Who do You Say That I Am? James 3:1-12 / Mark 8:27-38
A Sermon for the 17th Sunday after Pentecost / September 15, 2024
“We are closer to God when we are asking questions than when we think we have all the answers.” – Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel
I know that we are just getting to know each other here, but there is something you need to know about me. I love questions. To recall a theme from last week, good and curious questions come from a place of humility. Even as I am in the process of listening, learning, and finding my way here in Raleigh and at Edenton Street United Methodist Church, it helps to name what I know and what I don’t know. I can assure you that the latter is far more expansive than the former! Many of you received an enote from me last week where I invited you to share with me part of your own story and the story of your family. In that email were a few curious, prompting questions to get our conversations started: 1) What brought you here and how long have you been a part of the ESUMC family?2) What do you love about this church family and what keeps you coming back? 3) If you had to name one challenge we are facing over the next 12-16 months, what would that be? 4) What is your greatest hope for our shared future? If you haven’t had a chance to respond, I hope you will. I can assure you I will be reading and praying over each submission.
Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel has written: “We are closer to God when we are asking questions than when we think we have all the answers.”[1] Maybe it a sign of the times, but I have come to believe that certainty can become the enemy of a true and robust faith. Don’t get me wrong, that in no way means that believers cannot experience a deep and abiding “blessed assurance” in many things pertaining to the life of discipleship. On the other hand, rigid certainty can lead one from pentecostal orthodoxy into judgmental fundamentalism, from dogma to dogmatism, and from tradition to traditionalism. As Jaroslav Pelikan, a renowned scholar of church history once put it, “Tradition is the living faith of the dead; traditionalism is the dead faith of the living.”[2]
Questions. They can bring transformation in a way that answers do not. Answers often stop conversation and dialogue. Questions invite it. Answers set up a hierarchy where one person has it and others don’t; one person is in the know and others are outside and without. Questions shatter superficial boundaries. Answers often close us off to new things new ideas, and new ways of being and living. Questions open up possibilities, new worlds, and new realities.
Transformational leaders and coaches have long known the power of a well-placed and well-timed question. The right question can invite self-reflection and growth causing us to step up and lean in. I can personally testify that it has been questions, sometimes asked by friends, sometimes by family members, and sometimes from unexpected people in surprising places that have changed my life, led to my call into ministry, and have opened me up to exciting new ministry and service. It was a question that led me to be here at ESUMC in this season! Years ago, when I was in divinity school, I gathered with friends and would get lost in deep and wonderful theological conversations and debates. I had one beautifully annoying friend who would always ask the same question no matter the topic of the moment: What about the poor? It didn’t matter the subject! What about the poor? That one question I still carry with me everywhere I go, decades later. It has shaped so much of my life and my understanding of ministry in every context I have served.
Sometimes we think of the Bible as a book of answers or even the cute but distorting tagline of “basic instructions before leaving earth.” But what if this gets the Bible all wrong? What if the Bible is more a book of questions that God asks us? What if, and I know this is a big if … what if we quit reading the Bible and started letting the Bible read us? The Bible is full of questions. In fact, Martin Copenhaver once wrote a book titled: “The 307 Questions Jesus Asked and the 3 he answered.”
Here are some pivotal questions that could change your life today: What are your values? How do you present yourself to others? What is your life’s purpose? What gives you contentment? Who do you trust? What are you to become?[3] In Mark’s Gospel this morning, it is Jesus asking the questions. Jesus and his disciples were still traveling, so this is a walking conversation – which can be some of the best ones, right? That might mean that in addition to all of our Sunday School and small group offerings, we might also need to just jump on the Raleigh Greenway with fellow walkers and have some conversations as we travel. But I digress. “On the way [Jesus] asked his disciples, ‘Who do people say that I am?’” This is a great primer for any aspiring theologians in the house. It feels academic and speculative. In my experience, church people like you and me love these types of questions!
Some say, John the Baptist! Ok. Not bad. Jesus was a compelling voice that was also calling for repentance for people to make a decision – for fence sitters to get up and act. He called for all to do something and prepare for the kingdom of God in its fullness. Yet, Jesus was more than that.
Some say, Elijah! Maybe even better. Jesus also spoke truth to power, and defended the weak, the sick, the widows, and the poor. Yet, Jesus was more than that.
Perhaps one of the prophets! Ok. Yes. Jesus spoke a word from God, as one with authority (everybody was saying so), and he brought a bold message calling for all to return to God, obey God’s commandments, and fully surrender to God’s will and God’s way. Yet, Jesus was more than that.
Then, just when the discussion was about to land someone an academic credit in their first semester, helping them on their way to a divinity school degree, Jesus flips the script and turns the whole conversation on its head. Who do you say that I am? Uhhh … what? Jesus, no offense, but you are getting a little personal now. I mean, we haven’t known you for that long and we are still just checking things out. We are excited about the prospects of your movement, but we are not quite ready to totally commit!
