A Sermon preached by the Rev. Michael Anderson Bullock
[Isaiah 50:4-9a; James 3:1-12; Mark 8:27-38]
It was fairly early in my ordained experience that I came upon a brief prayer to use at the beginning of my sermons. “May God’s Word be spoken; heard; and done”. When it comes to preaching, that prayer summarizes both my need and my responsibility because daring to speak God’s Word is always daunting for me and at times outrageous. Nonetheless, for better or for worse, my sermons are my best attempts at discerning God’s Word and offering them to you, God’s people. That I hope that what I offer can be – will be – heard speaks to another aspect of the daunting nature of preaching because I am clearly responsible for what I broadcast. But I am not responsible for the reception. And in spite of my occasional waggish asides, that what I say “will be on the test”, what is “heard” is the unavoidable point at which a preacher needs to let go and “let God”.
Finally, the last of the three petitions summarizes the entire purpose not only of my preaching but also of our life together: namely, that God’s Word might be spoken and heard so that folks like you – and me -- will give concrete and humane expression to what life on God’s terms is like, doing so through the way we live. And speaking of what will be “on the test”, I think our famous gospel from Caesarea Philippi illustrates what it means for us to speak God’s Word, to hear it, and to do it. In a phrase, it’s a process; and Peter (as so often is the case) is our very human example of this process. Yet, before we focus on Peter, it is important to step back a bit and locate the context of today’s lesson.
First, where are Jesus and the boys? Where have they been in the last few Gospel readings? The answer tellingly is that Jesus and the Twelve have been roaming about in the Gentile regions, where Jesus evidently hoped to secure some respite time from the demands of his growing reputation as a unique and unorthodox healer. Between the people’s unceasing demands for his healing of their lives and the political pressure that the Pharisees place upon Jesus’ methods, it is as if Jesus simply makes a move to get away and regroup. For to this point in Mark’s gospel account, Jesus has healed someone twelve times in seven short chapters! Even his attempt to be anonymous in the non-Jewish regions of Tyre and Sidon fails to evade his expanding reputation and the equally increasing resistance from the religious establishment. And so, from this broad geographic lay out, Mark intentionally brings our attention to another specific geographic spot: the Roman fortification of Caesarea Philippi.
A military fortification in the Golan heights (still fought over in our time), it was rebooted to honor Rome’s Caesar Augustus and made into an imperial administrative city. It stood as a physical example of the empire’s regional dominance. Evidently, Jesus led his disciples to this location not only to prepare themselves for their return to the Jewish regions of Galilee and Judea but also to make a point. The point emerges as Jesus debriefs with the Twelve about all that has occurred during their recent Gentile tour. By virtue of Jesus’ healings, the unavoidable issue of Jesus’ identity has stirred the imaginations, expectations, and hopes of all whom he has encountered. The question of who he is burns hot. Having been called everything from a messianic prophet to a demon, Jesus asks his disciples to tell him what the populous says about his identity. After they report what they know, Jesus asks the question.
I can visualize that moment. Sitting safe and quiet around a campfire, with the flickering light bouncing off their faces, Jesus’ followers report what they have seen and heard and learned in this peripatetic experience. “Who do the people say that I am?” Jesus asks rather innocently. Like children eager to please their teacher, the Twelve chaotically talk over one another with their answers. All of those whom they mention are major figures from the heritage of the past: John the Baptist (just recently beheaded by King Herod); Elijah (the prophet harbinger of the expected Messiah); or at the very least one of the others who knew and proclaimed what God was up to.
I see Jesus allowing the emotional intensity among them to settle into quiet. Then, lowering his head as if momentarily to mask his amusement over the eagerness of his students, Jesus catches the gaze of each and then poses the question: “But who do you say that I am?”
I don’t know if the Twelve suddenly began to swallow their tongues at such a question because it certainly required a response – a personal response, a response that would demand accountability. I don’t know if it took an uncomfortable, group-fidgeting to cause Peter impetuously to jump in; but Peter was the one who answered Jesus’ question with no hesitance or equivocation: “You are the Messiah.”
In response to Peter’s answer, there was no enthralled quiz show over voice saying, “Tell him what he’s won, Johnnie!” No celebratory balloons or confetti dropping from the heavens. Not even a high five from Judas. Just Jesus, catching each disciples’ gaze and speaking in a forceful, audible whisper: “Keep this to yourselves!”
As a teacher (which is how I keep learning), I have been aware of the gift of asking questions. It is a gift; and fashioning questions is also a product of doing the work – the hard work that leads to understanding. I think that the art and importance of asking questions was demonstrated to me in an American Literature course I took in my junior year of college. The course contained twelve American novels by noted American authors. We read one novel a week, which is how I learned how long, detailed, and demanding Moby Dick is! For the course’s final exam, the professor gave his students a choice. We could take a traditional, hours-long exam, an expansion of the weekly quizzes we took on each novel. (I still remember the weekly quiz question for Moby Dick. Out of the 614 pages of that week’s assignment, the question asked what was the content of the picture that hung over the bar that the Pequod crew frequented. If you’re interested, I will share the correct answer, which at the time I did not have!).
