Who Do Y’all Say That I Am?

Jesus asks: "Who do y'all say that I am?"
Our response has less to do with what we say and more to do with how we live, move, and have our being in God!

Exodus 1:8-2:10
Psalm 124
Romans 12:1-8
Matthew 16:13-20

This sermon was preached on the 13th Sunday after Pentecost (Proper 16, Year A) at the Episcopal Church of the Holy Apostles in Hoover, AL. A video of the sermon may be found here.

Holy God, may my words be your words, and when my words are not your words, may your people be wise enough to know the same. Amen.

At the core of today’s Gospel lesson lies perhaps the most important question we may ever answer.
Jesus asks:
“Who do you say that I am?”

And we may already have the perfect reply.
We might even have said it together just a few moments ago when the Gospel concluded:
“Praise to you, Lord Christ.”

We know the Sunday School answer.
Jesus.
Jesus.
It is always Jesus.

But before we imagine that we have somehow discovered the golden-ticket response, perhaps Jesus’ question asks more of us than what we can say with our lips.
Perhaps the deepest answer is what we profess with our lives.

Parker Palmer wrote a beautiful little book called Let Your Life Speak.
And maybe that title gives us a way into today’s Gospel.
Let your life speak.

Because our lives are always saying something about what we believe matters most.
What gets our attention.
What we fear.
What we protect.
Whom we notice.
Whom we ignore.
What we pursue.
What we cling to.
What we are willing to give away.

And even before we look Jesus in the eye to answer him, we need to look down.
We need to notice the ground upon which Jesus asks the question.

Last week Jesus had traveled into the region of Tyre and Sidon, already well beyond the places where we usually imagine his ministry taking place.
Now Jesus and the disciples have gone even farther afield.
They are roughly twenty-five miles north of Galilee, near the headwaters of the Jordan River.
They have come to Caesarea Philippi.

And location matters.

The city bears the names of powerful men.
Caesarea—for Caesar.
Philippi—for Philip the tetrarch, one of the sons of Herod the Great who governed this region.

It was an administrative center.
A crossroads.
A place of trade.
A place saturated with Greco-Roman culture.
Nearby stood a sanctuary associated with the god Pan.
Imperial religion proclaimed the greatness, and even the divinity, of Rome’s rulers.

This is not Jerusalem.
This is not even Galilee.

Jesus asks a question about divine identity in a place where the landscape itself is already offering answers about who is in charge.

Caesar says: power.
The marketplace says: wealth.
Empire says: domination.
State-sanctioned religion says: control.

And really, that does not feel very far removed from our own world.

Our world already has its answers too.
Success will save you.
Money will save you.
Winning will save you.
Being on the right side will save you.
Getting enough power will save you.
Having the right people in charge will save you.
Building enough walls will save you.
Being admired, secure, influential, productive, or correct will save you.

So into a world already crowded with answers, Jesus asks:
“Who do people say that the Son of Man is?”

And the disciples report what they have heard.
John the Baptist.
Elijah.
Jeremiah.
One of the prophets.

And none of those answers is foolish.

John the Baptist stood before corrupt power and told the truth even when truth-telling cost him his life.

Elijah represented the hope that God was about to act decisively.
That God’s reign was breaking into history.

Jeremiah knew rejection and suffering and still proclaimed that devastation would not get the final word.
That God had not abandoned God’s people.

People are looking at Jesus and saying:
There is something prophetic happening here.

And they are right.

But they are not yet all the way there.

Because Jesus is not simply another prophet pointing toward God’s chosen one.
Jesus himself is the Anointed One.
The Messiah.
The Christ.

He stands in the prophetic tradition, yes.
But he is also the one anointed.
Prophet and king.
The one announcing God’s reign and the one embodying it.

And so Jesus presses further:
“But who do you say that I am?”

Except English hides something from us here.

Jesus does not ask:
“Who do you, Simon Peter, personally say that I am?”

The Greek is plural.

Jesus asks:
“Who do y’all say that I am?”

Finally, Jesus sounds properly Southern.

Who do y’all say that I am?

It is a question for the whole community.
For the disciples.
For the movement.
For the Church.

And Peter, whose confidence regularly outruns his understanding, steps forward as spokesperson and—remarkably—gets this one right.

“You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.”

And Jesus says:
Blessed are you, Simon.

Flesh and blood did not reveal this to you.
God did.

Peter did not reason his way into the right answer.
He did not pass a theology exam.
He did not successfully defend a dissertation.

