Who do people say that the Son of Man is? There’s no lack of answers to the question who Jesus is. Everyone has an opinion: the tv preacher who sweats through his suit in under three minutes, whether it’s on AM radio, cable, or youtube; the roofer whose truck displays a fish sticker next to the yellow flag, “Don’t tread on me”; the tik tok opinionator, and your next-door neighbor. Everyone has an answer.
Who do people say that the Son of Man is? Thumb through the gospels, Anna Carter Florence suggests, and you can’t help noticing that people say a lot of things about who Jesus is. He is Mary’s child. He is the light of the world. He is a prophet without honor in his own hometown. He is the son of Joseph. He is the King of the Jews. Jesus is the one who can heal your child, cast out your demon, forgive your sins, and raise your hopes. He is a prophet, a rabbi, a builder, and a pain in the neck. He is alive, he is dead, he is risen, he is on his way. People say Jesus is a lot of things. They say it standing on soap boxes, sitting next to you on the plane, and writing it on billboards. They say it in pulpits and classrooms, on talk radio and in letters to the editor. In just about any context you can imagine, people say all kinds of things about Jesus, because nearly everybody has an opinion.[1]
Who do people say that the Son of Man is? That’s the safe question, a question any reporter and pollster will be glad to investigate; a response doesn’t require any personal involvement or commitment. You shoot off a quick survey, make some phone calls, and list your results: “Some say John the Baptist, but others Elijah, and still others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.” People say all kinds of things, you report. You could spend a life-time compiling all those statements. You could, if there wasn’t the second question. “Who do you say that I am?”
Simon Peter answered, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.” And Jesus responded, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father in heaven.” It was Peter’s proudest moment. He was the first to follow Jesus and the first to declare that Jesus was God’s Messiah, and in response Jesus renamed him, gave him a new identity, a life defined by the purposes of God. “Simon son of Jonah, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it.”
This is the first time the word church is used in the gospel. Knowing who Jesus is not just a matter of repeating the right answer. But neither is it about finding our own unique answer, our own personal Jesus, the personalized accessory to fit our lifestyle and our political sensibilities. Naming who Jesus is means letting him rename us, letting him give us a new identity. Naming who Jesus is means letting him claim us, more than us claiming him: it means letting him make us part of the project he calls my church.
Let’s remember where this exchange is taking place. They were in the district of Caesarea Philippi, that’s about twenty miles north of the Sea of Galilee. Jesus raised the big question not in the disciples’ familiar surroundings of the lake and their home towns, but in the shadow of Rome’s powerful presence. Jesus raised the question in the place where Herod the Great had built a temple to the emperor Caesar Augustus, in the town that Herod’s son Philipp enlarged and renamed after Tiberius Caesar and himself — Caesarea Philippi, Philipp’s Caesarville. Jesus raised the question in a place where Rome’s troops celebrated their victory after the destruction of Jerusalem. Jesus raised the question in a place where the faithfulness of God was profoundly in question. And Peter confessed Jesus to be God’s Messiah in the deep shadow of Rome’s idolatrous, oppressive power.[2] And it was there, with the temple to Caesar in the background, that Jesus first spoke of his church, promising that the gates of Hades would not prevail against it.
And it was then and there that Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and undergo great suffering, and be killed, and on the third day be raised.[3] We don’t know why, upon hearing those words, Simon “the Rock” Peter took Jesus aside and objected, “God forbid it, Lord! This must never happen to you!” It may have been shock. It may have been love, love that cannot stand the thought of seeing the loved one suffer. It may have been political calculus that wanted to chart a different course for a successful Jerusalem campaign. Whatever the motivation, for an instant, Peter sounded like the devil who showed Jesus all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor, saying, “You know, there’s an easier way to be ruler of all.”[4] One moment Peter spoke truth like only God can reveal it — You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God — and in the very next scene, he heard Jesus address him as Satan.
Peter is the model disciple, because he is so much like the rest of us: brave, bold, fearful, impulsive, eager, slow - he embodies the whole spectrum of human responses to Jesus, yet, though stumbling and fumbling, he continues to follow him on the way..
“You are setting your mind on human things,” Jesus told him. What’s wrong with setting our minds on human things? Aren’t we human, after all? We set our human minds on human things, using human language, human concepts, and human imagination to make sense of the human condition. I don’t think Jesus scolded Peter for setting his mind on human things. I think he told Peter to get behind him because Peter presumed he had his mind on divine things. Simon “the Rock” Peter became a stumbling block when he presumed to know what was appropriate for God’s Messiah and what was not. In Peter’s mind, suffering and death simply were out of the question. He became a stumbling block when he wasn’t able to fit the way of Jesus into the mold of his familiar categories for divine things.
We do not and cannot know what it means to call Jesus God’s Messiah until we follow him, until we let his life reshape our imagination and reorganize our cherished categories. Likewise, we do not and cannot know what discipleship means until we practice it, until we’re willing to take off our shoes and let our feet touch the holy ground of the way of Jesus and walk in it.
“Those who want to save their life will lose it,” Jesus says, “and those who lose their life for my sake will find it.” We know that, don’t we? We know that when we’re too firmly attached to what we have and know, we’re in danger of perceiving change only as threatening. Many fear nothing more than loss, and in holding on to what little we have and think we know we lose everything. We know that, it’s one of life’s great lessons, and we don’t need Jesus to tell us. And Jesus isn’t writing advice columns. Jesus calls us out of our obsession with ourselves — our thoughts, our ambitions, our sins, our fears. He invites us to let the focus of our attention be on him — his compassion, his teachings, his mercy, his faithfulness — his life. Jesus calls us to step out of our carefully constructed and tightly secured little kingdoms. He calls us to follow him on the way to the kingdom of God, to let our feet walk us into the truth of who he is and who we are and what life is meant to be. Jesus doesn’t promise that we will gain the whole world. He says that those who lose their life for his sake will find it. He says that there is life beyond our anxious self-absorption, beyond the hunger to have what others have, and beyond the thirst no earthly drink can quench.
Jesus is building his church with people like you and me and Peter: not with super heroes, but with human beings. We are all there is to make a church with, and the builder is up to the challenge. And that’s why sometimes people crippled by guilt and shame hear the word of forgiveness and raise their heads. That’s why in so many towns and neighborhoods refugees find welcome far from home, and the courage to start over. That’s why there are safe places where victims of abuse discover hope and begin to live again. That’s why there’s a young couple who won’t have to spend the night on the street because the manager of a motel is a brave woman who dares to be kind. Daily, people are fed, clothed, sheltered, healed, forgiven, lifted up, and given new life because Jesus is building his church. In the long shadow of the gates of Hades, Jesus is building his church with people like you and me and Peter, and the gates of death’s dominion will not prevail against it.
[1] See Lectionary Homiletics, Vol. 19, No. 5, 38.
[2] See Eugene Boring, Matthew (NIB), 342.
[3] Matthew 16:21
[4] Matthew 4:8-10