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Exodus 1:8 to 2:10
Matthew 16: 13-20
A couple of years ago, my friend Jennie was sitting in my living room and got this confused look on her face. I should tell you that I have lots of icons around the apartment, and she was looking at this big one, like she had never seen such a thing before. She asked me who it was. Funny, I thought it was kind of obvious that it was Jesus, and when I told her, she said it didn’t really look like him. He looked too, I don’t know, Semitic or something. Kind of like in the credit card commercial, when Tony Bennett tries to pay for something with a check, and the clerk asks for some identification.
Twice this past week, I’ve been in the position of producing various forms of identification – my driver’s license, social security card, and so on, in order to obtain still other forms of ID cards. In each case, I found myself wondering about our process for establishing identity and my conversation with Barbara, and this conversation between Jesus and the disciples.
In the first reading, we see how Moses is rescued by a daughter of the Pharaoh, and is given a name. Do you ever wonder what his mother called him for the first three months of his life, though? It couldn’t have just been ‘little baby boy,’ right? Yet for all that he was brought up and educated in the royal household, it seems that he always retained some sense that his core identity numbered him among the Hebrew people. Perhaps it was that his mother, who served as his wet-nurse after his rescue, stayed on in the household, or that his sister maintained some sort of contact with him. That connection with his own people, along with the extraordinary miracle of his survival in Egypt, in the Pharaoh’s family (!) in the face of enormous adversity, points to the continued loving intrusion – even interference – of God into human affairs, points to God’s fidelity to the living and enduring covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and the whole people of Israel.
The conversation in the Gospel reading about identity occurs at a significant point, in the midst of situations that refer back to that Abrahamic covenant and to God’s continued interest in, and love for, humanity. We’re more than halfway through Matthew’s gospel; --- a few lines ago, Jesus just cured the daughter of the foreigner - the Canaanite woman. After that, Matthew wrote that after leaving that region, Jesus took the road by the Sea of Galilee and went up to the hills. When he was seated there, crowds flocked to him, bringing with them the lame, blind, dumb, and crippled, and many other sufferers; they threw them down at his feet and he healed them. The people were amazed to see the dumb speaking, the crippled strong, the lame walking, and sight restored to the blind; and they all gave glory to the God of Israel!
Later on, with only seven loaves and a few fishes, he fed four thousand men, to say nothing of the women and children. And as if this was not a sufficient sign, the Pharisees and Sadducees asked him for a sign from heaven.
It seems so odd to us that, after the miracles of healing and feeding the people, the religious leaders asked him for a sign. It was, though, an age of miracles, and signs, and wonders. They were expected, in a way. Over the centuries, there were wonderworking rabbis – masters of the Name, they were called – a ‘baal shem tov’ – who performed similar signs among the Jewish people. They healed, restored life, prophesied, and so on. There was a ‘magical’ sense in religion, that somehow, by knowing the true Name of God, one might control God and nature. The founder of modern Hasidism, Israel Baal Shem Tov, was one of these. So, although Jesus seemed to be operating on his own authority, still the religious leaders were looking for something more.
In the end, he promised them nothing but the Sign of Jonah, that is, the sign of his own resurrection, and thus too, the sign of God’s eternal love for us. The sign from heaven is more than that resurrection as well – pointing to the plain fact that Christianity has survived. Paul had the sense that the church, the people of God, is in fact, in some way, the resurrection body of Christ – that we the church are living in post-resurrection time, and that we actualize the resurrection in our own bodies. Even now, in post-Christian secular societies throughout the world, Christians continue to pray and glorify God, and that the Word of God and God’s free gift of the covenant, continues to give life and meaning to people across the world.
After his confrontation with the Pharisees and Sadducees, he warned his disciples to beware of the leaven of Herod, and of the Pharisees. Mystified, confused, no doubt they must have been asking themselves, ‘who is this guy anyway?’ Now, entering the Gentile territory of Caesarea Philippi, away from the crowds, and assured of a little privacy, Jesus asks this 64 thousand dollar question.
He poses the same question to us today. Who do you say that I am?
