Who You Are

Matthew 16:13-20

Do people often ask you to tell them about Jesus? To explain – or even just describe – who Jesus is?

It really almost never happens to me. And you would think it would. (Or at least, I thought so, before I was ordained and found out that priests are a lot more likely to be asked why we do this or that in church, to explain our theology and policies about marriage, or where to drop off rummage than about who exactly this Jesus is.)

So I’m out of practice with this question, and I actually found myself a little stumped recently when our Bishop asked me – started asking the whole diocese – “What is our relationship to Jesus, and how do we explain it?”

Mmm. That's complicated. There’s just so much to this relationship. I know Jesus, but it’s hard to describe Jesus.

But now I need to know my answer. And you need to know yours. Our bishop has put this question at the heart of discerning the call of our diocese – a process that has gotten underway this summer.

You recognize this question, don’t you, from the gospel story we just heard? You recognize that it’s a question that Jesus asks his disciples: “Who do you say that I am?”

We usually answer the question “Who is this?” with relationships or roles:

This is my best friend.

He’s my first grade teacher.

She’s the CEO of the company.

And that’s how the disciples answer Jesus. First, what other people say: Well, John the Baptist, or Elijah - a prophet. Who is Jesus? A prophet important to the history and future of Israel.

Then Jesus asks, “Who do you say that I am?”

And Peter speaks up - with a role: You are the Messiah. You are the one our people have been waiting for since forever. The one who is going to bring the reign of God.

And a relationship: You are the Son of the Living God. You are closer to God than anyone else.

And Peter’s answer is affirmed: Blessed are you. What you know, and say, is God’s Truth. Jesus’ identity – who he is – is truly revealed in this exchange. And then Peter’s identity is changed: You are Rock, Jesus tells him.

Peter started this conversation as “son of Jonah” – ordinarily human, known by those human relationships. Now he’s rock. Bedrock, foundational, known by what God will do with him. Given new responsibility, new identity, new relationship with everyone. All because of who he says Jesus is.

It’s not just Peter. It’s true for you and for me, also. Your answer to the question, “Who is Jesus?” defines you as much as it defines Jesus. My answer to that question defines me. And it defines our relationship to one another.

That’s why our bishop is asking us to know and say who Jesus is. Because what we say to others and to ourselves about Jesus – our relationship, his role – defines who we are.

If we know and describe Jesus as love and forgiveness, then our relationship to one another as the Body of Christ must be forgiving and loving, so that the world can see that in us, and respond. Or if we identify Jesus as a healer, our relationships must be about healing – one another, and the world. Whether we say Jesus is judgmental or generous, distant or close, historical or very present, how we know Jesus is how we are called to be, and the world will know Jesus through that.

But I believe there’s even more to it than that. Because it’s not just other people who ask this question, but Jesus himself. When Jesus asks you, asks me “Who do you say that I am?” we have to respond face-to-face with God. And that response reveals and shapes our identity at the most fundamental level.

When Peter says, out loud, to Jesus, that Jesus is the Messiah – the bringer of God’s kingdom - he is committing himself to living in that kingdom the way Jesus brings it, giving up his own agenda for what God should do on earth. (This is immediately tested, by the way, when Jesus starts talking about crucifixion and Peter realizes he’s signed up for something VERY different than he thought he meant).

When Peter says out loud, to Jesus, that Jesus is the Son of God, it means that to keep hanging out with Jesus, Peter is going to have to live with God in every single ordinary moment of his life: every meal, every blister, every incredible sunrise, every mistake, is not just his own, or shared with his friends: all of that is wide open to God. God isn’t distant, potential, or uncertain anymore. God is immediately present, “up in our business.”  And that will change any of us, won’t it?

Those commitments of Peter’s are affirmed by Jesus, confirmed as the truth of God. So Jesus reveals Peter’s true identity: not only the impulsive, eager but unreliable man we see in the gospel stories, but more truly the bedrock of Jesus’ community reaching into the future, the rock on which we are built.

In the same way, when you or I say out loud, to Jesus, who we know Jesus is, we are revealed by those words as the person – and the community – God has called us to be.

If I say, (as I eventually do when I clear my way through all the things I know about Jesus to the most essential thing) that Jesus is God made flesh, a real person, all of the divine in the space of one human life, then I commit myself to the holiness and revelation of my embodied life, and yours, and the holiness of a flesh that can touch one another, taste God’s creation at the same time that it itches and sags and gets broken or tired.

Then I learn that Jesus sees me as flesh that can, must, will hold and reveal the presence of God – in this messy, ordinary human body.

