How shall we hear these questions today? What do we see going on here? Do we see Jesus giving a pop quiz or giving a mid-term examination? (If so, then Jesus fulfills the secret desire of almost all preachers- the desire to quiz the congregation to find out just how well they have been paying attention.)

Or, could Jesus be taking a straw poll, in political fashion, to find out how well he's doing among the locals, and to find out just what his closest followers actually say about him?

This story, a slightly revised and expanded version of its source in Mark's Gospel, does, indeed, serve a practical purpose here in Matthew. But it is not for the purpose of assessing the disciples attention span or taking the political temperature of the impact of Jesus' message. These questions have to do with identity, faith identity.

Two weeks ago, in the fourteenth chapter of Matthew, we heard about Jesus walking on the water and calming the wind and waves battering the disciples' boat. As he climbs into the boat, after pulling Simon Peter up from sinking, we see that the disciples already recognize Jesus for "who he is:" "Truly you are the Son of God!" they say. So in a very real sense, this acclamation by Peter just two chapters later is redundant; he's saying something that they, as followers (and we, as readers) already know.

We see, then, that this is not a quiz, nor a mid-term examination. Matthew has something else in mind in setting the story up this way.

Remember that little rule of thumb I've shared with you before about listening to Gospel stories, that Peter is us, and we are Peter? If we place ourselves in the place of Peter in this story we will have something absolutely life changing to consider.

"Who do people say that the Son of Man is?" and "Who do you say that I am?" should strike us as serious questions, even to this day. Consider the first one: "Who do people say that the Son of Man is?" I would love to have the youth group take a video camera out to Haywood Mall or Greenville Mall sometime and randomly ask people that question. Can you imagine the variety of answers they'd hear before getting tossed out by security?

How would the media answer that question? How do they answer it now, whenever they find themselves in a position to talk about Jesus- at Christmas season, or around the time of Palm Sunday, Good Friday or Easter?

How do you think your friends, or neighbors, or family members might respond to that question? Now please, do not think that if your family, friends or neighbors wouldn't say what Peter says that I'm going to hold you accountable for that lack on their part, or try to make you feel guilty for not having said something to them sooner about Jesus.

Many years ago, at about the age of eleven or twelve, my best friends that I hung out with all lived in a poor part of my hometown that many of the locals called "little Kentucky." Most of my friend's families had moved from one particular town in Kentucky to my town, so that their Dads could take a high-paying, but very dangerous, job in one of the iron foundries in our area.

Now, my parents never spoke this way about these boys or their families, but honestly, it took a few times for me to figure out what other folks in my church meant when they spoke about "white trash." It actually took several times of hearing that phrase for me to figure out that they meant my friends when they said that, that's how naive I was.

One day, while walking back from the beach with my neighborhood friends, Mr. Easter yelled at us boys, and at me specifically. Mr. Easter had at one worked as a maintenance man at the local Bible camp and conference center. There he swept and maintained the many buildings and worship spaces where various fundamentalist religious groups from across the country would come to my hometown to use, a different group each week from Memorial Day to Labor Day, for their annual summer conference.

Whenever we boys got bored playing around the neighborhood, we would walk or ride our bikes down the Ninth Street hill onto the Bible conference grounds and slip into one of those buildings to see what kind of fun we could make for ourselves. That is, until Mr. Easter found us and ran us off.

Now, Mr. Easter was a God-fearing, Christian man, who knew my parents. His wife and my mother were very good friends. But for someone who had Jesus in his life, and a name like Easter, he was the grumpiest old man I had ever met, Christian or not. And this particular day that my friends and I were returning from the beach, Mr. Easter, who had retired by now, was out in front of his house sweeping the street, as had become his custom.

Now the street wasn't particularly dirty in front of his house. He lived only a few blocks from our house, and further away from Little Kentucky than us. But since he retired, he had to have something to do with his big broom. So he kept the forty or fifty feet of the street in front of his home as clean as one would ever need it. And he swept it almost everyday, if not everyday.

