What Do You Say?

What Do You Say?

Matthew 16:13-20

July 19, 2020 • Mount Pleasant UMC

In case you’ve forgotten, there is a presidential race happening this year. It would be understandable if you had forgotten. Usually by this point in the race, there are endless news stories and constant polls as to who is ahead of whom and who might win the race—but thanks to COVID and racial unrest, not to mention a struggling economy, most of the news about politics has been put on the back burner, if not forgotten altogether! And so we’ve not really gotten all the poll results that we normally have, like which candidate is better liked, or whose policies are preferred, or who each candidate is most like. I’m sure we’ll get that as we move closer to November and the news media suddenly remembers that it’s an election year, but until then, I guess we’ll just have to make up our own minds.

Jesus asked the disciples one time about the opinions of the people around them. He hadn’t organized a formal poll, and there was probably very little of what we would call “scientific validity” in the polling process, but one time, Jesus took the disciples away on a retreat and he asked them, “Who do people say the Son of Man is?” And after he had heard the poll results, he asked them an even more pointed question: “What about you? Who do you say I am?” (16:13, 15). This morning, as we continue this series of sermons leading up to the “Focus” Vacation Bible School, we’re going to look at this familiar story and these familiar questions. Jesus is taking this poll, asking these questions for a reason. The timing and the location is critical, and the answer will change the lives of these twelve disciples.

But before we get into the meat of today’s story, we have a memory verse we’ve been working on. Or I hope you’ve been working on! Let’s put it up on the screen (for real, this week) and read it together. “Let us keep looking to Jesus. He is the one who started this journey of faith. And he is the one who completes the journey of faith” (Hebrews 12:2a, NIrV). Whenever I do a wedding, I always tell the bridal party that during the ceremony they are to keep their focus on the most important person in the wedding—the bride. Keep your eyes on the bride, I tell them. That’s sort of what the writer to the Hebrews is saying here. If you want to keep a good focus, keep looking to Jesus. Watch him. He’s the beginning and the end of this journey of faith. Keep your eyes on Jesus—that’s what we’re trying to all do during this summer and this strange season we have been in.

Speaking of journeys of faith, Jesus is taking his disciples on one in this morning’s passage. His ministry has been going on for a while now when he takes the twelve disciples, the followers who have been closest to him, away on a retreat. There is great value in a retreat, whether in a church setting or business or even sometimes just in life. It’s a chance to get away from everything, from the routine and the pressures of everyday life, maybe to focus on a particular topic or a nagging issue, or maybe just to rest. It seems maybe that last one is the reason Jesus comes here. This is pretty much the last place he visits before he heads toward Jerusalem and the death that awaits him there (cf. Knight, The Holy Land, pg. 276), so to get some perspective Jesus takes the disciples far to the north, to Caesarea Philippi. That’s a good two days’ walk from the Sea of Galilee (cf. Wright, Matthew for Everyone, Part Two, pg. 6), about as far north as you can go and still be in Israel, but in many ways it was also a location that wasn’t really “Israel.” Caesarea Philippi was a thoroughly Roman city, even named after the emperor, and it was filled with temples, including one to the emperor. I love taking groups to the ruins of this city, because it’s just so obvious how fascinated the people who lived here were with the afterlife, with gods and goddesses. In addition to the temple that honored Caesar, there were also  temples to Pan (the god of shepherds) and a temple to the dancing goats (cf. Card, Matthew: The Gospel of Identity, pg. 150). I’ve described Caesarea Philippi as a shopping mall for religion. Most any god you wanted to worship you could find here. There is even a deep, dark cave whose entrance was called and is still called “the gates of hell” because it once went so deep it was thought it connected with the underworld (Luker, An Illustrated Guide to the Holy Land, pg. 60). It’s not as deep and dark now because of seismic shifts through the centuries, but it is still an imposing sight. To me, it still feels like the gates of hell. And so in this place, Jesus decides to ask a question that will change everyone’s life.

