17 Pentecost

May my words and my thoughts be acceptable to you, O Lord, my refuge and my redeemer. (Psalm 19:14)

SEASON: 17 Pentecost
PROPER: 19 B
PLACE: ST. JOHN’S PARISH
DATE: Sept. 14, 1997

TEXT: Mark 8:27-38 - “Who do people say that I am?” And they answered him, “John the Baptist; and others, Elijah; and still others, one of the prophets.” He asked them, “But who do you say that I am? Peter answered him, “You are the Messiah.”

See also: Isaiah 50:4-9 - A Suffering Servant Passage

ISSUE: In middle eastern culture a person’s identity comes from the family or community. Jesus asks his disciples to provide him his identity for community input was very important. Peter, the head disciple, sees him as the Messiah. For us today, we must identify the meaning of Jesus Christ for our lives and our church so that we can present him to the world in terms that express the meaning of his messiahship. Thus, it is important that we grasp the meaning of his messiahship as that of servant. The understanding of Jesus as suffering servant was difficult for Peter as it is often difficult for ourselves. Yet a community acting with Christ as its hub of servant lives out his ministry accordingly.
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Today’s reading from Mark is a pretty startling passage, and a very important one for us to appreciate. Carrying on his ministry with his disciples in Caesarea Philippi, pagan-Gentile territory, Jesus asks the disciples: “Who do people say that I am?” And Peter, the spokesman of the twelve replies that people think of Jesus as like “John the Baptist, or Elijah, or one of the prophets.” Thus they see Jesus as a dynamic and honorable character. But then Jesus asks Peter, one who is close to him, and the representative of the twelve disciples, “Who do you say that I am?” Peter replies, “You are the Messiah.” Peter and the disciples see Jesus as more than a dynamic prophet but as a leader of the people who will deliver them to some grandeur.
Now we are inclined to think that Peter has it right. That Jesus was giving Peter a kind of test to see if he was sharp enough to know just who Jesus was and what he was about. Some modern Biblical scholars do not see this as a test question at all. Jesus is actually seeking to know from his community what his identity actually is. In Middle Eastern culture, who you were was determined by your family. People of this period were not individualistic as we are and determiners of their own fate and position. Jesus was seen as Joseph’s son, the carpenter. Peter is son of Jonah. Your self-ness was part of your community or family. To deny yourself meant to not just be penetential and ascetic, it meant to deny or separate yourself from community or family and join another one. John Pilch, a Biblical scholar points out that Francis of Assissi when denying himself gives up his father and his family and attaches himself to the newly founded community of Franciscans, a fictive family with a deep devotion to God and servanthood among the poor.
Jesus in his own ministry had separated himself from his own family. Jesus has already said in Mark 3:31-35, when he is told that his mother, brothers, and sisters were looking for him: “Who is my mother? Who are my brothers?” He looked at the people sitting around him and said, “Look! Here are my mother and my brothers! Whoever does what God wants him to do is my brother, my sister, my mother.” Jesus denies himself and by virtue of doing that had denied his family and identity as son of Joseph and is forming a new community, a new family of God. His identity and honor status must now come from that community, and Peter speaking for the disciples says, “You are the Messiah.” Peter identifies Jesus and this new community or family as the hope for the world. Jesus’ status and authority to proclaim the The Reign of God which has now begun. It is only as Jesus has this community supporting him that he can truly carry on what God has called him to be and do. He calls men and women everywhere to deny themselves and all that that meant to attach themselves to this mission with loyalty and faith.
Peter and Jesus do get into a servere argument over what shape the Messiahship of Jesus will take. The common understanding of a Messiah at this time, and what was perceived as the need was a Royal Messiah. One who would be king and militant leader to liberate the Israelites from Roman bondage. However there are several passages from Isaiah that are referred to as the Servant or Suffering Servant Passages. Our Old Testament Lesson from Isaiah today is one of them. Isaiah trying to make some sense out of The Exile, the oppression of the Israelites hope for a day when the faithfulness of the nation would be a light of hope for the world. Jesus saw himself and his movement not as a militant regime, but as a community of great faith and trust in God who would suffer indignities but would bring to bear great hope and compassion, mercy and love for the suffering masses in his own adulterous generation. “Adulterous generation” meaning a world unfaithful and without an understanding of the true love of God. Peter greatly resists Jesus’ notion that their movement will know the cross and denial of the world and its status-quo. It is only in losing the life of the past and embracing the faith of God in Christ Jesus that the world will know new hope and appreciate the meaning of God’s love and compassion. This whole scene is an impressive call to new world order and faithfulness. For it is only in embracing Christ, the way of God, that life is truly changed and saved. It was hard for Peter to grasp this, but he did, as did the early Christian community, see Jesus as more than another well meaning prophet they engaged in participating with Christ as a unique servanthood community of hope for the world.
