Who Is This Guy? Reflections on Matthew 16.13-20 (23 August 2020)

 Who Is This Guy?

Reflections on Matthew 16.13-20

 

RCL Proper 21A

23 August 2020

 

Holy Trinity Anglican Cathedral

New Westminster BC

 

Who am I?

            Many years ago I attended an event at our daughter Anna’s pre-school.  As I entered the room I was given a lovely brown, leaf-shaped name tag that had written on it:  ‘Anna’s Dad’.  At first I admit that I was a bit taken aback.  After all I was ‘The Rev’d Professor Richard Geoffrey Leggett’.  But not at Berwick School that day.  On that day, long ago, I was ‘Anna’s Dad’.

 

            I saved that name tag for many years.  It was on my office door at Vancouver School of Theology, right next to the name plate that said ‘The Rev’d Dr Richard Geoffrey Leggett, Professor of Liturgical Studies’.  When I look back, I’m sure more people were impressed that I was ‘Anna’s Dad’ than ‘Professor Leggett’.

 

            Each one of us possess a multitude of identities.  We are sons or daughters.  We are husbands or wives.  We are fathers or mothers.  We are uncles or aunts.  The list of identities can be quite lengthy, whether we think of ourselves as ordinary or extraordinary.  But all our identities come from relationships.

 

            No doubt we all hope that our many identities are rooted in an inner integrity of being, our true selves.  It’s not that we’re playing different roles as if we were actors.  Each one of our identities is somehow linked to who we really are in the core of our being.  Creating and maintaining that integrity of self is a life-long process.  Sometimes we feel that we’re doing a good job and we face the world confidently.  And sometimes we know that our many identities are not quite in order and we become uncertain.

 

            There are even times when we feel that people aren’t taking us seriously.  They’ve only seen one or two of our identities and they believe that they have us conveniently boxed.  I’m sure that you’ve had this experience just as I’ve had whether at work or at home or in some other setting.  There have been times when I just want to shout, ‘I’m not that guy!’

 

Who is Jesus?

            When Peter gives the ‘right’ answer to Jesus’ question, ‘You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God,’ we may be tempted to think that this is the end of the conversation.  But it is not.  To say that Jesus is the Christ or the Messiah or the Anointed One or the Son of God or the Son or Man or some other description is an endless Christian conversation.

 

            It is the conversation we’ve had within the many communions into which Christians group themselves.  It is the conversation we’ve had with Jews, with Muslims, with people of numerous other faiths and with people who claim no religious faith at all.  And why do we have these conversations?  It’s because we’re still trying to understand who this Person is who commands our attention and our loyalty.  We’ve made a choice to follow Jesus as his disciples, but we’re still learning what it means to do this.  Even the most learned of theologians knows that Jesus remains as mysterious today as he certainly did to people two thousand years ago.  The only thing we can all agree on is this:  When you meet Jesus of Nazareth, you meet God.  

 

            For every Christian the question that Jesus asks is one we cannot ignore or simply say is beyond our ken.  We claim that Jesus is the one through whom our most important relationship is shaped and nurtured:  our relationship with God, the Holy One who is the Creator of all things, seen and unseen.

 

            Our relationship with Jesus and with the One whom Jesus called ‘Abba’ is fraught with mystery.  It’s not a mystery to be solved like some crime novel or crossword or sudoku.  The English theologian and writer, C. S. Lewis, called it an onion that only gets bigger with each layer you peel away.  Each question we ask, each experience we have, each prayer we offer, draws us deeper into this intriguing and engaging mystery which can surprise us with unexpected joys and challenge us with uncomfortable truths.

 

How do we answer the question?

            We learn how to answer Jesus’ question for ourselves by belonging to a community of disciples who share our search.  In community we share with each other what we know of Jesus, what we’ve seen of Jesus and what we do not understand of Jesus and the God to whom he leads us.  Our assumptions can be lovingly challenged and new perspectives encourage us to persevere.

