Mueller, Gerald S.

English

Scholars Commons

Who do you say I am?

Wilfrid Laurier University

ConsensusVolume 16Issue 1 Hermeneutics: Theory and Practice Article 85-1-1990Who do you say I am?Gerald S. MuellerFollow this and additional works at: http://scholars.wlu.ca/consensusThis Sermons is brought to you for free and open access by Scholars Commons @ Laurier. It has been accepted for inclusion in Consensus by anauthorized editor of Scholars Commons @ Laurier. For more information, please contact scholarscommons@wlu.ca.Recommended CitationMueller, Gerald S. (1990) "Who do you say I am?," Consensus: Vol. 16 : Iss. 1 , Article 8.Available at: http://scholars.wlu.ca/consensus/vol16/iss1/8“Who Do You Say I Am?”Gerald S. MuellerRector, St. Luke^s Church (Anglican),Cambridge, OntarioText: Mark 8:27-38About seven or eight years ago, a couple of researchers insociology and psychology published a book with the title “TheFirst Four Minutes”. It was the thesis of these authors thatall relationships are completely determined in the four minutesafter people first meet. In four minutes we decide whether aperson we have just met will become a casual acquaintance, aclose friend, our husband or wife, a bitter enemy; or we decideto let that person walk through our life, and out of it, never tobe seen again!If that is correct, then it puts clergy like me, taking theirfirst service and preaching their first sermon in a new parish,under great pressure. After all, I want my relationship withyou to go well. According to this theory, I’ve got about threeminutes left, if you count from the start of the sermon, orit’s already too late, if you count from the beginning of theservice. Thus it’s very tempting to turn this sermon into anadvertisement for myself. I could tell you what a fine fellow Iam, ever so subtly and discreetly of course. Or I could tell youof the vision I have for myself in this parish, tell you the greatthings we will accomplish together, tell you how wonderful thenext several years are going to be for us all. That would bewrong; that would be preaching myself, and as St. Paul remindspreachers, we are to preach Christ, and only Christ, and soperhaps I should just get on with that. But, who is Christ,that I am to preach to you?98 ConsensusIThat’s not a new question, of course! Over nearly twentycenturies much ink, and much blood, has been spilled trying tocome to a satisfactory and agreed upon answer. Today’s Gospelreading from St. Mark probably records the first occasion thatthe question was debated, at that time between Jesus and thedisciples. The questions that Jesus asks then, and the answersgiven then, are still relevant to us today, because they are thesame questions that are continually asked of us in our Christianjourney. Our answers are as important as those of the disciples,because they determine the very heart of our faith.Jesus asks, “Who do they say that I am?” Jesus beginsby questioning what the disciples have learned about him bylistening to others. That is the starting point for beginningto understand who Jesus is; considering what others have saidabout him. It’s easy to say that isn’t good enough, and rightlyso, and move on to the second of Jesus’ questions. But I’d liketo suggest that even in the disciples’ times, and more so today,a true understanding of who Jesus is requires knowing whoothers have thought him to be. True knowledge of Jesus be-gins with at least a small understanding of what nearly twentycenturies of thinking and reflecting and meditating about Jesushave produced.Our Anglican church gives great importance to past think-ing in the way it develops its theology, by giving tradition, theopinions of the church in the past, equal weight with the HolyScriptures and our own human reason. Thus in developing ourunderstanding of who Jesus is, we cannot ignore the writingsabout him in the past, nor can we ignore the research of schol-ars past and present. I don’t mean to suggest that you need tobecome familiar with twenty centuries of writings about Jesus.I do want to say that our Church’s understanding of Jesus,expressed in the way we worship in our liturgies, and by whatour church teaches in its dogmas and official statements, doescontain a large measure of past answers to the question, “Whodo they say that I am?” Anglicans do not lightly reject theanswers of the past in favour of some attractive, modern, andpreferably easy theology, although I hope that we are also opento change and do not cling to traditional thinking at all costs.But, all that is not enough! No amount of gathering ofopinions about Jesus, past or present, no amount of historicalWho Do You Say I Am? 99exploration, no amount of general knowledge, valuable as allthat is, can be a substitute for a personal opinion, a personalverdict, a personal statement of faith. We can do all