“Who do you say I am?” (Matthew 16:13-20)

Perhaps you’ve noticed it before. But as you read through the gospels you’ll find that Jesus is constantly asking questions. He puts them to strangers; he puts them to his critics; he puts them to his closest friends. He asks questions in moments of crisis. He asks questions when he already knows the answer. He asks questions that make people uncomfortable…

You’d think it would be the other way around—that people would have questions for him. And certainly we do meet with people who came to Jesus with questions of their own. But no, by far the greatest number questions in the gospels are posed, not by Jesus’ disciples, not by people in the crowds who gathered to hear him, not by those he met along the dusty roads of Galilee and Judea, but by Jesus. Here are just a few among the many that I came across as I leafed through the gospels in preparation for this morning:

·  To a couple of John the Baptist’s disciples set on following him: “What are you looking for?” (John 1:38).

·  To a paralyzed man lying helplessly on his mat: “Do you want to be made well?” (John 5:6)

·  To his disciples after healing another paralyzed man, “Which is easier, to say, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Stand up and walk’?” (Mark 2:9)

·  To a woman caught in the act of adultery: “Woman, where are your accusers? Has no one condemned you?” (John 8:10)

·  To a blind man sitting by the roadside: “What do you want me to do for you?” (Mark 10:51)

·  To a crowd of listeners gathered to hear him: “Can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life?”

·  And a moment later to that same multitude: “Why do you worry about what to wear?” (Matthew 6:27,28)

·  And not very long after that: “Why do you see the speck in your brother’s eye but ignore the beam in your own?” (Matthew 7:3)

·  And to another crowd: “If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you?” (Luke 6:32)

·  To a circle of his critics trying to find a way to undermine him: “Is it lawful to do good on the Sabbath or to do evil?” (Mark 3:4)

·  Holding up a coin before another cluster of detractors he asked, “Whose head is on this, and whose title?” (Matthew 22:20)

·  To a group of his followers he posed this one: “What good can it be for someone to gain the whole world in trade for their life?” (Matthew 16:26)

·  And after they had been tossed about in their boat by a violent storm at sea and practically scared out of their wits: “Where is your faith?” (Luke 8:25)

·  Finally and most poignantly, to the disciple Peter following his resurrection: “Do you love me?” “Do you love me?” “Do you love me?” (John 21:17)

Jesus’ question

So perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised when this morning’s gospel reading opens with Jesus asking yet another question. And on this occasion he addresses it to the disciples: “Who do people say the Son of Man is?”

Now we mustn’t think that it was as though Jesus were attempting to carry out some kind of first-century opinion poll. Frankly I can’t imagine that Jesus was all that concerned about what people thought about him. He was not like contemporary politicians, constantly checking the latest surveys to find out their standing among the public.

Jesus didn’t have any need to worry himself about that kind of thing, because he was perfectly secure in his identity. Elsewhere he confided to his disciples, “I have come … not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me.” (John 6:38) It was plain that Jesus’ path was not determined by public opinion, but by the mission entrusted to him by his heavenly Father—and he knew that that mission would lead ultimately to his rejection and death.

So it is that when you look at the gospels, who did Jesus spend most of his time with? By and large it wasn’t the movers and the shakers. It wasn’t the influencers. It wasn’t the affluent or the well-heeled. It was the poor and the downtrodden, the crippled, the incurable, the prostitutes, the tax collectors and those pushed off to the sidelines of society.

But going back to Jesus’ question in this morning’s gospel reading, I imagine there was a gap of barely a few seconds before the answers came tumbling out from the disciples: “Some say John the Baptist.” “Others are thinking along the lines of Elijah.” “Still others are putting you in a category with Jeremiah or one of the prophets…” Jesus had been the talk of the town wherever he went. Even King Herod had heard about him. But in fact none of that stood behind Jesus’ motivation for asking the question, “Who do people say I am?”. The real question he was aiming at was the one he asked next: “But who do you say I am?”

Peter’s response

Now at this point I imagine that there was more than a brief pause. In my mind’s eye I can picture the disciples all standing there in dumbfounded silence. We can hardly blame them. For I wonder, how often have you or I taken the time to give serious thought to this question? Sunday by Sunday we repeat the words of the creed: “God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God…” But when did we last give them any meaningful consideration? Have we ever reflected on their consequences? Have we asked, what does all this mean for me, for the way I live my life today? When you take a moment to think about it, the implications are massive and have the potential of touching on every area of our lives.

