Who Do You Say?

August 24, 2008

Romans 12:1-8; Matthew 16:13-20

Who is your Lord and Savior?

Jesus Christ is my Lord and Savior.

So goes our litany of affirmation of faith when we join the church, when we baptize our children, when we ordain our leaders.

It is our response to the fundamental question that Jesus raised for himself, his followers and all of us who have come after. “Who do you say that I am?”

All of us who call ourselves followers of Jesus, Christians, carry some version of this sermon around in our heads from the time we come into faith. If we grow up in the church, we start with the Sunday-School level account. As we grow in faith, the sermon that runs through our mind about Jesus grows more complicated. We shouldn’t feel particularly troubled by that. After all, scripture itself plants seeds for multiple versions and various responses to the fundamental question: who do you say that I am.

In Matthew’s account, Peter responds, “you are the Messiah, the Son of the living God” (16:16).

In Mark’s gospel, Peter responds with typical Markan bluntness, “you are the Messiah” (8:29).

Luke has Peter respond to Jesus’ question saying, “the Messiah of God” (9:20).

Of course, this is the same Peter who denies Jesus when the time of trial comes and the same Peter to whom Jesus says, “get thee behind me, Satan,” when Peter responds to Jesus’ foretelling of his own death by saying, “God forbid it, Lord. This must never happen to you” (16:22).

Even Peter, who recognizes in Jesus something of the fullness of God, doesn’t understand and cannot follow him to the end.

And let’s not even get into the various understandings of Jesus that we find in John’s gospel: “the way, the truth and the life,” “the good shepherd,” “the vine,” “the light of the world,” “the bread of life.”

Who is this Jesus? Who, ultimately, do we say that he is?

More to the point, what difference does it make?

If this were a television program, we’d pause now for the commercial that comes right after the opening or introductory scene. The questions have been posed, and, after a word from our sponsors, we’ll explore the answers.

So, let me give a commercial before diving into the deep end and trying to swim with only one arm – which, if you think about it, will leave me – and perhaps you, too – spinning in circles.

If any of these Jesus questions have ever “vexed” you, plan right now to spend Wednesday evenings this fall here at CPC exploring a Jesus for the 21^st century. We’re bringing together some of the most compelling voices in the church to “save Jesus.” For further information, watch upcoming bulletins, the September newsletter and weekly e-mails.

Now we return to our regularly scheduled sermon.

The Biblical witness to Jesus is certainly rich, complex and multi-voiced. Two thousand years of scholarship, theological reflection and cultural imagination has added depth and spice if not clarity to the pictures we hold of Jesus.

Is he the wise clown of Godspel, leading the fools for Christ that Paul wrote of in scripture? Is he the not too human Christ whose passion splatters the screen of Mel Gibson’s imagination? Or is he as Kazantzakis imagined, the Christ whose last temptation was to step down off the cross and simply be human.

If you’re feeling particularly heretical, you could explore the Christology offered up in Talladega Nights, which offers an irreverent but hysterical riff that includes imagining Jesus as an ice dancer doing an interpretive dance of our lives and as “a mischievous badger.” I promise you, I have no idea what that’s all about, but it makes me laugh every time I see it.

So, who is this Jesus? More to the point, who do you say that he is?

I was pondering this the other night while watching a bit of the Olympics. I was tuned in as the American woman sprinter, Lolo Jones tripped over the next to last hurdle in the 100-meter hurdles and finished seventh in a race she was leading with less than 20 meters to go. Literally a stone’s throw from the realization of a lifetime dream, she faltered.

As I watched “the agony of defeat” spread before me on the screen, I wondered, “what does that make of her now?” Well, she’s clearly one of the fastest hurdlers in the world – her gifts and dedication have made it so. She’s clearly a world-class athlete – years and years of training, of going to workouts in the rain and snow and searing heat have made it so. She’s clearly an Olympian. She’s just not taking home a medal from these games.

