“But Who Do You Say That I Am?”

Matthew 16:13-20; Romans 12:1-8; Psalm 124

Psalm 124

¹ If it had not been the Lord who was on our side—let Israel now say—

² if it had not been the Lord who was on our side, when our enemies attacked us,

³ then they would have swallowed us up alive, when their anger was kindled against us;

⁴ then the flood would have swept us away, the torrent would have gone over us;

⁵ then over us would have gone the raging waters.

⁶ Blessed be the Lord , who has not given us as prey to their teeth.

⁷ We have escaped like a bird from the snare of the fowlers; the snare is broken, and we have escaped.

⁸ Our help is in the name of the Lord , who made heaven and earth.

Romans 12:1-8

¹ I appeal to you therefore, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. ² Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God—what is good and acceptable and perfect. ³ For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of yourself more highly than you ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned. ⁴ For as in one body we have many members, and not all the members have the same function, ⁵ so we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually we are members one of another. ⁶ We have gifts that differ according to the grace given to us: prophecy, in proportion to faith; ⁷ ministry, in ministering; the teacher, in teaching; ⁸ the exhorter, in exhortation; the giver, in generosity; the leader, in diligence; the compassionate, in cheerfulness.

Matthew 16:13-20

¹³ Now when Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?” ¹⁴ And they said, “Some say John the Baptist, but others Elijah, and still others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.” ¹⁵ He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?”

¹⁶ Simon Peter answered, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.” ¹⁷ And Jesus answered him, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father in heaven. ¹⁸ And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it. ¹⁹ I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.”

²⁰ Then he sternly ordered the disciples not to tell anyone that he was the Messiah.

The Sermon

We assumed he was not just being rhetorical when he asked us, “Who do people say that I am?” We answered him as if he really didn’t know, and he was wondering. I still think maybe he was.

Well, we said, some people were saying he was some earlier prophet come back to life: Elijah, Jeremiah; maybe even his own cousin, John the Baptist.

Who do people say that he is?

Some people say, “Well, he was a great prophet.”

Some people say he was a man who did a lot of good in his lifetime, like Gandhi.

Some people say he thought he was God, but he was just one of a number of people around that time who claimed to be God.

Some have said he was a practicing Jew who might have gone away for a few years and studied Buddhism; and, they theorize, that’s where he got all that ethical stuff, and it’s why there’s that long gap in the gospels between the age of 12 and when he appears as an adult to be baptized by John at the age of 30. And, they say, it’s why Buddhism and the teachings of Christianity are so similar.

That’s a fringe theory at best, and it doesn’t really stand up to scrutiny, but it’s out there.

Then there are some who say he was a good and righteous man who never really claimed to be divine; and, they say, the places in the Bible that say he said he was divine were made up by later followers of the religion that sprang up around him after he died.

Not long after the crucifixion, a neutral party writing contemporary history mentioned that the state had executed a Jewish rabble-rouser. That’s who they said he was.

But there are others who say he is the one who gets their medical reports to come back clean, or gets their life to look better without so much alcohol in it.

Some say he’s the one who gets their car started in the morning, finds them a parking space. Some say he’s the one who made their winning field goal go sailing through the uprights.

That’s a lot of different ways—and there are many more—to answer him when he says, “Who do people say that I am?”

“Who do people say that I am?” Well…how much time have you got?

“And who do you say that I am?”

It was Simon Peter who said, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.”

And all of a sudden, Jesus’ whole face seemed to radiate a smile, and his eyes seemed to light up with something that might have been enthusiasm, or might have been like the love and pride that a mother has in her brave little baby as he takes his first little steps.

And Jesus said, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father in heaven.”

It wasn’t because Simon had crammed for an exam and aced the test; it wasn’t because he had been practicing for years on the balance beam and then stuck the landing; it wasn’t because anyone had told him anything that he had simply parroted back just to give the right answer, whether he believed it or not.

It was God who gave him—not an insight, or a perception, but the faith to walk way out on a limb and say the boldest thing that could be said, words that in certain company would have gotten him killed: “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.”

There was a time when that was still a dangerous thing to say.

It was dangerous because it went so far against the religious establishment as to have been considered blasphemy.

But it was also dangerous even then for the same reason it is now. That is:

If God leads you or me or anyone to say that he is the Messiah, the Son of the living God, then everything has to be different.

If you or I say he is the Son of the living God, then love of everyone cannot be negotiable or conditional or withheld from anyone for any reason.

