Wondering "Who is Jesus?" while at Stella's restaurant I was interrupted by an unrecognized o'l buddy of mine. "Who is this guy? Damn, I ought to at least know his name!" I desperately tried to piece his identity together as he spoke of his reminiscences, jokes, memories, music.
OOPS! An Unrecognized Friend
And recalling when Mona my mom took us to a lounge to watch "Hot Poop and the Group". We laughed together and then he suddenly told me he had a meeting with his IT team at work. "Good to see you again," he said. It was great to see him too, a flash from the past but I was frustrated by not being able to remember his name; I stained to hear every word as a clue to recover that vital piece of information.
Shaking this encounter off I realized I had a homily to consider. Then it struck me! I was being asked that same question again, "Who do you say I am?" this time by Jesus. I responded inwardly with identical thoughts: "Jesus, I am confused, I forget so easily. I can't find any way to retrieve your true identity." Jesus' identity is a far more significant issue for me right here and now. My inability to truly know him is far more consequential.
UGH! What Got Lost and How To Find It
During the last two weeks of homily preparation, I have tried to retrieve my o'l friend's identity. I have also been straining for a satisfying definition of "who Christ is for me." Taking queues from Peter's confessional encounter with Christ recorded in Matthew, I started with "Who do they say I am?"
The answer to this question is nowhere near as easy today as in Peter's day. His contemporaries identified Jesus in nuanced ways but they all used same basic prophetic-apocalyptic template. The religious establishment, Herod, and the crowds all considered Jesus a prophet of some sort. I guess Herod's view was strangest. Herod's guilty conscience suggested that Jesus was the ghost of John the Baptist whom he had killed!
So I started asking, "Who is Jesus for my contemporaries?" A haunting scepter of times past.
Remember the playground ditty song?: "Rich man, Poor Man, Beggar Man, Thief Doctor, Lawyer, Merchant Chief". Scholarly theories about the historical Jesus have now multiplied to a tangled mess every bit as divergent: "Wandering Preacher, Zealot, Activist, Magician. Cynic Peasant, Prophet, Wisdom Logician." (Robert W. Yarbrough)
As is my obsession, I read enormous selections, and some whole treatments of who Jesus could possibly be culturally, theologically and historically. There were loads of interesting but mostly disappointingly partial treatments. Nothing gave me anything like the assurance I needed to take the step toward saying who Jesus is for me.
I reminisced over images of Jesus that have attracted me in the past. I enjoyed surveying the various artistic depictions of Jesus going back to our Anno Domini: Jesus Through the Centuries days at the Edmonton exhibit and Friedrich Buechner's book Faces of Jesus. There were beautiful renditions and inspiring art but they still were not enough to satisfy what I was in search of.
One visual and literary image that has become avant guard recently has been the social revolutionary Jesus as a Zealot. I liked that image in the early seventies and I have followed Jesus supposed revolutionary career by reading my lefty theologians and commentators. Recently I have heard of but haven't read as yet Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth by a Muslim scholar Reza Aslan. In spite of my fondness for the 'Che Guevara' Jesus, I still suspect that this view of him is just a mirror image of my own idealized youthful self, crafted from the well of our culture. So at least for now I said goodbye to Jesus as social revolutionary, Mediterranean cynic peasant philosopher and the lot.
Some other personally precious images of Jesus for me have included: Jesus the cosmic man, a kind of Neo-Platonic etherial Jesus not unlike Salvador Dali's picture. He is kind of here and not here, not material but not entirely spiritual. I also explored and set aside for now the cosmic Christ evolutionary principle of Pierre De Chardin and Matthew Fox. Cosmo Jesus is not for me. Neither are my own personal Jesus images, especially the ones where I hum the o'l pietist hymn, "He walks with me and talks with me and tells me I am his own". You know, the Jesus of the profoundly inner subjective experience; Buddy Jesus or Jesus as my Date.
I realized that I hadn't hit upon a solid approach or method that would satisfy my longing for even a small assurance of who Jesus was or is. I have been at this "Pin the tail on the right Jesus" game for over thirty-five years now. Still I often lack the confidence of deep spiritual assurance. Sometimes I don't even feel confident enough to convincingly answer my friend Arthur's questions about the identity of Jesus, "For me". There are times I am more sure but more about that later.
In desperation I have even been tempted to mine my operative Christ image from Christian orthodoxy trinitarianism, quickly skipping through the Nicene and Chalcedon Confessions, all the while feeling guilty, constrained, forced by the pressure of Tradition to accept its rather irrelevant set of Neoplatonic greek categories.
