The poet E.E. Cummings once wrote: “Always the beautiful answer who asks a more beautiful question.”
In this morning’s gospel Jesus asked his disciples: “Who do people say that I am?” A group of fisherman, eager to please their new leader, responded: “They say that you are John the Baptist, Elijah, Jeremiah. or one of the other prophets.”
Then Jesus changed one word and asked: “But who do you say that I am?”
Suddenly this isn’t a question about public opinion. It’s personal. This is one of, or perhaps the most, essential questions of the Christian faith. Who do you say that I am? What do you believe? Who’s the Jesus that you follow?
Rev. John Ames, the aging Congregational pastor in Marilynne Robinson’s Gilead, and Celie, a poor black woman living in the rural south in Alice Walker’s, The Color Purple, both learned, the answer to this question of faith and understanding can change over a lifetime. I’ve been ordained nearly forty years, and I still struggle with this question, especially as I prepare to preach.
When Simon, son of Jonah, is asked by Jesus, “Who do you say that I am?” he responds magnificently: “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.” This first apostle gets an A+ in Systematic Theology.
After giving the correct answer, Jesus affirms him, calls him “blessed,” gives him the new name of Peter, and describes for him a new vocation. Peter is to become the rock upon which Jesus will build his church.
According to the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus symbolically hands Peter “the keys to the kingdom of heaven” and endows him with tremendous authority as he says: “What you bind [that is, forbid] on earth will be bound in heaven, and what you loose [in other words, permit] on earth will be loosed in heaven.” Jesus essentially tells Simon Peter that whatever he deems to be good or evil, acceptable or unsuitable, clean or dirty, legal or illegal, will be considered the same in the realm of God. That’s extraordinary power!
As Matthew’s narrative will reveal, Peter knew Jesus’ title but didn’t yet know Jesus. He had an idea of what a Messiah should be, but Jesus didn’t conform to it. And, when Jesus didn’t live up to his expectations, Peter abandoned and denied him. In fact, after being told by the women who went to the tomb that Jesus had been resurrected, Peter just returned to fishing. Eventually, he got it together and became the rock upon which the church was built.
We all carry our own image of Jesus: comforter, healer, teacher, miracle worker, friend, judge, savior, liberator, lord. But how easily the Jesus we believe in becomes the Jesus we want him to be.
Perhaps the lifelong work of faith isn’t about simply believing in Jesus. It is allowing Jesus continually to disturb our understanding of who he is and how we are called to act in his name.
The story of Peter and Jesus reminds me of an exquisite novel by British author Kazuo Ishiguro entitled The Remains of the Day. It was adapted into a film starring Anthony Hopkins, Emma Thompson, Christopher Reeve, and Hugh Grant.
It’s the story of a man named Stevens who has devoted his entire life to being the perfect English butler. His identity is grounded in his service to Lord Darlington, an English gentleman who becomes a Nazi sympathizer.
While Lord Darlington was a fictional English aristocrat, Ishiguro used him to represent a certain strand of the British upper class in the 1930’s who had an entitled sense of cultural and moral superiority and wanted peace in Europe – at all costs.
Darlington believed the Treaty of Versailles treated Germany unjustly and became involved in informal diplomacy aimed at reconciliation with Germany. Over time, his idealism and sense of honor made him susceptible to manipulation by Nazi sympathizers. Eventually, he died in disgrace.
In the Remains of the Day, Stevens defined himself through Lord Darlington. He believed that serving a “great gentleman” made his own service meaningful. He thought that if he served a great man impeccably and faithfully, then his own life participated in something great.
However, Stevens had a terrible flaw. As a butler, he was so busy serving that he failed to listen, and in doing so, he missed the mark in some of the most important relationships and decisions of his life. He didn’t listen to his father’s dying words because he was too busy serving at an important dinner party. He didn’t listen to Miss Kenton, the housekeeper, a capable but opinionated woman who wanted to befriend Stevens and offered him gentle kindness and wise counsel. He didn’t listen to Lord Darlington’s nephew, a journalist who shared the dangerous truth of what he was overhearing. He didn’t listen to the American at the table who was appalled and concerned about what he was coming to understand.
