sermon: Who do they say I Am?

Matthew 16

“Who do they say I Am?

Today we enter into our fourth week of exploring how various people in the Bible encounter and understand God and their role within God’s calling for their lives.  Abraham was blessed to be a blessing, Shiphrah and Puah took a stand of courage in the face of oppression which opened the way for baby Moses to survive and become a great leader, and King David heard the voice of God through the prophet Nathaniel and expressed his faith through his creative writings of the Psalms. 

For those of us within the Christian faith, asking did Jesus have God might be a strange question to ask.  Of course he did.  But not everyone in his day and age understood this and his identity is still challenged and argued everyday in our modern world.  Who was Jesus?  In today’s passage, Jesus is asking his disciples that very question.  His disciples were out and about and heard the gossip on the street, what were people saying about him?  What was the gossip, what were the rumors?  Now it is interesting – according to Matthew, Jesus first asks who do people say the Son of Man is?   And then he asks his disciples directly – who do you say I am?  I’ve always thought he was asking the same question, I’ve always thought he was asking them what are others saying about Jesus, but maybe not everyone was understanding that the Son of Man and Jesus are the one and the same. 

I could probably do a sermon series on just all the various names for Jesus.  Last week he was the son of David, sometimes he is the Son of God, and today perhaps he is referring to himself as the Son of Man.  Confusing right? 

The word on the street is that the Son of Man is:  John the Baptist, Elijah, Jeremiah, or one of the other prophets.  It does not seem that the greater community is identifying Jesus as the Son of Man.  Jesus then redirects his question at his closest followers – who do you say I am?  And Simon Peter responds:  The Messiah, the Son of the living God.  And Jesus affirms his answers.  The Messiah, the anointed one, Emmanuel, God with us.  The opening statement of the Gospel of Matthew identifies who the Gospel writers wants the reader to know and understand who Jesus is.  Who do they say I am?  Matthew clearly states – Jesus is the Messiah, the son of David, the son of Abraham.  As the gospel unfolds, the writer is seeking to illustrate to others his claim.  He is saying:  here is my proof, this is why I am proclaiming Jesus is the Messiah, here are the examples. 

In the Tuesday morning Bible Study, we discussed this passage and asked ourselves, who do we say Jesus is?   There are various videos on Youtube where people have interviewed people out on the street and asked them this question.  What if we walked over to the flea market after church today and asked people, who do they say Jesus is?  What kind of response do you think we would get?  The responses in the video were varied, including people just walking away.  Some said, a good teacher, a prophet, a moral leader, a radical, a fictional character, a exaggerated story, an important person in history and a few even said, my Lord and Savior. 

So who do you say Jesus is?   Our conversation was varied, and included: healer, teacher, prophet, the closest person to the divine, spiritual, he understood God, and then we get to the ever so hard question of the Trinity.  Is Jesus God?  If he is God why do we call him the son of God?  How is he God and human?  As Presbyterians, we do believe in the Trinity, that God’s very self is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  Personally, I am alright with not understanding this divine mystery with complete clarity.  I am comfortable with being present to the stories as a person of faith.  Others need to have a complete understanding of theology and doctrine, and there are a multitude of books on the topic. 

I lean towards the teachings of who Jesus proclaims he is.  In the Gospel of John, Jesus shares various ways for us to understand who he is.  Who do you say I am?  Well, I will tell you who I am:  I am the bread of life.  I am the vine.  I am the gate.  I am the light.  I am the Good Shepherd.  I am the Resurrection and the Life.  I am the way, the truth, and the life.  These are known as the seven I am statements of Jesus and each of them gives us a glimpse of who Jesus is connection to the divine and also for how we can engage Jesus in our daily lives. 

In the Tuesday morning group, I then asked the question, Who does our church say Jesus is?  Each of us, as individuals come to understand Jesus in our own way, but as a whole, as a congregation, as our message to the community in which we reside, what is our message of who Jesus is?  Remember, the Gospel writer of Matthew states clearly who he is proclaiming Jesus to be.  Jesus – the Messiah.  Are we clearly proclaiming who we believe Jesus is?  If our key understanding of who Jesus is – is the Messiah – how do we communicate that?  If it is healer – how do we communicate that?  If it is teacher – how do we communicate that?  If it is a peacemaker – how do we communicate that? 

I believe we proclaim Jesus as his teaching from the end of the gospel of Matthew when Jesus says – when you do this to the least of these, you have done this to me.  When have we seen Jesus hungry?  When we feed those at our doors?  Who is Jesus?  Is Jesus the people that come to the food pantry, to the bag lunch program, the Faith Kitchen, and the community breakfast?  When you do this to the least of these, you have done this to me.  This is at least where our ministry is, it might not be how we understand who Jesus is, but it should challenge us to begin that conversation. 

As our ministries feed the greater community, our God reaches out and connect with us through the spiritual food of communion.  Who do we say Jesus is?  On communion Sundays, I understand Jesus as the bread of life, whoever comes to me will never be hungry.  As a people of faith, our God seeks to continue to call us into God’s work in this world.  In and through communion, we remain connected to the faith story of our scriptures, understanding that this is not a story of the past, but a story of our present and a story for the future.  We break bread and share the cup as a way to proclaim that we are participants in God’s work here in the world, and that Jesus calls us to follow as well as to proclaim the Good News of who he is in our lives.  Amen.