Sermon: Who Do You Say That I Am?
Text: Mark 8:27-38
Date: Sept. 13, 2009
Rev. Dr. Dee Eisenhauer, Eagle Harbor Congregational Church
Along the way, Jesus asks, “Who do people say that I am?”
They have answers for him. People have been talking, as they do when one among them attracts attention. They answered him: “John the Baptist; and others, Elijah; and still others, one of the prophets.” Out of politeness, they probably didn’t mention the less polite speculations. A charlatan. A snake-oil salesman. A lunatic. A dangerous radical. A blasphemer. People were talking about him, all right.
“Who do people say that I am?” Just imagine Jesus popping in today to ask us that question. We’d hardly know where to begin answering. The variety of views on Jesus just within a 30 mile radius of here is absolutely stunning. I can say that with some confidence since I went on a number of church-visiting field trips during the summer months. With careful planning and copious cups of coffee I managed to visit fifteen congregations at worship in July and August. (Wished I could have done more but I was on the road a couple of my Sundays.) Who do people say Jesus is? In art [image], text, song, testimony, and ritual people are saying a multitude of different things about Jesus.
The City Church has a page in their glossy booklet titled “What We Believe” that is footnoted with scripture citations. “We believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, the Savior of men, conceived of the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, very God and very man. We believe Christ died for our sins, was buried and rose again the third day, and personally appeared to his disciples. We believe in the bodily ascension of Jesus to heaven, his exaltation and personal, literal and bodily coming again the second time for the Church.” The Christian Faith Center urges people to be born again with these words:
Being Saved or born again is receiving Jesus as your Lord (Master) and committing yourself to follow His Word (the Bible.) Suggested prayer:
“God, I come to You in the Name of Jesus. I ask You to come into my life. I confess with my mouth that Jesus is my Lord and I believe in my heart that You have raised Him form the dead. I turn my back on sin and I commit to follow You for the rest of my life. I thank You, Father, for saving me!”
Other CFC literature emphasizes the requirement of obedience to God, constructing our lives according to the blueprint provided in the Bible. Who do people say that I am? Who do people say I am? God, man, sacrifice, in bodily form past and future; Lord, Master, director.
Mt. Zion Baptist Church declares in their statement of belief: “We believe in the deity of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Jesus is the second person of the Trinity; He is both the Son of God and God the Son…Through Jesus the world can be reconciled to God.” They use words like King and Lawgiver in their covenant. First African Methodist Episcopal church calls Christ our Redeemer.
Seaside Church believes that Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection “has made possible our salvation from our sinfulness, giving us access to the Father.” A booklet given to me at Christ Memorial Church declares that Jesus is ready to dwell in the believer’s heart, and that “no matter what sin or what pain there may be in my past, Jesus is ready to forgive, to heal, and to make whole.” Another magazine I picked up there, the Pentecostal Evangel, pronounces Jesus as “your only hope of salvation.” Who do people say that I am? The access point to God, forgiver, healer, only hope.
One church says boldly that Jesus is their senior pastor. Yep. “Jesus is the Senior Pastor of Mars Hill church.” I did not know that. Additionally, “Jesus will build his church. Jesus calls us into life together. Jesus will save more people.” Their annual report title this year is “It’s All About Jesus.” What’s all about Jesus? Everything.
I visited a few churches that were not as clearly evangelical as well. The men of Quest Church, a Covenant church, were invited to a retreat for Men of Faith with this invitation: “Join with other manly men in a weekend devoted to all things dude. Be prepared to go deep with speakers…as they share about following Christ into Compassion, Mercy, and Justice.” At Emmaus Road church, the text about Jesus that is named on their belief page is: “Jesus said, “I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit” (John 15:5).” They go on to say, “God-centered living is about soaking and abiding in the love and presence of Jesus and bearing fruit as a result. The fruit of this lifestyle is a deeper compassion for the people around us, a more vibrant, and constant, dialogue with God, and the lasting transformation of our broken world.” Further, “God gives us the example of Jesus to encourage us.” Rolling Bay Presbyterian church talks about being touched by the awesome and amazing love of God because of the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. They hope that their worship and service shows Christ’s love to the world. St. Therese Catholic church’s newsletter speaks of Jesus as the living bread, food for our journey. Nourished by the Eucharist, they are committed to bringing the Good News of Jesus Christ to the greater community, “remaining always open to service with the poor and taking risks for social justice.” Who do people say that I am? One who reveals the love of God, leads to service with the poor, acts of compassion, mercy and justice; abiding presence, encouraging exemplar.