We don’t know what they were doing the rest of the time in Caesarea Philippi, but at some point, Jesus gets serious. “Who do people say the Son of Man is?” he asks (16:13). What are they people saying? What are you hearing? Now, do I think Jesus didn’t know? I think he already knew the answers they were going to give. Even without being the Son of God (which he is), you hear things. You hear what people are saying. But Jesus is trying to get an idea of what these disciples have heard in the highways and byways of Galilee. What are your neighbors and friends saying about me? And so they rattle off the list: Some say you’re John the Baptist—which is crazy because there were times when Jesus and John the Baptist were in the same place at the same time. How could they be the same person? Others say you’re Elijah—Elijah was an Old Testament prophet who had not died. He had been taken up into heaven in a chariot of fire (cf. 2 Kings 2:1-12) and it was expected that he would return before the Messiah came. By the way Jesus says John the Baptist served in the role of Elijah, preparing the way for the Messiah to come (cf. Matthew 11:11-15). So again, they couldn’t be the same person. And then there’s the third choice in this poll: some say Jesus is Jeremiah or one of the other prophets. Jeremiah was the Old Testament preacher who lived through he destruction of Jerusalem, largely thought to be the author of Lamentations, which is a series of poems mourning the loss of the city. He was known as the “weeping prophet,” and Jesus will soon weep over Jerusalem himself (cf. Luke 19:41-44). So maybe Jesus is that prophet, or one of the others. They really don’t know; the point here is that the only thing the people know for sure is that he can’t be who he says he is.

So with the opinion poll out of the way, Jesus makes the question personal. He asks his disciples—the ones who have spent more time with him than anyone else, the ones who know him better than anyone else, his closest friends—he asks them, “Who do you say I am?” (16:15). Forget the opinions out there, forget the tweets and posts on Facebook. You have known me, you’ve spent time with me—surely by now you must have an idea about who I am. What do you say? And Matthew doesn’t say, but I picture all of them looking at their sandals—you know, the kind of behavior when you think you know the answer but you’re not really sure and you don’t want to look stupid by saying the wrong thing? Yeah, that’s what I picture for eleven of these men. Shuffling and staring, all except Simon Peter. Peter, as we come to know him in the Gospels, is never shy about speaking up. He often speaks for the group, and here in this pagan place, he does so once again. I’m sure they had conversations on the side. They had talked about who Jesus was, about the things he had been doing and teaching. And so Peter speaks up and shares what is probably their current consensus: “You are the Messiah, the Son of the Living God” (16:16). Now, there’s a couple of things we need to notice here. First, “Messiah” had political implications for this time and place. Most people would have understood “Messiah” to refer to a king, an earthly king, who was going to sit on a throne in Jerusalem, kick out the Romans, and re-establish Israel as a superpower nation. So, most likely, when Peter says Jesus is the Messiah, he’s not thinking about Jesus saving us from our sins. He’s thinking Jesus is going to save them from the Romans. And that ties into his second phrase, that Jesus is “Son of the Living God.” Again, at this point, he’s not thinking Jesus is God, or that Jesus is divine in any way. That’s what the Roman emperors claimed, that a human could be divine. Jews had no place for that in their theology; Peter would not have understood Jesus in that way until some time after the resurrection. “Son of God” in Hebrew thought referred to a king or ruler who was God’s special representative on earth; it meant that the king had a special relationship with God (cf. Wright 7).

Now, with the benefit of two thousand years of history and theology, we know that Jesus is indeed the second person of the Trinity, “Son of God” in every way. He is God incarnate, God himself. We know he came as the Messiah, the Savior not just of Israel but of the world. He came to save us from our sin, to save us from ourselves, and to announce that the kingdom of God had come near (cf. Matthew 4:17). He came to fulfill all the promises of God (cf. Matthew 5:17) and he came to bring life out of death. We know all of that, but Peter didn’t know any of it. He spoke more than he knew in that moment at Caesarea Philippi and he spoke with a confidence that came from outside of himself (cf. Card 150). Peter defines Jesus, and Jesus turns around and does the same for Peter. He has been called Simon, now he will be called Peter, “the Rock,” the foundation upon which the church will be built. Remember the parable we read last week about the wise man and the foolish man and their foundations? Peter’s confession will become a solid foundation upon which the church will be built—“and the gates of Hades will not overcome it” (16:18; cf. Wright 8).

