Proper 16 (A) The Question



Proper 16 (A) The Question

August 26, 1981

By Rev. Ernest F. Campbell

Today’s Gospel contains the essential question asked by Jesus to all those who would be his disciples.
The fact that Jesus asked the question implies our freedom to respond to it from the truth of our own experience.

Jesus asks, “Who do you say that I am?” Never mind what somebody else says, never mind what it says in some book. Who do you say…not think…but who do you say I am? What do you confess with your lips…out loud, so others can hear it…about who I am?

The answer that came from Peter’s lips must have shocked his own ears. Peter was a Jew. The Jews believed that the name of God was so holy that it must never be spoken aloud. So, in response to Jesus’ question, Peter says…“You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God.” He says what a pious Jew would hardly dare to say: “You are God.”

Why didn’t the other disciples appreciate that Jesus, the carpenter’s son, was at the same time God Almighty? Why only Peter? And why did Our Lord admonish all of them to tell no one that He was the Christ? Jesus explains to Peter that his insight was a gift…a revelation from God the Father. Before the fact of the resurrection there was simply not enough data for the limited human thinking machine to figure it out. Peter’s confession was the result of a divine revelation.

Jesus doesn’t explain why they should keep quiet about it, but can you imagine what they all would have faced if they had approached the first person they met on the road and said, “Hey, would you like to know who our leader really is…?”

His time had not yet come…Judas, remember, tried to set Jesus up by engineering the Gethsemane confrontation…it failed! Jesus did not melt their spears or blow them away. He simply…surrendered.

Let me share with you what I found to be a very enlightening footnote in the Jerusalem Bible on what Jesus liked to call Himself and possibly why. His favorite way of referring to Himself was “The Son of Man.” So, in today’s lesson he says, “Who do men say the Son of Man is?”

According to the footnote, it had a dual meaning. Originally it referred to the lowliness of man’s state…but later, in the Jewish apocalyptic book of Enoch, it was used to indicate: A transcendent figure, heavenly in origin, one who was to receive from God’s hand the Kingdom at the end of time.

The title “Son of Man” both veiled and hinted at the sort of Messiah Jesus was. In Matthew 26:64 Jesus stops hinting when the High Priest demands to know if He is the Christ. Listen to Jesus’ answer. In front of the entire Sanhedrin…

“I tell you that from this time onward you will see The Son of Man seated at the right hand of power and coming on the clouds of heaven.”

Our Lord’s resurrection made that statement God’s truth.

If we are not overwhelmed by Peter’s confession…“Jesus is God,” then consider the awesome commission that Jesus sets out for His Church in the second half of today’s Gospel.

“I give you the keys of the kingdom. Establish my church.”

Peter, his successors and counterparts, which I believe includes those who accept Jesus as Lord, embrace His presence in the holy eucharist, live His word, and follow the order for ministry in the church that Christ established… In other words, WE are called to be the body of Christ, and WE are called to maintain the life of that body in order that it may model and proclaim to the world what it means to be a redemptive community.

The word Our Lord uses for church in the Greek, when He says, “And on this rock I will build my church,” is Ekklesia. It means a public gathering. It is to this “gathering” that Jesus gives the keys to the kingdom. It is this gathering that Our Lord has commissioned to open the doors of understanding so that the whole world will know the truth and joy of God’s redeeming love.

If Jesus has given the keys with that understanding to the gathered community of believers, then one has to seriously question those who say it is possible to know and follow Christ outside of that gathering.

The danger of attempting to be a Christian alone is that we will arrive at our own conclusions about Christ’s teaching (presumptuous at best because even Our Lord’s disciples did not fully understand His teaching about the kingdom through parables—great scholars have struggled to open the doors of our understanding), and having arrived at our own definition of Jesus, we can easily convince ourselves that we are following Him perfectly. More perfectly than even Peter followed Him or all of His successors.

Please understand, I am not saying so-called “solo Christians” are not good people. I do believe, however, when all truth is revealed, everyone will be surprised—solo Christians will be really surprised.

Many people grow impatient with the Church because it is not meeting their particular needs of the moment. The “gathering” is made up of many different personalities and interests. Some want to move ahead while others would rather cling to what has grown familiar and reassuring. Some find the church unwieldy, slow, caught up in compromise. The “gathering” is simultaneously intolerable and necessary, irritating and valuable.

But…it is only the church that possesses the words of life. Only she has at her command the creative energy of the sacraments. Only she opens the doors to the kingdom.

There is only one way possible for the church to effectively open the doors to the kingdom, and that is to find itself, with all its differences, with all its frustrations, immersed in Christ.


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