Who Do You Say That I Am?

Then Jesus asked them, “But who do YOU say that I am?” (MK 8:29)

 

Today’s lesson comes at the end of a very busy chapter in Mark’s Gospel. In this one chapter alone, the writers have in quick succession reeled off the feeding of the multitudes, an angry encounter with the Pharisees and the healing of a blind man at Bethsaida prior to the passage we are hearing this morning.

Here, after all these incredibly demanding engagements, Jesus decides to have a philosophical discussion. It’s an odd thing for Jesus to do, stopping in the middle of this frenetically busy day to ask his disciples first who others think he is and then who they think he is. If we didn’t know better, given the existential nature of his questions, we might suspect Jesus is having an identity crisis here. 

 

Who IS this Guy?

 

Of course, that presumes that it actually is Jesus speaking to us here. Most biblical scholars tend to think it probably is not. Jesus rarely initiates dialogue with others like this and almost never refers to himself in the first person. And while this line of self-focused questioning doesn’t sound much like the Jesus whose focus is generally on others - the poor, the sick and the outcast - it does sound an awful lot like the early Jesus communities. In the wake of his death they are trying to understand this enigmatic figure they have come to see as the one anointed to save Israel.

 This query also appears in both Luke and Matthew, the two synoptic Gospels which used Mark as their starting place. And it appears in the Sayings Gospel of Thomas which did not end up being included in the New Testament canon.

What is most notable in each version of this exchange is that it is never Jesus who answers the questions about who he is. It is always his disciples. And it is the successors to those disciples who several generations later are still trying to make sense of this phenomenon called Jesus of Nazareth as they write their Gospels. 

 Mark’s community from which today’s lesson comes makes Peter’s assertion that Jesus is the anointed one a secret. Titles like Messiah can get one killed in the Roman Empire as Jesus would soon discover. Writing about the time that the Second Temple had been destroyed and Jerusalem depopulated of its Jewish residents by the Romans, it’s hardly surprising that this community is not anxious to draw attention to itself. Similarly, in Luke’s version, drawing on its starting place in Mark, Peter’s assertion draws no response except a stern warning to the disciples to keep it secret.

Matthew’s community is writing a couple of decades after Mark from the safety of the Galilean north. Here the stirrings of what will become the institutional church are reflected in a gospel which uses this passage as an opportunity to elevate Peter to a mythical proto-pope: “I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church.”

 Perhaps the most interesting response is found in Thomas’s gospel where Jesus responds to the disciples by telling them that they are intoxicated from drinking from the same spiritual well from which he drinks. There is much to consider in that response. Along with Luke, it is Thomas who asserts that “The Kingdom of Heaven is within you.”

 

 Jesus Came for the Kingdom, What Arrived was the Church

 

At some level, it’s hardly surprising to see these early followers of Jesus wondering out loud about who this Jesus actually was and what he was actually about. It is a question that captured the imaginations of Jesus followers the entire time he walked the earth and has only increased in magnitude since his death.

 

                                        The Four Evangelists, Jacob Jordeans (1625)

In the last two centuries alone there has been more written on the questions of who Jesus was and what he was about than in the 18 centuries preceding them. It has spawned two major quests for the Historical Jesus, the most recent featuring a Jesus Seminar where scholars sought to separate out the sayings of Jesus, the 1^st CE Judean peasant sage, from the many constructions of him by Gospel writers. They readily placed in Jesus’ mouth the concerns and the understandings of their communities.

Part of what has prompted this modern search for Jesus is that historically the church has provided very little to go on. French Roman Catholic theologian Alfred Loisy was among the first to raise this concern with his observation in 1904 that "Jesus came proclaiming the Kingdom, and what arrived was the Church." It was observations like this that would prompt his church’s hierarchy to excommunicate him four years later. 

But Loisy was raising an important point that Jesus Seminar founder Bob Funk would develop further nearly a century later in explaining the reason he assembled biblical scholars to once again search for the historical Jesus. He often remarked that he simply felt Jesus deserved more than a punctuation mark. What he was referencing is the words of the Creed that we will be reciting moments from the end of this sermon: “He was born of the Virgin Mary [COMMA] suffered under Pontius Pilate….” 

 What becomes clear in this cryptic, truncated reference to Jesus is that his value to the institution has largely been reduced to instrumentalism – a means to an end. That end is revealed by the Creed itself: “For us and for our salvation, he came down from heaven…” If you want existential peace about the afterlife, buy into our dogma. 