I concluded that while these confessions may have been good devotional modes of expression for those living in the third and fourth centuries, they are not vibrant and authenticating for our time. They can't break out of their culture and time, at least so it seems to me.
I figured to see Jesus more clearly I had to get out of my theological boxes.
This out of the box approach is evident in relation to where Jesus asked this question. For me it was in Stella's, on Victor Street, in the West End, along with you.
For Peter it was in a place called Caesarea Phillipi far away from the traditional centers of Jewish theology and debate. Caesarea's nearby temple was built by Herod, dedicated to Augustus Caesar and sponsored by the greek Shepherd god Pan. This context suggested some odd ideas about what a deliverer or messiah might look like. Caesareans held strange conjectures about the Emperor as the world liberating "Son of God (Zeus)".
From this out of the box, theologically marginal place, Peter confessed something profoundly central and true about Jesus, the flesh and blood man he followed. "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God." Jesus is the Christ, and for Peter this implied that Jesus was God's designated emissary of deliverance. Peter also confessed that Jesus was God's Son, one who shared a profoundly intimate relationship with the Father and his purposes. Caesar or Pan, his sponsor, was not the world's Shepherd or savior, nor was he God's son... Peter said Jesus is. Jesus blessed Peter, said he was a rock that the church would be built on and gave him the keys to the kingdom.
So that is Peter's take on Christ's identity! Matthew tells us that contrary to contemporary attempts to confess Christ, based on what tradition says or what reason suggests, the only guaranteed interpretation is the one that reflects what God says. God said Jesus was his son at the Baptism and throughout the gospel. Matthew constantly Jesus with the messianic king tradition, of whom God said, "You are my Son."
Great, so that settles it, I thought, until I read the rest of the chapter and ruminated a bit about the significance and the impact or fruit of Peter's use of these titles. A few verses ahead of Christ's congratulation of Peter for getting the 'right' idea, we read of this newly christened holder of the keys to the kingdom being accused by Christ of being the mouthpiece of Satan. So much for the use of titles alone as a way of identifying who Jesus is for us.
AHA! Identity Our Life Together
Even when technically Peter got Jesus' identity right, he got it wrong on a practical level due to his refusal to apply these titles to the actual mission of Christ. The moment Peter's confession left his lips something drastically wrong took place. Peter the disciple took a step or two beyond Jesus declaring what Jesus could and couldn't do. "God forbid it, Lord!"
The keys to the kingdom inflated Peter, making him think he was the master of interpretation. Jesus, by demanding that Peter step back behind him, "Get behind me!", reminded him of his place as a follower, not his status as a leader. "What on earth?" or, rather, "What the hell?", could have possessed Peter? Since he was right about who Jesus was, how did he fail to see Jesus in the context of his mission, in the context of flesh and blood suffering?
Peter was an invested ideologue. From the human experience of his beleaguered people, he argued that the messiah must conqueror, defeat and reign. Surely Kings are not sufferers... Kings inflict suffering on the enemies. More than that, Messiahs get even and do so by establishing justice. The justice Peter had in mind came down the blade of a sword and through a people's uprising. Messiahs are exalted, they are definitely not killed. Peter felt that the shameful Roman method of execution was utterly undignified for a Messiah to endure. Peter, who formerly told the truth about Jesus as the mouthpiece of God's revelation, impulsively uttered the human verdict on what God in Christ was allowed to do. Peter thought as a human.
Just in case we want to lambast o'l Peter for his short-sightedness or arrogance, I have to consider what has happened in church history and in my own life. Those with the so called interpretive keys to the kingdom are the first to deny and misrepresent Christ - all the while sprouting correct ideas, titles and doctrines about him.
Why do we do this? Like Peter, we think as humans. We step ahead of Jesus determining who and what he is by what makes sense to us. We cling to our kingdom prerogatives and become our own faith heroes, hoping for prime seats at the eschatological feast.
Our salvation, and Peter's, is to hear Christ say, "Don't stand in my way! Follow me to the Cross! Then you will truly know me." You and I are stumbling blocks, like Peter, stones to trip over on the way to mission.
How does Peter and how do we accept this call? We define Christ and his mission through the cross and resurrection. We take up the keys to the Kingdom in the way Christ did. As Peter was told elsewhere in Scripture, "Do you love me Peter? Then feed my sheep." These words bring us right back to Matthew's description of how to know Jesus... by following his example. As one Anabaptist Hans Denck stated it, "No one truly knows Christ unless he follows him daily in life."
