“A Question with Consequences”

Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost

Sunday September 13, 2009

Proverbs 1:20-33

Psalm 19

James 3:1-12

There are certain questions, in this life, that have profound consequences for the ways that our lives will unfold from the moment that we answer those questions.

“Will you marry me?” is a question with important consequences, regardless of how we answer.  Or “what are you going to study at university?”  Or “are you willing to accept this job transfer to another city or to another country?”  The answers that we provide to such questions have the potential to fundamentally alter our life’s journey.

Today’s suggested lectionary reading from the Gospel of Mark contains such a question, the answer to which has the potential to change the entire course of our lives and to affect the way that we understand the very meaning of our existence.

The passage begins as Jesus is in conversation with his disciples.  In light of the gathering crowds, and the growing level of interest in Jesus’ teaching and his power, he asked his disciples a relatively simple question. “Who do people say that I am?”  But to that question, there was neither a definitive nor a simple answer.  The disciples’ response seems to have reflected the confusion that was present in the crowds.  They suggested that some, in the crowd, thought that he was John the Baptist; others thought that he was Elijah; still others, that he was one of the prophets.   There were many answers, many opinions, many speculations, about who he was.

Not much has changed.  Even today, there continue to be many different claims and perspectives about who Jesus was.  There are those who claim that he was a great moral teacher; others who claim that he was the Son of God, the Word made flesh, the Second Person of the Trinity; still others who claim that he is a rather clever hoax perpetuated on human history by the Church, some form of amalgam of pre-existing mythological traditions.  There are those who acknowledge his historical reality, but who remain skeptical about any of the greater claims about his divinity, preferring instead to simply suggest that he was an insightful spiritual or religious guide.  Much like the crowds that gathered around him so long ago, there still are many answers to Jesus’ question “who do people say that I am?”

But that was not the most important question that Jesus asked that day.

Rather, he then asked a question of his disciples, a question with profound consequences, a question that continues to ring across the ages and challenge each and every one of us.

“But who do you say that I am?”

For his part, Peter had an answer, that day.

“You are the Messiah.”

Peter’s answer was, in actual fact, a statement of faith.  The word Messiah is the Hebrew word that is equivalent to the Greek word Christ.  Peter was stating his belief that his friend Jesus was, in fact, the promised and expected Messiah.  To name Jesus as Christ – or to speak of Jesus Christ -- is to state our belief, with Peter, that Jesus of Nazareth was the promised and expected Messiah, the One who would inaugurate the beginning of the reign of God’s love and justice in this world. 

To Jesus’ questions, ‘who do you say that I am?’, Peter had a clear and definitive answer – that he believed that Jesus was the Messiah, the Christ, the Promised One from God.

At some point in every one of our lives, we must come to the moment when we answer this question for ourselves, even as Peter did that day.  At some point in every one of our lives, we must come to the moment when we , like Peter, must decide what it is that we believe, and who it is that we believe that Jesus was, and is.  At some point in every one of our lives, we must set aside the swirling opinions, the competing theories and the diverse answers about who other people say that Jesus is, and we must answer the very same question that confronted Peter that day. 

Who do you say that I am?

It is a question with consequences – because our answer to that question has the potential to alter almost every dimension of our lives, our perspectives, and the priorities by which we live.

But before we quickly and enthusiastically join our voices with Peter in acknowledging Jesus as the Messiah, the Christ, it is good for us to read the rest of today’s passage.  Because as the rest of today’s passage unfolds, we begin to realize that the consequences to declaring our faith in Jesus as the Messiah may not be quite as safe, as palatable, or as attractive as we might at first assume.

Shortly after Peter’s confession, Jesus began to speak strange and mysterious words – words about the suffering, the rejection and the death that he was about to experience. 

They were not words that Peter wanted, or expected, to hear.  And so, as the text states, “Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him.”  Peter, who had only moments before made such a bold and faithful confession, attempted to get Christ to quiet down when he suggested that the pathway of the Messiah would not always be a safe and easy one.  Peter wanted a safer Messiah than the One that Jesus started describing.

 Before we judge Peter too harshly, it is good for all of us to realize that there is a little – and perhaps a lot – of Peter within each one of us. 

Like Peter, we want a safe Messiah.  We want a Lord who will not lead us into suffering, but will free us from it.  We want a Lord who will satisfy all of our desires and all of our demands.  We want to follow a Christ who will safeguard our peace, assure us of our salvation, protect us from every threat, make our lives easy and assure us of some glorious eternal reward. 

