Text: Matthew 16: 13-15

Now when Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, “Who do people say that the Son of Man it?”  And they said, “Some say John the Baptist, but others Elijah, and still others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.” He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?”

Note:  This message was offered at Westminster Presbyterian Church, Sept. 15, 2013, in full acknowledgement that people of others faiths and of no particular faith explore in their own way how live with meaning and purpose.

MARK SCHUMANN

Reading this passage from Matthew’s gospel, I imagine Jesus walking along the dry, dusty road to Jerusalem, his disciples in tow.  He knows all too well what lies ahead, perhaps because he has foreknowledge, or keen instincts, or because he has been paying attention to the political winds blowing through Palestine.  Anyone with eyes to see and ears to hear was keenly aware that talk of a new kingdom would draw the ire of the Roman occupiers and their puppets in the Temple.

As he walks along the road to Jerusalem, the secret Messiah is alone with his thoughts, heavy-laden with what must surely have been a sense of foreboding. None of his twelve disciples had any sense of what he was really about.  After all, they had singed up with his campaign for their own varied reasons – to be part of something larger than themselves, or because they were unemployed and had nothing better to do, or because following Jesus offered escape from their family’s fishing business, or because they never stopped to seriously consider the consequences.

As the rag-tag band of religious revolutionaries shuffled their way along the road, Peter, for once, was not the one doing the talking. He, like Jesus, was alone with his thoughts; his head down in heaviness, aimlessly kicking stones along ahead of him.

A few conversations are in progress, a joke being told here, some questioning among them about where they will spend the night, Judas sharing with those who will listen his incessant fear the money will run out.

Over the chatter and out of his own deep silence, Jesus tosses out a question.  It was a simple enough question.  “What are folks saying about me on the street, and what are the pundits writing in the press? What was their take on my last debate with the Pharisees?”

Always eager to please, Jesus’ band of wayward misfit political operatives, or whatever they fancied themselves to be, tell him exactly what they think he wants to hear. Or, perhaps they were relaying to Jesus what people were actually saying about him – that he must be John the Baptist come back from the dead, or Elijah, or Jeremiah, or one of the great prophets.

“Why, Mr. President, they think you are George Washington, or Thomas Jefferson, or Abraham Lincoln incarnate.”

Imagine that!

As Jesus and his entourage reached a bend in the road, the city of Jerusalem came into view, far off in the distance – their final destination. Jesus stops dead in his tracks and puts one hand up, signaling for silence. For a long moment, which must have felt to the disciples like an eternity, the carpenter turned itinerant preacher, with calloused hands and dusty feet, stares off into the distance, his eyes fixed on Jerusalem.  He looks like a man who knows too much about his own future.

Turning to face his disciples, Jesus pulls the pin, so to speak, and asking another question. This one lands amongst them like a hand grenade.  “But who do YOU say that I am.”

Impetuous Peter pipes up with an answer.  “Why, Jesus, you are none other than the Messiah, the long-promised one who has come to restore the nation of Israel, God’s own people.”

Jesus’ initial reaction suggests that Peter’s answer must have pleased both him and God, for it earned Peter a seat at Jesus’ right hand.  Peter will be first minister.

But with practically his very next breath, Peter takes great exception to Jesus’ forecast of tragedy ahead. Peter has yet to comprehend what kind of Messiah Jesus is and what kind of salvation he offers.

“Get behind me, Satan!”

Poor Peter.  So attached to a vision and a dream of what he wanted his savior to be –for himself and for his nation – that he could not see Jesus for who he really was. And, Lord knows, he could not yet begin to fathom the nature of servant leadership.

As the story unfolds, it becomes clear to Peter what would be required of him. There were, of course, more than a few missteps along the way, a few betrayals, then a life of service.

It was through his stewardship of the early church that Peter more fully answers Jesus’ piercing question, “Who do YOU say that I am?

“Who do YOU say that I am?”

It is a question that has been ringing in the ears of Christians for more than 2,000 years, and it is a question we must answer anew each day of our lives.

To a graduating class of Yale seminarians, author Frederick Buechner advised, “It is the places your feet take you and the work you find for your hands that will ultimately tell the tale of who you are and of who Christ is.”

Can you see how it is that Christians answer for ourselves and for the world the question of who Christ is for us, not so much by the worded answers we give on Sunday, but by the choices we make during the remainder of the week.  We answer Jesus’ question throughout the course of a lifetime, and we answer it anew every day.

I am not talking here about the question of how we are saved, or when we are saved, but of what it means to us to be saved.

First, let us acknowledge that there are as many ways of answering the question, as there are followers of Jesus.  One of the amazing qualities of Jesus’ leadership is that he does not seek to control us, and he clearly does not value uniformity or conformity.  Rather, he offers to set us free FROM separation and alienation in order that we will be free TO fall in love – all over again – with him, with the world – to fall in love with life.

Take a moment now to sit quietly and remember a time when you fell in love, perhaps the last time.  Recall what it is like to fall in love.

Now consider this: Was your experience taking place in the object of your love, or inside your own skin?

Can you see how falling in love and being in love is experienced from within?

All we really need to get in touch with the spark of the divine is for someone to mirror back to us our deepest longings and our most profound desires for peace and wholeness.

When Byron Katie’s husband, Steven Mitchell, tells her he loves her, she says, “Honey, I’m glad you are having that experience.”

Katie is clear that Steven’s being in love is ultimately not about her, but about his experience of her and of the world.  And, of course, it is also about his experience of himself.  The more comfortable we are in our own skin, the more capable we are of love.

And so it is in our relationship with Jesus, the Christ.  Christ, you know, was not his middle name.  Rather, it was a title ascribed to him by his followers after it had become clear to them he had the power to heal and to reconcile.

Whenever and wherever we experience healing and reconciliation, there we also experience the presence of the risen Christ.

We confirm for ourselves and we reveal to the world who Christ is by accepting Christ’s offer to get in touch with the very source of God’s love dwelling at the core of each and every heart.

I have a friend who calls this experience, “Heart Sourcing.”

We cannot theorize, or philosophize our way to salvation, and we will never experience a new heaven and a new earth by composing insightful, articulate answers to Jesus’s question, “Who do YOU say that I am?”

Rather, the way out of suffering and estrangement is found through acceptance of God’s will, and by falling in love with what is, by falling in love with life.

Crazy in love with life, the Sufi poet Rumi wrote love poems to God. 

Bittersweet

In my hallucination

I saw my Beloved’s garden.

In my vertigo,

In my dizziness,

In my drunken haze,

Whirling and dancing

Like a spinning wheel,

I saw myself

And the source of existence.

I was there in the beginning

And I was the spirit of love.

Now I am sober.

There is only the hangover

And the memory of love

And only the sorrow.

I yearn for happiness.

I ask for help.

I want mercy.

And my love says

Look at me and hear me

Because I’m here just for that.

I am your moon

And your moonlight too.

I am your flower garden

And your water too.

I have come all this way

Eager for you

Without shoes or shawl!

I want you to laugh

To kill all your worries

To love you

To nourish you.

Oh sweet Bitterness!

I will soothe you and heal you

I will bring you roses.

I too have been covered with thorns.

Jesus asks, “Can you accept that I love you? Can you then love yourself? Having sourced my love in your heart, will you channel this love to the world?”

With each sunrise we are given an opportunity to offer anew our answer to life’s inescapable question.

Imagine falling in love again, today, this day, this every moment – the surge of energy, the desire for relationship, the profound consideration for the happiness of others.  Can you imagine yourself accepting Jesus’ offer to fall in love with life – all over again?

May it be so this day for all of us.

Amen