Who do you say that I am?
Year B - Proper 19
Mark 8:27-38
In the
old days, when anybody asked what a particular thing "meant to me"
the hairs on my neck would rise up. I sometimes felt manhandled back in college by people who
insisted that I examine the subjective experience of things rather than their
objective status or existence.
Surely
what things "meant to me" was less important than what they actually
were.
No?
Well,
perhaps not. It's taken thirty years of
arguing or seeing people argue about the obvious things in front of them to admit
that, no, the universe is not full of rocky little atoms wanting somebody
clever to correctly identify them.
The
subjective experience of anything is important. Pablo Neruda can indeed write
a poem entitled "Ode to My
Suit" and find, in his threadbare daily garment, a universe of meaning
which would pass over the head of his tailor or his dry-cleaner.
In the
reading at hand, from Mark's Gospel, Jesus is concerned to ask what his
disciples think of him – who they believe him to be. A variety of opinions are being bruited
about in the marketplace - that he was the reincarnation of some historic
prophet or, perhaps, John the Baptist brought back from the dead. No, says Jesus, sod the competing opinions, I
want to know who you say that I am.
This would
appear to be something more than a mid-term exam. Nor is he asking how the disciples are
feeling.
We are
prompted, like them, to declare what we
know and believe. Ignorance and the
darkness are, too often, safe and comfortable states and places in which to
hide. If there is any connection at all
between faith and "saving knowledge", it is that such knowledge
involves allegiance. We step forward and
reach out to the person known or believed in.
Jesus
being God's Messiah means something to me.
We do not merely acknowledge that as a fact, but must follow that
knowledge and wed ourselves to it - even if the path that knowledge leads us
along includes a Cross -
Jesus'
Cross or ours.
