Who Am I!

WDYSTIA

 We all remember WWJD – What Would Jesus Do? Long before that became ‘a thing,’ I was living in a small Massachusetts town of about 600 people and thousands of acres of State Forest. I was in a band, and we played frequently at the Warwick Inn, just up the road from Wendell. As I sat on the stage behind my drums, I could see a poster on the wall, in black and white, of The World Champion Chinchilla, and it’s trophy! During our breaks I would head back to the bar for a glass of water. And finally, one night I asked Greg, son of the owner of  both the Inn and The World Champion Chinchilla, about a sign over the cash register: WYBMADIITY. Greg replied, “Would you buy me a drink if I told you?” I said, “Sure, but what does it mean?” With a smile on his face Greg says, “Would You Buy Me A Drink If I Told You!”

Jesus asks his closest followers, “Who do people say that I am?” [Matthew 16:13-20] It’s not a poll. He has been followed around by thousands of people. Thousands. Both Pharisees and Sadducees, together, are trying to figure him out. They NEVER get together, let alone interrogate someone together. Jesus is a small-town kid and has never anticipated this much attention. He wants to know what people are saying. The disciples respond: John the Baptist (who, by the way, had recently been beheaded by Herod Antipas), Elijah (who is never pictured in scripture as having ‘died,’ and whom the prophet Malachi says will return before the Day of the Lord, [Malachi 4:5-6]), Jeremiah (who warned about the destruction of Jerusalem, and lamented its eventual destruction), or some other of the prophets. Not bad company! But not who he is.

Then he asks the pivotal question: Who Do You Say That I Am? WDYSTIA! Let me begin by saying, having served a total of nearly 23 years in churches named after St Peter, a central figure in today’s story, so that this story comes up two times every year to preach on, means I have something like 46 sermons archived on just this story! Yet, I was sitting in the backyard getting a fire going in the Webber, reading Wendell Berry, when out of nowhere it struck me! The answer to his question is in the question. I never ever noticed that before, not in 46 iterations of this sermon! Even after I had preached on the numerous instances in John’s Story of Jesus on the “I Am” speeches: I am the Good Shepherd, I am the gate to the sheepfold, I am the bread from heaven, I am the true vine, I had never noticed, the answer is in the question in the final two words: I Am. This is the one who spoke to Moses from the Burning Bush, who when asked by Moses, much like the Caterpillar asks Alice, “Who are you?” the bush says, “I am who I am.”

Suddenly, out of the blue, Peter, bumbling Peter who lost his nerve and lost faith in himself out on the water, gets it: You are the Christ, God’s Anointed, the Messiah, “the Son of the Living God.” Which is the equivalent of saying, “Oh my God look, it’s ‘safe drivers save 40%’”! (Sorry, I couldn’t resist!) It’s the equivalent of saying, “You are ‘I am who I am’!” Those two words, “I am,” always, always, point back to the God of the burning bush. Jesus is ‘I Am.’

Yet, there is an even more important question implied in WDYSTIA! WAI! Who Am I? We and the disciples are meant to ask ourselves this pivotal question. For when we are baptized into The Body of Christ, a cross is traced on our foreheads with oil blessed by our bishop, sealing us and marking us as “Christ’s own forever. The Bond established in Holy Baptism is indissoluable.” [BCP 298] Who are we? Who are you? Who Am I?  Do we remember? How often do we remember who we are and whose we are? That we are the Body of Christ? To be continued.