If we say he is the Son of the living God, then feeding the world and making peace become not side issues to which we occasionally give a nod or a dollar, but the defining purposes of your life and my life.

If we say he is the Son of the living God, then worship becomes a constant, so that everything we do, say, think, or imagine becomes a prayer; and worship together as the body of Christ becomes not a question of whether we feel like it—not even as a question of whether we feel like we can “feel worshipful”—but as an instinctive response to the beautiful, joyful grace that God is already lavishing upon us all.

God gave us life—God included us in the universe. That’s about all I need to know to know that it’s time to worship.

If we say he is the Son of the living God, everything changes.

And Peter said it. And Jesus took him at his word. And he said:

“You are Peter,” which name means rock. “And on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hell will not prevail against it.”

There are a lot of people who have come in and out of a lot of churches since then. They are all God’s children and they are all, in their way, beautiful. They are not always adorable; they are not always likeable. But they all belong to God.

And some are foundational.

The foundations of the church may be quiet or bellicose; they may be big-ticket benefactors or debt-ridden, student-loan, minimum-wage, fixed-income, food stamp, bread-line faithful tithers who give a percentage of what they earn because they know that by doing so, they are giving of themselves. They are giving a share of who they are, because they know and understand that the body of Christ is who they are.

They may be the mythical saints, the pillars of the church; or they may be the people who slip out the side door after worship, the people who are never really known other than a few handshakes of hello before worship.

Some of them built sanctuaries and fellowship halls and Sunday School classrooms with their own hands, their own equipment, their own wood and nails, and bricks and mortar, their own sweat and their own money.

Some have kept their local churches together when larger controversies were shaking the foundations of their denomination.

Some taught Sunday School or ushered or sang in the choir or delivered Meals on Wheels until they were too old to move, and then did it for ten more years after that.

Some have shed tears of frustration over errant ministers, over embezzling church officers, over unkind or unseemly or unconscionable disputes.

Some are the ones who have taken a pie over to someone’s house to make peace, after a committee meeting collapsed into a shouting match.

Some have walked out of hospital rooms with tears in their eyes, have walked into grieving homes with arms outstretched, have picked up babies with obvious pride, and in many other ways have been just like family to people in the church whom they may have barely known.

“And on this rock I will build my church,” said Jesus, “and the gates of Hell will not prevail against it.”

Some of us are prophets; some are ministers; some are teachers; some are givers; some are leaders; some deal in compassion. And there are countless other gifts of ministry that various church members have.

But all of us are here because, at one time or another, in one way or another, it has been told to us that he is the Messiah, the Son of the living God.

And so we were elated when Jesus lavishly commended Peter for having said exactly that.

And that’s why we were all the more puzzled when, only seconds later, he was sternly ordering us not to tell anyone that he was the Messiah.

Are you kidding? First of all, Peter just apparently got the Who Wants to Be a Millionaire question right; second, Jesus just made it firmly clear that it was Almighty God who gave Peter the knowledge to say it; and third, we’re trying to change the world here, Jesus! We’re not the ones who act like we want a gold medal just for showing up to church once a month; we’re trying to be foundations; trying to be the rock on which your holy church can be built—

And for that matter, I thought we were supposed to talk about it all the time! Isn’t that how it works? You spout off in public about the good news; you talk it up; you tell people, just like the angels in the sky over the shepherds keeping watch: glad tidings of great joy.

What do you mean, ‘don’t tell anyone you’re the Messiah?’

No, seriously: what do you mean?

Francis of Assisi famously said, preach the gospel at all times; if necessary, use words.

Maybe we weren’t supposed to say it before he went to the cross because the words are too holy to speak, and without the cross—and today if you and I are unwilling to follow him all the way to the cross—the words just come out trite, or manipulative, or irrelevant to the cost of living and the cost of discipleship.

Maybe for the truth about what God does for you and me every day—right now—maybe there aren’t yet words in the language that can ever be thankful enough, prayerful enough, righteous enough, filled enough with awe.

Maybe he told us not to say it because he wanted to see us live it, and let God do the talking through our actions.

And so my wish for you, people of the Church, is that when you regard the image in the mirror—that flawed but fundamentally beautiful creation of God—that you will pause for just a moment, and if you strain your ears hard enough to listen, you will still be able to hear the words, echoing down through the centuries from the one who first said it to Peter, and now speaks it to you:

“Upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hell will not prevail against it.”