But, going back to our gospel reading, it was predictable that Peter would be the one to answer—honest, impetuous, impulsive Peter. I can’t think he had to reflect for more than a fraction of a second before he found himself blurting out: “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God!”

Remember that Peter had been among the first to respond to Jesus’ challenge to “Follow me…” He had wasted no time in leaving his boat and his nets behind to accompany Jesus (Matthew 4:18-20). It was Peter who had fished all night and had nothing to show for it. He began to object when Jesus said, “Let down your nets for a catch.” But his skepticism was proved wrong when his nets couldn’t contain the fish that were flipping back and forth to the point of almost sinking their boats (Luke 5:4-9). It was Peter who at Jesus’ word stepped out of his boat onto the roiling sea in the midst of a raging storm and began to walk towards him (Matthew 14:22-33). And later, in the darkness of Gethsemane on the eve of Jesus’ crucifixion, it would be Peter who would take out his sword and slice off the high priest’s servant’s ear to prevent Jesus’ arrest (John 18:10).

And so it was hardly a surprise, when Jesus asked, “Who do you say I am?” it would be Peter who would respond: “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.”

Jesus’ promise

Now I suspect that Peter did not come to this conclusion entirely on his own. In my mind’s eye I can see the disciples clustering together on more than one occasion—perhaps following one of Jesus’ miraculous acts, perhaps after listening to another of his arresting parables. And I can hear them asking themselves, as they did after Jesus calmed that violent storm at sea, the waves swamping their boat and threatening to take them all down with it: “What sort of man is this, that even winds and sea obey him?” (Matthew 8:27).

The question of who this Jesus was had to have occupied the minds of the disciples for some time. But it always would have remained a question. What they must increasingly have been wondering seemed too stupendous to be true. Now it was Peter who gave voice to their growing suspicion: “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.”

In a moment’s time I will ask you to stand and invite you to affirm that same faith in Jesus in the words of the Nicene Creed. It will not be a spontaneous outburst as it was with Peter. Instead, it will be in the carefully crafted words that have been echoed down through the centuries by men and women of faith.

However, let us not allow their familiarity to lull us into simply rattling them off. Let us place ourselves with Peter and the other disciples as Jesus asks not, “Who do people say I am?” Not, “Who does the church say I am?” But, “Who do you say I am?” And let us answer in humble amazement and with full conviction of faith…

 

“Notes to a Young Preacher” (2 Timothy 4:1-5)

It’s just over sixty years since I first set foot a pulpit. The occasion was a family service in the church where I worshipped, celebrating another year of Sunday school, with a focus on the children. And my text was Jesus’ words in Matthew 6:33—“But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things shall be yours as well.”

Our minister was a very fine biblical preacher, who himself had worked for several years under one of the greatest preachers of the day. Knowing that this was to be my first go at it (not to mention how nervous I was!), he took the time to sit down with me on a series of occasions to help me prepare. And although he is long gone, his wise counsel remains with me and I remain in his debt to this day.

He was the first in a series of teachers and preachers I have been privileged to hear and sit under and learn from, and whose practical wisdom I have sought to carry with me. Yet I don’t think I could put any of them in the same category as the man that Timothy was privileged to have as his teacher: a man who humbly called himself the least of the apostles, yet whose preaching enabled the spread of the Christian faith through nearly half the Roman world.

I don’t need to tell you that he was the apostle Paul. But what you may not know is that before his dramatic encounter with Jesus on the road to Damascus, Paul had enjoyed the privilege of sitting under one of the greatest rabbinical teachers of the day. That man’s name was Gamaliel and he was universally acknowledged for his depth of wisdom and skillfully balanced thought.

Gamaliel himself had been the heir to a rich family heritage of biblical scholarship. His grandfather was the renowned Rabbi Hillel, one of the most respected Jewish scholars of all time, and Gamaliel carried on his grandfather’s legacy of teaching and interpretation of the Old Testament Law. Gamaliel’s reputation as a teacher was so universally acclaimed that he was the first person ever to be honoured with title “Rabban”, a term of the highest esteem, indicating the authority and respect with which he was regarded among successive generations.

Now I don’t expect that many of you are planning to preach a sermon any time soon. But it occurred to me that you might find it helpful if for the next few moments I were to pull back the curtain so to speak and take you behind the scenes for the next few minutes to see what is involved in forming a preacher.

