September 16, 2018 – Mark 8:27-38
Mark 8:27-38
Who are You?
Lectionary 24B – September 16, 2018
First Lutheran Church – Winnipeg, MB
After worship last week, I got into a great theological discussion with my friend Elijah,
who is in confirmation class.
You’ll remember that last week we saw Jesus in one of his less than great moments,
the moment when he referred to a foreign woman as a “dog.”
In that incident, Jesus appeared to be racist.
He needed a break and was on vacation – but a foreign woman comes up to him and
says, “My little girl is very sick – please heal her.”
And Jesus says his ministry is not meant for foreign dogs such as her!
Well, after all that, Elijah says to me, “Jesus wasn’t perfect.”
Now that is a pretty interesting thing to say!
It flies in the face of 2000 years of theology!
It pretty much takes on the entire Christian thinking about Jesus!
Way to go, Elijah! That is a bold thing to say!
And yet – of course Elijah is right – at least in the way we usually think of perfection.
What does it mean to be perfect?
We talked about it for a while and I said maybe Jesus’ perfection consists of something else.
I mean, we all know Jesus has a temper.
He can be rude, he can sometimes speak too quickly, and he can be impatient –
all things James counsels against in the second reading today. Hahahahaha!!!!!
We call Jesus “fully human.”
He is our model, we do look to him as a pattern for our lives.
We consider him a full human being, of showing us the potential of everything a
human life can be.
But if Jesus’ perfection doesn’t consist in his being nice to everyone all of the time,
then what?
How, exactly, is Jesus perfect?
How is Jesus a model for us?
So, yah: maybe Jesus isn’t perfect in that way, but maybe in a different way.
Jesus was a full human being, and human beings are meant to learn and grow.
If Jesus was always perfect in the way we normally think about that,
then Jesus could not be a model for us in growing and becoming larger people
with bigger hearts.
There would be no hope for us.
But there is.
Maybe Jesus’ perfection consists of just this: he was able to learn and grow from his mistakes.
He was willing to think about the things people different from him said.
He was willing to admit he was wrong and think about things differently.
He was able to allow his vision to be expanded and his heart to grow fuller.
He was able to move past his prejudices and see every other human being as made in
the image of God – as James suggests.
And – here’s the thing: he acted on it.
He took his new vision and his bigger heart on the road and loved actual people
better and more deeply – eventually dying for love for both his friends and enemies.
Today’s reading is a short time later.
He healed a foreign man after he leaves the foreign woman.
Then he feeds 4000 foreigners with his expanded vision and his bigger heart.
And then, having himself come to some understanding of what it means to be Jesus,
he asks his disciples, “Who are people saying that I am?”
And then, he asks what he really wants to know: “Who do YOU say that I am?”
Jesus has become more self-aware – but what will that mean for his followers?
What will it mean for you?
In the passage today, at least six different answers are given to the question, “Who is Jesus?”
And that is just in 9 verses!
Do you think people had a hard time trying to figure out just who Jesus is?
You’re not alone!
First off, and mostly famously, Jesus is named “Messiah” by Peter!
Good answer, Peter! You win the all expense paid trip to Bahamas!
Only, only. . . Messiah means King, a political leader with an army who would
rout the Romans and send them packing.
Jesus shows no signs at all of being that kind of Messiah.
Hmmmmm. Okay: maybe he’s like a Messiah in that he will make things right,
but certainly not in any way that would be recognized as making sense –
because, as he tells Peter, he is also like something the complete
opposite of a Messiah:
He is also like, secondly, a Suffering One that Isaiah described 600 years earlier:
someone who suffers so that others need not. Hmmm.
But then there is a third description, totally unlike the other two, that Jesus himself uses:
he speaks of himself as the Son of Man – a semi-divine figure who comes
just before God makes the world right by ending suffering and pain,
a superhuman figure that represents God to the people and
the people to God.
Oooookaaaaayyyy.
But then there is truth, too, in the 4th, 5th, and 6th descriptions of who Jesus is:
Yes: he is like John the Baptist,
a prophet who announced God’s coming to end suffering and pain.
Yes: he is like Elijah, who worked miracles showing the power of God.
Yes: he is like a prophet who calls the people back to God’s way of manna sharing and
mercy giving.
Here’s a question: Do you think people had a hard time pinning Jesus down?
Do you think they were using every means at their disposal to describe who Jesus was and
what his importance to the world is?
John’s Gospel will have a variety of terms for Jesus: the Bread of Life, the Good Shepherd,
the Light of the World, the Lamb of God, and on and on and on.
Maybe every generation, maybe every congregation, maybe every person has to
Be looked in the eye by Jesus and be asked: But who do YOU say that I am?
Feeder of the hungry. Healer. Reconciler. Friend. Teacher. Includer of the Excluded.
Forgiver. Seeker of justice. Doer of justice.
Jesus is a pray-er and a worshipper of the God of Israel. And he is a Spirit Bearer.
Are there more?
The thing is, after Jesus asks you, he is going to ask you to follow him.
That is why having an answer to the question, “Who is Jesus” is so so important.
Yes, Peter, in a way Jesus is the Messiah: he will make things right with the Romans.
But how he will make things right is not by beating them into submission.
He will challenge them and their notions of true kingship and
will remind them that only God is king.
And he will suffer at their hands and die on a cross – and then he will forgive them.
That is how Jesus figures he will make things right.
And then . . . if any want to become his follower they must, well,
take up their cross and follow him.
Who is Jesus for you? And what does that mean for your life?
That is the question we are being asked to today.
At First Lutheran we strongly identify with Jesus as Feeder of the Hungry.
And as we say that, we can hear Jesus saying, “If any want to become my followers,
let them take up their cooking pot and follow me.”
The key to our identity as a Christian community is who we think Jesus is.
Clearly only one image is not enough –
and together we need to continue to search for language that
articulates our understanding of who Jesus is.
So: who is Jesus? And who are you?
One thing Jesus makes clear this morning is that these two questions are very intimately related –
or they should be.
In the coming weeks at Bible Study one thing we will do is keep a running list of
all the things Jesus is for us – that can inform our vision of who we are as a community
and as members of this community.
Jesus is calling us all to grow – as we learned last week, the good news is that
our mistakes do not define us,
our notions of perfection that we fail to live up to don’t define us.
Rather, our ability to listen to others who are different and to grow and learn from them is
far closer to what it means to be perfect.
So let’s figure it out together – let’s keep delving into the mystery of Jesus and
deeper into our identity as a Christian community.
And together, let us say, “Amen.”
Pastor Michael Kurtz
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