Unlike the others, Peter goes there. “ ‘You are the Christ.’ Jesus ordered them not to tell anyone about him. Then Jesus began to teach his disciples: ‘The Human One must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, chief priests, and the legal experts, and be killed … all who want to come after me must say no to themselves, take up their cross, and follow me. All who want to save their lives will lose them.”
Who do you say that I am? Peter aced the test if it had been a fill-in-the-blank or multiple-choice question, but it wasn’t. This is an essay question and the only way to truly answer it fully is with the rest of your life! Peter hears a little bit more about what Messiah means for Jesus and immediately flunks part two – so much so that Jesus replies: “Get behind me, Satan! You are not thinking God’s thoughts but human thoughts.”
Who do I say that Jesus is? It is a question I have sought to answer more than once. Over the years I have often been asked to share my call story. Some have asked me when I first said “yes” to Jesus. In truth, I don’t remember. I grew up in the church and was a pastor’s kid – or as I like to say, a TO – theological offspring. I was saying the name of Jesus and singing songs about Jesus before I truly began to understand who he was, what he did, how he died, or what he might want me to do with my life. I don’t remember saying “yes” the first time because I remember saying it over and over again, so many times I can’t count! I heard a convicting message at the age of 8, so I went to the altar and said yes. I went to camp one summer at the age of 10, heard Jesus and said yes. I went to a youth retreat at the age of 15 and did it again. Some people can remember one moment in their life when they said yes, and I think that is awesome. For me, it has been multiple moments, and I plan to add another one today.
At the beginning of this year, I remember saying “yes” to Jesus at a New Year’s Eve Sunday worship service. I gathered with others on December 31st and together we said “yes” to Jesus using an adapted version of the Wesley Covenant Service: “Now confirm this truth in holy covenant. Make it a reality in your life in these three ways: First, set apart time in your day, more than once, to be spent alone with the Lord. Examine your heart, even if you have freely given your life to Christ. Name the sins in your life. Second, uphold a serious spirit of holy awe and reverence. Third, claim God’s covenant. Do not trust in your own strength and power … Fourth, be determined to be faithful. And last, be prepared to renew your covenant with God. Fall on your knees. Lift your hands. Open your hearts.” It was another yes.
Who do you say Jesus is in your life? Now? Today? This week? I hope you hear that question today for what it is – it is a question that is laser-focused not just on this moment in worship, but on the rest of your life! Following Jesus is a journey, and I can testify that if you take the next few steps today along the Jesus’ way, the question will begin to change your life, causing your understanding and love of Jesus to change, grow, expand and deepen.
That is how the question has worked in my life. I can think of many times over the course of my life that led me to a deeper appreciation of who Jesus is to me, where Jesus is calling me to go, and what Jesus is calling me to do:
- When I first met the love of my life and we spent that first night in my 1971 Mach I Mustang with racing stripes and hood scoops, fogging up the windows – no, not what you are thinking – talking about God and leaving with my heart full, having been reminded that God is a Companion and Friend who will send others into my life to walk with. Me.
- When I experienced the deep and abiding joy and awe at the birth of each of my three children, causing me to bow down and worship the God of life, mystery, and beauty.
- When God told one of my parishioners who was about to die from heart blockage that he no longer needed surgery because of what they called “spontaneous blood vessel generation around the affected area.” I called it a miracle and praised the God who is Healer.
And I can think of some of the dark moments in my life where I had to again wrestle with who I said Jesus was for me:
- At the death of my father back in 1995, or of my brother Kenny in 2018, when I began to comprehend that Jesus is a Savior with wounds who suffers and understands grief and pain.
- When I experienced the early days of COVID, when fear, anxiety, and sometimes a foreboding sense of dread and uncertainty was palpable to everyone – it was then I rediscovered Jesus as Comforter, Protector, Good Shepherd, and Prince of Peace.
- When I witness loved ones or even strangers who are mistreated, maligned, betrayed, or abandoned, I was led to the God who is a defender of the weak and an arbiter of justice.
No matter what season in life you are experiencing. No matter where you have been or where you are headed, I hope you will stop today – and tomorrow – next week and reflect on one of the most important questions of your life. Who do you say Jesus is today? Right here and right now? Perhaps even more importantly, who will you say Jesus is tomorrow, once you begin your Monday with all of the to-dos, commitments, conversations, traveling, work, school, and family activities? Who will you say Jesus is next week? Who will you say Jesus is every day for the rest of your life?
Who do you say that I am? That is Jesus’ question to us. I promise you one thing. If you make it your life’s goal to answer that one question for the rest of your life, you will never be the same.
[1] Heschel, Abraham Joshua. Moral Grandeur and Spiritual Audacity: Essays. Edited by Susannah Heschel. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1996.
[2] Pelikan Jaroslav. The Vindication of Tradition: The 1983 Jefferson Lecture in Humanities. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1984.
[3] DeVega, Magrey, Questions Jesus Asked: A Six Week Study in the Gospels, Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2023.
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