THE CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH OF CANTON
Dr. John Tamilio III, Pastor
Sunday, September 16, 2018 ~ Pentecost XVII
Sermon: “Who Is He?”
Gospel Lesson: Mark 8:27-38
© 2018, Dr. Tamilio
A fourth-grade teacher was giving her pupils a lesson in logic. “Here is the situation,” she said. “A man is standing up in a boat in the middle of a river, fishing. He loses his balance, falls in, and begins splashing and yelling for help. His wife hears the commotion, knows he can’t swim, and runs down to the bank. Why do you think she ran to the bank?”
A girl raised her hand and asked, “To draw out all his savings?”[1]
It’s a life or death kind of question. An ultimate question. The disciples are asked just such a question in today’s Gospel Lesson, as if they are in class and the teacher asks a very important question. “Who do you say that I am?” As you know, Peter gave the correct answer and became the keeper of heaven’s gate. “You are the Messiah, the Son of the Living God.”
Jesus asks us this important, ultimate question as well.
I have preached and written about this passage numerous times. I want to go in a different direction this morning. Let’s imagine that Jesus was standing right here in the flesh today and asked us, all of us, this question. Who would you say that he is? Be honest. Robert H. Stein writes, “In their association with Jesus, what have [the disciples] learned concerning who he is?”[2] The same question can be asked of us. In our association with the church, what have we learning concerning who Jesus is? That learning has come through prayer, reading Scripture, listening to countless sermons, being engaged in mission work, contributing to the church financially, and a host of other practices. Based on all of this, and so much more, who do we say that Jesus is?
Obviously, different people will offer different answers. Some would say that Jesus was a great teacher. There are atheists who do not believe that Jesus is the Messiah, but, just the same, they admit that he offered some great moral teachings. That is one of the reasons why he was called rabbi — the Hebrew word for teacher.
Others claim he was a miracle worker. It is clear from reading the Gospels that Jesus did some amazing things. He turned water into wine, he walked on the water, and he fed multitudes with just a few fish and loaves of bread. Some say he did this to prove the power and presence of God. Miracles often accompany prophecy. C. Stephen Evans speaks about this at length in his recent book, Why Christian Faith Still Makes Sense. Evans says that performing miracles proves the legitimacy of the prophet’s words.
Others see Jesus as a divine healer. He certainly did a lot of that. He gave sight to the blind, hearing to the deaf, and even raised the dead! (That last one may fall under the category of miracle worker, but you get the point.) In relation to this it is clear that he performed a number of exorcisms, driving evil spirits from the bodies and souls of the possessed.
Still other people have other images for Jesus — one’s they hold dear to their hearts. One of the more popular ones is “the Good Shepherd.” Jesus even uses that one himself in John 10. Lovers of the Good Shepherd motif often point to the 23rd Psalm. “The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want” — an old classic that many of us had to memorize in Sunday school. The image that rises here is placid. Like the Prince of Peace title, Jesus is seen as the one who will calm our fears and quells whatever problem we may meet.
Maybe for you, it is a combination of the above.
Maybe the answer changes based on the situation — depending on what you are thinking or feeling or experiencing at the time. It is not unfaithful or sinful to say that our relationship with Jesus vacillates. Our relationships with everyone we know go through highs and lows. We have our ups and we have our downs with one another.
When things are going our way, we thank God for the blessings in our lives. When we are in the midst of harrowing or dire situations, we raise our hands to the sky and ask, “Why me, O God?” That’s natural. People do this all the time. But maybe it is something even more than that.
First of all, even though there may be times when we do not feel particularly close to Jesus — maybe there are times when we stray from him out of anger or due to the lure of secular temptations such as materialism — regardless, even though we may wander away, Jesus does not. He is closer to us than our very breath. “Nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord,” Paul told the Romans.[3]
Secondly, when we say that Jesus is our Lord and Savior, we are making a few specific claims — among them is the determination to model our lives after his. In other words, saying that Jesus is the Lord of our lives means, among other things, that we are should try to live the way that he lived. Jesus told us to be perfect just as our heavenly Father is perfect.[4] It easy for us to scoff at and dismiss all of this. We cannot be perfect. Let’s face it. We certainly cannot be perfect the way that God is. True, but that does not excuse us from the trying. The point isn’t to achieve perfection, but to live and act in such a way that we are shooting for that goal. Here’s another way to think of it: even if you do not achieve the goal of divine perfection, you will be far better along if you follow the path to perfection no matter where you end up. “For us, there is only the trying,” as T.S. Eliot wrote. “The rest is not our business.”[5]
Maybe who we say Jesus is has more to do with what we do as opposed to what we say. We confess with our lips, but do we practice what we preach? What would our lives look like if we truly believed that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of the living God?
First of all, all of our actions would be filtered through the Gospel. We would have to ask, “Does what I am doing right now align with the teachings of Jesus?” (There is something to be said about that what would Jesus do saying.) And what does the Gospel tell us regarding how we should act? If there is one word to sum it up it is love. God is love — and we are to love one another unconditionally: enemies as well as friends. This is something we need to hear preached again and again and again, because it is hard to do. Saying that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of the Living God means that we will throw all hatred and malice out of our lives and love, and love, and love.
Who do you say that I am? It is a question that everyone who goes by the name “Christian” has to answer — and not just once. We need to answer it every waking moment by word, by deed, by love. Amen.
[1] Taken from a sermon by Rev. John Nadasi, Paonia United Methodist Church August 25, 2002.
[2] Robert H. Stein, Mark (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2008), 399.
[3] See Romans 8:31-39
[4] Matthew 5:48
[5] From “East Coker” in Four Quartets by T.S. Eliot.