“But who do you say that I am?” Matthew 16:15
Last Sunday at our Reformation 500 team meeting, a suggestion was made that we ask the question, “Why are you a Lutheran Christian?” and invite people to answer in 140 words or less. Answers will be published in the Circle, on our Facebook page and Website. Artistic responses are also welcomed. I volunteered to go first and posted my answer on the Pastors’ page in the September Circle. While I found the 140-word limitation to be challenging –I wrote about being baptized when I was a month old and raised at St. Paul’s Lutheran Church in Allentown. I shared how I am re-formed by God’s grace every day. Reading it in light of today’s Gospel, I noticed that I never quite got to the heart of the matter. That’s Jesus’ question today – who do you say that I am?
He’s on retreat with his disciples in Caesarea Philippi, a northern Roman city far from Jerusalem. They’ve been together for over 2 ½ years and Jesus knows his time with them is growing short. So, he gives them a quiz starting with the question, “Who do people say that I am?” They are quick with their replies – John the Baptist, Elijah, Jeremiah, one of the prophets, holy men touched by God. (As an aside, both Judaism and Islam would agree that Jesus is one of the prophets.) Then Jesus gets personal, “But who do YOU say that I am?” Peter blurts out, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.” Jesus responds, “This was revealed to you by God. You are Peter and on this rock I will build my church.”
“Who do you say that I am?” is THE question. When my parents carried me to the font they wanted me to know that Jesus was my friend and savior. When they drove me to Confirmation Class – each Monday for three years, they did so that I might understand the Bible and Catechism and realize for myself what I believed. When they insisted I go to worship during my rebellious teenage years I discovered that Jesus was something of a rebel, too – throwing out the money changers from the temple and caring for the poor. My father had a saying, “If you eat at the family table, you sit in the family pew” because he knew there’s more than one way to go hungry. Through it all my parents were giving me a firm foundation so that I would know that Jesus, the Messiah, the Son of the Living God, loves me. And whenever I am scared or overwhelmed, I find it helps me to remember this by making the sign of the cross. Jesus is my Lord and Savior.
Now, who do YOU say that Jesus is? Think about it. Hymns and scripture can help – Jesus is a beautiful savior, a faithful friend, the good shepherd, priceless treasure, a sure defense, the bread of life, living water – the metaphors go on and on. I know it can be hard to get this personal with faith, but I also know that if we fail to go to the heart of the matter which is the cross of salvation, faith remains shallow when we desperately need it to be deep. Who do you say that Jesus is? A first century Jew? A carpenter? A prophet? A healer? The one who changed water into wine, who ate with sinners, who fed the 5,000, who died on the cross and three days later rose again, who loves you, unconditionally? Who do you say Jesus is?
Jesus asks us this question, because our answer determines not just who he is for us, but who we are. This past week I read a book written in 1949 by African- American civil rights leader, Howard Thurman called Jesus and the Disinherited. Thurman was an author, theologian, philosopher, educator and Dean of the Chapel at Boston University. His theology of radical nonviolence shaped a generation of civil rights activists, including Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. In a provocative chapter on fear, Thurman wrote “the awareness of being a child of God tends to stabilize the ego and results in a new courage, fearlessness, and power.” He said that this was drilled into him by his grandmother who had been a slave. She told him about a slave minister who held secret religious meetings with his fellow slaves. Thurman wrote, “How everything in me quivered with the pulsing tremor of raw energy when, in her recital, she would come to the triumphant climax of the minister: ‘You – you are not niggers. You – you are not slaves. You are God’s children.’” They were given personal dignity for now they counted, they belonged.
Then in the very next paragraph, Thurman goes on to talk about a conversation he had with a young German woman who had escaped from the Nazis who described the powerful magnet that Hitler was to German youth. She told him how the youth had lost their sense of belonging. “They did not count. There was no center of hope for their marginal egos. According to her, Hitler told them, ‘No one loves you –I love you; no one will give you work – I will give you work; no one wants you – I want you,’ And when they saw the sunlight inn his eyes, they dropped their tools and followed him.” Thurman writes, “Hitler stabilized the ego of the German youth, and put it within their power to overcome their sense of inferiority” and it led to horrific consequences.
When Jesus asks us, “And who do you say that I am?” he’s makes faith personal for a reason. It’s not just something we’re taught in Sunday School or recite through a creed. Our answer defines whose we are – that we belong to God, our Lord and Savior. This is so important for as Howard Thurman puts it, “our conviction that we are children of God automatically tends to shift the basis of our relationships with others. We recognize that to fear another, whatever that person’s power over us may be, is a basic denial of the integrity of our lives. It lifts that person to a place of pre-eminence that belongs to God and to God alone.”
Tomorrow morning, many of our children head back to school. Facebook will be filled with pictures of smiling children dressed in clothes carefully picked out of the first day of school wearing backpack full of supplies. Some will hesitate getting on the school bus as anxious parents watch. Others will bound up the steps full of courage. All are children of God, but not all of them know that and even the ones who do don’t always remember. To remind them, I have suggestion: before they leave make the sign of the cross on their forehead and say, “You are God’s child and mine too. You are loved.” Do it every morning and every night. Give them a center of hope and in the process God gives you one too. You are God’s child. You are loved.
Thurman ends his book with a glorious answer to Jesus’ question, “Who do you say that I am?” He writes, “To some Jesus is the grand prototype of all the distilled longing of humankind for fulfillment, wholeness, perfection. To some he is the Eternal Presence hovering over all the myriad needs of humanity, yielding healing for the sick of body and soul, giving a lift to those whom weariness has overtaken in the long march, and calling out hidden purposes of destiny which are the common heritage. To some he is more than a Presence; he is the God fact, the Divine Moment in human sin and human misery. To still others he is one who found the answer to life’s riddle, and out of a profound gratitude he becomes the One most worthy of honor and praise. For such his answer becomes humanity’s answer and his life the common claim. Jesus belongs to no age, no race, no creed. When men and women look into his face, they see etched the glory of their own possibilities, and their hearts whisper, ‘Thank you and thank God!’” Amen.
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Howard Thurman, Jesus and the Disinherited, Beacon Press, Boston, 1976, 39-40.
Ibid, 41.
Ibid, 102.
