In our Gospel reading for this morning Jesus poses two questions to his disciples. “Who do people say that I am?” and “Who do you say that I am?” [pause] “Who do people say that I am?” and “Who do you say that I am?” As I sat with this text this week, those two questions kept rolling around in my mind.
I recently read an article with the shock-worthy title: “More Teens Becoming ‘Fake’ Christians.” The article was based on a book by Kenda Dean, a professor at Princeton Theological Seminary. Dean argued that kids are walking away from the church because they are being taught a “mutant” form of Christianity which Dean called “moralistic therapeutic deism,” which is fancy theologian talk essentially meaning this view of God as some kind of a “divine therapist” whose chief goal is to boost people’s self-esteem. Dean drew these conclusions from a study where she interviewed 33 hundred Christian teens. From these interviews she found that though three out of four teens claim to be Christian, only half practice their faith, less than half think it’s important, and most could not articulate what they believed. Most teens surveyed felt God simply wanted them to feel good and be good.
Dean called the research, “the most depressing summer of her life,” remarking, “If this is the God they're seeing in church, they are right to leave us in the dust. Churches don't give them enough to be passionate about.” Elizabeth Corrie, a professor at Emory Theological Seminary, agrees with Dean, saying that “teens want to be challenged; they want their tough questions taken on.” Corrie remarked in the article, “We think that they want cake, but they actually want steak and potatoes, and we keep giving them cake.”
Dean did interview some teens who were passionate about their faith. Among those youth Dean noticed four distinct characteristics. First, they had a passionate story about God they could share. Second, they had a deep connection to a faith community. Third, they felt a sense of purpose in their lives. And fourth, they felt a sense of hope.
Dean’s study focused specifically on American teenagers, but her findings kept coming back to me as I wrestled with the texts for this morning where Jesus essentially asked his disciples, “What do you believe about me?” Could I do any better than the kids Dean interviewed in articulating my own faith? Did the disciples? Did Peter? What would I answer, what would you answer, if Jesus posed the question to you, “Who do you say that I am?”
What Jesus is asking the disciples about this morning is about confession. Now, because the English language is not at all confusing (sarcasm), we use the word confession twice in worship and mean two completely different things. We used it in the confession and forgiveness at the beginning of the service, where we confess, we admit, our sins, and hear God’s forgiveness. And then after the sermon, when it is time for the Apostles’ Creed, I will invite you to “Join with the whole church in confessing our faith.” Confession there means to make a statement of belief. It is this second kind of confession Jesus is talking about in the reading, he’s asking the disciples what professions people are making about Jesus, and what the disciples themselves believe to be true about Jesus.
Peter answered Jesus, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the Living God.” And Jesus called Peter a rock, the rock on whom Jesus would build the church. A foundation so strong that even the gates of hell itself would not prevail against it. So clearly Peter got the answer right. He passed the “recognizing Jesus as God” litmus test and got all the powers and the glory that come with it.
Except, here’s the thing about Peter and this pronouncement by Jesus that Peter is the rock of the church, Peter is like the wishy-washiest rock you ever saw. He’s like that one stone in a creek that looks all stable until you reach it, and then as soon as you step on it, it shifts to the side and dumps you on your knees in the water. Spoiler alert: next week we will read the very next scene in the Gospel where Jesus is foretelling the crucifixion, and Peter totally gets it wrong, to the point where Jesus has to finally turn around and essentially tell Peter off. So make sure to tune in next week for another exciting installment of Peter: Not the Stablest Rock.
But this week Peter made a confession of faith, and Jesus praised him for that. And even with Peter’s constant failings and misunderstandings, he got to keep the nickname. I’ve been calling him Peter throughout the sermon for the sake of clarity, and the Gospel calls him Peter for the same reason, but if we flip back to Matthew 4, when Jesus called the disciples, we see that his name is really Simon. But no one really called him Simon after this moment in Matthew 16. Instead he was Peter, petros in the Greek, which literally means Rock.
So if Peter didn’t really get what he was saying, and Jesus had to know he didn’t, why did Jesus ask in the first place and why did Jesus praise Peter’s answer? I think it’s because we make confessions of faith not for Jesus, but for us. When Jesus asked the disciples who he was it wasn’t because Jesus needed the answer. Jesus knew who he was. He didn’t need his stumbly, wishy-washy disciples to tell him. But the disciples need to know who Jesus was. They had to believe, not just some sort of vague fuzzy notion, but in real, clear, concrete language that they could wrap their mouths around, even if their hearts and minds couldn’t always follow. Pastor David Lose says that “the confessions we offer aren’t words of praise to God but words of power that help root us in the love and possibility that Jesus offers.” Putting it in the framework of the article I was talking about earlier, the confession Peter offered was the story of faith that helped ground in him the sense of purpose in his life and the sense of hope that would keep him going through the pitfalls ahead. It didn’t mean he was going to get it right all the time, and it didn’t mean that bad things weren’t going to happen, but what it did mean was that when he faced challenges, the rock he could go back to was not his own foundation, but the foundation of Christ. He had language he could hold on to and a community to speak it with him when his heart and mind were weak.
So I want to leave you this morning with a challenge. To think about how you would answer the question Jesus posed, “Who do you say that I am?” Sit with it, wrestle with it, and then write down, in just a couple sentences, what you believe to be true about Jesus. This isn’t a test, I’m not asking to see your answers, I won’t collect anything next week. But my hope is that this could be something you can go back to when the world feels out of kilter. Something to help you find grounding again in the love and the grace of God.
Because it’s a hard question, I’ll go first. Bear in mind I’ve had too much school, so I apologize in advance that mine probably has too many big words in it. It would be a better confession if it was simpler, but as it feels pretty vulnerable to throw all this out to you, I hope you will be graceful about my pretentious language. So here’s what I believe:
• I believe that the incarnation-the Word made Flesh-means that God has experienced, and thus understands, everything about what it means to be human, joy yes, but also pain, fear, even doubt and loss.
• I believe that grace and niceness are not the same, that sometimes grace hurts but it is always life-giving.
• Along the same lines, I believe that carrying a cross and bearing a burden are two completely different things. Burdens are put upon us, and we are meant to bear them together. But crosses we choose. I believe that the only person besides you who can tell you what your cross is, is God, and God has given us the free will to choose our own cross. And if God isn’t going to tell us, no human gets to.
• I believe that Paul had it right in Romans, that nothing, not death or life, angels or demons, things present or things to come, not power, not height, not depth, or any other created thing, nothing can separate us from the love of God.
• I believe that in the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus, God promised that the worst thing that can happen is never the last thing that will happen. That there is always, always, life after death.
• And finally, I believe in the power of divine mystery. I believe that doubt is a part of faith. I believe I don’t have to “get it” all the time in order for my faith to be real.
There you go. It’s way too long and the language is more obscure than I’d like, but like I said, I’ve had too much school, please forgive me. Now I’ve told you what I believe, how about you? Who do you say that Christ is? Amen.
Sources:
John Blake, "Author: More Teens Becoming 'Fake' Christians," CNN.com (August 27, 2010), http://www.cnn.com/2010/LIVING/08/27/almost.christian/index.html (accessed August 20, 2014).
David Lose, "Pentecost 11A: Who Do You Say I Am?," ...in the Meantime, entry posted August 18, 2014, http://www.davidlose.net/2014/08/pentecost-11-a-who-do-you-say-i-am/ (accessed August 20, 2014).
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