People outside the church have views on Jesus as well. One atheist, Ruth Hurmence Green, calls him an “angry rejected prophet of doom who looks forward to having his revenge.” He obviously had an abrasive side to his personality, she says, noting that he couldn’t get along with his family, was often at odds with the disciples, and was not even liked or respected by his Nazareth neighbors. He was so disrespected that he turned bitter and was quite ready to assign his detractors evermore to hell. [1] That is, if he’s not just a figment of Christianity’s imagination, a claim of many other atheists.
Who do people say that I am? How long have you got? All I’ve done is serve you little theological snacks from the churches nearby that I had time to visit (plus the voice of one of a multitude of non-believers). Multiply times the hundreds of religious communities and the thousands of people with an opinion about Jesus that live around here. Not to mention those beyond our borders.
The question of how people see and describe Jesus is worthwhile to engage. Asking it helps us see ourselves in context. There are some s “centers of gravity” or clusters of meaning in different types of churches. I appreciated Jim Wellman’s synopses of the core commitments of evangelical and liberal Christians in the Pacific Northwest. Of the first he writes “At the center of the evangelical moral worldviews is a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, based on an act of submission to the authority of their ‘Lord.’ This act of allegiance is intimate and intensely subjective. It is…an emotional commitment that is cultivated endlessly through worship, prayer, ritual, and personal piety.” [2] This submission to the Lord is expected to change the core identity of the person. And many people in Wellman’s study did report having freedom from sinful behaviors that had troubled them after making this commitment.
Of more liberal Christians, Wellman writes, “the moral core of liberals is less focused on a person, Jesus, then on the principles he embodied…For Christian liberals in this study, inclusiveness is at the heart of Jesus’ message.” [3] Behavior trumps belief, by and large; the important thing is to welcome all people as Jesus welcomed them to his table and into his circle of friends. Salvation is not so much about life after death but about the presence of God in this life.
A fair summary of two sides of the local Christian community, don’t you think? It matches with my experience of visiting evangelical and liberal and in-between churches.
I find the visiting of churches and the study of religious communities quite interesting. People and their religious practices are endlessly fascinating to me. But that opening question—“Who do people say that I am?”--is not the whole of the Gospel; it is not even the whole text for this one week. In a way it would be nice to stop there, to consider people and their theologies and their practices from a mildly intellectual, bemused, disengaged standpoint. But Jesus plows right on, as he is ever apt to do. He asks them, “But who do you say that I am?”
Let that very personal question from Christ Jesus speak to you for a moment, as if you were in Peter’s sandals, looking into the depths of Jesus’ eyes.
Maybe this is a question you confront frequently, as you strive to follow Jesus. Maybe it’s a question you answered once, long ago, when you gave yourself to this journey. Maybe it’s a question you have never really wrestled with.
One thing I noticed from my explorations of the evangelical world particularly is that those who are worshiping in that kind of community are never allowed to suppose that the question of personal commitment and personal relationship with Jesus is optional or only for other people. Who do you say that I am?—while it’s not expressed exactly in those words, the challenge to make a personal decision is front and center. Altar calls are still a regular feature of these services.
The personal decision is not the end of the road. After making your decision in an evangelical church, it is expected that you would lead other people to making the same decision. You have received something of value—forgiveness, freedom from the bondage of sin, and the promise of eternal life. You naturally want to offer that to others. The engine of invitation to decide for Christ is constantly humming in an evangelical church; it’s a magnetic, unmistakable force. Most people who are connected with the church are fully engaged with trying to bring other people into the fold, who in turn will bring other people into the fold.
That’s one reason why evangelical churches are flourishing in this relatively unchurched neck of the woods. Evangelicals think Jesus’ question—Who do you say that I am?—is really, really important. Life changing. Eternal life changing. So they’re organized—well organized, I might add—around invitation. The senior pastor of the City Church told a story about going to a game at the Kingdome as he was beginning his ministry, and afterward circling it with his son, praying and claiming those people for Jesus, with the idea that the thousands of people there would one day be in their church. They now have eight campuses in Western Washington to which they broadcast their messages. Mars Hill church, which has around 6000 people attending worship in their 7 campuses, baptized more than 300 people on Easter Sunday this year. (We baptized 4 people that day, and it was a big deal.) Their plan is to grow to a church of 50,000 in the next ten years by adding 100 new campuses and planting 1000 new churches worldwide.
