Sermon — August 27, 2023
The Rev. Greg Johnston
“He asked his disciples, ‘Who do people say that the Son of Man is?’ And they answered…
He said to them, ‘But who do you say that I am?’”
(Matthew 16:13-15)
I wonder: If you walked around Boston and took a poll, asking people the question, “Who do you say that Jesus is?” what do you think the most popular answer would be?
If you answered, “frowning and walking away as quickly as possible, because we don’t talk to strangers here, let alone about religion,” you’d probably be correct. So, let me try again: If you could cast a magic spell that caused the whole population to answer your question as if it were normal, rather than treating you like you’d just started singing show tunes on the subway, and you walked around Boston and asked people the question, “Who do you say that Jesus is?” then which honest answer would win? Would it be “the Messiah, the Son of the Living God?” Would it be “a wise moral teacher, who inspires me to be a better person”? “A historical figure of obvious importance, but not one I follow”? Or would it simply be, “Who cares?”
I’m not very good at conducting religious polls, clearly. But Pew Research is, and if you look at their results, it turns out that “Who cares?” is, in fact, the fastest-growing answer around here. While the majority of people in greater Boston still identify as one flavor of Christian or another, the religiously-unaffiliated “nones” (as in nothing, not as in a wimple) are the single largest religious group. While only 29% call themselves Catholics and about 25% some kind of Protestant, 33% answer that they are religiously unaffiliated. Very few of those are outright atheists, with a clearly-articulated “I don’t believe in God.” Most simply don’t think about it much at all. One in five Bostonians, when asked their religious affiliation, give the answer “nothing in particular.” And to be honest, one in five sounds a little low.[1]
“Who do people say that the Son of Man is?” Well… more and more, the answer is simply a shrug. “But who do you say that I am?” Jesus asks. And that question remains as central to our faith as ever, although the meaning of the answers may have changed.
The ancient world had many problems. But religious apathy wasn’t one of them. “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?” Jesus asks. And people had lots of ideas. (By the way, when Jesus says “the Son of Man” in this passage he just means “me.” I can explain at great length at Lemonade Hour about the Aramaic phrase, if you’d like, but for now just trust me: Jesus is saying, “Who do people say that I am?”) And the disciples answer: some say you’re John the Baptist, returned from the dead. (This is what Herod Antipas said, the Herod who was responsible for killing John the Baptist, when he heard about what Jesus was doing.) Others say that you’re one of the prophets, Elijah or Jeremiah reborn. These seemed like plausible answers to the people of the time, reasonable ways of trying to explain who this charismatic young man is. It seems that nobody really knew yet who Jesus really was and what he was there to do.
But when Jesus asks the disciples, “Who do you say that I am?” Peter’s answer is clear. “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.” (Mt 16:16) You are the one we’ve been waiting for, all of our lives: the Anointed King, the descendant of King David, the one who will deliver our people from Roman rule and set us free. And you’re not just the Messiah: You’re the Son of the living God.
Caesarea Philippi is a carefully-named place, and Jesus chose it for its symbolism. It’s not the more famous Caesarea, the one we all know (right?), the actual Roman political capital down on the coast where Pontius Pilate and his soldiers spent most of the year. It’s just a small town in the north. But it’s named for two powerful men. It’s named Caesarea for Caesar Octavian Augustus, the adopted son of Julius Caesar and the first true emperor of Rome. And it’s named Philippi for its founder, Philip the Tetrarch, one of the four sons of King Herod. After Caesar’s death, Octavian had encouraged the Senate to proclaim that Caesar had been divinized, he had become a god; and Octavian adopted the title “son of god,” which may sound familiar. For their part, Herod and his sons were seen as illegitimate rulers by many of their Jewish subjects, who believed that only God, not Rome, had the power to make someone king. They might be called King Herod or Philip the Tetrarch, but neither of them was the Messiah, God’s chosen king.
So for Jesus to stand outside the gates of Caesarea Philippi and to ask Peter, “Who do you say that I am?” and for Peter to answer “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God” is a pretty radical act. “You are the Messiah,” our rightful king, not Herod or his sons. You are the true Son of the living God, not the son of a dead emperor falsely proclaimed to be a god.
No wonder Jesus calls him Peter, “rock” in Greek. You can’t be soft if you’re going to go up against Rome. Because this wasn’t a question about private religious belief or late-night wondering about who Jesus was. This was a big theological and political claim, a challenge to the legitimacy of Roman rule. This is the kind of thing that really mattered in the ancient world. This is what got Jesus killed.
But—I’m happy to say, we don’t live in ancient Rome. We live in modern America. And while Americans do get unusually devoted to politicians, we haven’t yet started worshiping them as gods. So what does all of this matter to us?
Jesus’ question isn’t just about who Jesus is, in that particular context. It’s about who Jesus is, in general. And what Jesus says to Peter isn’t just about who Peter is: it actually tells us something about who we are, too, and who exactly it is that Jesus can be for us.
Jesus gives Peter three gifts. He tells him three things about who he is and who he, as the leader of the church, will be. Jesus gives Peter the gifts of community, hope, and forgiveness; and through Peter, he gives those gifts to us. He gives Peter the gift of community through the foundation of the church, the creation of a body and an institution that’s distinct from the family or the city or the nation, a global and universal body that lives—at its best—according to the values of love. He gives Peter the gift of hope through the promise that “the gates of Hades will not prevail against it,” and this is an interesting claim. Are the gates of Hades there to keep us out, to separate us from any connection with those who’ve died? Or are they there to keep their souls in, to keep them buried forever without the chance of new life? In either case, Jesus offers the Christian hope of the resurrection, the promise that we will one day rise again, and live again with all those we have lost and with God. And finally, Jesus gives Peter the gift of forgiveness, the power of the keys, the loosing and binding that have traditionally been interpreted through the Church’s practices of confession, forgiveness, and reconciliation. And while the symbolic power of Peter’s stand against Rome may have faded with time, these three gifts that Jesus offers in return have remained.
And we still need all three. In a world in which TV news and social media have made us feel more and more isolated from each other even as we’re more and more connected to the whole world, we need real community at least as much as Peter did. In a world in which the grief and pain of loss are as real and as powerful as they have ever been, we need hope as much as Peter did. In a world in which every mistake can be recorded by a thousand cameras, in which it’s easier to wash our hands of each other and walk away than to work through a conflict, we need to learn the practices of forgiveness and reconciliation as much as human beings ever have.
And these aren’t just nice things to do that are basically detached from the question of who Jesus is. Because if Jesus is the Messiah, and not King Herod, then the kingdom to which we owe our allegiance is a community founded on peace and love, not violence and strength. If Jesus, not Octavian, is the Son of God, then his compassion, not the Emperor’s power, is the ultimate source of judgment or forgiveness. If Jesus truly is the Son of God, in the end his love can conquer anything, even death itself. In other words, who Jesus is actually matters quite a lot to who we are and what we do.
So who do you say that Jesus is? And, maybe even more importantly, how does that answer change the way you live your life? Does it make a difference if you believe that Jesus not only taught you to love, but also has the power to forgive your failures to love? Does it make a difference if you believe that Jesus not only lived and died long ago and far away, but that you’ll see him one day face to face? Who do you say that Jesus is? And what difference does it make?
[1] Pew Research Religious Landscape Study, “Adults in the Boston metro area,” https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/religious-landscape-study/metro-area/boston-metro-area/.