Rev. Tara Barber
The Community Church of Sebastopol
August 25, 2002
Matthew 16: 13-20
Who do you say that Jesus is? We could be here until Christmas and still be asking the same question. I am asking because I believe that the way we talk about Jesus says a lot about who we are as individuals and as a community of faith. And I am afraid that maybe we aren’t talking much about Jesus apart from this place, and on this particular day of the week. So, today, let’s re-enter into the conversation that the adult ed committee invited us into last year – let’s sing and reflect and talk about who we say that Jesus is for us. I’ve brought along some of my gurus to help us in this conversation.
Madeleine L’Engle writes, “A teacher of small children told us of a child who said to her, “Jesus is God’s show and tell.” How simple and how wonderful! Jesus is God’s show and tell. That’s the best theology of incarnation I’ve ever heard. Jesus said, if you do not understand me as a little child, you will not be able to enter the kingdom of heaven.
That child’s insight works more powerfully for me than dogma. When I am informed that Jesus of Nazareth was exactly like us except sinless, I block. If he was sinless he wasn’t exactly like us. That makes no sense. Jesus was like us because he was born like any human child, grew up like the rest of us, asked questions in the temple when he was twelve, lost his temper in righteous indignation at the money lenders in the temple, grieved when at the end his disciples abandoned him. I want Jesus to be like us because he is God’s show and tell, and too much dogma obscures rather than reveals the likeness. If Jesus is God’s show and tell, the wonder, the marvel is that Jesus and (God) are one. Not I, says Jesus over and over, but (God) in me, (God) who is such love and is willing to be in the story with us.”
God in Jesus. Present in the story with us, as God’s show and tell. And all we need to do is to lean into Christ’s presence, so let’s lean on those everlasting arms.
I can imagine Rae singing these words – loudly in the small black church she attended. Sighing as she sang, blissfully resting in Jesus’ everlasting arms. Rae is a character in Anne Lammot’s book, Crooked Little Heart. And in Lammot’s words, Rae is…
Hilarious, kind, ten pounds heavier than big-boned and ample, with brown almond eyes and thick chestnut hair that was always piled on top of her head like an off-duty Gibson girl, Rae lived in a world filled with light and color and religion and distressing relationships… (can you see why I might like her?)
Rae had become a Christian two years before, which was a source of great consternation to everyone. It was one thing when she had believed in God in a general, ecumenical kind of way, another when she began making space in her chair so that Jesus might sit down beside her. They all hoped it would pass, like a cold, but it showed no signs of doing so. She also remained a left-wing activist, but now she went to church every Sunday, began every morning with prayer and Scripture, and tried to see Jesus in everyone – even Luther, even Republicans. She had not yet begun referring to God as “the Lord,” but…this was right around the corner…
“The God thing drives me crazy. I can’t believe someone so smart believes in Jesus. Once she told me how she feels his love in the tenderness of her friends, the beauty of the earth, the warmth inside her heart. I said yes, I feel all those things too, but why do you have to drag Jesus the friendly ghost into it?”
Elizabeth stared at a spider web on the ceiling. It was so strange to have a close friend who loved Jesus. Rae saw poor people, she thought of Jesus; she saw wildflowers, grapes on the vine, full moons, and she thought of Jesus. (Elizabeth’s daughter) Rosie asked her recently why she used to see friendship and nature as just being friendship and nature and now she called it Jesus. And Rae told her the story of a pastor asking his Sunday school first graders, “What’s gray and has a long bushy tail and collects nuts in the fall?” And a small boy answered, “I know the answer is probably Jesus, but it sure sounds like a squirrel to me.”
Like Rosie, Rae’s good friends didn’t get it. They didn’t understand Rae’s Jesus. All they could see was the squirrels. Some days it’s like that for me, too, I suppose. I know that the answer is supposed to be Jesus, but all I can see are the squirrels. And some days I really want to convince myself and my friends that believing in Jesus is really based on rational, reasonable things. Things that really make universal sense.
But what Rae has is more than reasonable or rational. Rae has a relationship with Jesus. Rae sees life through a God colored lens, and even the squirrels are held in Jesus’ loving embrace.
Rosie asks, “Rae, are you not ever afraid because you believe in God?” “I am afraid sometimes. But I have company.” “You mean, because you feel like God is with you?” “Uh-huh.” “I think I’m a Christian, (too)” said Rosie. “Except for the Jesus part.”
Except for the Jesus part. That’s what many of our young adults and teenagers would say. And what will happen to the Christian story, if the newest Christians among us can’t tell the story of Jesus. Come, O Long Expected Jesus. Help us to sing and together share the embarrassing, amazing, mystifying stories of Jesus.
Sing #125 Come, O Long Expected Jesus.
Born a child and yet a king. What a friend we have in Jesus. Emmanuel. King of Kings, and Lord of Lords. Present, with everlasting arms. How do those images fit with your Jesus? What one word would you choose to describe Jesus?
Well, not surprisingly, I couldn’t just use one word. Here’s my take on Jesus.
Who do you say that I am? Jesus asks his disciples. At that particular moment, Jesus was a man of Nazareth, a Mediterranean Jewish artisan, living nearly two thousand years ago. He embodied a deep faith as shown in his intimate relationship with God, his ministry of inclusion, and his liberating message. By the time the question was written into the gospel story, however, Jesus had come to be more than a human preacher and teacher. Jesus was living after his dying, he was transforming and inspiring the lives of those who heard and remembered. Those early followers came to know Jesus the Messiah, and for me, too, Jesus is the Christ. He is the fullest expression of God for me.
“Who do you say that I am?” I say that you were an extraordinary man, whose life awakened humanity to the possibility of life imbued with God. I say that you preached and taught, healed and reconciled; offering those around you a glimpse of God’s loving presence. I say that you were a man of deep faith and integrity, whose convictions threatened the status quo. I say that you were courageous in facing betrayal, abandonment, and death. I say that in your dying, you call each of us to our cross, to risk even death for the sake of God’s liberating reign. I say that your presence continues in the world, both in memory and in living experiences of you. I say that you are the Christ. God fully in you, you dwelling deep within God.
And so I ask you – today – who do you say that Jesus is?
How does your life speak of who Jesus is?
That’s where the show and tell and the leaning on the everlasting arms all comes together. In your life and in mine – in our life together as a community of faith.
Who do we say that Jesus is? And how does our life speak of Jesus?
Jesus the Christ of memory and presence, engage us in the conversation of who you are for us in this moment and who you have been for us at other times in our lives. Help us to preach the gospel at all times with our actions, using words only when necessary, so that our lives speak of your power, your love, and your call. Amen.