I don’t want to go to Mars Hill church. I don’t want to be Mars Hill church. I think their male-dominated patriarchal style is so last Millennium, and their literalist approach to the Bible is unimaginative and uninspiring.
But here’s something I do want. I want to follow Jesus. And I want spiritual companions who think that following Jesus into compassion, mercy, forgiveness, equality, justice, loving community and a joyful, abundant life is important. Essential, even. And so worthwhile that we yearn to share this way of life with others.
Here’s the Pacific Northwest liberal conundrum: We are so respectful of people’s privacy, and so skittish about appearing to want to save someone’s soul that there is not much of an engine in our invitation. Liberals are so leery of being judgmental about other people’s faith or lack thereof that they don’t necessarily even want to train their own children in Christianity; some see religious education as coercion of their own kids. That’s one reason why mainline churches are declining around here. That, and our low birthrate. We’re not reproducing ourselves, and we don’t seem too energized about bringing other people into our community.
So here’s one question. Is the promise of a metaphysical reward, namely Heaven, the only effective engine behind an invitation to follow Jesus? I can’t believe that it is.
Here’s another question. Is our due respect to ways of life outside the Christian Way an automatic evangelism killer? That is, can there be some impetus for inviting others to join us in following Jesus even when we acknowledge our belief that God’s grace is more universal than many in the Christian fold believe it is? I believe that there must be a reason to share the Good News of Jesus even when we’re not making a claim to have the corner on the Truth.
Here’s another question. Have we, individually and collectively, really and truly dealt with Jesus’ second question, “But who do you say that I am?” We can amuse ourselves intellectually for years on end by exploring the question “Who do people say that I am?” But it’s not the same as opening mind, soul, and heart to Jesus asking “But who do you say that I am?” Is our wimpy and episodic invitation to others a symptom of not having thought that through, and felt that through, and experienced a life-changing relationship with Christ through and through? If we had exposed ourselves more deeply to the blazing heat of that question, and found a way to answer at least for our own hearts, would we find it easier to speak of Christ to others?
In the text today, Jesus speaks of following him as something that may lead to some self-denial and suffering. He rebukes Peter for voicing his objections to that notion. I’m not going to take up that complex topic today—that’s another sermon for another day. But the way Jesus ended his speech by talking about shame—“Those who are ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of them will the Son of Man also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father...”—that caught my attention. I have an idea that because the ideas about Jesus in the most popular and widely practiced forms of Christianity in the U.S. aren’t representative of our theology that we are sometimes embarrassed or ashamed to be known as Christians. We worry that we will be identified with an image of Jesus that we’re not comfortable with. And so we may keep pretty quiet about our faith. And maybe we even hold back on a full commitment to following Jesus because of our leeriness about some of our Christian companions.
We don’t have to take up traditional theologies to have a full, enthusiastic commitment to following Jesus. We can learn from our evangelical sisters and brothers the beauty of giving yourself to Christ, expecting personal transformation as a result, and reaching lovingly out to others. A progressive, compassionate, fully inclusive voice is deeply needed in American Christianity! It seems to me that we demonstrate a lack of compassion for our neighbors if we are not willing to share the good news of Jesus as we know it with them: the Christ of grace, mercy, forgiveness, bold compassion, and vibrant new life.
Who do people say Jesus is? Lord, Savior, Sacrificial Lamb, Only Begotten Son, Suffering Servant, Lawgiver, Healer, Head, Hope, Heart, Judge, Forgiver, Reconciler, Redeemer, Teacher, Liberator, Life-giver; the people testify, and testify, and testify.
But who do you say Jesus is? Take the question with you, and don’t be afraid to decide. And when you’ve decided, think about how that’s good news. And when you’ve got some good news warming you, mull over how you might invite others to the hearth of your heart and the warmth of our community.
[1] Green, Ruth Hurmence “The God from Galilee” in Everything You Know About God is Wrong New York: Disinformation, 2007 p.113
[2] Wellman, James K. Evangelical Vs. Liberal: The Clash of Christian Cultures in the Pacific Northwest Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008, p. 60
[3] Ibid. p. 63