WDYSTIA Proper 16A

 WDYSTIA

John Shea, Catholic priest and enchanting storyteller, begins his book, The Challenge of Jesus, thusly: “The only excuse (a lame one at that) for another book on Jesus is that we are never quite through with him. When the last syllable of the last word about Jesus the Christ has been spoken, a small balding man who until now has been silent will say, ‘Just a moment, I….’ After two thousand years people still journey to Jesus. They bring a vaunting ego and last year’s scar, one unruly hope and several debilitating fears, an unwarranted joy and a hesitant heart – and ask Jesus what to make of it. We have only gradually become aware of the hook in Jesus’s promise, ‘I will be with you all days, even to the end of the world.’ This not only means he will not go away but that we cannot get rid of him. He continues to roll back the stone from the caves we entomb him in. It is only because Jesus insists on inserting himself into the thick of our plots that we insist on commenting on him. “

 

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. At this point in Matthew’s story of Jesus, he has fed crowds of 5,000 and 4,000, and restored the lives of many many more than that. He has done so much that the Pharisees and Sadducees, together, are trying to figure him out. It should be pointed out, those two groups NEVER do anything together, let alone interrogate someone together. They ask him for a sign at the beginning of chapter 16, which is their way of sounding like the Caterpillar asking Alice, “Who are you?” To which Jesus says, in essence, a sign? What more can I do that I have not already done?

 

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, which would make Jesus a ghost. But to see Jesus as John is to see that something is moving in the world that is bigger than historical individuals, and which the Empire has no ability to control. Some say, say the disciples, that you are Jeremiah or one of the prophets. The prophets who spoke and acted God’s word as poetry. Jeremiah warning that unless people were to change their evil ways, we will all end up slaves in a new Empire, a new Egypt named Babylon. Or, Elijah, whom scripture suggests never died; who, in the same region in which we find Jesus, healed the son of a poor widow just as Jesus recently healed a Canaanite woman’s daughter; and whom the prophet Malachi says will return before the Day of the Lord, [Malachi 4:5-6].

 

The prophets throughout the centuries challenged God’s people to open their eyes and to see the realities of the present historical moment, and the realities of their responsibilities toward their neighbors. Which Jesus, always taking things a step further, commands that not only are we to love our neighbors, but to love and pray for our enemies as well. It is interesting, isn’t it, that different people among the thousands whose lives he touched all have different ideas of who he is. And that they tie him to the lives of those have gone before.

 

But this is now. And God is doing something new. Jesus knows this. Thus, he asks the pivotal question: Who Do You Say That I Am? WDYSTIA! Does not lend itself to fitting on a bracelet, but it is The question. Now, I 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, which means I have something like 46 sermons archived on just this story! Yet, one evening, I was sitting in the backyard getting a fire going in the Webber grill, reading the Sabbath Poetry of Wendell Berry, when out of nowhere it struck me! The answer to his question is in the question. I had 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 and all of 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, etc. I had never noticed, the answer is in the question in the final two words: I Am. This Jesus is the one who spoke to Moses from the Burning Bush, who when asked by Moses, “Who are you?” replies, “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.” It’s the equivalent of saying, “You are ‘I am who I am’!” Those two words, “I am,” always, always, forever and ever are meant to point us back to the God of the burning bush. Who do you say that I am? Jesus is ‘I Am.’

 

Yet, there is an even more important truth implied in WDYSTIA! We and the disciples are meant to ask this pivotal question of ourselves. 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 “Christ’s own forever. The Bond established in Holy Baptism is indissoluble.” [BCP 298] This suggests that all questions about Jesus are questions about us. About me. About you. About us. Who are we? Who are you? Who do people say that I am?  Can people see Jesus in all that I do and all that I say? Do I seek and serve the Christ in all persons, loving my neighbor as myself? Do I strive for Justice and Peace for All people, and respect the dignity of every human being?

 

The good news, perhaps even the Best News, is that to ponder just who Jesus is, is not that we will never be done with him, but that Jesus is not done with us! And our Risen Lord promises he will never be finished with us until that day and time when he reunites us with himself in his Father’s household of light, love and joy! For we are created, male and female, in God’s own image. I am who I am, says the Lord God of Israel. We are what we are. We are his, he is ours, we are what we are – creatures created to be stewards of God’s creation and lovers of all people and all creatures who are our neighbors in this best of all possible worlds. Amen.