August 18, 2005
Who?
Pentecost 14/16A Mt 16.13-20
Well, finally. He asked.
Whether or not Jesus was really curious regarding what people were saying about him — and he doesn’t really strike me as the type — things had gone on long enough. So when he asks his traveling mates the question, even if rather tangentially and somewhat loaded, it seems that he really wants to know how they are sizing him up more than just to hear what’s the skinny on the street.
“Who do (people) say that the Son of Man is?” The answers are consistent and probably not all that surprising. John the Baptist. Elijah. Jeremiah. Or surely one of the prophets. Then Jesus asks, “But who do you say that I am?”
Peter finally caught on. “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” And right there on the spot, this realization — profound in its simplicity — wins the Big Prize — a set of keys to the kingdom. And that’s not all. To go with them, Peter is handed the very authority of heaven to forgive, and a very handy gift in itself considering that in only a very short time he will deny he ever knew Jesus and need some mighty big time forgiveness, himself.
So how about us? Whom do we say is this Son of Man?
Well, if there’s anything the church has, it’s answers. They’re not always answers to the questions people ask, but they’re answers, all neat and organized, systematized and religionized. On this one, the church is already overloaded with what we call Christology, a study full of answers all neatly once-removed from where those first-century sandals met the road. “You are the Christ!” Peter realized, as do we. But I doubt he had anything like the Athanasian Creed in mind.
The recent “What Would Jesus Do?” fad had its fifteen minutes of fame. But it always seemed to leave Jesus’ question to his colleagues unanswered and only implied. “Who am I?” We’ve got to get that straight not only about Jesus, but about any of us, if we’re ever able to walk the talk. The two go hand-in-hand, but the sequence is imperative, and then comes the action, the ministry, the service, the sacrifice, the forgiving.
Like the lady attending her first Quaker meeting and being overwhelmed with the silence. She quietly asked her neighbor in the pew, “When does the service begin?”
“As soon as the Meeting is over,” came the gentle reply.
The Baptismal Covenant sets us altogether straight on this service and emphatically answers our Lord’s question once and for all. “Will you seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving your neighbor as yourself?” the Covenant asks. “And whom do I say is this Christ?” we could well reply. “Youm. Thass whom!” always comes the answer.
“How can one know the will of God?” I once rather impertinently asked one of the church’s leading theologians. “Follow your hunches,” came his instant answer. Look for the Christ, for Jesus in yourself, for that’s where he is. That’s what this ministry is about. Those called out to follow the Way need no further creed, no further confession, no further systematic theology, no further catholic orthodoxy and, God help us, no further denominations.
With old Peter, each of us baptised are given the keys. We’re given the authority to forgive and restore and reconcile. We’re commissioned to seek out this Jesus in ourselves, in our God-given hunches, and so importantly, also to seek for him and serve him in others.
Maybe we should be grateful on the face of it that our leaders have gone so far to the religious right. Maybe thus we can assume they’ve got a pretty good idea who is this Jesus. So, reflecting on the pattern and focus of his ministry in his time, is it beyond reason that we can respectfully hope — and, indeed, demand — that they begin to religiously right some wrongs so that all this won’t appear to be mere political Christianism and ideological fetishism?
I can’t imagine this Jesus I know showing obeisance to baser interests like the petroleum, pharmaceutical, and defense industries or altering, suppressing, and overriding scientific findings on global warming, missile defense, HIV/AIDS, pollution from industrial farming and oil drilling, forest management and endangered species, environmental health, non-abstinence methods of birth control and sexually-transmitted-disease protection, let alone grossly misleading of the public on stem-cell research.
Well, finally, Jesus did ask. Sometimes, I’ll bet some folk wish he hadn’t. But he did. Now, isn’t it time we successors to Peter and his crowd turn loose of all our obsessive navel-gazing, focus those God-given gospel energies, and ask, ourselves?