That’s a big question Jesus is asking, today.
A big question which definitely has a right answer,
but a right answer that many of us are trained to get wrong, even if we know exactly what to say.
Many of us – not all, but many of us – have been trained by custom and culture to give the wrong answer to this question – or rather, to answer the wrong question when someone asks us this one.
When Jesus – or anyone else – asks us who Jesus is to us, many of us automatically answer with what other people say, rather than expose the personal hopes, truths, and uncertainties of our own hearts and souls.
I know it’s easier for me to tell the gospel stories than my own story.
And if you’ve ever said or thought “well, I just don’t know enough” when you’ve been asked to teach your own faith or help other people encounter Jesus,
then you, too, have been trained to respond to “who do people say that I am?” rather than “who do you say that I am?”
In fact even though, “the Messiah, the Son of God,” is the right answer to “who is Jesus” it’s the wrong response to Jesus’ question to us, unless it’s the response from deep in our own hearts.
Because when Jesus asks us “Who do you say that I am?” the answer is our own relationship with God. Not Peter’s, not someone else’s relationship with God. Yours.
The words we use to answer Jesus’ question define the type and connection of the relationship – the same way it works when we describe someone as a friend, colleague, spouse, acquaintance.
And our whole living relationship with God, tight or distant, better or worse, is the real answer to the question, no matter what words we say out loud.
It’s a big question.
A personal question.
And it’s the only question. All the other questions and answers about Jesus, God, or ourselves depend on this one:
Who do you say that I am?
Are the stakes high enough now to make you nervous?
It makes me nervous.
Probably made James and John, Andrew and Bartholomew, and all the other disciples who were talking to Jesus that day just as nervous.
So it’s a good thing there’s more to this story than just the question.
It’s important to know that that when Peter answers Jesus: “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God,” he’s speaking for all the disciples.
He’s definitely telling his own living truth about his relationship to Jesus: that he (Peter) has recognized the undeniable presence of God in Jesus, that Jesus is the one Peter (and all Israel) has been waiting for.
But Peter’s words also speak for all the silent disciples around Jesus at that moment.
They’ve all already recognized and worshipped him as the Son of God – in that powerful pre-dawn moment when Jesus walked out to their boat amid the waves.
Only Peter speaks today, but when he names the truth of his own relationship with Jesus, his own experience of the living God, his words speak for the ones who can’t find their voices, too.
I’ve had conversations with several people recently about how hard it can be, sometimes, to speak about the things that mean the most, to describe and name the truth of our heart in words, out loud.
I know that when I try to directly and honestly answer Jesus’ question “who do you say that I am?” I can feel the truth within me, but I stumble and mumble around the words.
Sometimes, I have to borrow Peter’s words to describe my own heart: You are the Son of the Living God; God made real in my world and life.
When Jesus asks you, or me, the big question, we have to answer.
But we don’t always have to use words. If we don’t know what to say, we can answer with a silent, open heart. Or let Peter will say out loud what our souls can’t quite voice.
But Peter doesn’t get all the credit for that answer. Or very much of it, in fact.
As soon as he speaks, Jesus blesses him for not figuring it out himself.
The words Peter speaks, the truth in his heart, didn’t come from his own cleverness or effort, but purely as a gift of God.
That’s just as true for me and for you as it is for Peter.
We can’t study our way to who Jesus is. We don’t figure it out, can’t buy or make the answer; can’t earn our relationship with God. The knowledge and experience that make God real and personal are entirely a gift of God.
A gift given to you, too, even if you’re pretty sure you don’t know who God is for you; even you feel uncertain and uncomfortable as soon as anyone mentions a “personal relationship with Jesus.” If you or I have even the tiniest relationship with God, feel a wee little longing for God, then the answer that God has given Peter has been given to us, too.
And those tiny little answers can grow.
We’ve been talking about that since we started exploring the spiritual journey together last year. The posters are still in the parish hall, and you’ll see them again.
Depending where we are in our spiritual growth, we might answer Jesus’ question differently:
Who do you say that I am?
Well, you’re… someone I wonder about, someone I want to know better, we might say.
or
You’re someone who loves me. You hear prayer, tell stories, feed me, heal me, link me to God’s presence.
or
You’re the one I trust above all. You’re the center of my life.
All of those answers are the same gift of God that Peter voices as “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.”
And we grow in that gift by learning new ways to see and feel the experience, truth and love we’ve been given. What we do in our spiritual journey is to open ourselves up more to the answer to Jesus’ question already planted within us.
Peter doesn’t get credit for the answer, and neither do you and I. What we get when we answer - when we name our faith, open our heart’s truth - are keys.
Keys to the kingdom of heaven – access to share and live in the vision of God, here and now and always.
And keys of responsibility to share it. That “binding and loosing” Jesus talks about isn’t about locking rules and decisions, it’s about the authority and responsibility to teach, to share an authentic experience of God, so that others can find God’s gift in themselves.
It’s a big question Jesus asks today.
A question with one right answer,
but the only way to get it wrong is to lie or to refuse to answer.
Because the answer is our whole, living, true relationship with God, the vivid presence of God, made real in our hearts and world,
given to us as a gift, in any shape or size,
to grow and to share.
It’s a big question. The only question.
So Jesus will keep asking you and me until we know we know the answer from the bottom of our hearts.
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