This is revelation.
Grace.
A glimpse of something Peter himself does not yet fully understand.

And Jesus gives Simon a name:
Peter.
Rock.

Then comes the wordplay:
“On this rock I will build my church.”

And perhaps that should comfort all of us.
Because the church Jesus builds is made out of people like Peter.

People who sometimes say the right thing before they understand what they have said.
People who confess beautifully and misunderstand spectacularly.
People who are bold in faith and just as bold in being wrong.

And that brings us to one of the strangest lines in this passage.

After Peter gets the answer right, Jesus orders the disciples not to tell anyone that he is the Messiah.

Why?

Why keep that secret?

Perhaps because they have the right answer and the wrong definition.

The lectionary politely ends today at verse twenty.
But if we kept reading, Jesus would immediately begin explaining what Messiah actually means.

He will go to Jerusalem.
He will suffer.
He will be rejected.
He will be killed.
And he will rise.

And Peter says:
No.
Absolutely not.
That cannot happen to you.

Peter knows who Jesus is.
But he does not yet understand what kind of Messiah Jesus is.

He has the right title and the wrong working definition.

And I think that is why the silence matters.

Do not go shouting “Messiah” until you understand what you are proclaiming.

Do not use the name of Jesus to baptize whatever kind of power you already wanted.

Do not take Christ and simply turn him into a stronger Caesar,
a better empire,
a holier political machine,
a more righteous form of domination.

Because Jesus does not save through magic.
Jesus does not save through political might.
Jesus does not save through religious authority.
Jesus does not save through coercion.
Jesus does not save through domination.
Jesus does not save through fear.

Jesus does not save by becoming better at the world’s games of power.

The power of God revealed in Jesus looks different.

Self-giving love.
Mercy.
Service.
Truth-telling.
Forgiveness.
Suffering alongside those who suffer.

A cross.

And beyond the cross, resurrection.

That is the Messiah we follow.

And friends, maybe that is why Jesus’ question is not primarily a question about what we can say.

“Who do y’all say that I am?”

The answer is not simply found in our lips.
It is not found merely in where we worship on Sunday mornings.
It is not proven by how “good” we imagine ourselves to be.
It is not settled by how successful the world thinks we are.

It is not proven by how smart, wise, caring, creative, loyal, happy, domineering, peaceful, or accomplished we are.

Because none of those things, by themselves, is the Gospel.

The question is deeper.

What do our lives say about who we believe Jesus is?

Because later in Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus will make this painfully concrete.

I was hungry, and you gave me food.
I was thirsty, and you gave me something to drink.
I was a stranger, and you welcomed me.
I was sick, and you cared for me.
I was imprisoned, and you visited me.

And the righteous are confused.

When did we ever see you?

And Jesus says, in effect:
When you saw them.

When you encountered the person the world had overlooked, discarded, feared, or forgotten—
there I was.

So perhaps today’s question,
“Who do y’all say that I am?”
eventually becomes another:

“Where are y’all willing to recognize me?”

Can we see Christ in the stranger?
Christ in the hungry?
Christ in the lonely?
Christ in the frightened?
Christ in the person whose life makes little sense to us?
Christ in the person everyone else has decided is disposable?

Can we see Christ even in ourselves?

And here is the grace.

Peter does not understand all of this yet.
Not even close.

He will sink.
He will rebuke Jesus.
He will deny Jesus.

And Jesus will keep calling him.
Keep catching him.
Keep forgiving him.
Keep forming him.

Which means Jesus’ question is not a final exam we get one opportunity to pass.

Christ asks again.

And again.

And again.

Who do y’all say that I am?

We answer today.
We answer tomorrow.
We answer when our faith is great.
We answer when we are sinking.

And every time this imperfect community chooses generosity over scarcity,
community over isolation,
mercy over judgment,
service over domination,
love over fear—
our lives begin to answer.

Not perfectly.

Peter did not answer perfectly.
The disciples did not.
The Church certainly has not.

But Christ keeps gathering us.
Christ keeps teaching us.
Christ keeps catching us when we sink.

And perhaps, little by little, our lives begin to catch up with the confession our mouths already know.

So when the world asks:
Who do y’all say that Jesus is?

May our answer not only be something they hear.

May it be something they can see.
Something they can feel.
Something they can recognize in the way we live together.

Jesus, you are the Messiah.
The Son of the living God.
The One whose way is love.

Let our lives speak.

Amen.