So it is that this morning we sit with Timothy, as he reads what likely were the last words he would ever receive from his mentor and father in the faith, the apostle Paul. Paul recognizes that his final day is nearing, that his ministry and his very life will soon be coming to a close. In the verses that follow our passage this morning he confesses to Timothy, “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith…” Now he takes this final opportunity to pass along some guidance to his young friend and co-worker about the ministry of preaching.

And I’d like to summarize what he writes under three headings: the preacher’s calling, the preacher’s challenge, and the preacher’s character.

The Preacher’s Calling

So first: the preacher’s calling. Paul makes it clear that Timothy’s job is to proclaim the word. His task is not to talk about his own experience or to entertain his audience or to give his personal opinions or to impress them with his oratory. It was to share Jesus. And the challenge that Paul issued to Timothy was the same challenge that he had accepted for himself.

Elsewhere we find him putting that in as many words: “What we proclaim is not ourselves,” he wrote to the congregation at Corinth, “but Jesus Christ as Lord.” (2 Corinthians 4:5) And I believe that those words were for Paul something of a personal motto—a vow to himself and before God that he carried with him and was careful to abide by every day of his apostolic ministry.

Paul did not travel from town to town to talk about his experiences or his achievements, impressive though they were. “If I must boast,” he wrote, “I will boast of the things that show my weakness.” (2 Corinthians 11:30) Nor was it his task to impress people, to put on a good show. “Some demand signs and others seek wisdom,” he writes elsewhere, “but we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block to [some] and folly to [others], but to those who are called, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.” (1 Corinthians 1:22-23)

We could summarize Paul’s ministry of preaching under three “e’s”: to expose, to exhort and to encourage. The first of these was a negative task: to expose sin. I can’t speak for you, but I know that I’d rather not spend too much time having to look at the dark side of my life—my pride, my impatience with others, my unsavoury thoughts, my selfishness… And the list could go on. But the good news is that as we learn to be honest with ourselves (and more importantly, with God) we discover that he is able to deal with those dark corners of our life in a way that we never could on our own. And so it is the preacher’s task to expose the lies behind which we hide, so that we may receive God’s forgiveness and cleansing and power to change.

The second “e” is to exhort: to challenge people to be faithful in their daily walk with Jesus and to open their lives more and more to the power of the indwelling Holy Spirit.

And the third “e” is to encourage. The word Paul uses here originally meant to be called alongside. And so it is that the preacher does not stand above his or her congregation like some superhero (as if they ever could!), but walks with them, understands their weaknesses, accompanies them in their journey with Jesus.

Elsewhere Paul summarized this far better than I ever could in these words:

For what we proclaim is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, with ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake. For God, who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us. (2 Corinthians 4:5-7)

The Preacher’s Challenge

Paul moves on from the preacher’s calling in verses 1 and 2, to the preacher’s challenge in verses 3 and 4. The pandemic years were particularly difficult ones for pastors. Following a calling that involves regular human contact, they were forced into a level of isolation that made person-to-person ministry considerably more challenging than in “normal” times (if such a thing ever existed!). The result was that the pandemic saw record numbers of pastors resigning from their posts.

Well, the good news is that with the pandemic behind us the number of pastors seriously considering leaving their pulpits and looking for other employment has been coming down. Can you guess what the percentage is today? According to the Barna research group, 24% of Protestant pastors seriously considered leaving the ministry over the last year.[1]

That’s an American statistic, but I can’t imagine the number isn’t all that different in Canada. And quite frankly, I find it staggering. Yet I’m not sure that there was ever a time when it was easy to minister to a congregation. However, at least in this part of the world there are none that I know of who have had to face the pressures suffered by the Apostle Paul. Here’s how he described his ministry:

I’ve been flogged five times with the thirty-nine lashes, beaten by rods three times, pummeled with rocks once. I’ve been shipwrecked three times, and immersed in the open sea for a night and a day. In hard traveling year in and year out, I’ve had to ford rivers, fend off robbers, struggle with friends, struggle with foes. I’ve been at risk in the city, at risk in the country, endangered by desert sun and sea storm, and betrayed by those I thought were my brothers. I’ve known drudgery and hard labor, many a long and lonely night without sleep, many a missed meal, blasted by the cold, naked to the weather.