And when I commit myself to the truth that God loves in the flesh, that God wants to be that close, that messy, that involved, that physical with us, it’s going to change me. It has.

If you say – to Jesus – that Jesus is a teacher, then you are revealed as a student. Or in biblical terms, a disciple, one who tries to become like the teacher.

If you say – to Jesus – that Jesus is the Light, you commit to seeing what that Light is showing you, in yourself and the world, even when you would rather not. And you are revealed to yourself and others in that Light.

If we say that Jesus is the Way we commit ourselves to being guided – always – by that Way, and to being known as those who guide others along that Way.

If you say that Jesus is our Redeemer you commit yourself to forgiveness and salvation, to accepting it – for yourself and for those who you really don’t want to see in heaven, thanks – and to sharing that forgiveness with all. And God will name that and use that in you, just as God did with Peter.

It may be that - other than our Bishop - no one will ever ask you to identify or explain Jesus in your lifetime as a member of the Church. And maybe you’re ready anyway with an answer for anyone who asks.

But it is certain that if we choose to be disciples of Christ, sooner or later Jesus will ask us, will ask you and me, “Who do you say that I am?”

In that moment, face-to-face with all of God, what will you say?

And when you respond, who will you become?

The Evil That Enslaves Us

Matthew 15:21-28

Do you feel like you know this story pretty well?

This story where Jesus encounters a woman in need, and then refuses to heal her child because “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” The story where Jesus calls a disruptive but vulnerable woman a dog?

Or does it surprise you, when Jesus vividly displays the human failing of prejudice and bigotry?

Me, I feel like I’ve heard this story far too often; like I know it too well. I’ve gotten really tired of preaching this story. You see, Matthew and Mark both tell a version of this story, and so it shows up twice in our three year cycle of gospel readings.And every time it shows up, the news of the world just happens to be full of stories about race and prejudice, discrimination and disruption, the uncomfortable history of division among our people, and the pain of bigotry, injustice, and oppression.

Every time.

I hate this.

I hate having to have these conversations we’ve been having the past week – on the internet, with friends, with you one-on-one, throughout the structures of the church, and here in the pulpit – about the sins and demons of racism, bigotry, prejudice and pride.

I hate that we have to keep grappling with the demons and sins that were loose in Charlottesville last weekend – which aren’t all that different from the demons loose in Barcelona on Thursday – and which continually divide our national conversation, our personal conversations, and our hearts.

I hate knowing that I have what I have and I am who I am because I inherit – with you – a country and a culture that has robbed God’s children of their lives, their labor, their dignity, and their humanity, based on convenient fictions about the meaning of gender, language, cultural practices, and especially, skin color.

I hate this, and I bet Jesus hated it too.

But I have to face it.
Jesus had to face it.

WE have to face it.

There is no one here today who has not been touched in some way – clear or subtle, positive or negative – by the way that racism, prejudice, and discrimination are built into the structure of our country today. Some of us are deeply, personally hurt by that structure, or by the actions of individuals. Many others of us don’t feel this personally, and most of us would love to see it end, though we don’t always know how.

That’s why the confession we use today, as part of our summer tour of the prayers of our church, has both confronted and comforted me this week.

In a few minutes, together, we will confess that we have sinned against God, denying God’s goodness in one another and ourselves, and we will repent of the evil that enslaves us, the evil we have done, and the evil done on our behalf.

White folks, black folks, pink, beige, orange, brown, golden, men, women, none of the above… we did not choose to be enslaved to the evils and demons of racism, but we are. And that blinds us, often, to the evil done on our behalf. We don’t choose it, it does not make us evil, in ourselves, but we still need to repent it, because we do live it, just being where we are today.

Jesus is living it with us now, because the Body of Christ is here today.

Israelite and Canaanite in Palestine isn’t the same as black and white in America today, but, there is no time in recorded history when God could have become human completely free of the entanglements of structural division: of prejudice, racism, or enmity between parts of the human race. And every division among God’s people entangles Jesus, entangles God.

And Matthew reports that faithfully, as Jesus proclaims the division between Canaan and Israel to a woman only seeking healing.

There are plenty of good historical and theological reasons why Jesus might say, and Matthew report, that Jesus was sent only, or sent first, to find and heal and care for the lost sheep of Israel: to focus on healing and restoring the broken among God’s chosen people, whom God has called to bless the whole world. And plenty of biblical scholars will explain those reasons when we read this story. Those scholars are probably right about the history.

But they are wrong about the gospel.