Jesus calls us to discipleship in order to truly know him through becoming like him. Tucked into the Matthew text are two parallel questions: "Who do you say I am?" concerning Christ; and the question of Peter's identity. Peter received a blessing of identity and vocation. "You are Peter…". Jesus is warning that the gospel is not about rejecting your needs and giving them a new form. "Peter," Jesus is saying, "the gospel and your partnership with God is very much about you, about you abiding in me, partnering with me, mending the world through my suffering love. Stop trying to define or find me and be found by me as you walk together in unity with me as my disciples."
WHEE! Being Found
Does that ever take the burden off! Instead of finding, we are being found. What good news! What assurance and what a world-tilting answer to those wondering who Jesus is for them. The response is, as it was right from the first calling, "Come follow me and find out."
When following is walking behind Jesus, doing what he did you will receive a double discovery as Calvin put it:
Nearly all the wisdom we possess, that is to say, true and sound wisdom, consists of two parts: the knowledge of God and of ourselves. But, while joined by many bonds, which one precedes and brings forth the other is not easy to discern. Better yet, when we are found in Christ we find our true selves. This is something not to be believed ... it is something to be received.
My "Christ-received identity" turns my initial problem about my mystery friend on its head. I never did remember my friend's name and the memories of our life together in the past. In the grand scheme of things it really doesn't matter that much since my relationship to this virtual stranger is not vibrant and living. It could be enlivened if I decided to confess my 'senior moment,' ask him to forgive me and allow him to disclose his identity to me. Even better, if we find ourselves valuing the same things, we could participate in life together and I could thereby deepen my understanding of him.
But Christ's identity is another thing. He tells me who I am, who he is, and makes it real by inviting me into an active present life with him. Will I do that? I only need to receive his self-revelation, confess that I have forgotten who he is, and enter life as a follower, living as he lived, suffering as he suffered and partnering together with him in the restoration of God's creation. As Timothy Luke Johnson might say, I have turned from a historically reconstructed Jesus to a Living Christ. From finding Christ to being found by and in him.
YEAH, Standing Together
What are the possibilities of being found by Christ in our Watershed context? When Jesus says come follow me, for all the implied suffering of the cross and the hope of the resurrection, he blesses us with a vocation that reinforces our identity as disciples, followers of Him.
Like Peter we are re-quarried as rocks, living stones that make up the body of the recreated community, a spiritual temple. We are summoned to rebuild, restore, and establish, through unity in Christ, the reign of God, this spiritual temple, composed of people.
As such a group we are part of a counter-society, not a church or a synagogue but the city of politic of God. We are called to non-violent spirit warfare against principalities and powers; to the exorcism of the death principle in all its manifestations: domestic, psychological, religious, social, cultural, political, etc.
Jesus' identity has been transformed from a thing of the past to a present and future stone-solid reality. I wonder who Jesus will become for us as we move forward by stepping behind him? I no longer have to speculate on the identity of Christ, rely on frenetic study and scholarship to imagine who I am following.We no longer have to rely on our memories, or beliefs, or best efforts but on lived experience in a community of discipleship . When we feel we have lost sight of who Jesus is, when feeling his palpable absence, we can touch his living presence through obedience and in such activities as binding, loosing (discerning), building Kingdom, healing, exorcizing, and teaching. We no longer have to find Jesus, we have only to trust that he has found us and defined us.
Matthew 16:13-27 Revised Standard Version (NRSV)
Peter's Declaration about Jesus 13 Now when Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, "Who do people say that the Son of Man is?" 14 And they said, "Some say John the Baptist, but others Elijah, and still others Jeremiah or one of the prophets." 15 He said to them, "But who do you say that I am?" 16 Simon Peter answered, "You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God." 17 And Jesus answered him, "Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father in heaven. 18 And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it. 19 I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven." 20 Then he sternly ordered the disciples not to tell anyone that he was the Messiah.
Jesus Foretells His Death and Resurrection 21 From that time on, Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and undergo great suffering at the hands of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised. 22 And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him, saying, "God forbid it, Lord! This must never happen to you." 23 But he turned and said to Peter, "Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; for you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things."
The Cross and Self-Denial 24 Then Jesus told his disciples, "If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. 25 For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it. 26 For what will it profit them if they gain the whole world but forfeit their life? Or what will they give in return for their life? 27 "For the Son of Man is to come with his angels in the glory of his Father, and then he will repay everyone for what has been done.