Mark 8:27-30 – “Who do you say I am?”

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Lectionary Readings for March 21, 2021     Fifth Sunday In Lent, Year B
Jeremiah 31:31-34    v33 “But this is the new covenant I will make with the people of Israel after those days,” says the Lord. “I will put my instructions deep within them, and I will write them on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people.
Psalm 51:1-12      v10 Create in me a clean heart, O God. Renew a loyal spirit within me.
Hebrews 5:5-10      v7 While Jesus was here on earth, he offered prayers and pleadings, with a loud cry and tears, to the one who could rescue him from death. And God heard his prayers because of his deep reverence for God.
John 12:20-33 v26 Anyone who wants to serve me must follow me, because my servants must be where I am. And the Father will honor anyone who serves me.

But we’ll dig into Mark 8:14-30 – Jesus teaches His disciples, heals a blind man, and asks Peter “But who do you say I am?”

Peace through Leadership Quotes

“We have one life; it soon will be past; what we do for God is all that will last.”  ~ Charles Studd

“Go as far as you can see; when you get there, you’ll be able to see farther.”  ~ J. P. Morgan

One of the greatest, enduring legacies we can leave are the lives impacted when we’re able to create peace for individuals and communities. As many of you know, every time we take a step in that direction, we’re able to see new opportunities to create peace in more places. That’s a blessing!

Any time I preach or lead a group, regardless of age, I start the same way. I’m going to say three short sentences. Please repeat each sentence, with enthusiasm.
God made me.           God loves me.            God has plans for me.

Preface to Today’s Scripture Reading

Last week we overheard Jesus lose a theological debate with a mother desperately pleading for her daughter’s life (Mark 7:24-30). Between that episode and today’s short reading, SO much has happened. Rather than read all of the verses today, here’s a quick summary so you can follow the plot leading up to today’s pivotal question.

Having healed the woman’s daughter, Jesus concluded his private retreat time and walked 75-or-so miles back to the towns near the northern shores of the Sea of Galilee. Heads up, this is about to get gross.

First, people brought a deaf man with a speech impediment to Jesus asking for healing. Jesus put his fingers in the man’s ears then spit on his fingers and touched the man’s tongue saying, “Be opened.” And immediately the man could hear and speak clearly (Mark 7:31-37). Amazing!

Naturally, a great crowed gathered... not just for the afternoon, but for three days to be near Jesus. After so much time, they ran out of food, but they wouldn’t leave. Just like we heard two weeks ago in chapter 6, Jesus had a profound compassion for the crowd of 4,000 men plus other women and children. In a moment of déjà vu, 1) his disciples questioned how they would feed everyone, 2) they provided 7 loaves of bread and a few fish which 3) Jesus promptly multiplied so that everyone could eat all they wanted with leftovers to take home (Mark 8:1-10).

Jesus and his disciples managed to escape the crowd, took a little boat ride, but were quickly met by Pharisees who “demanded that he show them a miraculous sign from heaven to prove his authority” (Mark 8:11-13). Well, that did not go over well with Jesus who clarified that He does not do magic tricks on demand to prove who or what He is. Were the last 7 chapters full of miraculous healings and feedings not enough?!?

Back in the boat, the disciples realized that nobody had bothered to bring leftovers from feeding the 4,000 men. So they started complaining, “What are we going to do for dinner?” (my translation) Patiently enduring their lack of faith or learning, Jesus reminded them of the two mass feedings and asked them, “Do you not yet understand?” (Mark 8:14-21) So frustrating!

And the last encounter leading up to today’s story will sound grossly déjà vu-ish. Several people brought a blind man to Jesus asking for healing. Jesus spit on the man’s eyes, then laid hands on the man, immediately and completely restoring the man’s sight (Mark 8:22-26). Messy but effective.

Whew! If you feel exhausted hearing all of that, just imagine how the disciples felt after being with Jesus during all of that! Seriously. Consider the variety of miracles the disciples have recently seen... Consider all the wisdom and spiritual nurturing Jesus has poured into them... Imagine what thoughts and feelings must have been flooding their minds and hearts. Imagine processing all of that, when Jesus pulls you aside, and asks you a short, simple question.

Let’s open our ears, minds, and hearts as we take in today’s reading.

 

Read Mark 8:27-30.

Such a simple and personal question, “Who do you say I am?” Peter offers an equally simple and personal answer, “The Chosen One.” With such brevity and eloquent imagery, if Peter were in today’s seminary or the ordination process, the immediate follow-up question would be, “Peter, can you expand on that? What do you mean by Chosen? What do you mean by One?” But Jesus didn’t ask for more; He was pleased with Peter’s description.

