Text: Matthew 16:13-20 Revised Standard Version (RSV)
Peter’s Declaration about Jesus
13 Now when Jesus came into the district of Caesare′a Philippi, he asked his disciples, “Who do men say that the Son of man is?” 14 And they said, “Some say John the Baptist, others say Eli′jah, and others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.” 15 He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?” 16 Simon Peter replied, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” 17 And Jesus answered him, “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jona! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven. 18 And I tell you, you are Peter,[a] and on this rock[b] I will build my church, and the powers of death[c] shall not prevail against it. 19 I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.” 20 Then he strictly charged the disciples to tell no one that he was the Christ.
In the Name of God, the Holy and Undivided Trinity. Amen.
“Who am I?”
This may be the oldest question human beings have ever asked. Whenever we look up into the night sky and see those billions of twinkling points of light, we ask that question. The question of our identity goes back to the dawn of time. Every human culture that has ever been has had a Creation Myth which sought to explain how they came to be. We have a deep need to feel connected to others, to feel loved, to feel needed, and to feel that our lives have meaning, all by way of answering for ourselves that question that lives in the deepest corners of our hearts: “Who am I?”
Answering this question for people has become a multi-billion-dollar industry. Ancestry.com, 23andMe, FamilyTreeDNA, and numerous other companies have grown up over the last few years to meet peoples’ need to find answers to exactly that question. Before that, genealogists, professional and amateur, spent countless hours writing letters and scouring through rows of dusty books in libraries in the attempt to find out “Who am I?” I am one of them – I’ve been working on my family tree for decades, off and on (more off than on, I’m afraid), because – well, I want to know. My DNA results blew me out of the water, for example, and proved what I was told – when it comes to our background, things are, first, often not at all what we might expect; and, second, it proves that we are all far more connected with each other than we can believe.
So, when Jesus asks his disciples in today’s lesson that famous question, “Who do people say the Son of Man is?”, our ears perk up, because it strikes a chord with us.
But, of course, the difference here is that Jesus was not asking the disciples this question because he had any doubt as to his identity. He knew exactly who he was. He didn’t need them to tell him. Instead, his question was a sort of 1st Century poll to find out what those who’d been around Jesus, had seen him work, had heard his words, thought about who he was.
This was no idle question asked just to make conversation. Jesus had a mission, and that mission was to proclaim the nearness of God’s Kingdom, and he wanted to make sure that as many people as possible got that message. So this was what we might call today a “reality check,” to see how far that message had spread.
The reviews were mixed. The reincarnation of John the Baptist was one answer, the return of the Prophet Elijah was another, or Jeremiah, or some other prophet…but those answers were off the mark. Jesus might well have been pretty disappointed by these answers, because, as Barclay tells us, “His time was short; his days on earth were numbered…if there were just a few who realized the truth, his work was safe. So Jesus was determined to put all to the test and ask his followers who they believed him to be.”[1]
And that’s exactly what he did: “But who do you say that I am?” and we read that clear and unambiguous, even enthusiastic response from Peter: “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God!”
Bingo! Got it in one!
But, as we will see in next week’s Gospel lesson, this moment of enthusiasm and clarity will be short-lived. David Lose writes in his blog post for this week, “Peter will go on to completely misunderstand what it means for Jesus to be the Messiah, he will later resist Jesus’ intention to turn himself over the authorities, and he will eventually deny and desert his Lord. But for now… for now, in just this moment, he confesses that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of the Living God.”[2]
Peter is Everyman. In his enthusiasm, in his brashness, in his fits of anger, in his fear, he is all of us. The Gospels remind us that God does not choose the perfect, but makes perfect those he chooses. Anyway, Peter’s bold proclamation that Jesus is the Messiah rings down through the ages and echoes here in this church this very day.
But what does that really mean, “Messiah”? I’m sure that this question has occurred to you and been the subject of sermons countless times in your lives; but it’s always worth a visit.
The word “messiah” comes from the Hebrew word “mashiach” (מָשִׁ֫יחַ), which simply means “anointed.” Throughout Jewish history, there were many “anointed ones” – the first three kings of Israel, Saul, David, and Solomon, were anointed, and therefore could be considered to have been messiahs.
But in the course of Jewish history, a history marked by foreign oppression, wars, and internal religious strife, the concept of someone who was to come who was going to be the Messiah – with a capital “M” – became more and more entrenched. Century after century, the people of Israel prayed and prayed that that Messiah would come soon and deliver them. Prophets foretold the Messiah’s coming; Psalms were sung about him; and the whole people of Israel grew accustomed to watching, and waiting, and being on the lookout for signs that the Messiah’s time was near. “O come, o come, Emmanuel, and ransom captive Israel…”
For us Christians, that time has come. We believe that, in the Person of Jesus Christ, God’s promise to send us the Messiah has been fulfilled. So, like Peter, we gather here on Sundays and proclaim it in our prayers, in our hymns, and in our sermons.
