I Do Not Think it Means What You Think it Means
RCL Year B • Sermon • Submitted
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As I talked about during the announcements I hope that you take the opportunity to write on the whiteboard to answer the question that Jesus posed to the disciples today. “Who do you say that I am?”
On the one hand the answer seems so simple and perhaps easy. Give the answer that Peter gave. You are the Messiah. Messiah is the term that we often used to describe the figure, the person, that the Old Testament prophets foretell is coming. The one whom we make the paths straight for. He is the one that cures the blind, heals the deaf, raises people from the dead. He is the one who lets the oppressed go free, and brings justice to the poor, the widow, the outcast, and the alien. The one who came to serve not to be served.
Many of here today know these stories and we look at scripture and find it hard that people cannot see that all of these things point to the Messiah, the one we call Jesus. Yet if the answer is easy then why is it so hard for some people to understand and come to believe? Why was it so hard for the disciples to figure out, I mean really figure it out? Why have people for thousands of years asked this very question and written books, and had conversations about this very topic? Why are there more people leaving church and claiming the title “nones” if the answer was obvious and easy?
We see, quite clearly, in today’s story that sometimes even if we give the right name to something we might not entirely understand what that name or title means. Messiah was a loaded topic at the time leading up to Jesus. The term Messiah did mean someone who would bring justice to the land and help those who were the least of these in society, but more in a political justice way of thinking. The term Messiah was also associated with someone who would bring about a time that was reminiscent of King David’s reign. King David united the kingdom and truly made it the Promised Land as the people of Israel understood it. That was the height of what it meant to be a part of God’s chosen people. We even hear from Isaiah 11:1 “1 A shoot shall come out from the stump of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots.” This was someone who was thought to be the one to overthrow the Roman government and give Israel it’s freedom once again.
This is not the same term for Messiah that we know today and it was not the term that Jesus intended for people to think about when using that word. I don’t know if any of you have seen the Princess Bride, but this reminds me of the actor Wallace Shawn who plays Vizzini and he keeps saying the word “inconceivable” and one of his partners finally looks at him and says, “You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.” Jesus figures out that after Peter calls him Messiah that when he talks about his death and resurrection that Peter doesn’t really know what Messiah really means. Peter doesn’t want him to die. Peter wants him to live.
Think about Peter for a minute. More specifically think about what must be going through Peter’s mind as he tries to take this all in. For Peter, Jesus is so many different things. He has just called him Messiah which we believe leans toward the historic and earthly idea of Messiah. We’ve already talked about that so let’s not go there again. But think about the other titles or relationships that Peter has probably connected or associated with Jesus. He would be Peter’s Rabbi. He would be his teacher. He would be a miracle worker. He would probably consider him friend also. Jesus was the one who came to the shore and said come and follow me and I will make you fish for people. Jesus took him from a possible secure but also probably mundane life and completely changed it. Jesus invited him to be one his closest confidants. Jesus chose him to hear the most secret conversations about God and the coming kingdom and what it was that God wanted for this world.
Let’s put aside this idea of Messiah for a moment when we consider that Jesus just said that he’s going to die. Peter’s Rabbi, teacher…friend, has just said that he’s going to die. I think about people I have known in my life that have meant so much to me, and know that I have not handled the news of their death very well. I know there was crying and denial and frustration at the thought and the fact that this is the reality of their and my future. Jesus chose Peter. I know it’s different now to think about what it was like to be one of his disciples, but he was chosen. That relationship had to have been so incredible and complicated. I don’t know how I would have handled the news of his death either.
We learn that Peter, and let’s not put it all on Peter, the rest of the disciples and the crowds have a lot to learn. Just like we do. There is more to Jesus than we understand. That following Jesus means following the healer, the teacher, the miracle worker, the teacher, and the Messiah who must suffer and die and after three days rise again. We have to take all of Jesus and try to understand what it means to follow and live out a life that embraces all of Jesus. Including a Jesus that at first is not kind to the Syrophoenician woman when they first meet as we talked about last week. The same Jesus that says you need to place the world second and me, God and the Holy Spirit first. The same Jesus that raises his friend Lazarus from the dead. The same Jesus that tells us we need to deny ourselves take up our cross and follow him. The same Jesus that died so that we might have life even if we don’t fully understand what that means.
Who do you say that I am? What a beautiful and complicated question. Theologian Diana Butler Bass released a book earlier this year called, “Freeing Jesus” in which she shares her personal story about 6 of many titles she has given Jesus over the years of her life. She has called him: Friend, Teacher, Savior, Lord, Way, and Presence. It is a question that helps us to shape our minds toward the divine and hopefully away from our own personal and often selfish desires and thoughts. It is a question that like for Diana Butler Bass changes throughout our lives depending on where we are in our faith. It is a question that we need to share with people so that they can hopefully begin to understand what it is that Jesus, the Messiah did for this whole world and for that person personally.
Finally it is a question that reminds us that we are all in need of a Messiah, a Savior. Someone who forgives us our sins. Who bears the burden of the cross, to suffer rejection, shame, and humiliation so that we can be freed from those things, and from the bondage of sin and death. It is a question that offers life, and life everlasting. Who do you say that I am? You are the one who makes all things possible and so much more. For that we give thanks and praise. Amen.