Now Paul was living in a very different time from ours under very different circumstances. But then he goes on to tell of what I would see as very much the experience of most pastors today. Let me read what he writes in Eugene Petersen’s earthy rendering in The Message: 

And that’s not the half of it, [he continues] when you throw in the daily pressures and anxieties of all the churches. When someone gets to the end of his rope, I feel the desperation in my bones. When someone is duped into sin, an angry fire burns in my gut. (2 Corinthians 11:23-29)

Paul may have faced his challenges. But today the preacher (in our part of the world at least) faces different challenges. Not least is the influence of the internet. Statistics tell us that over thirty-five million Canadians are connected to social media, with 92 percent of the population subscribing to social media. Youtube gets over a billion hits from Canadians every month, with Facebook not far behind at more than 600 million.[2] According to data from 2024, the average Canadian spent six and a half hours per day online. In addition, online users watch tv either through streaming or via live broadcasts for over three hours per day. At the same time, our attention spans are diminishing. You can see it reflected in tv advertising. A generation ago a normal tv commercial lasted a full minute. A couple of decades ago that was reduced to thirty seconds. Now many ads last only half that time.

If advertisers feel they must get their message across in a matter of seconds, how is the preacher expected to compete? The answer is, we don’t. Because we are convinced that the gospel has a power all its own. Again, to quote from Paul (and again using Eugene Peterson’s translation): “It’s news I’m most proud to proclaim, this extraordinary Message of God’s powerful plan to rescue everyone who trusts him…”

The Preacher’s Character

We’ve looked at the preacher’s calling: to lift up Jesus and draw people to trust and serve him. We’ve looked at the challenges the preacher faces from an increasingly fast-paced society and the overwhelming influence of modern media—not to mention the growing hostility in our society towards religion in general and Christianity in particular.

Now for the time that remains I want to look at what is fundamental to effective preaching, and that is the preacher’s character. Paul’s wise counsel to Timothy in this department was this: “Always be sober-minded, endure suffering, do the work of an evangelist, fulfil your ministry.”

The preacher is in the pulpit for the space of just a few crucial minutes each week. But those minutes are meaningless unless they are backed up by a life that is consistent with them. So it is that in the last lines of this morning’s reading Paul leaves Timothy with four pieces of advice:

“Be sober-minded.” That is, don’t allow yourself to be taken in by the subtle and often not-so-subtle rabbit trails that can lead you away from the central truths of the faith.

“Endure suffering.” Be assured that there will be people who oppose you, who will even try to bring you down. In those times, be sure to cling all the more closely to Jesus and to depend on the power of the Holy Spirit.

“Do the work of an evangelist.” Be sure that you are leading people to Jesus—not just to a church or a particular way of life or set of doctrines, but to Jesus, who alone is able to bring us into a relationship with the Father.

“Fulfil your ministry.” The word translated “ministry” here literally means “service”. And so Paul is reminding Timothy and all preachers that we stand among our congregations not as their commander but as their servants—and more importantly, as the servants of Jesus, who came not to be served but to serve and to give his life a ransom for all. May all the glory go to him!

---

[1] https://www.barna.com/trends/pastors-quitting-ministry-barna-data/

[2]     https://madeinca.ca/internet-statistics-canada/

“I will not let you go” (Genesis 32:22-31)

Have you ever been in a situation where there is something you didn’t want to deal with? Maybe it was a challenging issue at work. Maybe it was a tense relationship with a neighbour or a conflict with a family member. Or if you think back to your school days, perhaps it was a homework assignment. I can remember more than once burning the midnight oil (or to be truthful, the 2 a.m. oil!) to finish off a paper that was due the next morning.

Eventually the situation reaches the point where we realize we can’t postpone taking action any longer. Well, those are exactly the circumstances in which Jacob finds himself in this morning’s Old Testament reading.

Those of you who are familiar with his story will know that all his life Jacob had managed to succeed through trickery, through dishonesty and deceit. He was the master of the scam. And there had been an indication that this was the kind of person Jacob was going to be right from the time of his birth.

As you likely know as well, Jacob was a twin. His brother Esau was the first to be born. But Jacob emerged from his mother Rebekah’s womb with his tiny fist clenched tightly around his brother’s heel. In fact it was for that reason that he was given the name Jacob, which means something like “he clutches” or “he grasps”.

What happened at Jacob’s birth was the beginning of a pattern. And so it is that, as we follow the life of Jacob in the Book of Genesis we find him constantly grasping—first cheating his older brother Esau out of his birthright, later masquerading as his brother to steal their dying father’s final blessing along with his inheritance, and later still tricking his uncle Laban out of half his flocks of sheep. But now (to change the image) Jacob’s chickens had come home to roost.

Wrestling with God

As our passage opens this morning, Jacob is dreading what is about to happen. At their parting years before Esau had vowed to kill his brother. And it was only because their mother Rebekah had got wind of this and shared with him what she had found out that Jacob was able to make a hasty exit.

