Matthew 16 13-20 – Who do you say that I am?

When I was in my mid 20’s I moved from the south of England to Liverpool, I went initially for one year to train as a midwife, but I ended up staying there for 5 years as I loved it so much. The hospital I worked at was right in the centre of Liverpool. And it was very clear every time I opened my mouth that I was not a Scouser, nor did I come from further a field in Lancashire, or from over the water in the Wirral. So, inevitably, I was always asked – where do you come from? When I said Kent the reaction was nearly always the same – ‘Oh do you live on a farm’! The picture they had of Kent and so of me was very different from reality and yet it had been used to place me and to make some sense of who I was.

And that is what we do when we meet someone –we try and find something about them that we can understand and can relate to so that we can have a conversation that moves beyond our shared experience of the weather. And inevitably to speed this up we usually say ‘so what do you do?’ The way we earn or receive the money we need to live becomes the label that helps to say who we are – I’m a teacher, I’m retired. And we become pigeon holed in the same way that I was by the pregnant mums in Liverpool.

As the conversation goes on and we struggle to find commonality we learn more about each other and we realise just how complex knowing who we are becomes. We all have many roles that give some shape to our lives – I am a wife, a mother, a priest, but I was a nurse, a student, a lecturer.

In Caesarea Philippi – Jesus asks the disciples who people say that He is – there are, apparently, 130 different terms used to describe Jesus in the New Testament, the most commonly used being Christ, Lord and Son of God. In the reading in Matthew we have Jesus likened to one of the great prophets, And Jesus Himself uses the term Son of Man – a name used in the prophecies of Daniel and Ezekiel, indicating His humanity and also linking with the suffering servant images we find in Isaiah.

But Jesus does not rest with these names he turns to Peter and He asks – ‘Who do you say that I am?’  Peter does not hesitate – You are The Messiah – the one who will fulfil God’s promise of restoration for His creation; the Son of the living God – an agent of God’s powerful sovereignty. Peter at this time will have had no idea as to what it was going to mean for Jesus to be Messiah and Son of God – he did not yet know that Jesus was to die and to rise from the dead. He had the terminology, but he did not understand the significance. The full implication of Jesus’ identity would be revealed to him over the next few months and years.

And what happens if we ask ourselves the question Jesus asked – ‘who do you say that I am?’  We may have a mental picture of Jesus in our mind, we have a number of historical facts that enable us to place Him, but who He is, is more than this. The question is not who or what is Jesus, it is not even – who do you think I am – it is a personal one – who do you say that I am? It is a question arising out of a relationship with a specific person. We can study Jesus, we can learn more facts about Him – but He is a person to be known, not an academic discipline.

And to know Jesus and be in relationship with Him is the key element of Christianity. So the question asked by Jesus  - who do you say that I am? is both the starting point and the focus of our whole spiritual journey. Just as Peter was unaware of how differently He would come to know Jesus in the coming months, so we too will find that the answer we give to the question will change over time. Some days we may answer that Jesus is a friend, our Lord. But there will be other days when we may have a very negative view of our relationship and our understanding of who Jesus is, perhaps because we feel He is challenging us to change. That is part of being in relationship – it is the same in human relationships and our relationship with Jesus is grounded in His humanity as well as His divinity.

In a way the answer we might give to the question – who do you say that I am? is not the point – the point is to actually ask the question. It is in asking the question that we grow in ourselves and in our relationship with Jesus.  Because the question comes out of relationship as I learn more about who Jesus is, I will also learn more about who I am – not my roles or status, not my moods and weaknesses – but who I am as God created me to be. And so to learn to be at peace with myself.

So if Jesus asks each one of us – Who do you, say that I am? How can we go about answering? Laurence Freeman in his book Jesus the Teacher within - says that to answer the question for ourselves we need to pause, to pay attention and to repeat the question again and again. The question becomes the basis of our spiritual journey; it is a question to be asked daily. It is the basis of prayer.

And prayer is our spirit listening and meeting with God and becoming one. It is not just something we do – indeed Marcel Droit – writes:

‘Prayer is not something – it is someone. Prayer is God and the one who is praying’

And in our prayer we maybe unaware of what has happened, in fact we may feel that nothing has happened, but over time we will notice that we have an answer to Jesus’ question – Who do you say that I am?

And it is an answer that is personal to us – It is unique because it comes from knowing Jesus and no one can take that from us or tell us we have not understood properly. Just as Peter did not really know at the time what it meant to say ‘You are the Messiah, the Son of the Living God’ – we too will find that our understanding develops. Our answer will grow as we grow. Being able to begin to say who Jesus was meant that Peter was able to see who he was and begin to see who he was to become. And being able to see who Jesus is helps me to see who I am and who I am to become. If I see him as my saviour then I see myself as a sinner in need; if as the true vine then myself as a branch growing, learning and beginning to bear fruit, but perhaps in need of pruning. If I see him as Lord, then I am his child, his disciple. Who I am is only in relation to who he is. He asks who we say that he is and in answering that question we can learn more about ourselves and our place in the Kingdom of God.