If they were right – if God’s healing mission, if God’s kingdom on earth – were for certain people more than, or instead of, other people, the story we heard today would stop as soon as Jesus announces that he’s been sent to the lost of Israel.

But the story doesn’t stop there.
Jesus doesn’t stop there.

Jesus continues to listen to this woman who confronts him, this other, this person who is, by her very difference, some kind of subtle disturbance of the normal.

He listens, but the demons of racism are still present, in the conversatioin, and we hear them when he insults her, calling her a dog.

It’s hard to listen to.

But the woman listens, and she responds.

“Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.”

There is enough, and more than enough, in God’s grace, for ALL, she tells him.

And there and then, Jesus praises her faith.

Her child is healed.

And now the disciples standing by, like you and I, know that God will not abide a world of dehumanizing division. We know that “faith” – the faith that heals – means facing down those divisions; facing our involvement with, and our injuries from, that bigotry; and there and then proclaiming God’s abundance to the powers that deny that abundance; to any who would fence it off, or try to hoard healing and wholeness for themselves.

Perhaps God is made human in Jesus not only to teach, to die and rise, but to listen to the truths that can break through our divisions, and by doing so, reveal those hidden, holy truths to the sight and hearing of the whole beloved world.

In fact, this woman’s response to Jesus reveals a holy truth that dismantles the fears of last weekend’s white supremacist protesters: that if anyone else gets more, there will not be enough for me.

It is that fear which fuels almost every argument for keeping things the way they are. It is that fear which keeps us silent. That fear opposes the gospel and the kingdom of God in first century Palestine and here and now. And the gospel destroys that fear – if we are willing to stake our trust on God’s generosity and grace.

The sins and demons of racism are not defeated in this one exchange, this one healing. They remain present, and visible, when the terms “dog” and “master” go unchallenged. They are not undone so simply, either then or now.

Instead, healing and grace happen in spite of them. 

That gospel truth means that we, like that woman, have a role to play in the healing. When we face those demons head on, owning their effect on our lives and relationships, looking into the face of God and proclaiming God’s abundance from the heart of a culture and system that denies it, God will make healing from those words and actions; from our faith.

This week I read the story of Lisa Sharon Harper, who stood among a group of clergy in Charlottesville last Saturday. Arms linked, face to face with armed militia from the white nationalist protest group (who had reportedly been instructed not to speak to the counter-protesters), Harper and other clergy stood for hours. They knelt and prayed. They chanted, over and over, “Love has already won.”
And Harper reported that when she turned to leave to avoid increasing violence, she addressed the man across from her one last time.

“I just want you to know, we love you,” she said.

The man’s face, grizzled and tired from the day, suddenly softened. After a moment, he replied: “I love you, too.”

The demons of race, bigotry, and division were not defeated in that one exchange, those few words. Instead, God brought love and healing in spite of them, in the midst of them.

It happens in first century Tyre and Sidon. It happens in twenty-first century Charlottesville. It  happens whenever, wherever you and I face into the evil, confess it, own it, looking right into God’s face, and proclaim our faith in God’s abundant grace.

And by that faith, in action, we make a way for God to heal, across all barriers and divisions,

and God will never hold back that grace.

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Sinking

Matthew 14:22-33

You know those old Road Runner and Coyote cartoons? The ones where Wile E. Coyote is so caught up in chasing the Road Runner that he goes zooming off the edge of a cliff and (after you've watched a couple of these) you just want to shout to the coyote,  “Don't look down!”

Of course, inevitably, he does look down and goes crashing to the floor of the canyon.

I feel that same urge every time Peter gets out of the boat.

“Don’t look down!” I shout (inside my head) just about every time I hear this story. But of course he does look down. He realizes he can’t walk on water any more than he can walk on air,

and he begins to sink, just as inevitably as that coyote falls. Every time.

It’s comic sometimes. It’s a powerful, because you and I know, too, just how thrilling, how fearfully exhilarating, it would be to step out ON to the water, to walk atop that chaos, to defy nature and gravity,

and you know – I know – we’d sink. 

Every time.

Oh, we of little faith!

I’ve been thinking about that this week, watching the news – an escalating threat war between nuclear nations, a woman dead and so many injured after white supremacists rally in Charlottesville, everyday political waves.… It all seems as chaotic as that stormy sea around Peter and the other disciples. And the boat sometimes seems so small.

I wonder, this week, if the problem is not that Peter’s faith failed him when he tried to walk on that chaotic sea, but before he ever got out of the boat.