The other final exam option was a take-home exam, in which we were required to create our own final exam for the course. The task for us was to create the course’s final exam, using just five questions. I chose the second option and obviously remember the experience vividly to this day. (Fortunately, I did much better on this final exam option than I did on the Moby Dick quiz.)
My point in this reminiscence is also reflected in our Diocesan Formation program, called “Living the Questions”. And living the questions is precisely the point that echoes timelessly from Peter’s response to Jesus. Clearly, we followers of Jesus believe that Peter got the correct answer. More importantly, Jesus knew that Peter’s answer was correct. However, the problem with Peter and the other eleven is that living the answer to Jesus’ identity as the Messiah – God’s Christ – is that living that question’s answer requires more than being “right”. As Jesus takes great pains to explain, living the question of “Who do you say that I am?” unavoidably and necessarily runs straight through bearing and living the cross that Jesus (in this stunning passage) announces as his purpose.
And with Peter, you and I don’t like Jesus’ reckoning of the “right” answer. “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.”1
Who was the firm that came up with this marketing strategy? What focus group okayed this campaign policy? Who has ever run for popular office or success in life with such an offering? How ya’ gonna spin this for the nightly news? I can hear savvy Judas stepping up to the media microphone, saying: “Now what Jesus meant to say was…”. “Who do you say that I am.” “You are the Messiah.”
No, this question will be -- and always is -- on the test. Open book or not, there is only one question. What’s our answer? What’s the answer our own lives proclaim?
Whatever our individual, personal answers might be, whatever they are, we’ll have to live with them. So, it’s not about offering the “right” answer as words being checked off: Words like “Messiah”, “Christ”, “Savior”, “Lord”, “friend”. The issue is: Will we be willing and able to live our response? The response, as Peter’s own life reveals, is most definitely a process – a process of learning about the reality of death and having the possibility of living through its fearfulness because with God, life is not limited to fear and death. And yes, for most of us it’s a process.
Next Sunday will mark the continuation of our “Quarterly Parish Meetings”. It will be our second, post-pandemic parish meeting. After worship, we will meet in the parish hall for one of St. Philip’s, famous , sit-down, potluck meals. After the meal, we’ll break down the tables and rearrange the chairs in a circle to conduct what has always been an occasion where we talk openly with one another about parish church issues and discuss what we feel called to do about them. The content and focus of this fall’s edition of the “Quarterly Meeting” stems from the “Congregational Assessment Tool” members took last May. Summarized copies of the survey’s results will be available at the meeting for our common reference, discussion, and planning.
For now, I am delighted to say that the survey’s major headline is that St. Philip’s received a surprisingly glowing report: that we have the capacity to grow as a church both experientially and in terms of effectiveness. This is to say that we have among us the trust, openness, and energy to continue to respond to God-in-Christ’s call to be the church in this place and at this time. Based on national and ecumenical data, the survey’s evaluation of our common life is extremely positive – sometimes surprisingly so. St. Philip’s received high marks in all areas of identity, purpose, and mission. Yet, there was one sore thumb that stuck out in what otherwise is an uplifting assessment. The only area where we got a “bad grade” (if you will allow me to use that imprecise term) – the only area that was markedly inadequate was in the area of our “Spiritual Vitality”.
In an area in which following Jesus and learning how to live in faith and with faith, the response to the question: “I experience the presence of God in my life”, was markedly less robust than all the other evaluated survey parts. As I say, it was, by far, our lowest assessment. (And remember: the findings are based upon the evidence you and I provided.). In a real sense, we are not as confident or clear about our answer to Jesus’ question. Perhaps the most charitable assumption lies in the fact that, like Peter, Jesus’ corrective to our responses involve serious living: that is, bearing our cross. And, God knows: We all need help living Jesus’ question, “Who do you say that I am?”
Peter is a good example and guide for us. Assessing our “spiritual vitality” is not about getting a “good” grade; nor is it about having the right words to check off or the proper bumper stickers to drive around with. It is, however, about what you and I say and do as followers of Christ.
So, here is another question I hope we will willingly live: In the coming year, how can you and I do two things: One, increase our ability and our willingness to talk the mature talk of following Jesus; and two, to connect that talk to what we do in our lives?
Clearly, we have a lot of good things to talk about together next Sunday. We have an evidence-based roadmap by which to make plans and to guide our actions. But at the heart of all this crucial work is our response to Jesus’ question: “Who do you say that I am? It’s a process.
“May God’s Word be spoken, heard, and done”. Amen.
1. Mark 8:34
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