Upcoming Sunday Sermon

“Who Do You Say That I Am?”
August 21, 2011

Scripture: Matthew 16:13–20/16:14–21 IV
Peter Declares That Jesus Is the Messiah

13 When Jesus came to the region of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, “Who do people say the Son of Man is?”
14 They replied, “Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, Jeremiah or one of the prophets.”
15 “But what about you?” he asked. “Who do you say I am?”
16 Simon Peter answered, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.”
17 Jesus replied, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by flesh and blood, but by my Father in heaven. 18 And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it. 19 I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.” 20 Then he ordered his disciples not to tell anyone that he was the Messiah.

Matthew’s text provides a challenging moment in the exchange between Jesus, Peter, and the other disciples. This setting in Matthew’s witness is not the first opportunity for the disciples to define who and what they perceived Jesus to be. But it does seem to be a refining moment for what the disciples had been learning about Jesus and his message of the kingdom as they made their way to Jerusalem.

The setting is Caesarea Philippi, which is in the northern extreme of Israel about twenty miles from the Sea of Galilee. Jesus and his disciples had entered the city, and Jesus took this opportunity to engage them in a contrasting discussion on how they understood him and his mission. He was curious about how the disciples saw him compared to how the world saw him. First of all, Jesus asked his friends, “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?” The disciples offered examples of what they had heard people saying: John the Baptist, the prophet Elijah, or Jeremiah. What stands out in this list of possibilities is that people saw Jesus through the lens of their own experiences and understandings. When the Jewish people talked about Jesus, they did so from their Jewish heritage. It was their belief that Elijah would come again at the end of the age. Many also believed that Elijah would have to come before the Messiah. For those that defined Jesus as Jeremiah, it was because they saw Jesus dealing with similar issues as Jeremiah who struggled with the authorities and pronounced a new action of God in the world. As for Herod, he believed that Jesus was John the Baptist resurrected. Again, how they saw Jesus was influenced by their experiences in the world and their culture.

When Jesus made the question more personal by saying to his friends, “Who do you say that I am?” Simon Peter responded with his powerful statement of faith: “You are the Messiah”, ( the words Son of the living God.” Were added later by the early Christian community of the writer. We do not find them in the account by Mark and Luke). How is it that Peter could respond with such conviction? In the time he had spent with him, he had come to know Jesus at a personal and intimate level and there saw the presence of the living God in his friend. Peter may have been a bright and intelligent person, but what took place that day when faced with this critical question was a gift from God. This gift came because Peter allowed himself to be open to what God had to share. In that experience he discerned, from a deeper understanding, who he felt Jesus was.

To engage in this text we need to go beyond just hearing Matthew’s witness as a historical voice. This is a time for us to decide to place ourselves in the community of disciples and to be faced with hearing this same penetrating question. Though the focus of this Gospel witness is on Peter, the question is actually being posed to the community of disciples who gathered with Jesus that day. Each of us who hear this same question must decide what our faithful response will be. But not only how will our congregation as a community of faith respond, but also how we respond shapes if there is place for God to build community among our people.

Let us ask ourselves some hard questions:
1. To be a disciple of Jesus Christ one needs to give claim to who Jesus really was and the importance of the message that cost him his life. Can we do that? Jesus constantly talked to small communities in his world about God’s Kingdom and had not been a threat to the Roman government because it was a peaceful discussion with first one person and then another. Many men prior to Jesus had been put to death for insurrection against Rome but this time there had been no visible insurrection. It wasn’t unto later in our story that Jesus entered Jerusalem by the opposite gate from the gate that Herod and his entourage entered Jerusalem and gathered a larger crowd and drew attention to himself and then later went to the Temple and made a scene that called attention to his message about God’s Kingdom. Speaking of any Kingdom but Caesar’s Kingdom in a city crowded at Passover was considered to be treason…a crucifiable offense.

2. As disciples of Jesus, we will have those defining moments when we are confronted with difficult questions and situations that require us to decide how we will respond. Will we be courageous? Can we confess, with faith, that Jesus brought the message of God’s Kingdom and was God’s messenger of the Good News? Can we truly be Jesus’ disciples and welcome any and all who come to our congregation as he would if he were in our midst?

Questions for the congregation:

1. Or will we allow our culture to influence how we see people? Will we give the time to develop a personal and intimate connection with God that defines who God is in our life and what response we will make in difficult situations in dealing with our fellow man?

2. Can we think of a defining moment in our journey where we were able to respond with faith and testify about even the existence of God?

Several weeks ago, I was at Jack and Marilyn’s home for our Living the Questions group and was just about to leave when Marilyn received a phone call from the hospital concerning someone who needed to see a chaplain. Marilyn was wearing her shorts and would have had to go change, so she asked me if I would go. It was 9:00 and I was tired and ready to go home and to bed, but wanting to save Marilyn having to change and go, I told her I would.

When I got to the hospital and to the room, I found a woman in real despair. In January, she and her husband had gone out for a hamburger and later that evening she had gotten very sick. She got sick enough that she had to go to the emergency room. After a battery of tests it was determined that she had developed e-coli. Since January, she had had terrible bouts of diarrhea. Several times the doctors had thought they had it under control and would release her from the hospital but it would soon break out once again. Her husband was exhausted from dealing with it and she was too.

A part of the problem was her personal theology. She was a person who believed that God was in complete control of her life and believing that, she was attempting to make sense of her situation. And that’s a problem when we believe that God causes everything and everything that happens to us is a pert of God’s plan for our lives.

I sat by her bedside while she told me her story. I held her hand while she cried in despair. Finally she asked me to try to explain why God was doing this to her.

It was the age old question: “Who Do You Say That I Am?” Our response to that question can make all the difference in how we respond to the situations we face in life. I shared with her my personal theology, knowing that it had sustained me through some of life’s worst experiences. I said, “Kathy, I don’t believe God brings these things on us as lessons or to test us. I believe God loves us and suffers right along with us when we suffer. I don’t believe God is in control of our lives. We are in control of our lives and God tries to direct us through these things through God’s Spirit and still small voice of persuasion. When catastrophe occurs in our lives, God is there for us and right beside us…with us through the entire ordeal. God strengthens us when we need God’s strength to get through life’s trials…but God does not bring these trials upon us. Stuff happens in life. Sometimes stuff happens because we make bad decisions and sometimes through the bad decisions of others. Sometimes stuff just happens. But God is Love, Comforter and Strength."

I didn’t know if what I shared would help her through her ordeal, but though I didn’t tell her so, I felt her personal theology was destroying her faith in God. When I finished, she smiled and hugged me. She thanked me for coming and we prayed together before I left.

Here are some questions each of us must ask ourselves.

First, How can our personal discernment help our congregation to be a people who share a mission and message of the importance of God’s loving and peaceable Kingdom?

Second, Are we prepared to declare that Jesus’ message makes an impact in our lives and how do we respond to that message?

Third, How do we personally (and our congregation corporately) demonstrate the practice of discerning God’s call to feed the hungry, cloth the naked, make welcome the stranger and visit the sick?

If God were to ask us, “Who Do You Say That I am” would we be able to affirm who God is in a positive way? These are some very important questions. Our answers may help us through life’s many trials. Personally....“Who Do We Say God Is?”