Who Do You Say I Am?                    9/13/09

         Like all of you, I play several different roles in my life.  Ask someone who I am and you may get very different answers.  To some, I’m Pat, a friend you have fun with, who shares your secrets and who will get up at 6:00 in the morning just to go walking even when it’s 10 degrees outside.

         To others, I’m Pastor Pat, the one who will hold your hand and pray outside of icu, the person who loves and laughs with the children, the one you go to with questions about life, death, and God.

         And still to others who treat me with a sense of superiority because I’m a woman serving a small church in a small town, I quickly become the Rev. Dr. Patricia Ramsden with a warning sign that clearly says don’t mess with me. 

         We all have our roles: mother, sister, friend, aunt, and we play them well, each role showing a different side of us but it takes all of them – and even more – to describe who we truly are. 

         The same was true of Jesus.  Ask who this Jesus was and is and you’ll get very different answers depending on who it is you ask.  When He walked the shores of Galilee, everyone knew Him, and everyone had an opinion.  Ask a Pharisee and he’d tell you that this Jesus was a law breaker who threatened to destroy the faith.  Ask someone who was desperately sick and they’d know Him as a miracle worker who could make them well.  To His family He was the beloved brother who had somehow become delusional, and to His disciples He was a great Teacher, the One who could show them the Way to life as it was meant to be lived, who could show them the Way to God. 

Everyone knew some small part of the answer to who this Jesus was and is, but no one knew the whole.  Their knowledge was limited by what they saw and heard and how He affected their life on a very real, very personal level. 

         So in today’s gospel we find Jesus at the turning point.  He must decide then and there whether He will go to Jerusalem and the cross or deny His very reason for existing, the very reason He took off the robes of glory and became a man.  And before He decides, He has one question to ask His disciples.  “Who do you say that I am?” 

         In this moment He wants to know if anyone gets it?  Has all this been in vain?  Will my death be meaningless because no one understands? 

So He turns to those who know Him best and He asks, “Who do You say that I am?”

         That is the central question of each of our lives.  Oh, it’s true that Jesus was curious about what the crowds called Him, how they knew Him, but in the final analysis that’s not what was important.  It wasn’t important then and it’s not important now.

         It doesn’t really matter to Jesus that there are those today who call Him a good man – perhaps the best man who ever lived.  It doesn’t matter that there are those who still call Him the Great Physician, a miracle man of healing, or that there are those who think He was a fraud and the center of one of the world’s great scams. 

         No.  What’s important to Christ today is who you say He is. 

         Is He the center of your life?  Is He your Savior?  Your teacher?  Your friend?  What role does He play for you?  How do you know Him best?

         One of the things that fascinates me is Peter’s answer – or more correctly, what he means by his answer.  Peter calls Jesus the Messiah, the anointed One of God come to set Israel free.  And Jesus knew that someone got it, that someone knew He had come to save the world.  He could go to Jerusalem. 

         Only Peter didn’t get it, or at least he only got part of it.  Yes, Jesus was and is the Messiah come to save the world, but He didn’t come just for the children of Israel.  He came for us all.  And He didn’t come for political power but eternal power.  He didn’t come to save us from the trials and tribulations of life but to save us for life --- everlasting life, a life of joy that goes beyond our greatest imagining, a life and a joy that can triumph over our deepest sorrow.  Jesus came for all of that and even more, but Peter couldn’t, didn’t, grasp all of that and neither can we.

         Our best understanding of God is always incomplete.  We see,   as Saint Paul tells us, “through a mirror darkly”.  Yet as we grow in our faith, so our understanding and knowledge grows too. 

Christ becomes more than our life’s Teacher.  He becomes our friend.  He is more than our Comforter.  He is our joy.  He heals more than our bodies.  He heals our souls.  Every time we turn around we see a bit more, our understanding grows, and we know Him more clearly – but never fully.  There’s always something more to discover about who God truly is.

That’s the wonderful thing about faith.  It is a living breathing thing – not static and complete.  There is always that surprise – that ah-ha moment when your eyes are opened and you see another part of who God is and what a difference He makes in your life.

That’s why personal meditation is important, why Sunday School and Bible study are vital, because it is then that we deepen our faith,  and our answer to life’s question – Christ’s question -- grows clearer.  Listen to the soundings of your heart as Jesus asks “Who do you say that I am?”

Let us stand and answer together as we use the affirmation of faith found printed in the bulletin.