What has that to do with Jesus, with his identity or with ours as his follower?

Only this: in the end, it is the journey that we take in our lives with Jesus that defines us as Christians, as people of the way. It is not the gold medal in the 100-meter Christology dash, or the silver in the 10-meter dive into doctrinal orthodoxy, or even a bronze in wrestling with scripture that defines us as Christian, but rather our lives that stand as testimony to Jesus.

This is not some soft-pedaled version of “works righteousness.” We’re not saved by the work of our lives. Indeed, it’s quite the opposite: the work of our lives reflects the salvation we know in Jesus.

That is to say, to the extent that Jesus is, indeed, lord of our lives then to that extent our lives stand as testimony to him and, as such, our lives reflect salvation – wholeness, health, communion with God, as the roots of the word “salvation” suggest.

In still other words, we find the salvation as we follow Jesus, as we live into the abundant life that he promises.

This does not mean throw out the creeds or the confessions or the Christologies or theologies. If we are going to follow Jesus it does make sense to know who he is. It is all too easy to create Jesus in our own image, and wind up with a savior who simply baptizes our own worldviews or affirms our own aspirations. When that happens it is we who turn to Jesus and say, “follow us,” rather than the other way around. If we want to follow Jesus, we have to know where it is that he’s going.

Much more so than the complex questions of who he is, scripture describes with great and, frankly, terrifying clarity where he went: to the least of these, the lepers, the orphans and widows, the poor, the religious outsiders. If we want to be followers of Jesus in our time, we need to be there, too, with the lost and the least.

We might not discover or discern or develop beautiful and precise and theologically correct answers to the question: who is this Jesus; but we will find out who we are: followers, disciples of the suffering servant, the prince of peace.

So, who is this Jesus? Who do you say that he is?

Who do I say that he is, for my life?

I have wrestled with Jesus my entire life, and I’ve got the scars to prove it. Nevertheless, Jesus the Christ is my lord and savior.

What does that mean, for me?

The feudal title “lord” feels strange in my mouth, to be sure. But it feels just right when I recall that the root meaning of the word “lord” itself refers to bread. You see, the lord of the manor was the one who had the bread, he was the “keeper of the loaf.” Jesus is the keeper of the loaf. He is the one who has bread for my life, who feeds my spirit when it is empty and comforts my soul when it is alone.

Thus filled and comforted, I find wholeness and well-being, that is to say, “salvation.”

But, and I can only speak for myself here, I only feel fed and comforted and saved when I follow Jesus into the world. If I sit in my closet, closed off from the world in silent contemplation, a small part of me finds a solace, but if the solace is to be more than mere escape, I have to leave my contemplations, as the Christmas carol puts it, “sages, leave your contemplations, brighter visions beam afar; seek the great desire of nations; ye have seen his natal star. Come and worship; come and worship; worship Christ the newborn king.”

But if we are to reach such places, come close to the manger, stand at the foot of the cross, gather at the table, go down by the riverside, walk up to the mountaintop or pray in the garden – if we are to reach such places we cannot live fenced lives.

We cannot divide ourselves as if one part of life is for the glory of God and another part is for our own glory or wealth or power. It is simply not true that the one who dies with the most toys wins, despite what the salvation story of our consumer culture wants us to believe.

The one who runs the race with perseverance, as the letter to the Hebrews puts it, that one wins, for that one has followed the true lord and found the fullest salvation.

Now I will confess, by way of ending but not concluding, that this stuff, this wrestling with Jesus, is not easy, it is not clear, and it is never finished. This has not been even my own “final word” in response to Jesus’ question, much less any great declaration of the church. But it is my own good-faith and provisional response, as much to say to Jesus when he asks of me, “David, who do you say that I am?” “Well, Jesus, you are my lord and savior, even if I don’t know exactly what that means. But I do know this much, I want to follow you with all of my heart and all of my strength and all of my soul. I pray that is good enough for today.” Amen