 

Almost from the beginning, Jesus simply dropped off the church’s radar. As Father Loisy observed, Jesus spent his life trying to inspire people to look around themselves to see the goodness of G-d in the world and to live their lives in a manner that brought life in its fullest, a way of being he called the Kingdom of G-d. But all of that was forgotten with the rise of an institution whose imperatives included insisting upon exclusive insight into ultimate truth and demanding loyalty and obedience from adherents at the price of their very souls.

 

In all honesty, I find that very troubling. And yet here we all are this day. I stand before you as an ordained representative of this institution and most of you are here as its confirmed members. So what is it that draws us here?

 

The Seed of Jesus Beneath All The Encrustations

It is my sense that under all the encrusted layers of theology which would reduce Jesus to a set of ideas to which its guardians demand affirmation, Jesus is still there waiting to be discovered anew. And for all of the critiques which can be offered of this institution, at a very basic level I believe that we are ultimately in the church’s debt for 2000 years of preserving the seed that is Jesus at its very heart. It has always been there, safely hidden away, awaiting its chance to germinate and grow and many of us sense that. I also believe it is the opportunity of those in every generation to bring that seed to life, to watch it flourish and that is what brings us here today. 

 Mark’s Jesus asks, “Who do you say I am?” How would you answer that question were it posed to you today? Let me offer you a couple of considerations.

 

I am taken by the description in John’s Gospel that Jesus is the way, the truth and the life. It is my observation that following the Way of Jesus first requires seeing the world truthfully as it is and not as we want it to be. 

Jesus was a master at seeing through socially constructed realities. He routinely rejected categories of outcasts based in tribal purity codes that excluded the poor, those seen as sexually impure and the suffering from the demoniacs to the lepers. The Way of Jesus insists upon recognizing and respecting the image of G_d that all living beings bear, sometimes hiding behind distressing disguises of homelessness, addiction and criminality, sometimes hiding behind the virulently partisan masks of opposing religious and political ideologies. The passages that biblical scholars most often agree are authentically Jesus advise us to turn the other cheek when wronged by others and to love our enemies as ourselves. If you want to hear the authentic Jesus speaking to you, go back and read the parable of the Good Samaritan. 

 

Jesus models a pattern of interacting with G_d that is highly intimate. While we academics tend to resonate with abstract notions like Paul Tillich’s reference to G-d as the Ultimate Concern, the Ground of All Being, Jesus addresses G-d directly, calling him Abba, Daddy. He repeatedly tells his listeners that their Creator loves and values all of creation without condition, making the rains to fall on the just and the unjust alike.

 More importantly, he speaks of a G_d who is worthy of their trust. That includes their concerns not only about their daily lives – what we will eat, what we wear – it also includes what happens after their deaths. Jesus repeatedly tells them that all of that is in G-d’s hands. Do not worry. Be at peace.

 

I believe Jesus reveals a G_d worth worshipping and models a Way worth following. It is a way that prompts its followers to love unconditionally, to see past tribal barriers, to evince concern for the suffering. It is a way that calls them to trust their very lives to the G-d who lies beneath, beyond and yet within all that exists. It is a way that indeed has the potential to produce life in its fullest. And it is a way which, taken seriously, could well lead to the realization here and now of the Kingdom of G-d to which Jesus devoted his life.

 

Who Do You Say That I Am?

 

So, who do I say Jesus is? He is the Way, the Truth, the Life. But don’t take my word for it. This question is ultimately posed to each one of us who would follow Jesus. Who do you say Jesus is? What difference does it make that you follow Jesus? How does such a following help you, in the words of our parish mission statement, discover G-d’s grace, change your life and be a part of changing the whole world?

 I leave you with those questions this morning. And I close with one of history’s best examples of the search for the Jesus whose seed has always been present at the heart of our tradition awaiting discovery. It is the prayer of our patron, St. Richard of Chichester. Let us pray:

O Jesus, most merciful redeemer, friend and brother,

may I know thee more clearly, love thee more dearly,

and follow thee more nearly, day by day. AMEN.

 

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  Harry Scott Coverston

  Orlando, Florida

 frharry@cfl.rr.com

  hcoverston.orlando@gmail.com

 If the unexamined life is not worth living, surely an unexamined belief system, be it religious or political, is not worth holding. Most things worth considering do not come in sound bites.

 Those who believe religion and politics aren't connected don't understand either. – Mahatma Gandhi

 For what does G-d require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your G-d?  - Micah 6:8, Hebrew Scriptures

 Do not be daunted by the enormity of the world's grief. Do justly, now. Love mercy, now. Walk humbly now. You are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to abandon it. - Rabbi Rami Shapiro, Wisdom of the Jewish Sages (1993)

  © Harry Coverston, 2021

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