And, sadly, this desire for a safe Messiah has, too often, been promoted by the church itself.  How often, for example, is the invitation to follow Christ accompanied by the promise of a whole slate of rather attractive rewards?  Follow Christ, it is suggested, and all of the struggles and challenges of life will be eased and eradicated.  Follow Christ, and temptation will vanish away; follow Christ, and all of the troubles in any of your relationships will be smoothed out; follow Christ, and life – both in this world and the next – will be filled with joy and peace and contentment.

Peter certainly wanted such a Messiah.  When Jesus started speaking about suffering and rejection and death, Peter was quick to try to correct him.  But Jesus would stand such rebuke.  To Peter – who had so recently confessed his faith in Jesus as the Messiah – Jesus’ words were pointed.  “Get behind me, Satan!  For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.” 

Jesus then spoke about what the consequences of following him would be -- that the decision to follow him would necessitate a life of self-emptying love, a life of giving oneself for others, a life of bearing the cross.  Anyone who attempted to save their own lives would lose it, and it would only be through a willingness to give up one’s life for him that one would gain life.  And anyone who was too ashamed of him to follow him would not be worthy of him. 

As sales pitches or marketing campaigns go, it was probably not the most palatable or attractive sales technique.  To follow me, he was saying, will require self-sacrifice, self-denial, exposure to the possibility of ridicule and shame, and the giving up of one’s life.  To follow me, he was saying, would be demanding.

The church throughout the ages – and to be honest, I myself – can sometimes tend to domesticate and soften these demanding words of Christ.  Too often, we all tend to want to stifle any mention of the more challenging requirements of Christian discipleship, even as Peter tried to do that day.  Too often, like Peter, we all think, and even act, as if Jesus is a safe Messiah.

But the reality is that this world does not need a safe Messiah. 

This world does not need a safe Messiah, because what this world needs is a Messiah whose will transform the world as we know it.  This world needs a Messiah who will bring down the lofty from their thrones and lift up the lowly, a Messiah who is willing to challenge and overthrow all of the systems of oppression that continue to keep so many of God’s beloved children from the fullness of life. This world needs a Messiah who is not willing to bow to the pressures of religious or political conformity, but is willing to blow apart every barrier of exclusion and marginalization that dares to put limits on the grace and love of God.  This world needs a Messiah who challenges his followers to find a way to feed the hungry multitudes, even if what they have seems as meager as two little fish and five loaves of bread. This world needs a Messiah who is not afraid to expose himself to risk, but has the courage to touch the outcasts and lepers and to be associated with the impure and the unholy.  This world needs a Messiah who is willing to stand on the side of the accused, even when the angry crowds are milling around with stones in their hands, drunk with a self-righteous thirst for blood.  This world needs a Messiah who is willing to stare evil in the face and not bow his knee.  This world needs a Messiah who has the power to silence any voice or any power that demeans or destroys the spirit of life.  This world needs a Messiah who is not afraid to go to the cross for the sake of love. 

And this is precisely the kind of Messiah that we need.  We do not need a Messiah who simply reassures us that we are doing just fine; we need a Messiah who will challenge us, to the very core of our existence, and call us to awaken from our slumbers of complacency and indifference, to pick up our cross and be transformed by the power of love. 

And this world needs a Church which is willing to pick up the cross and follow that kind of Messiah.  God knows that a safe Messiah is the last thing that this world needs; and we in the church should not suggest that following Jesus the Messiah is a guaranteed pathway to a safe and palatable life.  We in the church – as Christians who bear the name of Christ and who are called to follow him, to allow his mind to be in us, to bear the cross, to give up our lives for him – do well to remember just how radical, how unpalatable and even how unattractive the call of Christian discipleship can be.  

Of course, the paradox of discipleship is that this unpalatable calling is also the key to true fulfillment, to a peace that the world cannot give to us, to true abundance in life, and even to the meaning of life itself.  We can walk away from Christ, and seek safer Messiahs, but in so doing we will be walking away from the One who holds the key to life in all its fullness, the One who is the Lord of life and death, the One in whom the glory of God was pleased to dwell. 

The call that he issues – even now – is a challenging one, rooted in a question that has continues to have incredibly profound consequences for our lives. 

Who do you say I am?

And who are you willing to be?