St. Paul’s United Church Sunday, August 21, 2011

Who is Jesus Anyway? – David Mundy

Exodus 1:8-2:10 Matthew 16:13-20

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The United Church Observer is our denominational magazine and the summer issue has the cover What You Believe, with the subtitle: We asked about your faith. You didn’t hold back. Now: the surprising results of The Observer’s 2011 survey.

In truth there isn’t much that is surprising about this survey. I am fond of describing United Church members as a “herd of cats” rather than a “flock of sheep.” Any cat lover and feline staff member knows that cats can’t be herded and neither can we.

The results show that a certain percentage of us have very traditional views about God, the trinity, and about Jesus. He is the Christ, crucified and risen, our saviour and friend. At the other end of the spectrum there are the folk the survey calls “nonconformists” many of whom value the teachings of Jesus, and would agree that he was executed because he threatened the authorities of his day.

Then there is the big gang in between who see Jesus as their role model for living and are trying to sort out the rest. About half of us believe that the resurrection of Jesus, the world changing event we celebrate at Easter, was physical, while others see it as spiritual.

Respondents were asked what they would “tweet” to Jesus if they had the chance. Most of you will have heard of Twitter, which is a form of internet communication in 140 characters or less. Thumbs and a cell phone are the tools of tweeting.

If I could send a Twitter message to Jesus, it would say...

This morning we listened to a story which is found in three of our four gospels and told in slightly different ways in each of them. Jesus and his disciples have made the steady climb up the Golan Heights to a place called Caesarea Philippi in the gospels, but it was also known as Paneas after the Greek God Pan. It is a beautiful spot often visited by tour groups to Israel because there is a spring which was actually much stronger in Jesus’ time. This spring is one of the headwaters of the Jordan River.

While they are there Jesus asks his young followers two essential questions. They are “Who do people say the Son of Man is?” and “Who do you say that I am?” I suppose this was the first informal Christian survey, before there was a Christianity and Christians!

It seems that it is relatively easy for them to respond to the first question because it was general. Some have speculated that Jesus is the second coming of the great prophets Elijah and Jeremiah. Others say that he the reincarnation of John the Baptist, Jesus’ cousin and a prophetic figure in his own right who was murdered for being so outspoken.

It is the impetuous Peter, the guy who tried to walk on water in the reading from a couple of weeks ago, who pipes up and says “You are the Messiah, the Son of the Living God.” Jesus praises Peter for his insight

This story reminds us that Jesus is forming a community of radical faith with this small core group of followers, and that when Peter confesses Jesus as the Messiah or the Christ he is taking a step of faith as important as stepping out of the boat.

Jesus declares that Peter’s spiritual insight, his ability to see Jesus as more than a charismatic Jewish peasant leader is “rock solid,” something he can build a church on.

So, who do we think this Jesus is, anyway? Surely it is as important to answer this question in the 21^st century as it was in the first century. What is the rock, the foundation for the “ekklesia” I spoke about recently, the church which is centred on the person of Jesus rather than bricks and mortar?

The reality is that there have always been differing views and convictions about Jesus, about his divinity and humanity, the importance of what he taught alongside the saving significance of the cross and the resurrection.

There are some people who figure they are so close to Jesus that they are his official spokespeople, and honestly that can be really off-putting. Often we discover that the Jesus they figure is their Best Friend Forever is telling them to be harsh, judgmental, self-righteous, and we don’t to have anything to do with that.

That may be why so many United Church folk say they follow the example and the teachings of Jesus. But here is what I see as troubling. My experience is that we have generally become less and less knowledgeable about the teachings of Jesus, not only in our more liberal mainline United Church but in many other denominations as well, even the supposedly more conservative churches. We have vague impressions of Jesus, which are not necessarily reflective of the person who is revealed to us in the gospels. When we read the teaching of the Sermon on the Mount, we discover a radical call to discipleship and a transformed life which we often chose to ignore.