Now, after years of pent-up estrangement and hostility, what Jacob had been avoiding was on the verge of happening. Jacob was about to come face to face with his brother Esau once again. And Jacob quite rightly feared for his life.

As we meet him in this morning’s Old Testament reading, Jabob has been careful to ensure that his family and his flocks are safely out of harm’s way on the opposite bank of the River Jabbok. And there he sits, silent and alone, under the starlit sky.

Then the most peculiar thing happens. Suddenly Jacob finds himself wrestling with a figure who seemingly has come out of nowhere. Try to picture them, grappling with each other, throwing each other down, rolling back and forth on the grassy meadow under the starlit sky. Then, as the faint glimmer of the rising sun begins to appear over the eastern horizon, Jacob’s mysterious opponent strikes him on the hip socket and throws his hip out of joint.

However, Jacob was a tough customer. And he was not one to give up a fight. He was not going to let a mere dislocated hip stand in his way, and so he continued to wrestle with the stranger. It was at that point, seeing that Jacob was not going to call it quits, that the stranger said to him, “Let me go, for the day is breaking.” But Jacob was not going to let the stranger off so easily and was firm in his response: “I will not let you go before you have given me a blessing.”

So the stranger asks Jacob, “What is your name?” To which Jacob replies, “Jacob”—the grasper. “Your name won’t be Jacob any longer,” says the stranger, “From now on you will be called Israel—the God-Wrestler—for you have wrestled with God and you’ve made it through.” So Jacob called the spot where these strange goings-on happened “Peniel”, which means “the face of God”.

They wouldn’t let go

So what can we learn from this strange story from a strange land nearly four thousand years ago?

One of the things that I come away from this story of Jacob is that he was not willing to let go in his struggle with God. And Jacob was not unique. Later on in the Bible we meet with Job. As Job suffered the loss successively of his wealth, his sons and daughters, and finally his health, he continued to cling to his faith in God. In the midst of his unutterable pain and suffering, he declared to his friends, “Though [the Almighty] slay me, yet I will trust in him.” (Job 13:15)

In the New Testament we meet with the Apostle Paul, who shared with his friends in Corinth the sufferings he had endured over the course of his life:

Five times I have received … the forty lashes minus one. Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I received a stoning. Three times I was shipwrecked; for a night and a day I was adrift at sea; on frequent journeys, in danger from rivers, danger from bandits, danger from my own people, danger from Gentiles, danger in the city, danger in the wilderness, danger at sea, danger from false brothers and sisters; in toil and hardship, through many a sleepless night, hungry and thirsty, often without food, cold and naked… (2 Corinthians 11:24-27)

Yet in spite of all this, Paul would not relinquish his faith in Christ. And Paul was not unique. Recently I’ve been reading Letters and Papers from Prison by a man named Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Bonhoeffer was a Lutheran pastor who joined the resistance against Adolf Hitler’s Nazi régime in Germany during World War 2. He was held in prison for a year and a half and then in a concentration camp for another six months before being finally executed. Yet it is clear that over the course of those years his faith in God only deepened and grew.

Christian history right down to the present day is peppered with the stories of women, men and children who have in spite of every kind of adversity and loss, have clung to their faith in God. Indeed, in most cases that faith was only deepened. Like Jacob in our Bible reading this morning, they would not let go.

The One who will not let us go…

Had the circumstances been different, you would have been witnesses to the baptism of three young people this morning. What a privilege it is to stand around the font and witness as people mark the beginning of a lifelong journey of walking with Jesus.

For twenty centuries Christians have been baptizing in obedience to Jesus’ final words to his disciples: “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you…” (Matthew 28:18-20)

Baptisms are joyful events—and that is as it should be. Yet that joyful atmosphere can easily mask the seriousness of the vows we undertake. Listen to the words with which we address the candidates: “Will you persevere…?” “Will you seek and serve…?” “Will you strive…?” Those are strong words when you take a moment think about them! I don’t think I would be exaggerating to say they pose a superhuman challenge!

Yet we accept the challenge because when Jesus commanded the disciples to baptize, he also left them with a promise: “And remember,” he said to them, “I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

So it is that as we grasp onto the Lord in baptism, we recognize that we are being grasped by a hand that is infinitely stronger than our own—a hand that, no matter what life may throw at us, will never let us go. And so, with the apostle Paul we are able to proclaim, “I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 8:38-39)