In the gray of the earliest morning, Matthew tells us, Jesus came, walking across the stormy sea. (A thing, by the way, that the disciples know only God can do, because the storm and the sea are the forces of chaos that only God can tame, and chaos is everything counter to God’s good creation.) And the disciples see, and are terrified. “A ghost!!” they cry.

This can’t be Jesus – our friend, familiar, gentle, healing Jesus. This mighty, storm-walking power doesn’t come with the comfort of the man they know – we know – and love. This is a supernatural being – strange, powerful, too close for comfort. Scary, to be honest.

“Take heart!” Jesus says. “It is I; do not be afraid.”

“It is I;” – in Greek, “I am” – the same words that God uses to name Godself at the burning bush. Now even the words of reassurance are disturbingly dramatic, divine. It’s pretty hard not to be afraid.

It’s hard not to be afraid when the Jesus we know and love – gentle, wise, faithful, welcoming – when our friendly, familiar Jesus suddenly appears as powerfully and dangerously divine as the storm itself.

So Peter – still afraid, unwilling to keep it silent – yells back, “Lord, if it IS you, command me to come to you on the water.”

If it is you….

It might be a trick. It might be a ghost. It’s certainly the power of God, but it doesn’t look like the safe, gentle God we know and love.

(Oh, we of little faith.)

It is Jesus, after all. So he says, “Come.”
And Peter does.

And Peter sinks.

He was always going to sink.

Just as you and I would sink, trying to walk on water.

It wasn’t a matter of faith being able to keep him afloat. It was a matter of doubt pulling him out of the boat.

When you’re looking for a friend to be a comforting presence, the arrival of one who can defeat the chaos, instead, is too good to be true. Or too scary, if we’re honest. Because a God who can walk on chaos is too powerful to simply be a friend. Too strange to be someone who really, fundamentally, thinks like I do. Too likely to demand more than it’s convenient for me to give – more confrontation with the chaos, more truth-telling, more self than I want to face or give.

What if God ended the chaos of this threat escalation between the US and North Korea by cutting off all of both nations’ communications with the rest of the world?

That’s not natural. It’s not what we’re looking for.

But it’s the sheer power to calm chaos by force.

What if a figure came striding out across the crazy waves of political discontent around us, silencing every voice, left and right, old and young, ours and theirs?

It might be a relief, for a while. But would it be possible – truly possible – to not be afraid? To welcome this disruptive silencer as a trusted friend?

That’s not how I pray for God to come to me.

In the chaos, in the surging waves of global news and local life, I keep looking for Jesus to be a friendly presence, a gentle healer, a wise teacher, a friend who can navigate us home. Maybe you look for something else. But I suspect we’re all mostly looking for the Jesus we already know and trust. And when God comes in a way we’re not looking for, it’s almost impossible for us humans not to doubt.

I’m learning that it’s possible that when I look for peace – among nuclear nations, on the streets of our towns, God might come in power and bring radical change instead;

that when I look for a way forward, when I say I want unity rather than division, God might just drastically shake up the whole map;

that when I look for change – social or personal or global – God waits… layers powerful silence atop the chaos, and waits some more.

In the face of that, it’s almost impossible not to doubt. At least a little.

IS this Jesus? It doesn’t seem like him…

The answer to doubt like that, of course, is trust. Radical, risky, trust, whether we believe our eyes or not.

And so I suspect that Peter’s failure of faith – Peter’s stepping out of the boat that day, Peter sinking in the waves – was not a bad thing after all.

“If it is you…” I don’t know. I can’t tell. This is not what I expected. I can’t believe, right now, so I’ll leap, instead: If it is you, call me out onto the water. Call me out right into the danger and chaos and doubt.

It’s a failure of faith, and a plea for more faith, at the exact same time;

Peter practices trust, when there’s no reason on earth to trust his eyes or the waves.

Jesus calls.
Peter steps out of the boat, into the fearful wind and storm, and sinks.

Of course he sinks.

And now there’s nothing left to do but to be saved.

“Jesus immediately reached out his hand, and caught him.” Matthew tells us.

He is saved.

By doubt, perhaps, instead of faith, but he is thrown into the hands of God, and he knows himself saved.

I don’t know what’s going to happen next in the world, in the news, in my life. I don’t enjoy this chaos, and I don’t know if what I see in this is God, and I don’t know what to do, so…

So if it is you, Jesus, command me to come.

If it is you,

call us out into the waves – into what we can’t control, and only you can.

I’ll sink.

We’ll always sink.

And then there will be nothing left for us to do but be saved.

We just have to doubt enough that we need to take that risk, that we need to step out of the boat and sink, so that there is nothing left to do but to be saved.