"Jesus asked them, 'Who do people say that I am?'"
-Mark 8: 27
Now that is a pretty big question: Who do people say that I am? Who is this Jesus of Nazareth, really? When Jesus puts this question to the 12 they
give a variety of answers. Some folks,
they say, think that you’re John the Baptist
come back to life. Some think you’re Elijah, that
great man of God who was taken up in a whirlwind and who, Jewish tradition has
it, will come again to usher in the reign of the Messiah. And others think you’re a prophet, like
those prophets of old, like Isaiah and Jeremiah, calling God’s people to new
life. Oh, and some think you’re absolutely nuts,
maybe even a heretic, who is destroying Judaism as we know it. The Gospel writers didn’t include that one,
but we know that interpretation was out there too.
Then
Jesus plays his trump card, and he asks the one question that is bigger than “Who do people say
that I am?” Who do YOU say that I am? You.
My friends, my students, my beloved.
Who do YOU say that I am? I've always pictured there being a long silence, each apostle looking at each other, waiting for someone to be bold enough to say something before Simon Peter says very plainly, “You are the
Messiah.”
I’ve wondered what
answers Jesus would’ve gotten had he
asked that question to each individual apostle.
I suspect he would’ve gotten 12
different answers. Because while Peter
is, of course, correct in his confession of Jesus as Messiah, there was no single,
simple answer to this question. One
could’ve said the
Messiah, one could’ve said a prophet,
one could’ve said a rabbi, a
carpenter, a homeless person, a friend to sinners, an outcast. The amazing thing is that they all would’ve been right. In the same way, if any of us asked someone “Who do you say that
I am?” we're bound to get a variety of answers based on our relationship to the person, or based on what we do for a living, or based on our personality. Still, we are not defined by one single characteristic
about ourselves. I am not just a
priest, for example. I’m a toy collector,
a comic book nerd, a (very bad) fisherman, a dog lover, a theatre kid, a hillbilly (not a redneck, the difference is elevation!), and a washed-up ballplayer. I am not defined by any one of these, nor are
you defined by any one particular facet of your being. The same was true for Jesus in his day and in
the days after his Resurrection and Ascension.
That’s why we have so
many gospels—and trust me, there
were way more than just four. But these
are the ones Holy Mother Church affirmed, and each tells a different narrative
and paints a different picture of Jesus in a particular time and place. For the earliest community, the one of Mark’s gospel, Jesus is
a political revolutionary who comes and turns the world on its head and
proclaims to Rome that God, not Caesar, is the supreme authority, and he proves
it by turning an instrument of death into an instrument of life. For the community of Matthew’s gospel, Jesus is
the new Moses, giving the Beatitudes up on the mountain side like Moses gave
the law, and while he is the Messiah that Israel has longed for he does it all
in the context of being a rabbi, constantly teaching the people around
him. For Luke Jesus is not only the
Messiah of Israel, but he is the Savior of all humanity, as that gospel is
written in the form of a book addressed to a man named Theopholis, a Greek, a
non-Jew, and so the whole of that gospel raises up those who previously had not
had a share in the story of God’s people, namely
Gentiles and women, and that’s why the parable of the Good Samaritan and the Song of Mary only show up in this gospel. Then there’s the Fourth Gospel, written almost
100 years after Mark and taking the name of the disciple many believe Jesus
loved more than anyone, and in that Gospel Jesus is not only the Messiah of
Israel, not only the Savior of the world, but God incarnate, the living Word, and as such he is always in control
of a given situation. I think it’s fascinating that
in this year—Year B of our
lectionary—we get to alternate
between Mark and John and get to see just how different Jesus is in those two
gospels.
So
which one got it right? All of
them. And none of them. And maybe that’s the point. There is no one definitive narrative about
Jesus. We don’t get to put him in
a box and place a label on him the way we place labels on ourselves. This is something that films like Son of God
or The Passion of the Christ get wrong.
They try blending all of the stories into one, but the gospels were
never intended to be read like that. Each was written for specific audience in a specific time and place and with a specific set of circumstances. And just as the interpretations of who Jesus was evolved over time for each
gospel writer, so it is with us today.
Ask anyone at any given time in history who Jesus is and you’ll get a different
response. Still, we know that Jesus the Word is, in many ways, the same now that he has always been. That's why we have a common affirmation of faith, our Nicene Creed,
which tells us what we as the Body of Christ believe about Jesus. Yet that question continues
to be offered to each one of us individually to this very day: who do YOU say this Jesus of Nazareth really
is? And how will you show your answer to
others?
In the parish I serve we have answered this question in a variety of ways and have lived out those answers in our many ministries, which we highlighted at our recent ministry fair. Jesus is the king worthy of worship and praise, exemplified by our
acolytes, lectors, eucharistic ministers, and alter guild who serve him in and
take care of our sacred spaces each week.
Jesus is the one who made table fellowship with others and welcomed the
stranger, and you see that in the ministry of the parish life committee, the
fellowship committee, and our greeters and ushers. Jesus is the one who welcomed children and
their questions, and you see that in our children and youth programs. Jesus is
the one who called us to serve the least of these, and you see that in the
partnerships and programs developed by our mission outreach ministry. Each community has a different answer to the question and different methods by which of showing that answer to the world.
