Who do you say Jesus is? 11th after pentecost a

The holy gospel according to Matthew (16:13-23)

¹³Now when Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi,

       he asked his disciples,

              “Who do people say that the Son of Humanity is?”

¹⁴And they said,

       “Some say John the Baptist,

              but others Elijah,

                     and still others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.”

¹⁵Jesus said to them,

       “But who do you say that I am?”

¹⁶Simon Peter answered,

       “You are the Messiah,

              the Son of the living God.”

¹⁷And Jesus answered him,

       “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah!

              For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you,

                     but my Father in heaven.

       ¹⁸And I tell you,

              you are Peter,

                     and on this rock I will build my church,

                            and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it.

                     ¹⁹I will give you the keys of the dominion of heaven,

                            and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven,

                            and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.”

       ²⁰Then Jesus sternly ordered the disciples not to tell anyone

              that he was the Messiah.

²¹From that time on,

       Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem

              and undergo great suffering

                     at the hands of the religious authorities,

              and be killed,

              and on the third day be raised.

²²And Peter took Jesus aside and began to rebuke him, saying,

       “God forbid it, Lord!

              This must never happen to you.”

²³But Jesus turned and said to Peter,

       “Get behind me, Satan!

              You are a stumbling block to me;

                     for you are setting your mind not on divine things

                            but on human things.”

The gospel of the Lord.

-----

Who do you say that Jesus is?   

Peter has his answer and jumps right in with it: “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God,” and Jesus totally affirms Peter: Right on! “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father in heaven.”  But then, a mere 5 verses later, as Jesus explains what it actually means to be the Messiah, Peter finds out that he is totally off-base.

Maybe that’s why Jesus “sternly order[s] the disciples not to tell anyone that he [is] the Messiah.”  Peter, and now the rest of the disciples with him, have a title, a name for Jesus: Messiah, Son of the Living God, but they haven’t yet gotten what that means.

For Peter and for many at that time, the Messiah was the one to come and lead the violent overthrow of the occupying Roman Empire.  The Messiah would be powerful, a revolutionary.  But that is not quite who Jesus is.

At this point in the gospel of Matthew, we are just over halfway through and Jesus is shifting his focus to Jerusalem.  After Peter’s bold proclamation, Jesus is starting to explain what it actually means to be “the Messiah, the Son of the living God.”

Jesus shows and tells the disciples that as the Messiah, “he must go to Jerusalem and undergo great suffering at the hands of the religious authorities, and be killed, and on the third day be raised.”  This Messiah is one who is with humanity in the pain and in the struggle.  Jesus is the Messiah who will confront injustice, but not the way Peter wants.  Instead of violently attacking and overthrowing, Jesus responds to the violence and oppression of his people by taking it all onto himself.  Jesus takes the pain and suffering of the whole world into his own self on the cross.

And as he begins to show this truth to the disciples, Peter gets spooked. 

This isn’t what Peter had in mind and so, in typical Peter fashion, he quickly speaks out to rebuke Jesus, saying, “God forbid it, Lord! This must never happen to you.”  Peter doesn’t want Jesus to die, but in our violent world, we respond to the ultimate Love with violence and so it will be for Jesus.

Peter rebukes Jesus and Jesus rebukes Peter right back.  The rock gets caught up in himself and becomes a stumbling block.  His assumptions about who Jesus is help and then hinder his ability to follow Jesus.

But Messiah is not the only name we call Jesus.

There is a poster on the back of the door to my childhood bedroom that lists most of the titles or names that we say Jesus is.  The Bread of Life, the Son of Humanity, the Christ, the Vine, the Living Water, the Good Shepherd, our Brother, Lord and Master.  Each of these points us to different aspects of who Jesus is.

No one name or title can fully define or describe Jesus.  We need these different names to give us a bigger picture and a deeper understanding.  When we only call Jesus one thing, we can lose sight of Jesus’ connection to the whole world.

When we say Jesus is Middle Eastern, born in 1^st century Palestine, not only are we being historically accurate, but we are also naming that the Divine dwells in Arab and Indigenous bodies, tied to the land on which they have lived for millenia.  When we say Jesus is an immigrant and refugee without papers, who fled with his family to Egypt, we recognize that God does not abide by our borders and laws, but instead journeys with people in their struggles for a better or safer life.

When we say Jesus is the Good Shepherd, we name the care God has for every person, guiding and calling to each of us.  When we say Jesus is the Bread of Life, we recognize the many ways that Jesus feeds and nourishes us—through communion, through fellowship, and through the gifts of creation.

When we say Jesus is the Son of Humanity, we recognize his humanness—his commitment to being truly with us.  When we say Jesus is the Son of God, we recognize God’s immense love for us that God would come to be with us at the same time as we recognize her power in creating all that is—from the tiniest atom to the greatest galaxy.

Dylan Roof, who attacked and killed 9 members of Mother Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church, and other white supremacists, including those we read and heard about in Charlottesville, Boston, and San Francisco, say Jesus is white.  Because whiteness is the norm and the default for our culture, they also mean that people of color are worth less and that white people matter more—that the Divine cannot dwell in bodies of color, but only in white bodies. 

Too often we imagine Jesus and God as white, as the ones with power and privilege, yet that is not how God chose to come into this world.  God chose to come into the world as a baby born into poverty, with unwed parents, hunted by the government.  When we say Jesus is white, we are like Peter rebuking Jesus, because it is scary and unsettling to admit that Jesus might be different from us, that Jesus might choose to not be all-powerful, that Jesus might not be on our side, if we are not siding with the oppressed.

But when we say Jesus is Black, we recognize that God chose to come to those who are oppressed and marginalized, that God is about liberating all people from powers and systems that oppress.  When we say Jesus is Lord, we name that all authority is his and that the power of God and our commitment to following Jesus is greater than any ruler, president, or country.

Who we say Jesus is matters—it both reflects and informs how we understand God, ourselves, and each other.  Different names and titles for Jesus can stretch our understanding of God and our faith and challenge our assumptions not only about God, but also about others and the world around us.

We can and do say Jesus is many things and the diversity of our responses to Jesus’ question, “Who do you say that I am?” reflects God’s diverse image and makes us a fuller body of Christ, because Jesus is all of the things we say and is so much more than we could ever name.  And so as we expand the language we use for Jesus and for God, we also expand our capacity to love God’s people and to embrace the whole body of Christ.  

Thanks be to God.