the read-ing we want, all the listening to others that we want, and outof that we can put together a picture of Jesus, but ultimatelyJesus asks each of us, as he asked the disciples, “Who do yousay that I am?” An academic thesis, a term paper concluding,“And therefore these are everyone else’s opinions of Jesus” willnot do. The question is a personal one. “Who do you say thathe is? Who do I say that he is?”IIIn our Gospel reading Peter answers the question with “Youare the Christ.” To understand what Peter meant we can-not use our own understanding of what it means to be “theChrist”, because our understanding is coloured by twenty cen-turies of tradition. Rather, we have to understand what thatword meant to Peter. What Peter confessed was that he be-lieved that Jesus was the promised Messiah, the one anointedby God to deliver Israel from the yoke of Roman domination,the one sent by God to restore Israel to the status of God’schosen people living in the promised land free from foreigners.It was widely believed in first century Israel that such a Mes-siah, such a Christ (the two words mean the same thing) wouldrally the people into an uprising, and with God’s help push theRomans out of Palestine, and then reign over a restored Israelfrom the throne of David in Jerusalem.From what follows in our reading it is clear that Peter’sanswer was the wrong one! First, Jesus tells the disciples invery strong language to tell this to no one. Jesus is not the kindof Christ that everyone is expecting, and there is no point inarousing the wrong expectations among the people. And thenJesus tells the disciples just exactly who he is. He does notuse the title “Christ” of himself, preferring instead the term“the Son of humanity”, and goes on to describe that he mustsuffer and be rejected, and be killed, and that he then wouldrise again. Peter of course prefers his own answer, namely, thatJesus is the conquering, glorious, liberating Messiah who willlead the insurrection, to Jesus’ rather depressing description,and argues with Jesus. And then Peter is told off in very harsh100 Consensusterms, being called Satan, the arch-tempter, the arch-deceiver!No, Jesus is not the kind of Christ that Peter has in mind!IllWe too confess that Jesus is the Christ, every week in thecreed. What sort of Christ do we have in mind? Do we fallinto the same trap Peter fell into?We don’t have to look too far to find theologies of glory,ways of thinking about Jesus that see him as the conqueringhero, the one who will make all things right, rather than asthe suffering servant who is persecuted and who dies. It isall too easy, and all too common, to see the Gospel of Jesusonly in terms of Easter and Pentecost, with Christmas thrownin for sentimental reasons, and ignore Passiontide and GoodFriday completely. It is easy to become overly fond of emptycrosses as the Christian symbol, and to forget that there werethree hours on a Friday long ago when the one we confess asthe Christ, God in the world, and Lord of all, hung suffering,nailed to a cross!Or, we can take Christ, and make him into a poetic idealist,a great moral teacher, a beautiful sentimental figure, someoneliving in another time and another place, completely out oftouch with our changed, modern world. That’s been done!Or we can take Christ, and turn him into a picture to hanginside churches, or to be made into stained glass, and to besafely kept there, never to enter the real world of our lives.That too has been done! Or we can take Christ, and turn himinto a social crusader, a liberator, someone who accepts andencourages violence in the pursuit of liberty and social justiceand fairness and equality. And that too has been done! Or wecan turn Christ into an inspiring leader and great teacher, butnot, no never, the revelation and incarnation of the ultimateGod. That, too, has been done! Or, we can turn Christ intoa dear companion for the home and family, a personal friendand inspiration, an example for the children, someone to guideone’s private inner life, but never one’s master for business,work, politics, or anything in the “real” world. And that hasalso been done!Who do we, you and I, say that he is? And more impor-tantly than what we say with our mouths, what do our lives.Who Do You Say I Am? 101our attitudes, our sense of values, say that he is? Do we saythat Jesus is Christ, Jesus is Lord, Jesus is the incarnation andrevelation of God, the master of our lives and all that we areand have, only on Sunday, for an hour or so, and the rest ofthe time we really act as if he were something else, somethingless, something weaker? Do our lips whisper one thing, andour actions shout something else? Jesus himself tells us whatit means really to understand who he is, what it means to givethe right answer to his question, “Who do you say that I am?”IV“If any would