Stevens didn’t really listen to the man whom he had been chosen by and had chosen to serve. Lord Darlington was making increasingly disastrous moral choices, and Stevens, in his blind devotion, essentially told himself, “It isn’t my place to judge. My job is to serve.”
By the time he began to understand the man whom he had been serving, most of his life was behind him. Gradually, in his old age, Stevens was forced to confront two devastating identity questions at once: who was Lord Darlington, really; and therefore, who was I, if I gave my life to serving him?
The story closes with Stevens, in his elder years, sitting on a seaside bench having a conversation with a stranger where he admitted that he trusted his misguided employer and embraced his role, his obedience and his blind loyalty as a butler so totally that he didn’t listen to the wisdom of others and couldn’t even acknowledge his own mistakes. The sympathetic stranger suggests that rather than dwelling on the past, he should enjoy the present, as evening is the best part of the day.
The Remains of the Day is an apt parable for the essence of today’s gospel message: whom we serve matters because whom we serve helps determine who we become. It leaves us with some really important and timely questions. The first is the question: “Are we too busy serving Jesus to listen to Jesus?”
Christians can be extraordinarily busy serving Jesus. We build churches. We feed and shelter people. We care for our neighbors. We fight injustice. We teach Sunday school, sing in choirs, volunteer on altar guilds, and serve on vestries. We give money. We defend doctrine. We work for causes we believe Jesus supports. These are all good things.
However, both the Gospel narrative and The Remains of the Day pose the uncomfortable question: is it possible to become so committed to serving that we stop listening to the one we claim to serve? It’s like the gospel warning in the stories of the Transfiguration and of Martha and Mary that describes the tension between doing and attending. The first task of discipleship is not doing something for Jesus. The first task is paying attention to Jesus to hear and see not only what Jesus wants us to do, but also, what Jesus wants to do for us.
The second question is about who we believe we are serving and how that will change who we become. Peter says to Jesus, “You are the Messiah.” And Jesus responds, “And I tell you, you are Peter.” Peter names Jesus. Jesus names Peter.
And neither naming is simply descriptive. It has consequences. Once Peter says who he believes Jesus to be, Jesus begins to reveal what Messiah actually means—and it isn’t the identity Peter expected. And Peter’s new identity as “the rock” doesn’t mean he suddenly becomes solid and dependable. He will misunderstand, protest, boast, fail and deny. Yet Jesus sees something in Peter that Peter cannot yet see in himself.
That reciprocal naming is extraordinary. It suggests that “Who do you say that I am?” contains another question: If that is who you say I am, then who are you? If Jesus is merely a wise teacher, I can be an admirer. If Jesus is a moral example, I can try to imitate him. If Jesus is Lord, the relationship changes. If Jesus is the crucified and risen Christ – God among us – then perhaps my understanding of power, success, failure, suffering and even death has to change.
This leads me to ask of myself: Who does Jesus say that I am? Not, who does my résumé say I am; who does my family say I am; or who does my success say I am? Not even, who do my failures say I am? Who does Jesus say that I am?
And we can apply this same principle to other aspects of our life. When we choose to follow someone – be it an employer, a financial advisor, a doctor, a lawyer, a political leader, or even a travel guide, we better know the morals, ethics and values of the one we follow. Because who we follow will define who we are and who we become.
Methodist pastor and writer Ted Loder offered a prayer that began with these words: “Holy One, untamed by the names we give you, in the silence name us…” Peter calls Jesus Messiah—but cannot tame Jesus by the name. Jesus calls Simon, Son of Jonah, Peter; and Peter will spend the rest of his life growing into the name Jesus has given him.
Two thousand years of Christianity have accumulated an enormous number of answers about Jesus. Creeds have answered it. Theologians have answered it. Churches have answered it. Artists and poets and musicians have answered it. Saints and sinners have answered it. But none of them can answer it for us.
Jesus still turns to those who would follow him and asks: “But who do you say that I am?” And perhaps before we rush to answer, we might resist Stevens’ mistake. Stop serving for a moment. Stop doing. Stop assuming we already know. Listen, really listen with your ears, your brain, and your heart. Because the one who asks, “Who do you say that I am?” may also be the only one who can finally tell you who you really are.