Will the real Jesus please stand up.

Sermon Notes 23rd August
Matthew 16:13-20 by Desiree Snyman 

Will the real Jesus please stand up? So began a memorable lecture on the historical Jesus some thirty years ago. Who is Jesus the Christ? At some point in our spiritual evolution, we all have to face the question on who Jesus is for us. Only you can answer it. 

If you struggle and wrestle with the question who Jesus is, who the real Jesus is, is he divine, is he human, how and why does Jesus save, you are not alone. The creed for example says very briefly, I believe in Creator God, source of all that is, seen and unseen. Equally briefly are statements about belief in the Holy Spirit, and the church. But notice how complicated and dense statements of belief in the Jesus are: God from God, light from light, true God from true God, begotten not made.  

Will the real Jesus please stand up? Who is Jesus the Christ? At some point we all have to face the question on who Jesus is for us. Only you can answer it. I wonder how St Bartholomew, our patronal saint, answered the question. I wonder if his answer wavered. Bartholomew’s answer to the question who Jesus is must have provided something quite powerful as Bartholomew helped start church communities and was willing to face death for his convictions. It is a medieval legend captured in Michelangelo’s art that suggests that he was skinned alive before being beheaded. Bartholomew was one of Jesus’ twelve apostles, traditionally identified with Nathanael of Cana. Initially sceptical about Jesus, he responded to Philip’s invitation to “come and see.” Jesus described him as “an Israelite in whom there is no guile” (John 1:47). His feast day is 24 August. (Alongside St Bartholomew Michelangelo, detail from The Last Judgement, Sistine Chapel, Vatican City.) 

Will the real Jesus please stand up? Who is Jesus the Christ? The question is asked in the middle of Matthew’s Gospel. Jesus moves from the general to the particular. He first invites reflection on how others view him, to which his friends reply, some say John the Baptist (i.e. Herod), others says one of the prophets like Elijah or Jeremiah. Jesus then insists that they face him and see him truly, “but you, who do you say that I am”.  

I-it to I thou: I imagine that the disciples pause and really look at the reality of the human in front of them. This is a pivotal moment in relationships. We often look at people with a surface glance. Or we relate to them as projections of our fears or hopes. Or worse, we relate to people as commodities, there to fulfil our perceived needs, even our need to be needed. We think we already know who they are. We relate to them through our own pre-existing ideas.(e.g. They are Jewish therefore they are like this). Sometimes transference happens. Transference is when feelings, expectations and emotional patterns formed in earlier significant relationships are unconsciously transferred onto someone in the present. It is especially noticeable in relationships where one person carries symbolic or emotional authority, such as a therapist, priest, doctor or teacher. Every now and again we can be shocked into seeing, no, gazing at the mystery and reality of who people really are. This is beholding. Marin Buber talks about how we can move from I–it relationships to I–Thou relationships. In I-it relationships another person is an object. In I-Thou relationships a genuine encounter happens, the person is other, irreducible to my understanding of you. 

Will the real Jesus please stand up? Who is Jesus the Christ. Peter is a symbol of all disciples. He answers Jesus on behalf of disciples then and now: “You are the Son of the Living God, the Messiah”. The term Messiah or Christ is used for the first time. The term ecclesia or church is also used for the first time. The encounter is political and mystical. 

Political:  It is political because Augustus Caesar was described as Son of God. An inscription in Priene on the west coast of Turkey describes the evangelion or Gospel or good tidings that Augustus, son of God, saviour, lord, is the one who brought peace to earth. There is an anti-imperial tone to Peter’s answer. Jesus not Caesar is lord. Jesus not Caesar defines reality. (Alongside is the Priene Calendar inscription. See en.wikipedia.org). 

Mystical: Messiah, pronounced Messi-hah, is the Aramaic term for Christ. Aramaic is a fairly primitive language, using body posture and breath to convey meaning. Messi-hah ends with an expulsion of outbreath. The outbreath is a core piece of the meaning of the term. Messi-hah is often defined as anointing or anointed one. Peter is saying you Jesus are the Messi-hah. In you Jesus, I see the miracle of God’s ongoing outbreath living in you right now. Paul uses the Greek term Kristos which also has an explosion of outbreath. In Aramaic Messi-hah is more a verb, it is an eternal now. The messi-hah or the Christ is eternal, it has always been and will always be and the whole universe comes into existence through this Christ. What we see in Jesus is a unique embodiment of the eternal Christ, the Messiah. Jesus uniquely embodies and reveals who the eternal Christ is. Peter looks into the historical humanity of Jesus, a person who was born (4 BCE), lived and died (29 BCE), and sees an eternal aspect, Christ. Jesus is not simply identical with the concept “Christ” in the sense that Christ begins when Jesus is born. Rather, Jesus uniquely embodies and reveals the eternal Christ who “has always been and will always be.” The eternal divine presence becoming radically visible and embodied within human existence. 

Stone: Jesus then calls Peter rock or stone. There is beautiful mutuality here as Peter blesses Jesus saying he sees him as embodying divinity as the Messi-hah. Jesus then blesses Peter by calling him stone. Stone is an incorruptible substance. The holy vessels in the temple were made of stone because stone does not take on the stain of any sin, it has no contamination. Peter stands for all of us. Jesus says to each of us, “You are stone. At the heart of who you are is something of God that cannot be destroyed. Nothing you do can take that away. You may forget it. You may run from it. You may bury it beneath all kinds of choices, attitudes and behaviours. You may even need to undertake an archaeological dig to uncover it again. But it remains. Beneath everything else, this is who you are.” 

Will the real Jesus stand up? Who is Jesus the Christ? At some point we all have to face the question on who Jesus is for us. Only you can answer it. Who is Jesus the Christ for you. I suggest that our doctrines are less philosophical statements of belief and more invitations to spiritual practice that is personal, communal, practical, and transformative. What might the doctrine of Jesus the Christ mean for living? Christian discipleship means allowing that same pattern of divine life, death, transformation and new life we see in Jesus the Christ to become embodied in us. Who Jesus is for us becomes a spirituality of transformation. 

Jesus says to Peter and to each of us that we are made of stone, we are made of the incorruptible substance of God. It reminds me of Thomas Merton’s experience when he said: “At the centre of our being is a point of nothingness which is untouched by sin and by illusion, a point of pure truth, a point or spark which belongs entirely to God, which is never at our disposal, from which God disposes of our lives, which is inaccessible to the fantasies of our own mind or the brutalities of our own will. This little point of nothingness and of absolute poverty is the pure glory of God in us. It is so to speak [God’s] name written in us, as our poverty, as our indigence, as our dependence, as our sonship [and daughtership]. It is like a pure diamond, blazing with the invisible light of heaven. It is in everybody, and if we could see it we would see these billions of points of light coming together in the face and blaze of a sun that would make all the darkness and cruelty of life vanish completely . . . . I have no program for this seeing. It is only given. But the gate of heaven is everywhere.” Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander, published in 1966, pp. 140–142.