But…
Proclaiming Jesus as “the Messiah, the Son of the Living God” is one thing; living our lives like we believe it is something else. Does our belief in Jesus as the Messiah have an impact on our daily lives? And, if so, how? In the way we do things, perhaps, or in what decisions we make, or in what words we say?
This matters. In fact, what we do, how we act, what we say, is a matter of life and death.
“An old story concerns an innocent fugitive fleeing hostile government soldiers. Some friendly villagers fed and hid him. The next morning the soldiers showed up and threatened to destroy the village by noon if the fugitive’s hideout was not revealed. Some villagers went to the old rabbi’s cave outside the town to ask for his advice. The old man opened his Bible for an answer. His eyes fell on the words, ‘It is better for one man to die than for all to perish.’ He told the villagers to hand over the man. Later an angel appeared to the rabbi and said, ‘What have you done? That young man was the Messiah!’ The rabbi wept, saying, ‘How was I to know?’ The angel said, ‘You should’ve met with him and looked into his eyes. Then you would have known.’”[3]
So it seems that one way to live like we truly believe that Jesus is the Messiah is to not just keep this belief in our heads as an abstract fact, like the multiplication table we learned as kids, but also to let this belief into our hearts, where it flows throughout our bloodstreams and moves us to maybe step into places we’d otherwise not go. Maybe it means that we overcome our nervousness or reluctance and look a stranger in the eye to see if we see Jesus there. Maybe it means we let someone else look us in the eye to see if they see Jesus there.
Lose goes on to say: “There is so much going on in the world right now…that needs our effort and work and passion and commitment. We are being called – in our individual lives and communal lives – to confess Christ – the suffering Christ who sided always with the vulnerable – in both word and deed. At one and the same time we that know there is so much more to do than we seem able to do and that even our best efforts and most heartfelt attempts will fall short, not living as deeply or truly into our confession as we should, and at times getting confused or scared about what that confession means.
“And yet there are moments when we confess, when we do something right, when we perceive more of God’s purpose than previously, when things come together if only briefly, and when we sense God’s spirit at work in us and among us. And at those moments, it makes sense to pause and give thanks.”[4]
So another element of living like we truly believe the Messiah has come is to also pause and give thanks for those moments when we feel God’s touch and God’s Spirit; and this is just as important – maybe at times even more important – than “doing something.” Winston Churchill famously said that “men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened.”[5] It’s vital for us to push back against the “tyranny of the urgent” at times to let the truth of what we believe simply wash over us and renew our spirits.
Yet another element of living like we truly believe the Messiah has come is to simply read the Bible. Albert Einstein once said, “As a child I received instruction both in the Bible and in the Talmud. I am a Jew, but I am enthralled by the luminous figure of the Nazarene… No one can read the Gospels without feeling the actual presence of Jesus. His personality pulsates in every word.”[6] So, take an occasional “Bible break”, and then take what you read to heart; for, as Barclay so sagely tells us, “Christianity never consists in knowing about Jesus; it always consists in knowing Jesus.”[7]
Knowing about Jesus is the work of the head; knowing Jesus is the work of the heart.
Lose also tells us that God is at work in Peter, as Jesus’ words attest: “For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven.” God is also at work in us, friends, just as surely as he was at work in Peter.
Note, too, that Peter’s confession didn’t depend on polling results or a desire to “get in good” with others – it was an assertion that flat-out confronted the world. At that moment, Peter was filled with courage borne of the Holy Spirit, and was ready to take on the world.
Yet – and this is important, too – neither Peter nor any of the other disciples changed their essential nature. They remained just the same people they had always been, even though they had accepted Jesus, decided to follow Jesus, and were willing to risk all for Jesus.
The same is true for us – God takes us as we are, with our flaws and limitations, our incompleteness, and makes us able to do what he calls us to do.
Let us never forget that God gives us all we need to do his work. Who are we? We are nothing less than the eyes, ears, hands, and feet of Jesus in today’s world! Let us therefore go forth boldly and do his work!
In the Name of God, the Holy and Undivided Trinity. Amen.
[1] Barclay, William, The Gospel of Matthew, Volume Two, The New Daily Study Bible, Westminster John Knox Press, 2001, p. 156
[2] Lose, David, “Pentecost 12 A: Pausing to Give Thanks,” …in the Meantime, http://www.davidlose.net/2017/08/pentecost-12-a-pausing-to-give-thanks/
[3] Link, Mark, S.J., Jesus: A Contemporary Walk with Jesus, Allen, TX, Resources for Christian Living, 1997, p. 309
[4] Lose, David, “Pentecost 12 A: Pausing to Give Thanks,” …in the Meantime, http://www.davidlose.net/2017/08/pentecost-12-a-pausing-to-give-thanks/
[5] https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/w/winstonchu135270.html
[6] Quoted in “How did the Old Testament instruct people to recognize God’s promised messiah?”, http://www.provethebible.net/T2-Divin/D-0301.htm
[7] Barclay, p. 161