Yesterday on Facebook, I saw a mocking retelling of today’s conversation, and I had a good laugh. It went like this:

And Jesus said unto them, “But who do you say that I am?”
They replied, “You are the eschatological manifestation of the ground of our being, the ontological foundation of the context of our very selfhood revealed.”
And Jesus said, “What?!?”

For the past 2,000 years, religious educational institutions have trained people like me to explain our theological beliefs in ways that often only make sense to people who have PhDs. At times it seems that the more convoluted your answer is, the closer to God you must be. Nonsense, I say!

For the past three years, I’ve been meeting periodically with our Conference’s “District Committee on Ordained Ministry,” affectionately referred to as DCOOM. I’m blessed to call the members of that team my colleagues and friends. Their task is to be like Jesus – ask me basic questions and guide me where I lack knowledge or am unable to clearly articulate my thoughts. They have sincerely worked to set me up for success, and I am profoundly grateful.

I offer this background because their short, basic questions include...

  • “What are your beliefs as a Christian?”

  • “What is your understanding of evil?”

  • “What is your understanding of baptism?”

These are deceptively simple questions, but when people spend more time wrestling with them – really digging, answers often become longer, more convoluted, and less personal. And that depersonalization is a danger of allowing our faith to go unquestioned, unchallenged, unruffled.

One of my theories, which DCOOM has politely challenged, is this: If I cannot explain something to an intelligent 6-year-old in a way that they will meaningfully understand, either 1) I don’t know what I’m talking about, or 2) I haven’t spent enough time digging down to “the ground of my being.” (wink) People with PhDs in theology often find my attitude overly simplistic and a bit beneath them. As a former youth ministry leader, the PhDs are, respectfully, not my target market. I also believe it’s OK to say, “I can’t fully explain myself, but based on my experiences with God and humanity, this is what I currently believe.”

The disciples certainly could not fully explain who or what Jesus was. They were still figuring it out at this point. They were still figuring it out as Jesus rode into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday. They were still figuring it out as Jesus was tortured and executed on Good Friday and then rose, transformed, on Easter Sunday. This is what is means to have an active, growing faith. We – all of us – are continually figuring out who Jesus is and what that means to us, and that’s good. I would expect a 3-year-old, a 33-year-old, and a 73-year-old to have very different answers.

“Who do you say I am?” Paul Tillich, a famous Lutheran theologian from the early to mid-20th century once commented on today’s verses saying that Jesus’ simple question must be “put before every Christian at every time. It is the question which is put before the church as a whole, because the Church is built upon the answer to this question...” (Tillich, Paul, The Shaking of the Foundations, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1948, chapter 17, pg 143.)

We do ourselves no favors – individually or as a church or as a denomination – if we simply, mindlessly adopt someone else’s answer to this pivotal question. Yes, Jesus asked the disciples, “Who does the general public say I am?” Perhaps they discussed those answers on their long walk. But the most important question was the personal one. “Who do you say I am?”

A few weeks ago, someone asked me, “How do we clearly explain what it means to be Methodist?” In many ways, that answer starts with today’s question. The United Methodist Church’s website describes Jesus as “Son of God, Son of Man, Christ, Lord, and Savior.” I encourage you to read their short page and ponder if and how you agree – or disagree – with their descriptions of each of those titles.

But that got me to thinking... How did Jesus describe Himself? That’s a fair question and solid food for thought! The Gospel of John offers a beautiful assortment of analogies and titles for us to ponder.

What a rich and varied collection for us to absorb and process! Every person tends to connect with some of these more than others, and that’s fine. I’m convinced Jesus gave us so many options for just that reason.

“But who do you say I am?”... As modern-day disciples of Jesus continuing 2,000 years of the Christian tradition, our faith calls us to be the hands and feet of Jesus – that’s a common image. But without a personal answer to Jesus’ question, we are often little more than a flailing mannequin trying to mimic a living body.

But once we have our answer – individually and as a church – then our bodies (and our church as the Body of Christ) open ourselves afresh to God’s Spirit moving within us and through us. Once we have our answer, we have the foundation required to survive life’s storms and launch new ministries. Like the disciples, once we have our answer, nothing can stop us from being Jesus’ hands and feet, sharing God’s love with a broken, hurting, waiting world. This, friends, is how the Kingdom of Heaven becomes a living, breathing, life-giving reality around us.

Amen? Amen!