follow me, let them deny themselves, and takeup their cross.” Notice that in our Gospel reading Jesus saysthis not only to the disciples, but also to the multitudes he hassummoned. This saying of Jesus is clearly intended for all hisfollowers, and thus is very much addressed to us.Self-denial is one of the hardest things to do. This is notsome foggy idea, easy to work around. Self-denial is appallinglysharp and clear. It is far more than refusing to give thingsto ourselves, or giving up things that we enjoy. In fact, self-denial may have nothing to do with these. Not giving ourselvessomething we want, or giving up something we enjoy, may bringwith it much self-satisfaction as we tell ourselves, secretly andinwardly, “Look how good I am!”Denying self is far deeper than this. It means lowering thepriority of ourselves, our total fascination with “I” and “me”and “mine”, and giving priority only to God. It means givingup ourselves, our needs, and wants, and wishes, if these conflictwith the demands of God, not as spiritual exercise to prove justhow excellent we can be at denying self, but only for God’s sake.It simply means becoming Christlike; becoming submissive tothe will of God.And the prospect of taking up a cross is difficult to face. Itis so difficult that we have come up with all sorts of definitionsfor taking up a cross that avoid the real issue. We speak ofan accidental calamity as a cross that we must bear. But acalamity is not a cross, even though it may be tragic. We speakof loss or sorrow as a cross. But these are not a cross, eventhough they may be heavy burdens. We even speak of our ownshortcomings, our tempers, weaknesses, faults, as crosses we102 Consensusbear. We can get quite pious about the many things that afflictus, the many supposed crosses we bear. But let’s rememberone thing. These things may be tragic, and heavy to endure,but the incarnate God does not die on them!The cross for Jesus was his deliberate choice of giving uphis life, to die the cruel death of a rejected criminal, in order tobreak the power of sin over all humanity. It was a freely madechoice to bring to us the truth about God, and about God’slove, and it was a choice made out of love and in obedience toGod’s will. The cross was the ultimate act of ministry to allhumanity. So for us, as disciples of Jesus, the cross means adeliberate choice of something we could evade, the taking up ofa burden that we are not required to lift, simply because we loveGod, and because God wants it. Taking up our cross meanstaking upon ourselves the responsibility for the lives of ourneighbours, no matter where they are, and putting ourselveswithout reservation at the service of Jesus in preparing theway of the reign of God. Taking up our cross means joining inthe struggle against evil, whatever that may demand from us.Only by being willing, freely, to lose all, including our lives, inthe service of God, will we gain life eternal.VI started by telling about a book called “The First FourMinutes”. Fortunately for us, the thesis of that book does notapply to our relationship with Jesus Christ. No matter whatour relationship with Christ has been in the past, it can alwayschange. Over and over we are asked, “Who do they say thatI am?” and “Who do you say that I am?” I expect that ouranswers will change, and probably should change, from day today and over a lifetime. What is important to remember isthat our relationship with Jesus is not something that is fixedforever by something that happened in the first four minutes,or even everything that has happened up to right now. Ourrelationship with Jesus is always open to change. And withGod’s grace, there may be a time when we can say “You arethe Christ, and yes, I will deny myself, and yes, I will take upmy cross, and I will follow you.”I also hope that this concept of the first four minutes deter-mining all relationships does not apply to Christians, at leastWho Do You Say I Am? 103not within the church. If we believe in anything at all webelieve in crucifixion and rising again, in dying and in resur-rection, in sin and forgiveness. That means in our relationshipswith one another we need to be always open to change, alwaysopen to new beginnings, always be ready to start over again.That too is being Christ-like.“Who do we, you and I, say that he is?” The answer oughtto come not only from our mouths, but from within our lives.In a few moments we will meet the risen Christ in the breadand wine of holy communion. It is my prayer for us that aswe eat and drink Christ he will feed and strengthen us, so thatwith his grace our lives and our actions and our values answer,“You are the Christ, the Son of the living God, and I will followyou.”

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Who do you say I am?

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