Who am I to You?
Luke 9:18-24

“Who do the crowds say that I am?” Jesus asked them. The disciples were alone with him for a change.  He had gone off to pray alone.  He had put a lot of difficult questions to them lately — questions that they didn’t know how to answer.  This question seemed a lot more direct and simple than many of his questions. So they leaped in, shouting out answers. “John the Baptist!”  “Elijah!”  “One of the Ancient Prophets!”  Someone shouted, “Jeremiah!”  Others bravely named other important prophets.  Then there was silence.  It was obvious they hadn’t come up with the answer he was looking for…

Jesus then asked a much more difficult question.  “But who do you say that I am?” They looked up at the sky.  They looked down at their feet.  They squirmed a little bit.  It was very quiet.  And then Simon — being Simon couldn’t stand the silence.  He answered, “The Messiah of God.”

In Luke’s version of this story, Jesus didn’t praise Peter.  He just ordered and commanded them all not to tell anyone. But in Matthew’s version, we get some additional information.  In Matthew’s version, Peter’s answer is: “You are the Messiah, the Son of the Living God.”  And Jesus praises Peter because he didn’t come up with an answer that he had heard from another person.  He answers from the depths of his heart.  He doesn’t qualify his answer nor does he quote from some “important” person.  He just looks into his heart and he responds honestly and intuitively from there.  His answer is provided by the Holy Spirit.

The starkness of Luke’s account skips over any praise for Peter. It takes us directly to the heart of the matter.  After asking who the crowds think Jesus is and who the disciples think he is, Jesus foretells his own death and resurrection.  Then he spells out what the price of discipleship will be. While the account in Mark’s gospel reads:  “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.”, in Luke the word, ‘daily” is added.  It reads, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me.”

It isn’t enough to confess, as Peter did, that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of the Living God.  Although we must each do that or we won’t truly know who we are following or why.  As Peter discovered and as each of us discovers, it is much easier to say, “Jesus is the Messiah; I want to follow him, than it is to live that out daily.  It isn’t enough to live that out in our lives when it is convenient and effortless.  If we want to become his followers, we must do it daily.  We must do it, not only when life seems great and we are feeling right on track but when life doesn’t seem so good, when we would rather turn away and retreat into our safe little worlds, when we aren’t feeling good about ourselves, when we are discouraged.

Any of you who have attended a renewal weekend such as Cursillo know that on that mountaintop at Camp Mitchell it is easy to feel and say that we will go home deeply committed to following Jesus daily.  It is much harder to actually take up our cross daily in every circumstance we find ourselves, not only in the good mountain top times, but also in the ordinary and the difficult times.  The extraordinary part of this to me is that we don’t need to do this alone.  Although each of us must decide who Jesus is to us, we don’t need to take up our cross and follow alone.  By the grace of God and by the support of community, we can find the strength to continue, even when we fall and even when life doesn’t seem all that we had hoped for.

There was a tradition in ancient Jewish culture which I think speaks to this.  When a woman lost a child to death, her community quickly built a grass hut some distance from the village.  She was taken to that hut where she lived for thirty days in isolation.  Food and water were left at the door but for thirty days she grieved in private for her lost child.  At the end of thirty days, her community returned to the hut and set it on fire.  She had a choice to make.  She could stay in the hut and be burned to death or she could come out of the hut and rejoin her community.  It was up to her.  If she decided to come out, and most women did, she would be surrounded by her community and escorted back to her village.  She would still be comforted but she would, in time, perhaps become a source of comfort to others.

Anyone who has lost a loved one knows that grieving doesn’t just stop at the end of thirty days. It doesn’t matter if it is grieving for the death of a loved one or the loss of something that really mattered to us, or the loss of a dream that will never be.     Yet, we also know that the love and support of community is so important in healing, in supporting us and helping us turn again to follow our Lord in times of hope but also in times of despair.

In my family’s church in Northern Indiana there is a tradition that has existed for as long as I can remember.  I have never seen it observed in any other Episcopal church.  I have asked parishioners there but no one seems to know when or why this practice was started at St. John of the Cross Episcopal Church.  In the back of each prayer book is taped the Peace Prayer.  It is also called the Prayer of St. Francis of Assisi.  I’m sure almost everyone here is familiar with it.  Each Sunday after the recessional hymn is finished, everyone stands quietly for a few minutes and then the congregation says this prayer together.  Children at St. John of the Cross learn this prayer just about as early as they learn the Lord’s Prayer.  It is not announced in the Sunday bulletin nor by the priest or deacon.  It is spoken quietly, as a reminder and as the intent of how individuals in that community will try to live their lives in the week to come.  This is the prayer:

The Prayer of St. Francis

Lord, make me an instrument of Your peace.
Where there is hatred, let me sow love.
Where there is injury, pardon,
Where there is doubt, faith,
Where there is despair, hope,
Where there is darkness, light,
and where there is sadness, joy.
O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much
seek to be consoled, as to console;
To be understood, as to understand;
To be loved, as to love;
For it is in giving that we receive,
It is in pardoning that we are pardoned
And it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.

 This prayer probably wasn’t written by St. Francis although it embodies his philosophy and theology.  It is said to have been written in 1912 by a French priest.  It is known and loved by people of many faiths all over the world.

The oldest community of Franciscan sisters in the Anglican Communion is the Community of St. Francis which originated in 1905.  The purpose of this order is to be a link of praying and loving concern between the “still point” and the “turning world.”

It is at the “still point” where deep within we come to the realization and acceptance that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of the Living God.  It is in the daily “turning world” where we live out what that means to us. In community we become Christ’s hands and heart in this world.

We each need to listen to the small still voice within to find the answer to the question, “Who do you say that I am?”  Only then are we ready to follow him daily in this turning world.

Jesus said, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me.  For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will save it.”

Amen.

The Rev. Betsy Porter
24 June 2007

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