The last verse of this morning’s passage, though, is very strange. Let me read it again: “Then he [Jesus] ordered his disciples not to tell anyone that he was the Messiah” (16:20). What? Why not? Didn’t Jesus come to earth to spread the message, to bring in the kingdom of God? Why is he now telling the disciples to keep it quiet? Well, lots of people have a lot of guesses about Jesus’ reason for saying this, and far be it for me to guess what was in the mind of the Son of God, but my guess is it has to do with their misunderstanding of what it all meant. He didn’t want the people to get the wrong idea about him. He wanted to complete his mission, go through the crucifixion and the resurrection, before it was revealed exactly who he was. Because only then could it really be understood. Even the disciples didn’t fully get it right now—how could the general public understand? And so, to make sure the message doesn’t get lost in the messenger, Jesus tells his disciples to keep it quiet.

But I’m here to tell you that such a restriction doesn’t apply to you and me. In fact, after a short time, it didn’t apply to the disciples either. This was a short-term command. By the end of the Gospel of Matthew, after the resurrection, Jesus reverses this command and gives the disciples and us direction that should shape the rest of our lives. This command has not been reversed, and I understand that in such situations, you keep carrying out the orders of your commander until such a time as that commander changes the orders. These orders haven’t yet been changed or rescinded. Here’s what Jesus says at the end of this Gospel: “Go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the end of the age” (Matthew 28:19-20). Go, disciple, baptize and teach—to the end of the age. The bottom line for this week is this: you can talk with others about what you believe. Even more to the point: you can tell others about Jesus. In fact, you must. We must. It’s the last thing he told us to do. And if there ever was a time when we needed to share the good news about Jesus and his hope for humankind, that time is now. You can talk with others about what you believe.

But we don’t. Listen to these statistics from Lifeway Research: 80% of Christians believe that we have a personal and individual responsibility to share about our faith in Jesus with other people. Eighty percent, that’s pretty good. Seventy-five perfect even say they feel comfortable talking about their belief in Christ with someone else. Okay, that sounds great, too. Here’s the kicker: 61% have not talked to anyone about Jesus in the last six months. So…we know it’s important, we even feel comfortable doing it, but we don’t do it (cf. https://bit.ly/2Oswtia). We simply choose not to. Maybe it’s because of fear, maybe because of complacency, maybe it’s because of a worry over losing a job or because of political correctness. These are just some of the reasons people give when asked why they don’t share their faith.

But there’s one more excuse we use: I don’t know enough. I don’t know the Bible, I don’t know theology, I don’t know the right words, I don’t have enough Scriptures memorized—I don’t know enough. And there is a time and place to walk someone through the Scriptures or help them understand more about who Jesus is, but generally that’s not at the beginning of talking about what we believe. Rather than giving a theology lecture, we should start with our own story, our own experience of faith. People can argue with your theology, but they can’t argue with your story, with the way you have encountered Jesus and come to know and love him. They can’t argue with the story of the way Jesus has changed your life. So if you want to talk about what you believe, the best way to start is to just tell your story. Tell what he means to you. And be prepared to do it in just a few minutes. We live in a sound-byte world where everything happens quickly. If the video is too long or the post has too many words, a lot of people will go right past it. The same thing with your story; if it’s too long, people stop listening and they do not get to encounter the Jesus that is at the heart of the story. We used to call it “having an elevator speech,” a version of your story that you could tell in a short ride on an elevator. Maybe today we might call it a “Twitter” speech—can you tell someone what Jesus means to you and the way he has changed your life in just a few sentences? What would you say?

Normally, in a different world, I’d stop at this point and have you practice something like that, but since we’re social distancing, let me share with you how I might do that, and invite you to practice with someone in your own house or over coffee. If you live by yourself, try it in the mirror. The important part is to have an idea of what you might say, to say it out loud so you can hear it, and to practice so that you’re ready when the opportunity presents itself. So here’s one way I might tell my story: I grew up in the church and I learned a lot about Jesus. But when I was in fifth grade, I realized my parents’ faith and my church’s faith would not do. I had to have my own faith; I had to make up my mind about what I believed. So I decided to follow Jesus, and since then, he has never left me. Even when I didn’t represent him well, he never left me. He has gotten me through two heart surgeries when I wanted to give up. He had gotten me through times of grief, when I though it would never stop hurting. He has been there through good times and bad, and I am thankful for a friend who is always faithful.