 

            We learn how to answer Jesus’ question for ourselves by behaving like him when we do justice, when we love mercy and when we walk humbly with God and each other.

 

            We learn how to answer Jesus’ question for ourselves by loving each other as God loves us, passionately, generously, steadfastly.

 

            And even then, just when we think we know who Jesus is, he will show us another side of himself, something we may have glimpsed before but now see more clearly.

 

Who are those guys?

            In the film Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid the lead characters, both men who stand somewhat outside the law, find themselves being pursued by a posse.  The outlaws have a high opinion of their ability to lose the posse and they use every skill they have.  But the posse keeps on their trail.  After each unsuccessful attempt to lose their pursuers, one or the other of the outlaws says, ‘Who are those guys?’

            

            Just as surely as you and I are pursuing this Jewish rabbi who has grabbed our hearts and minds, so too is Jesus doggedly following us.  He shows up in the most unexpected places and in the most unexpected people.  He shows up in the isolation and distancing that COVID-19 has imposed upon us.  He shows up in the courage of people who do their ordinary jobs in these extraordinary times.  He shows up in the faithfulness of a married couple celebrating their seventieth wedding anniversary.  He shows up in the curiosity of a person who has never been to church but has dared to cross the threshold to see what might be found here.  And in all of those places and more, Jesus reveals something of himself we have not seen before and shows us another dimension of the God who has loved creation into existence.

 

            Who do we say Jesus is?  Like Peter we know him to be the Messiah, the promised one who leads us into right relationship with God, with each other and with our very selves.  But this is just one of the many faces that God’s Beloved shows us because God still beckons us to go deeper into the mystery. 

No Storm Can Shake Our Inmost Calm: Reflections on Matthew 14.22-33 (Sunday, 9 August 2020)

RCL Proper 19A

9 August 2020

 

Holy Trinity Anglican Cathedral

New Westminster BC

 

Learning How to Run the Rapids

            Twice in my life I’ve had the opportunity to go white-water rafting.  Although I was a good swimmer in my younger days, I’ve always harboured a fear of drowning.  Riding the rapids on those two trips allowed me to confront my fears in a somewhat controlled setting.

            When you go white-water rafting, the first day or so is on quieter waters where you and your fellow rafters learn how to work together as a team under the leadership of a guide.  You also get a basic course on how to ‘read’ a river, so that you can identify submerged rocks and hazards and to discern how the various currents and eddies will influence your passage through a particular section of the river.

            During my first rafting trip, when I was seventeen, the practice and the orientation paid off.  I was in the smallest of our three rafts with three other Scouts and our guide.  We were going through one of the most difficult and dangerous sections of the river.  Just above the rapids we had done some reconnaissance and a couple of practice manoeuvres.  We knew we wanted to avoid one particular set of rapids.  We watched the two larger rafts pass through the rapids and then tie up on the river bank below the rapids.

            We set off and quickly hit the rough water.  A sealed metal container that had not been tied down tightly enough came loose and knocked out our guide who was also our steersman.  After a few moments of panic, we quickly recovered but the current took us straight into the rapids we’d hoped to avoid.  A huge wave took us under for a brief moment, although it seemed to last much longer.  We popped up and paddled over to the river bank where the rest of our group were waiting.  We patched up our guide, bailed out the water and tried to regain our composure.

            Looking pack from a distance of fifty years I remember this as one of the most remarkable experiences in my life.  But fifty years ago my feelings were far less nostalgic, I can assure you.

 

Following Jesus is rarely smooth sailing.

            For the disciples of Jesus their association with his mission and ministry was becoming more and more demanding and risky.  By this point in Matthew’s telling of the story of Jesus, the crowds are growing, the religious authorities are becoming more suspicious and hostile and Jesus has started to delegate more and more responsibility to his inner circle.

            No matter how we hear today’s gospel, the waters, whether real or figurative, the waters around Jesus and his disciples were indeed becoming more and more wild and unsettling.  The boat of fellowship in which the inner circle of disciples were travelling with Jesus was becoming more cramped and perhaps even more unstable in the face of the political, social and religious winds that were blowing ever stronger in Roman Palestine.

