Sermon Preached by the Rev. Sam Frazier, Vicar

Saint Andrew=s Episcopal Church, Haw River, NC

September 13, 2009

Proper 19, Year B

Let’s begin our reflections this morning by getting to a basic life question: Who am I?  Who are you?  Are you who you say you are?  How do you prove it?

We have some ways to identify who I am and who you are.  I have a driver=s license, a social security number.  Because I once sold securities, my fingerprints are on file with the FBI, so my identity is also determined by my finger prints.  And now we have the latest way to identify one another - by our DNA.

In the Gospel this morning, the question is: who is Jesus?  Here is how the question is posed in the Gospel:  JESUS WENT ON WITH HIS DISCIPLES TO THE VILLAGES OF CAESAREA  PHILIPPI; AND ON THE WAY HE ASKED HIS DISCIPLES, AWHO DO PEOPLE SAY THAT I AM?@ AND THEY ANSWERED HIM, AJOHN THE BAPTIST; AND OTHERS, ELIJAH; AND STILL OTHERS, ONE OF THE PROPHETS.@ HE ASKED THEM, ABUT WHO DO YOU SAY THAT I AM?@ PETER ANSWERED HIM, AYOU ARE THE MESSIAH.@

This is Peter=s famous confession, which is at a central point in Mark=s Gospel.  Prior to this confession, Jesus gathered disciples around him based on his teaching about his own relationship with the Father and based on his healing of those around him as an expression of God=s Divine compassion.  After this confession, Jesus concentrated on preparing his disciples to endure through his crucifixion.  It would be the hardest thing they would ever have to do.

Now, let=s go a little ways back in time.  What led up to Peter=s awesome confession?  It happened this way.  While they were still at the edge of Herod=s lands and near the source of the Jordan, Jesus put a question to the disciples: How did they perceive his work?  He asked what is the popular opinion about him.  How did people identify him?
But there was no consensus among the disciples.  The first answer they gave is that Jesus is John the Baptist.  John had proclaimed that God=s reign was about to be inaugurated, and that only repentance could protect people from condemnation.  In Jesus= teaching, the approach of God=s reign and the need for repentance were also a central focus.  So Jesus= ministry could be seen as the continuation or renewal of that carried out by John the Baptist.  This fits.  This could be Jesus.

The second answer the disciples gave is that Jesus is Elijah, the great Old Testament prophet.  Elijah had no tomb.  Scripture says that he was carried into heaven by a whirlwind.  Therefore, the prophet could be sent back to earth, and many people of the day believed that Elijah would come and help people prepare for the coming of God=s Messiah.  To this day, when the Jews celebrate the Passover Seder, it is the custom to leave a door open so that Elijah may enter.  Jesus= ministry was a sign that God was about to intervene in the life of the nation called Israel.  This fits.  This could be Jesus.

The third answer the disciples gave as to Jesus= identity was that he is a prophet.  The Jews of that time believed that prophecy and prophets had ended with Ezra four centuries earlier.  However, people believed that God would again send prophets to prepare the way for the expected Messiah.  Much that Jesus had done could be explained as the work of a prophet, and he was ready to accept that title.  This fits.  This could be Jesus.

Or could it be?  Or could it be?

None of these answers can express the full truth and fully identify who Jesus was.  And the disciples knew that.  So Peter spoke for all of them when he said: YOU ARE THE MESSIAH.  Good answer Peter!  But what Peter did not say is that Jesus was going to be crucified, to suffer  and to die.  He learned that later.  And later he learned to follow a crucified Christ.  And the Gospel tells us that is what we must do.

Why should we follow a crucified Christ?  Because only a crucified Messiah reveals God as a suffering, vulnerable God.  Only those who stand beneath the cross and watch him suffer and die will be convinced that at the heart of reality is One who enters into suffering.  As Dietrich Bonhoeffer reminds us: ONLY THE SUFFERING GOD CAN HELP.

Think about it.  This image of God is as objectionable to us as it was to Peter.  We do not want a suffering God.  To our world, that is weakness.  Rather, we want an invincible God, a God who shields us from our own vulnerability.  This is the God we imitate and worship - invincible, self-sufficient, controlling, an all powerful God who shares divine power with us.  This is the God we choose to worship.  We choose to worship this God, because we have helped to create him in our image and in our likeness.  So he is familiar to us.  Very familiar.  We like him.  It is comfortable to worship him.

But the Bible bears witness to another God, a God who hears the cries of the poor and defends the orphans, widows and immigrants.  The God of the Bible suffers with the people.  God came among us as a vulnerable baby born among the homeless, lived as an immigrant, associated with the outcasts and compared the kingdom to receiving a little child.  God is then executed as a criminal and buried in a borrowed tomb.
My friends, this is our Christ.  You and I follow the suffering and crucified Christ as people of hope.  We live on the other side of the cross from Peter.  What Jesus hinted to Peter at Caesarea Philippi happened.  The Crucified One became the Risen One.  Those who follow him know that the future does not belong to the triumph of suffering, sin and death.  Rather, the future belongs to the reign of Christ over all creation.  So we, you and I, have no reason to be ashamed of him or to be hesitant to follow him.  The One who calls us to take up our cross and follow him is the same One who goes with us to the cross.

This is who Jesus is.  And who Jesus is determines who you and I are to become.  You see, we are the followers of the suffering and crucified Christ.  And, like Peter, we know, we know that there is more.  There is much more.  The crucified Christ rose from the dead.  And he brought us with him.  He brought us from death unto life.  He brought us from hate and misunderstanding to boundless love.  Thanks be to God.  AMEN.