In our own time, the issue of who we say Jesus is has a profound significant effect on our own identity as the Church and Christians in our own “adulterous” or faithless generation. In our very individualistic culture, it is difficult for us to define together who Jesus is for us as community when we operate from our own individualistic agendas. Yet if we see Jesus as Elijah, he is a dynamic charismatic character, indeed. He is healer and a man very dvoted in faith to God. People today like charisma and even charismatic movements. At the same time as dramatic a character as Elijah is, he is a loner. For us that is attractive, but for those who cannot not be dramatic charismatic leaders, it is hard for them to identiffy with that kind of ministry. People like the TV-Evangelists, until their recent demise. But they stand alone.
For those who see Jesus as a kind of John the Baptist, you perceive of Jesus much like a person whose ministry is based entirely on moralism. Repentance and the calling of the crowds “you vipers brood.” This kind of religion is very popular among some groups of people. It calls upon people to be righteous, and while sometimes needed, can degenerate in to self-righteousness, and the looking down on people in a judgmental way.
Jesus perceived as just another prophet makes him merely another religious figure in the midst of many who come and go. This concept too is a popular one in the pluralistic world today. Jesus is just another religious figure in the midst of many. Vitality and deep appreciation of his real work and ministry is diminished. Many people today, I think, and many of us in the Episcopal Church, have this rather casual understanding of Jesus. That all we need to do is do good, like Jesus did, and be kind to one another. It is a kind of casual approach to Jesus. Occasionally we volunteer to do a good deed or two to be somehow likened to good old Jesus. Doing good is fine. Thank God for those who do. But it is often casual, and is based on moods and what we feel like doing. It sometimes degenerates into fickle recreational religion as opposed to a living faith that is constant.
The faith that Peter describes and that is taught and revealed in Jesus’ teaching argument with Peter is a faith and appreciation in Jesus as the servant of God, the suffering servant of God. Jesus had some charisma, and was certainly moral. He did good things. He was a healer. But Jesus also embrace God and had a deep abiding faith and commitment, a trust and constant loyalty. He trusted that whatever he might endure as he carried on his ministry that God would be with him, even if it meant death on the cross. He could leave his worldly family behind and associate himself with a new family of God enriched by a community of people who sought to discern and do God’s will.
We can be a dynamic enthusiastic people filled with charisma. That kind of energy is not always lasting. It can become very self-centered. It can avoid persecution and be very individualistic. But when it’s gone, it’s gone. We can be moralistic and good. But how is that different from any organization. In the Messianic hope of Jesus you find community. You find Jesus working with people, indeed respecting their individuality and talents, but calling them together as community of faith, of people of God. They together as a corporate body all share in embracing God and accepting is redeeming forgiveness. Together as community surrounding Jesus they are like a rim around the everlasting hub of love. He went to love the unloveable, to enter into the suffering of humanity to be there with people. Jesus saw a dysfunctional society, an adulterous and sinful generation. Rather than condemning it, disassociating himself from it, he entered into with great love and affection. It was not ministry of occasion volunteerism. His disciples were not volunteers. They were people whose commitment to God through Christ was their life and their very being. They were not perfect any more than anyone else. Their human frailty became obvious both during the ministry of Jesus and certainly at his crucifixion when they abandoned him. But in community with Jesus as center they carried on. They denied themselves and took up the cross and followed as best they could. Their ministries with Christ were indeed lasting and qualitative lives.
Who do we say Jesus is for the world today in our individualistic, secular, and materialistic society is an important question. How we identify him as a fellowship of people greatly affects our own identities and the identity of the church in the world today. It can be charisma that doesn’t last or that is a style that not all people can grasp. It can be moralistic and judgmental. It can be casual “do gooding” that is like most other humanistic organizations.
Our faith is based upon Jesus as messiah, living Lord, the presence of God among us. It is the trust that the reign of God has come and we are a community that trusts completely that God is with us. We become his disciples as a part of our regular day to day living, knowing that even in our frailty we are God’s and we belong to the unique family of God. We love God and embrace God’s compassion and mercy for ourselves and therefore for others. We cut the ties of the world and bind ourselves to the love of God.