So, how long did that take? Just a minute or two, right? It doesn’t have to be elaborate or flashy; a lot of times I hear people say, “Well, I didn’t do drugs or I didn’t have a criminal background. My story isn’t anything special.” Of course it is! It’s your story, and it’s the way Jesus has worked in your life. Your story doesn’t have to be good enough (or bad enough) to make into a movie; it just has to be yours. No one can argue with your story.

During the quarantine, I caught up on some of the movies and such I had put off watching, including a documentary on the life of St. Patrick. I knew a lot of his story, like how he was kidnapped as a child and sold as a slave in Ireland. I knew that he had escaped years later by walking across Ireland to a waiting ship that took him back to Britain. After a time, Patrick became a priest and felt a strong call on his life to go back to Ireland to preach about Jesus there to the pagan natives. What I didn’t know is how much opposition he endured. I had always thought he went with the blessing of the church, but that was not the case. The church of his time didn't understand this idea of going to another land to share your faith. In fact, the church leadership didn’t really understand this “sharing your faith” thing. Still, Patrick went, and preached, and won many people to faith in Christ. He converted the Irish and launched the modern missionary movement at the same time all because he believed that you can talk about what you believe. In fact, Patrick believed you must. He believed others needed to know the God who had rescued him, who had saved him, who loved him.

You can talk about your faith—but let me give you one caution. When you point people toward Jesus, make sure it’s the real Jesus. Let’s be honest: there are a lot of “fake Jesuses” out there today. The Jesus of Prosperity. The Jesus of “Everybody’s Okay.” The Jesus who blesses whatever you want to do. The Jesus who is a life coach or a spiritual health guru. The Jesus without a cross. There are a lot of Jesuses out there. Make sure the one you point people to is the one Peter boldly spoke of at Caesarea Philippi. There were a lot of false ideas people then had about Jesus, too, as we talked about. It seems it’s a natural thing to want to make Jesus over into our own image, or into something or someone we want him to be. Even in Peter’s declaration we see that. Peter and the disciples and the other followers had their own ideas about who Jesus should have been. But Jesus refused to give into their demands or their expectations. He is the Messiah—just not the kind of Messiah they thought he should be. He is the Son of God—but he’s more than a mere representative of God. He is God and Lord and King over all. He will come in and wreck your life—in a good way. He will upend everything we think is important and give us his priorities. He will cause you to see the world in a different way. To paraphrase one of my favorite lines from the Chronicles of Narnia: he isn’t safe. He’s the king, I tell you. Of course he isn’t safe, but he’s good. The Jesuses we invent will fail us; the real Jesus never will because he’s good.

Cathy became a Christian because a teacher took a risk and shared his story with her—after school of course. But that teacher being willing to share his story changed her life. I gave my life to Jesus because a VBS teacher took the time to not only share the lesson that was in the book but also to share her story. Ordinary people sharing ordinary stories in simple ways. And you can do the same thing. It doesn’t take a spectacular story; someone is just waiting to hear your story. So Vacation Bible School starts next week, and maybe there is a child out there who, like me so many years ago, is waiting to hear your story of the story. One way you can help someone hear about Jesus is to invite them to come to VBS. I can guarantee you they will hear about Jesus and hear about what it means to follow him. They will hear about faith. There is still room to register, whether for the virtual experience or the in-person VBS. And of course this Saturday is the One Church event, where there will be a special emphasis sharing a story about Jesus. Brian Head Welch is coming from Nashville to share about the Jesus he knows; it’s a great time to bring along someone you know who needs to encounter Jesus. But those are events, and there are also all kinds of opportunities throughout every ordinary week for you to talk about what you believe. This week, I encourage you to be like Peter: know who Jesus is and talk about him. What do you say? Can we do that? Can we actively engage in making disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world? Let’s pray.