            So after a miraculous feeding of thousands of people, surely another straw threatening to break the patience of the religious and political authorities, Jesus sends his disciples off across the Sea of Galilee while he takes a break.  The Sea of Galilee is beautiful but like Lake Superior sudden storms can quickly rise up and become deadly.  The peril that the disciples is real and death is lapping at the gunnels of their small fishing boat.

            Then they see him.  Is he Death’s messenger coming to take them to Sheol?  Even if it is Jesus, how many rabbis do they know who can walk safely on the waters of a stormy lake?  Their fear and apprehension are perfectly normal reactions to their perilous situation and to the ghostly apparition approaching the boat.  Just like Peter, I’d want some sort of identification before venturing out into the unknown on the word of a person who has just become a bit more mysterious.

 

We’ve weathered many storms.

            A number of biblical scholars and theologians have suggested that every five hundred years or so the Christian movement undergoes a time of testing and reformation.  Around the year 500, Christians began to be the dominant religious group within the boundaries of the Roman Empire after centuries of exclusion and persecution.  A movement was now a growing institution.  Around the year 1000 Christians found themselves split into eastern and western branches, confronted by the growth of Islam and the collapse of what was left of the Roman imperial structures.  Around 1500 Christian entered into that conflict that split western Christians into a number of competing and sometimes warring tribes.

            As tempting as it is to focus on the COVID-19 pandemic, we need to recognize that the rapids we are passing through began long before 2019 turned into 2020.  We can choose to bemoan the difficulties we’ve been facing and long for the restoration of the ways things were or we can practice some new manoeuvres, scout out the river and plunge in.

            This is a congregation that has already practiced new manoeuvres.  We take our worship life seriously and seek to make it open to all, whether old-timers or newcomers or in-between.  We have embraced the ministry of all people whom God has called into the life of faith.

            This is a congregation that has scouted out the river that we are navigating.  We know the needs of community whether we’re speaking about affordable housing, food security and a safe place to meet for community partners who share our commitment to the well-being of this city and all who live here.  We continue to ask questions and ponder how we might better serve the people Lillian Daniels, an American theologian, calls the four ‘None’s’. [1]

1.     “No Way.  This person has made a deliberate and well-thought-out decision not to attend church, often in reaction to a genuine hurt.

2.     “No Longer.  This person used to attend church, but doesn’t anymore and doesn’t particularly miss it.

3.     “Never Have.  This person has never experienced church, and may be the grown child of parents in one of the first two groups.”

4.     “Not Yet.  These people may be curious about church and may choose to show up.”

These four groups are the currents in the river we navigate as Christians living in the twenty-first century on the Pacific coast.

            This is a congregation that has plunged into these waters.  No doubt COVID-19 has made our work a little bit harder.  But the work was hard to begin with, so adding a viral difficulty factor makes things just a bit more interesting and the successes just a bit sweeter.

            The good news is that we are not alone.  We are part of a wider network of Christians who are navigating the same waters as we are.  When we are frightened or uncertain, this wider network reaches out to us as surely as Jesus reached out to Peter.

            The good news is that we have spiritual resources in the Scriptures we read and proclaim every time we gather for worship.  We have the gift of the Spirit who shows us the way forward when we pause long enough to listen carefully to the whisper of its wisdom.  We have the sure knowledge that God in Christ offers us a vision of the world as it can and, in God’s good time, will be, the haven we draw nearer to with every breath we take.

            Right now I’m sure things look a little bit daunting, just as my rafting adventure did fifty years ago.  But just wait.  Five years from now, ten years from, fifty years from now, we’ll look back and know that these are remarkable times and that we are a remarkable people sealed with the Spirit in baptism and marked as Christ’s own forever.

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[1] Lillian Daniels, Tired of Apologizing for a Church I Don’t Belong To (New York, NY:  Faith Words, 2017), 39.