still matters to people today. My impression
is that despite the difficulty people may have in engaging with organised
religion, or at least, turning up in church on Sundays, they are still as
spiritually hungry as they ever were. They want something real to happen in
their lives. The conversations I have with people who may never darken the
doors of this place, or who perhaps just wander in when they think no one will
be here are often very deep and full of desire for the work of God; for healing
and guidance, for inspiration and forgiveness, for engagement with the real,
pressing problems of life and the world.
That is what Peter saw and acclaimed in Jesus. Here was someone
who was the real deal, doing God’s work, transforming lives. He had seen it in action, in his own life;
that’s why he knew Jesus was the Messiah.
But Peter’s acclamation wasn’t the end of the story today,
and we soon realise that he still had a lot to learn. He had seen the truth,
but not yet the whole truth. He had just got it spectacularly right, but in the
next breath he got it just as spectacularly wrong.
Jesus started to talk about how he would have to suffer and
die. Peter couldn’t get his head around that at all. Why would God let such a thing happen? Surely
if God was at work in Jesus – if he was the Messiah - it should all be plain sailing for him now.
Miracles all the way to the throne of God’s kingdom.
Peter acclaimed Jesus as Messiah , because he saw him doing
great things and meeting with obvious success. But Jesus warned him that soon
he would have to see the man he had acclaimed pinned to a cross, and lying dead
in a tomb. There would be no success to see then, no last minute rescue. If
success was the mark of the Messiah in Peter’s mind, what would happen then?
Predictably, when the time came, for a while Peter thought the whole thing had
been a lie and tried to distance himself from it. It wasn’t until he saw Jesus
raised from the helplessness of death that he really understood what Jesus had
been saying, and why it mattered so much.
God could be with someone, working in them and through them not just in
strength but also in vulnerability, not just when they were doing deeds of
great power but also when they were completely powerless.
And that brings us to ourselves, because Jesus’ question is
just as much for us as it was for those first disciples. “Who do you think I
am?” says Jesus to us. “Do you think I am a miracle worker who will wave
a magic wand over your problems and make them all go away if only you pray the
right prayers and believe fervently enough? Do you think I am a teacher who will
give you some inspirational pointers about how to live your life better? Do you
think I am an interesting conundrum, a historical puzzle, a philosopher whose
ideas you can argue about? Do you think I am your ticket to heaven, to be
safely stored in a pocket somewhere and produced at the vital moment?”
Jesus has been seen in many ways – these are just a few of
them. Maybe they are all useful, all true at some level. But when push comes to
shove, they aren’t enough. Deep down we know that. They aren’t enough when the
going gets tough. They aren’t enough when we start to wonder whether life is
worth living. They aren’t enough when we are swamped with regrets about the
past or hopelessness about the future. They aren’t enough when we are
confronted with the complexities of problems that are beyond our power to
solve, and perhaps beyond anyone’s power, like the tide of refugees sweeping
across Europe or the bitter wars that have driven them from their homes. At
those points we need a faith that isn’t just there when the going is good, but
is just as real when everything is falling apart around us. We don’t need a
faith that depends on simple answers or a quick fix, but a faith in the God who
will sit in the darkness and confusion with us until the morning comes and
brings with it resurrection.
“Who do you say that I am?” That’s a question we all
have to answer for ourselves in the end. As Philip will tell you, I spent a
long time chewing over this sermon – some sermons are stubborn like that. In particular,
I struggled with how to end it. Eventually, though, I concluded that that was
the point. It isn’t mine to end. I can’t make sense of someone else’s faith for
them. We each have to do that for ourselves, finding out what our real
questions and real hungers are, being honest about ourselves with God and open
to his Spirit. That’s not always easy – as Jesus said, there can be crosses and
sacrifice involved – but it is worth it. So all I can do at this point is sit
down and shut up, and pray that each of us has the courage to let the God who “rescues
our lives from death, our eyes from tears and our feet from stumbling” get
to work in the reality of our lives.
Amen
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