Well, while we passed by, on other side of the street, several of my friends yelled catcalls at Mr. Easter- saying something about "old baldy" this and "grouchy old" that. And he fussed back at them, saying something about "not respecting your elders," and "wait 'til you get older," and so on.

But I knew Mr. Easter, and he knew my parents. Believe it or not, I kept my mouth shut about him; but he did not, when he recognized me. He saw me with those boys, and in a loud booming voice, Mr. Easter yelled at me,

"Why don't you tell them about the Christ, Dombek?"

Now remember, I was probably eleven or twelve years old. And I felt humiliated. He wanted to make me feel that I wasn't being a good Christian because I hadn't sat my white trash friends down and played Billy Graham Evangelistic Rally with them (Billy Graham was a regular visitor to my hometown, after all). He reasoned that if they had Jesus they'd be better boys, like I should be. And at the time, I felt he was right; I felt it would be my fault if they didn't hear about Jesus.

"Who do people say that the Son of Man is?" asks Jesus. Notice that Jesus himself didn't berate his disciples because the other people, the people that they had been talking to while following Jesus, didn't give the "right answer." Jesus just listened to them, and listen to the people's answers. We, too, should learn to listen to how people speak about Jesus; the variety of opinions and conceptions will stagger us. But this first question obviously leads to the second one: "Who do you say that I am?" To this question we actually have a say about the answer, because ultimately each one of us has to answer this question.

This also is a question of identity, not only in the notion of "do we recognize who Jesus is?" but more importantly, "Who do we claim to be, given our answer to that question?" Remember: Peter is us, we are Peter. If we answer along with Peter, "You are the Messiah (the Christ, in Greek), the Son of the living God," then we have said something as equally important about ourselves as we have about Jesus. We have told the world that we follow Jesus of Nazareth, the Crucified and Risen One. That is a life-changing announcement of our identity. Those who say along with Peter, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God," claim a new identity. And that new identity places one in a new community, which is the church. The church is the community that takes those who say, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God," and begins to shape them and empower them to express that truth in their lives for the rest of their lives.

By the witness of those lives- by the Gospel of our lives- others do come to know who the Son of Man is. If we truly mean it when we say, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God," then we have willingly accepted a God given task to further the work of that community of love, whose members bear the name "little Christ" (Christian) on their foreheads.

If we share our love of Christ with others by our actions, by our ministry-whatever it may be-by our service, others will, indeed, mark my words, come to know Christ through our loving actions. And the gates of hell cannot prevail against self-giving love. Hell freezes over when we love one another as Christ has loved us.

I love the quote that I've seen a number of times in the past year, Attributed to St. Francis of Assisi: "Share the Gospel with everyone; use words when necessary."

Honestly, I never shared the Gospel using words with my boyhood friends. Not because I invoked the wisdom of that quote, but because I never felt comfortable doing it, nor did I feel called to do that.

But I did feel that by accepting my friends for who they were, as human beings and not as "white trash," I could do more to introduce them to Christ that way than brow beating them into reciting the sinner's prayer would do.

Human souls must not to be collected like spiritual scalps or notches made in the wood of the cross counting saved sinners- "Look, I got another one!" Human beings are to be loved by us with the heart of Christ, who lived a life of self-giving love, and taught us to so love others.

So that one day, alongside Peter and all of us, our neighbors, too, shall say of Jesus, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God." And on that day we shall rejoice in his most loving reply, "Blessed are you my sons, my daughters, for flesh and blood have not revealed this to you, but my Father in heaven."

The Rev'd Timothy M. Dombek
ST. JAMES EPISCOPAL CHURCH
301 Piney Mountain Road
Greenville, SC 29609-3035
(864) 244-6358
timothy@stjamesgreenville.org

Copyright © 2002 Timothy M. Dombek All Rights Reserved.