Proper 16, Yr A (2023) The Rev. Karen C. Barfield
Proper 16, Yr A (2023) The Rev. Karen C. Barfield
Romans 12:1-8 St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church
Matthew 16:13-20
In the name of the one, holy, and living God:
in whom we live, and move, and have our being. Amen.
Fellow Episcopal priest and preacher, Barbara Brown Taylor tells this story:
“Several years ago, a woman I know walked out of her church after a particularly rousing Sunday service and bumped into a thin, sort of lost-looking man who was standing on the sidewalk looking up at the cross on top of the church steeple.
“She excused herself and started to walk away,
but the man called her back.
‘Tell me,’ he said,
pointing through the front doors into the church she had belonged to most of her life,
‘what is it that you believe in there?’
“She started to answer him and then realized that she did not know the answer,
or did not know how to put it into words,
and as she stood there trying to compose something,
the man said, ‘Never mind.
I’m sorry if I bothered you,’
and walked away.”
(Barbara Brown Taylor, “God’s Rock” in The Seeds of Heaven: Sermons on the Gospel of Matthew, pp. 69-70).
I wonder if that woman breathed a sigh of relief as the man walked away –
happy to be off the hook.
Or, maybe she was perplexed and somewhat embarrassed
that spending Sunday after Sunday in a church,
she was unable to give a coherent response!
In today’s Gospel Jesus turns to his disciples and puts them on the spot:
“Who do you say that I am?”
There’s no beating around the bush.
Jesus gets right to the point!
Having been with him day in and day out, can they say who he is?
Maybe we think it’s not quite fair of Jesus,
but then again, Jesus’ life is coming into sharper focus.
Just after today’s passage we hear these words:
“From that time on….”
A shift is occurring in Jesus’ teaching to his followers.
“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.” (Mt 16:21)
So, when Jesus asks his band of disciples his very pointed question:
“Who do you say that I am?”
it was because he knew that his time was running short
and that if they did not yet understand,
it was time to be more direct.
This question is important!
“Who do you say that I am?”
“You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.”
That is Peter’s answer.
Peter doesn’t seem to even think about it.
He just blurts out the answer as he usually does – without thinking:
“You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.”
And Jesus answers,
“Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah!
For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father in heaven.”
Peter doesn’t have to think about the answer
because he knows in his heart of hearts that this man, Jesus, comes from God.
How could anyone do what Jesus does and not be from God?
It is God at work in Peter that reveals to him the Truth.
So… what about us?
What if someone comes up to you as you walk out the front door and asks:
“So, what is it that you believe in there?
Who is this Jesus guy anyway?”
I mean… have you ever really taken the time to sit down and ponder that question?
Each week we affirm our faith in the words of the Nicene Creed:
We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ,
the only Son of God,
eternally begotten of the Father,
God from God, Light from Light,
true God from true God,
begotten, not made,
of one Being with the Father….
The words roll off our tongues,
but what do they mean?
If we started reciting the Creed to someone on the sidewalk,
I imagine they would walk off before we got very far.
Peter’s response “You are the Messiah, the son of the living God”
seemed to well up and bubble out from somewhere inside,
from some deep place of knowing and experiencing.
One day after I had helped someone in the church neighborhood, he asked,
“Ms. Karen, why do you help us?”
I didn’t think about an answer.
I didn’t even blink.
The words came tumbling out: “because I love you.”
My answer surprised me a little,
but I knew I had spoken my heart.
Why do I help you?
Because I love you!
Not because God told me to
but because God gives us the capacity to love each other – deeply.
Sometimes that capacity gets covered up by what the world tells us…
the dividing lines and differences and judgments
that are spoken by greed and injustice and hatred and bigotry.
But, I believe that, in Jesus,
God reveals the answer to us:
“because God loves us…all of us.”
Jesus offers the healing of new life to all he meets…
to everyone who has ears to listen.
So, who is Jesus for me?
Jesus is God manifested in human form.
In that human form Jesus manifests God’s radical welcome…
to the least, the lost, the broken, the powerless…even the powerful.
Jesus incarnates God’s generosity of Spirit, abundance, love, Grace, forgiveness, and truth-telling.
Jesus embodies that love is more powerful than hate,
that life is more powerful than death,
that salvation…healing…wholeness is available to all who seek it.
Jesus incarnates a total obedience – a listening toward – God:
in words, in actions, in silence.
Jesus shows us a way to abide in God
and to allow God to abide in us.
Jesus is God’s heart
laid
bare.
Jesus’ question to his disciples provides them the opportunity to confess who it is that they are following…to whom they have committed their lives.
It provides us the same opportunity.
The logical question that follows: “Who is Jesus?”
is
What difference does it make in our lives?
Does our confession of Jesus empower our lives?
Do we recognize that God dwells in us and that we dwell in God?
Do we recognize that, as Paul says, we are members of one another
because we are one body in Christ?
Martin Luther King, Jr said:
“In a real sense all life is interrelated.
“All persons are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality,
tied in a single garment of destiny.
“Whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly.
“I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be,
and you can never be what you ought to be until I am what I ought to be.
“This is the interrelated structure of reality.”
My friends, our lives are bound together in a very real sense.
We are the children of God…
you and me and every person we meet along this journey of life,
along with all the many whose paths we never cross.
Love is greater than fear…
life is greater than death.
Jesus calls us to deeper and wider love and life.
God reveals this life to us.
And when we don’t think about it,
we blurt out what we know to be true.
May God grant us the courage to share this healing grace and love through our words
but more importantly through our actions.
Who is Jesus for you?
Give it some thought…
and then turn over your life
to the One who loves you beyond all measure.
Amen.
