Cut and Paste Jesus
09-13-09
Have any of you ever played Charades? You know the game that you have to mime something or act something out without words, while a group of people tries to guess what scratching your armpits, or hopping up and down is supposed to mean? Talk about feeling awkward, I was never really good at Charades, but when I was in high school, it seemed liked the game to play at weekend parties. I vividly remember one particular game of Charades. I was at a Friday night party with a few Basketball teammates, and one of my teammates invented this game called "Career Charades." My first turn taking center stage was simple enough. I drew a card that said, "Politician." So I went over and shook a few hands with a cheesy smile on my face, held a baby, and pretended to pose for a picture. Someone guessed Movie Star, someone guessed Minister and then someone finally guessed Politician (to which I was very relieved having worn that silly grin for quite some time).
The second time around I drew a card that said "fisherman". Again, despite the fact that I would indeed be a fisherwoman, I had it under control. With a cool, calm, confidence, I took out my shiny, expensive fishing pole, baited my hook with a long wiggly, plump night crawler, and cast my line and bobber into the water. I even caught a fish!. It did not take long for people to guess (except for the person who guessed dog walker and I still wonder sometimes how they walk their dog). By my last turn up in front I was feeling pretty confident in my abilities to mimic the actions of career men and women. I was confident I could act the part of teacher, a doctor, police woman, even a garbage collector, until I drew my third card. It read, "author".
Now I ask you, how does one act like an author? Well, I pretended to write, I pretended to type, pretended to read, I pretended to ponder. People guessed everything from student to teacher, to inventor, but no one guessed author. Perhaps it was because I was unable to express an author’s internal imagination, creativity, and talent through a charade. Hopping around and cheesy grins don’t express a lot about what is going on inside. The internal workings of an author’s mind and heart is not easily demonstrated through simple gestures, it is read in the wonderfully complex stories, poems, songs, and newspaper articles that are shared with others. It was a good reminder that even though some careers are easily identified by stereotypical actions we all know that our careers (or former careers) do not define who we are. Sometimes our attempts to categorize people through actions or words, cannot express the whole truth.
As I was reading this morning’s passage from Mark, I thought, what if I were to draw a card that read, "Messiah" or "Prophet". What would I mime? Or what would I say? That would take some thought wouldn’t it? In this morning’s passage Jesus asks his disciples, "who do people say that I am? He has, by this time in his ministry, developed a relationship with the disciples, and knows that they will report what they have heard.
The disciples tell him what they have heard. Well, some say John the Baptist, the followers of John the Baptist saw Jesus as his reincarnation, some say Elijah, part of an apocalyptic movement, after all did Elijah really ever die? Others of the prophetic movement understand him to be a prophet, perhaps a reincarnation of Jeremiah. What other people said about him wasn't that far off either: some said he was Elijah, a prophet, or John the Baptist raised from the dead. All of these designations had significant spiritual meaning. These designations would have been quite flattering for anyone else.
Interested in these responses, Jesus turns to his trusted companions and asks, "who do you say that I am." Nothing like being put on the spot. (I had to draw this card?) They have been traveling with this Rabbi for quite some time, and should be able to answer this question quite readily. Peter, of course - the one who always talks first, who rarely thinks first- says, "you are the Messiah." Now, in Jesus’ time, various persons (kings, prophets, priests) were called "messiah," which indicated that they were anointed by God to accomplish a task for God’s people. Jesus seems to be okay with Peter’s initial response.
On the basis of our relationship with Jesus, on the basis of what we have come to know of him in the biblical witness and in the life of the Christian community, we make our own assessment and judgment about who he is. There are many titles or descriptions that we can use. We too can call him Christ or Messiah. We can call him Lord, Savior, Master, Friend, Teacher, Prophet, Son of God, and Redeemer. Jesus is many things for us. Jesus is Savior, Healer, Brother, and Friend. Jesus is security in times of danger. Jesus is love in the midst of anger.
But then in this exchange with Peter and the other disciples, Jesus says something strange: "He sternly ordered them not to tell anyone about him (30)." Why not tell the world about him? Isn’t that what we are supposed to do with the Gospel? Aren’t we supposed to share about our relationship with God and Jesus Christ? There may be reasons that we do not understand, for Jesus instructing his disciples in this manner, but one reason becomes clear in the following conversation with Peter. When Peter calls him Messiah, he may have the right title, but the wrong understanding of what that title means for Jesus, and for the world. Peter does not want to hear about a suffering Messiah, he wants to hear about a Messiah that will save the people from Roman authority. He was correct in understanding Jesus to be an "anointed one," but he didn’t fully understand what that meant.
Many of us have experienced these many wonderful characteristics of the wandering Rabbi named Jesus, and want to share these attributes with those around us. Yet, "Who do you say I am?" is still Jesus' question posed to us today, and depending on whom you ask, you will get a very different answer. It seems that in our human experience we resort to categorizing Jesus. If we take a look at some current portrayals of Jesus we will find Christ as revolutionary, Christ the liberator, Christ the socialist, Christ the capitalist, Christ the legalist, Christ the sexist, Sophia Christ, Christ the politically correct, and so on. And all the while we are revising and rethinking our ideas of God we don't even realize that what we're really doing is categorizing Jesus into categories that work for us. If it were up to us, Christ would be exactly the way we wanted him to be. We read the many scripture stories about Jesus and we cut and paste our own view of him to suit our life-style and our theological preference.
In one sense our theologizing of Christ, our different answers to the question "who do you say I am" is understandable. Because we are human, we have our mind set on human things. Of course we look at things from a human perspective! How else can we understand the world? We bring our humanity to our relationship with Jesus as well. We see him as one who will support our human wants and desires. We see him as one who will sustain the values we want to enhance. We see him as one who enable us to become what we want to become. However, Jesus Christ does not fit into our neat categories.
Who do we say Jesus is? I think Peter’s experience should serve as an alert for us. We can indeed use our experience of relating to Jesus, and we can express our understanding of who Jesus is in various ways. But when we speak of Jesus we should do so with some humility and with the awareness that we may have the title right, but may not fully understand its meaning. What does it mean for us if we call Jesus Savior? What does it mean for us if we call Jesus Son of God? What does it mean for us if we call Jesus the Messiah?
Jesus suggests to Peter, that he can set his mind on "divine things." In our relationship with Jesus there is the hope and promise that somehow the divine perspective on who we are and what we are about breaks through. In Christ, God enables us to discern how life is fulfilled as God intends, enables us to live by the values that are not embodied in the normal course of human affairs.
Christ is many things. So who do you say that he is?
Amen.
Blessings,
Melissa