Who do you say I am?

Passage for reflection: Matthew 16: 13 - 20

I wonder if you’ve ever been walking down the high street and wished you’d picked another time to do your shopping. The survey lady pounces on you, asks if you’ve time to help her and tells you it won’t take long. She whisks you away into an office. She lies. It takes for ever!

“Was that cheese stronger, milder, or about the same as the last one?”

Your opinion counts. 

Politicians know all about opinion polls. Sometimes they are accurate, sometimes not. Joe Biden appears to be in front in the opinion polls a few months before the American election. But often on the day things can be very different. 

What do you think? 

Methodist ministers know all about people’s opinions, especially at the time of reinvitation. The last time I said I would stay longer in an appointment, 89 people were asked “what do you think?” and then I was presented with a vast document with all 89 opinions, the names of who said what left out, though some of who thought what I could guess. 

I guess it’s important to know public opinion, what people are thinking. I guess in a few weeks some good folk in North Yorkshire will be sharing their opinion about the new minister over the Sunday dinner! 

I’ve had times when something someone hasn’t liked has been brought to my attention, usually with the words “people are saying that...” - and usually “people” who “are saying” don’t exist!! 

After the disciples have been with Jesus some time, Jesus wants to know what they’ve been hearing as they travelled from place to place.

“Who do people say that the Son of Man is? What do people say about me?” Jesus asks.

“Some say John the Baptist”. Like John, Jesus was a sort of moral authority for them, someone who remembers the commandments of God and appeals for repentance and change.

Others say Elijah. Elijah had struggled for the exclusive worship for Yahweh in the midst of Baal and Queen Jezebel. For people who answered in this way, Jesus was, like Elijah, a religious and political revolutionary. 

Others say Jeremiah. Jeremiah was known for his intensive and very personal prayers, his so-called confessions. He was an inconvenient prophet and was persecuted.

Who do people say that I am? 

But then Jesus reminds those disciples that what other people think isn’t as important as what we are thinking. 

“Who do you say that I am?”

It is much more significant to clarify for ourselves  the question of Jesus. “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”That’s a great confession! It is a decisive moment when Peter recognises and proclaims this. 

“You are for me the person who fulfils the hopes of people over the centuries. You are the Messiah, the Christ. In you, God comes very close to me. In you, and so, at the same time in God, all my trust, my power and my strength are based.”

But Peter, who is able here to speak in that clear way, is that same Peter who in other situations is very weak, shows great fear and makes grave mistakes. Shortly before this scene the gospel tells us how Peter, full of enthusiasm, wants to approach Jesus at the lake. But at that moment as he becomes aware of the strong contrary wind he loses his foothold and sinks. He is out of his depth.

You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.

 So says the same Peter who makes the wrong decision and pulls his sword during the capture of Jesus – as the gospel of John tells us. Jesus admonishes him by saying: Put your sword away.

And last but by no means least: Peter, who speaks such great words here of certainty and recognition, is the same Peter who sits during Jesus’s interrogation in the courtyard and cannot find in that moment the strength to give the merest expression to even an acquaintance with Jesus.

And yet Jesus says “You are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church.”

I used to know someone who wouldn’t ever do anything risky because she was always petrified about what people would think. In the end, if we are truly convinced of Jesus and committed to following him, then we should not be worried or bothered what other people think. We should stand by our convictions and be confident in them even if we are ridiculed or get the “people are saying” brigade in our face! 

Jesus tells Peter, giving him a new name, the rock, that his faith is what the Church will be built on. I find it very comforting that Peter will as I’ve already said will make huge mistakes, fall from grace and need forgiveness but that Jesus stands by him. Our faith will falter but it is what we need to confess at the heart of who we are. A Church not built on faith will fall. 

“Who do you say that I am?” 

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, writing while sitting in the darkness of a prison cell in Nazi Germany, determined this was the central question for the church in his time, and would be for every generation to come: Who is Jesus Christ for us, today? he asked, adding urgency to the question. Who do we say Jesus is for us today?

In other words, what does the call to follow Jesus look like for us in this moment? What does it demand of us?

It seems to me Bonhoeffer is right. Today’s Church needs to answer Jesus’ question. Can he be met through what we do and are, can we give an opinion about him? We can give our views on cheese and politics and ministers, more vital is sharing the hope we have within us. 

“Who do you say I am?”

“Who am I for you?”

“I believe that followers of the real Jesus can make our nation the city set on a hill it was meant to be—a more just, more compassionate, less violent place, a place where every human being can flourish. I believe that following this Jesus can help turn our world around by making this “Christian” nation more Christ-like.

But what about you? Who do you say that he is? Is your reply awkward and uncertain? Do you have more questions than answers? If so, you qualify to be a disciple—right in there with Peter and Mary and Martha and James and John.

Jesus is after big game here. He wants you and me to be part of the healing of the world. He wants us to be his friends and companions. He wants to fill us with his life. And all we have to do is to follow, learn from him, and let him live in us.

But enough of my response. The question he asks today still hangs in the air for you too, and it matters enormously how you answer it. “You — who do you say that I am?””