Rather than being Christ the Tiger, the Jesus we claim to follow is rather domesticated Jesus and could hardly have been the impetus for a new religious movement. So our denomination has become rather tired and unfocussed. We just don’t seem to be all that sure of who we are following and why we exist. At times we yak away about the church as though we don’t expect Jesus to be present in our midst at all, either in his teaching or as the empowering life of our community.

There is a new and intriguing book called, What’s the Least I Can Believe and Still Be a Christian? written by a pastor named Martin Thielen. It’s based on the conversations Thielen had with a guy named Danny. Danny asked to meet with Thielen and told him straight away that he didn’t believe in God :“Preacher, you need to know that I’m an atheist. I don’t believe the Bible. I don’t like organized religion. And I can’t stand self-righteous, judgmental Christians.” Just the same he wanted to talk about God and Christianity.

After a year of meeting together Danny announced to Martin Thielen that he was upgrading himself from an atheist to an agnostic. And then a few months later he admitted that he might be changing his mind about Christianity, that it was some of the ugly trappings of Christianity that he rejected, not Christ. He asked the question, “what’s the least I can believe and still be a Christian?” Thielen thought it was an excellent question, and his response eventually became a book. He begins with the ten things Christians don’t need to believe and then identifies ten things that Christianity do need to believe. Number one is the question we heard today and are asking today Jesus’ Identity: Who Is Jesus? Jesus “the Christ, the Son of the living God,” is the heart of Christianity.

Everything we do together, everything we want to be, builds from the way we answer this question. Even though we are still in the sleepier Summer mode of our congregation we can feel the energy building for the activities of the Fall

Vacation Bible School will bring next week and Sunday School and other youth programs will resume before long. Our prayer can be that these children and young people will enter into a deep and meaningful relationship with God, in Christ.

In September we will be asked to vote on the needs assessment for our congregation and make decisions about staffing here at St. Paul’s, as well as our focus in other areas. We need to respond on the basis of our convictions about Christian ministry in this community, not just keeping our congregation going.

And in one respect we need to do the opposite of what Jesus says in our passage this morning. Were you at all puzzled by those words “Then he sternly ordered the disciples not to tell anyone that he was the Messiah?” In the gospels Jesus seems to be asking his followers to bide their time, to wait until his ministry and mission is fulfilled before his identity is revealed. But after Jesus’ death and resurrection they discover a new energy, the energy of the Holy Spirit which gives them the courage and boldness to share the Good News.

I’m going to suggest to you that the way we will flourish and grow is as we answer the question, “who is Jesus anyway?” And are we still the community gathered around Jesus who is our life spring the Living Water of our life together?

It’s interesting that the United Church survey included an exercise which is based on modern technology, asking individuals to “tweet” what they would like to say to Jesus. Well, this has been around for a while, only we used to call it prayer! We can offer our hopeful prayers to Jesus, for ourselves and for the community of faith in the world.

Earlier in worship we joined together in a statement of faith or creed that is specific to the United Church of Canada, what we call A New Creed, even though it now a relatively older creed. There is an even newer statement of faith called A Song of Faith, approved in 2005 which speaks of Jesus as the peasant child born into a time of social upheaval. It reminds us that Jesus was a teacher who forgave sins and called people to a life of compassion and inclusion. But it doesn’t stop there. It also includes this affirmation of Jesus, the Christ:

But death was not the last word.

God raised Jesus from death,

turning sorrow into joy,

despair into hope.

We sing of Jesus raised from the dead.

We sing hallelujah.

By becoming flesh in Jesus,

God makes all things new.

In Jesus’ life, teaching, and self-offering,

God empowers us to live in love.

In Jesus’ crucifixion,

God bears the sin, grief, and suffering of the world.

In Jesus’ resurrection,

God overcomes death.

Nothing separates us from the love of God.

The Risen Christ lives today,

present to us and the source of our hope.

In response to who Jesus was

and to all he did and taught,

to his life, death, and resurrection,

and to his continuing presence with us through the Spirit,

we celebrate him as

the Word made flesh,

the one in whom God and humanity are perfectly joined,

the transformation of our lives, the Christ.

Today, this morning, we can answer the question Christ asks on our road to new life.