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Sermon by the Reverend Patrick T. Gray at
The Church of the Advent, Some of you already know this, but for those of you who don’t, I really like theology. I like it so much, that I started a doctoral program in theology at General Seminary in New York City a number of years ago. And although I’ve been in the program for way too long, I do hope to finish one day, at least I hope to finish before they kick me out! But every now and then, I take a hard look at my program, and think, “What is this all about?” For every academic paper I’ve published, I think, “Does it really matter?” It’s only my mom who is going to read these articles anyway, so is this academic approach really worth the effort? And in fact does it make crooked what God has already made straight? Does all this research really matter? And if I can convince myself that it does, do I know Jesus any better? It reminds me of the joke about Karl Barth, Paul Tillich, and Reinhold Niebuhr, probably the three most influential theologians of the 20th century (the theological equivalent of Albert Einstein). And it just so happens that Karl Barth, Paul Tillich, and Reinhold Niebuhr find themselves all at the same time at Caesarea Philippi. And who should come along but Jesus, and he asks these three famous theologians, “Who do you say that I am?” Karl Barth stands up and says: “You are the “wholly other,” the vestigious trinitatum who speaks to us in the modality of Christomonism.” Following this, Paul Tillich states: “You are he who heals our ambiguities and overcomes the split of angst and existential estrangement; you are he who speaks of the theonomous viewpoint of the analogia entis, the analogy of our being and the ground of all possibilities.” Reinhold Niebuhr gives a cough for effect and says, in one breath: “You are the impossible possibility who brings to us, your children of light and children of darkness, the overwhelming oughtness in the midst of our fraught condition of estrangement and brokenness in the contiguity and existential anxieties of our ontological relationships.” And Jesus looks at them and says, “What?” Even when we keep our eyes on Jesus (as these theologians more or less did), we can still get carried away with answering the question – “Who do you say that I am?” So it’s always helpful to look again at the story from the Gospels where Jesus first asked the question. So we find ourselves again at Caesarea Philippi, but this time not with three academics, but with twelve working-class folk, the twelve disciples, who were, for the most part, not that well educated. A doctorate in theology was not their life’s ambition. Probably for most, their ambition was simply to survive another day. But they all had been paying attention to this Jesus. All eyes were on him. This summer, we’ve heard some of the things Jesus did that not only got the disciples talking, but a good many other folks, as well. He told some odd stories, parables about a sower, about a mustard seed, about a pearl of great price, saying that these were what the kingdom of heaven was like. But he showed that the kingdom of heaven was not a kingdom of talk, but of great power. He showed thousands upon thousands that the kingdom of heaven is the place where multitudes are fed and satisfied, five thousand who eat from five loaves and two fish. The kingdom of heaven is the place where God comes to you, even if you’re on a boat in the middle of a storm. Doesn’t matter. He’ll walk on water for you, and he’ll calm the seas. The kingdom of heaven is not a kingdom of talk, but of power, but it’s power manifested in abundance and peace. So you can bet that they were watching him. And they had their opinions. They knew what other people were saying about him. So they came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, and Jesus asked the disciples, “Who do people say that the son of man is?” Jesus knew that they knew something was up. He takes them about a two days’ journey north of the Sea of Galilee, away from it all, and asks them, in this rather roundabout fashion, “Who do people say that this person here, in other words (but without saying it) I myself, am?”(1) There’s a good chance Jesus already knew what they were going to say, but he wanted to hear it from them. He wanted them to lay it out on the table. And they said, “Some say John the Baptist, others say Elijah, and others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.” Despite the fact that Jesus showed that the kingdom of God was one of abundance and peace, it was still one of power, so the people saw Jesus as one of the prophets, one of the wild men either recent or from ancient times who had stood up and spoken God’s word against wicked kings. So Jesus was not viewed as some guru hanging out with people, sitting in a circle, playing the guitar, and talking about love. The people thought that, if anything, he was a prophet, God’s mouthpiece against injustice and wickedness in high places.(2) But clearly Jesus thought of himself as something more than that. Otherwise, why ask the question? And he wanted to know if his disciples had picked up on it. Was he “only” God’s mouthpiece, or was he something more? So he said to them, “But who do you say that I am?” And Peter probably spoke for more than just himself when he said, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” You are the Messiah. You are the true king of Israel. You are the one sent by God into the world that so many of the prophets foretold. And that prophecy has now arrived in you. You, Jesus, are the Christ. And perhaps here I find the answer to my own question. This confession for the disciples came with a great risk, a risk that challenged all the other would-be rulers of the world like Herod and Caesar; here was the true king! And power is always threatened by power. But as Jesus was already starting to show, his kingship was going to be different than any that the world had ever seen – it was going to be one of abundance and peace, a kingdom that fed five thousand with five loaves and two fish, a kingdom that brought peace to raging seas, that brought peace to scattered and broken lives. It’s funny, isn’t it, that abundance and peace would be such a threat to the rulers of this world. That people would be killed for putting their faith in this Jesus who showed us that the world doesn’t have to be about brokenness, about hate, about death, about division, about scarcity. So maybe there’s the focus for my doctoral program. Does it serve abundance and peace? Does my life serve abundance and peace? So my brothers and sisters, let us all with Peter reaffirm our confession of faith, that Jesus is the Christ, the Messiah, the son of the living God. And, like Peter, let us continue to learn what that means together, as forgiven sinners who know the resurrected Lord, for he is the true power of God, the God who has shown us that he is the God of abundance and peace. Let us make this our life together. Amen. (1) Tom Wright, Matthew for Everyone, Part 2 (London: SPCK, 2002), 6. |