August 27, 2023

             Ok, pop-quiz everyone, Jesus asks, “Who do people say that I am?”  The Disciples who were nervous, sigh with relief when they realize they will only have to regurgitate what other people have been saying.  Yay, it’s an open-book test! Peter, the teacher’s pet, who can’t seem to keep his mouth shut, raises his hand.  “Pick me! Pick me!”  He carefully leaves out the most offensive of what people are saying and picks the ones he think might please Jesus a little.  He goes with the safe responses.  “John the Baptist.  Elijah. Jeremiah, or one of the prophets.”      Then Jesus asks a follow up question, “But who do you say that I am?”  Peter’s face falls.  His blood drains from his head.  His head beats loudly in his chest.  He swallows with a cartoonish, “Gulp!”  I can just see him hesitate, flip through all the possibilities in his mind, and the words leaving his mouth.  Did he even know what he was about to say?  It is like the spelling bee when the kid spells the word like it’s a question and by their lack of confidence you know they are going to spell it wrong, and they get it right.  Peter says it.  Does he say it like this, “You are the Messiah, the son of the living God.”  Or like this, “You are the Messiah, the son of the living God?”  Is he asking or telling.  Unfortunately, we can’t hear it, but St. Peter is supposed to be the first one we meet at the pearly gates, so I think I’ll ask him when I get the chance.

             Knowing who Jesus is, means knowing who we are.  Partly because it means knowing who our relatives are.  The reading from Isaiah is about a people who are forgetting who they are.  They are listening to all sorts of messages.  They are anxious and afraid as they have returned from captivity, and it was their parents or grandparents who were the ones who were carried off.  They don’t know this land.  They don’t know this religion.  They don’t know how to relate to the people who never left.  They don’t know who God is.  So Isaiah is telling them the first thing to do is listen.   Don’t ask questions.  Don’t fret.  Don’t argue.  Just listen.  Listen to stories of your ancestors Abraham and Sarah.  Listen to stories of where you come from and why God made you.  Listen to stories about your proper place in God’s Creation.  Listen to God’s plans for you.  You’re not alone. You matter to God. There is reason to hope and that is that many things in this life are temporary, like gnats which is good, and people which may or may not be good, depending on your point of view.  Even heaven and earth are temporary.  However there are some things that last and the main one is God’s salvation, in other words, healing, and God’s deliverance.  Knowing Jesus means knowing that we are blessed and that God made us to be a blessing to all the families of the earth, as God explained to Abraham.

            Knowing who Jesus is means knowing who we are.  We are part of the body of Christ, united with others to bring good news, hope and grace.   Because we are the body of Christ, we depend on each other, we work together, we have the same values, we aren’t jealous of each other, we are part of something good, our gifts are to be shared.  To be part of the body of Christ, we are fully involved in what Jesus is involved in and to go where he takes us, as the head.

            I wonder what we would say if we were called upon in a pop-quiz to answer who Jesus is to us.  And I wonder what our actions say about who Jesus is.  Because our actions reveal what we really think, what our true priorities are.  They speak volumes about who Jesus is.  If we believe that Jesus is our great Physician, we focus on healing on many levels.  If we believe that Jesus welcomes us all to the table, we make sure that food is distributed to all in need so that all may experience Jesus.  If we believe that Jesus is the living God, we let him live and love and move in our lives, transforming us, making us see what we didn’t see before, helping us to live in new ways, generous ways. 

            Peter’s declaration of faith, “You are the Messiah, the son of the living God,“  becomes an example to us who are trying to put our faith into words and express it in our actions.  Jesus then says, “On this rock I will build my church.”  Some have said that rock is Peter himself, whose name means rock and this and the keys to the kingdom stuff somehow means a pope.  But maybe Jesus is saying the rock he is building his church, or gathering on, is this confession of faith, “You are the Messiah, the son of the living God."  How can we make this confession with our both our lips and our lives?  Or maybe the rock is the sign of Jonah.  Here Peter is called Son of Jonah and Jonah is mentioned a few verses before this.  The sign of Jonah is the three days in the whale and the regurgitation on the beach—death and resurrection.  What does it mean for the church to be built on the foundation of death and resurrection? 

            Whether we pass or fail Jesus’ pop-quiz, whether we are teacher’s pet or in detention, Jesus passes the test.  He knows who he is, first of all, that he isn’t here to do things the way we do things, to treat rich people better than poor or to follow rules that benefit and few and hurt many or to reach for traditional ideas of success.  He comes to die and rise again and share life.  He remains who he is through the misunderstandings of all his disciples, betrayals and challenges, even on the cross.  And he passes the test of really knowing who we are.  The world may tell us we aren’t enough.  “Who do people say that I am?” the message is the world says we are not young enough, smart enough, good-looking enough, important enough.  But Jesus sees the true value in us.  We can turn the question back on Jesus—who do people say that I am?  Not good enough?  But who do you say that I am, Jesus?  When we ask Jesus what he sees in us, he says, “You are my beloved child and nothing can ever separate you from my love.”  And not only the singular you, but also the lot of you.  As a whole we belong to Jesus our Savior, and he makes us into his body, and he is bringing in the Kingdom of God through us.

            Knowing who Jesus is gives us hope.  It gives us hope that God will comfort us and all who are anxious. It gives us hope that God will transform the places in our lives that are desolate.  It gives us hope that justice and light will go out to all people.  It gives us hope that we will claim what is healthy and life giving and loose what is hurtful.  It gives us hope that God’s Kingdom will one day be fully realized.  It gives us hope that death is not the end but that resurrection and new life are ours through this most amazing relationship of love and abundant life.