Who do we say that he is? Like the disciples, we have seen his work in our lives, in our faith communities, and in our society; and we have seen his teachings and ideals realized in the lives and work of people like Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela, and Mother Theresa. Like the disciples, we have seen him misunderstood and misinterpreted by those who are more concerned with the word than the spirit of the law.
What of Peter’s prophetic assertion that he is the Messiah, the son of the living God? Would we have said that, after having been present with him for the first fifteen chapters of Matthew’s gospel? Jesus said that ‘mere flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father in heaven.’ About why God chose the Hebrew people in the first place, or Moses in Egypt, we can only speculate. Why God chose Abraham, or Moses, or Joshua, Saul, or David to lead the people for a time, likewise, is not for us to know. Nor can we know why it was Peter among the twelve who vocalized this revelation. What’s important, though, is the truth of God’s personal revelation in these circumstances; for it is only through God’s grace that we can begin to grasp the truth of Christ’s divinity. This realization, this intrusion into each of our lives, changes us, changes our way of thinking and seeing, or way of acting. It moves the act of theology from the head to the heart, so that we no longer simply think about God, but we live in God and with God, whose indwelling we consciously perceive. Recall Paul’s notion of the people of the church as the resurrection body of Christ; for that matter, recall the popular idea of the church as the ‘mystical body of Christ.’
There, in that Gentile territory, it was Jesus who called attention to Peter’s rock-solid faith, and told him that it was on just this rock-solid faith that the church would be built. The statement about the keys, and binding and loosing, recalls the rabbinic faculty to interpret and rule on matters having to do with the law. A bit of milk is accidentally spilled into a stew, for example; must the whole pot of stew be thrown out? A decision like this must be made with the heart, not with the head – it’s really about the spirit of the law and not the letter. In Peter’s case, you may recall, along about the time that he met Cornelius the Centurion, he came to understand that gentiles should not be bound by the law, and that all food is clean. By ruling in this way, with his heart, he opened the life and freedom of the faith to the Gentile people, and expanded the scope of participation in the covenant beyond the borders of the Hebrew people. And more than that, he shows that leadership should be exercised in the Christian community in order to include rather than exclude, and to affirm rather than deny.
You know, there are some modern writers who would propose that all these Bible stories – the many healings, the resurrection, the identification of Jesus as Lord and God and Redeemer – are merely primitive interpretations or tropes of self-evident ethical principles. They suggest that a new ‘rational’ Christianity will soon emerge – a ‘reconstructed, modern’ Christianity without resurrection, or miracles, or sin, or sacraments, or forgiveness, or the transforming power of conversion and deification – to speak to the needs and experience of modern people. In this view, Christianity, purged of its unique characteristics, purged of its heart, is nothing more than one among many absolutely equivalent ethical systems that urge us to do good and avoid evil. They propose that the reward of good works is in the doing of the good works themselves and in social approbation. For them, God is no longer seen as dwelling within and among the people, but rather, perhaps, observing sympathetically from a distance.
This fails, in so many ways, to speak to our deepest needs – for intimacy, for relationship, for love, for clarity, for the gift of covenant, of mutual giving: as when God said ‘you will be my people, and I will be your God.’ God’s intrusion into our lives, through faith and rooted in faith and love, in effect ensures the survival of the church as the people of God.
In so many ways, it seems that a new year begins in the Fall, with the beginning of the school year. Parishes that have summer schedules return to business as usual, the choirs return, and the Sunday schools begin a new term. The Jewish New Year will be celebrated shortly, and in the Eastern Orthodox calendar, the beginning of the church year is September first. As we move forward into this new year, let us pray for one another and with one another, that we will act in the consciousness of God’s eternal love and indwelling life in and among us.
Let us pray for an increase of faith, compassion, sanity, and charity for ourselves and for the church; and let us pray that sincere people of faith may be delivered from degradation and oppression. In our relationships and in this community, we are the hands and heart of God, helping and loving one another as Christ loves us. Let us be open to God’s word and presence in our hearts, homes and community; pray for discernment to hear that word, and for the wisdom, strength, and courage to respond with eagerness and faith.
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