Sermon by The Rev. Merrill Wade, Sunday, August 25, 2002
A turbulent force swirls deep in the consciousness of every American. This is yet another paradigm or world view which shapes us as a people. I speak of individualism. Listen to these words, lifted from the sociological classic, Habits of the Heart, Individualism and Commitment in American Life, and see if they resonate with you.
"We believe in the dignity, indeed the sacredness of the individual. Anything that would violate our right to think for ourselves, judge for ourselves, make our own decisions, live our lives as we see fit, is not only morally wrong, it is sacrilegious."
Do these words authentically proclaim the good news of the American social experiment? You might say yes and no - but that is because you have the freedom to think independently, which you value enough to die for!
Think of the heroes of our society. Tough, self-sufficient individualists.
Again I quote Robert Bellah and others in Habits of the Heart:
"America is the inventor of that most mythic individual hero, the cowboy, who again and again saves a society he can never completely fit into. The cowboy has a special talent - he can shoot straighter and faster than other men - and a special sense of justice. But these characteristics make him so unique that he can never fully belong to society. His destiny is to defend society without ever really joining it."
In this paradigm the group, the society, is inherently flawed, a realm of suspicion, that necessarily requires a hero from the outside to reform it. As we have now entered the 21st Century no citizenry in American history has ever been more suspicious of institutions, groups and communities than we are now. This is exactly why nearly every presidential candidate has had to create this "cowboy outside Washington" image. I’m not talking about George W. Bush who has a ranch in Crawford but the reality that nearly every elected president since Truman has run on the concept that he is outside the establishment. We don’t trust parties, groups or institutions. We are individualists…
I am asking you to latch on to this creed of individuality and mistrust of groups because I want to contrast such a paradigm with Jesus 1st Century world that cannot imagine such individuality at all.
Stay with me, this will develop slowly.
Early in the Gospel of John Jesus goes to Galilee. He meets Philip and invites him to follow him. And here is what follows:
"Now Philip was from Bethsaida, the city of Andrew and Peter. Philip found Nathanaeal and said to him, "We have found him of whom Moses wrote in the law and also the prophets wrote, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph."
Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph. In the American social experiment Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph is a starting place. It is soil, not the plant that grows. Merrill of Fort Worth, son of John the Air Force pilot, is the ground from which I, I, choose to depart. The American concept is to give each individual wings to fly as they choose according to their gifts and desires.
Not so in the cultural paradigms of the Mediterranean Basin in the first century. In that world Jesus IS stereotyped to be from Nazareth and the son of Joseph. This social collectivism, this groupism was incredibly powerful.
After Andrew announces that Jesus is from Nazareth, Nathanaeal cannot understand his enthusiasm. Andrew must be mistaken. Nathanaeal says to Andrew, "Can anything good come out of Nazareth?"
We might, in our freedom of thinking and tolerant view of community rivalries, see this as hometown against hometown - like a football rivalry between two high schools. But that is to underestimate the depth and power of group identity. In Nathanaeal’s understanding, it simply wasn’t feasible that a good and worthwhile person would emerge from Nazareth. In this group paradigm all persons from a community are perceived to be alike from the outside.
Now, we of course understand this because we have stereotyped races and regions of our country and continue this fruitless practice to this day.
But in the American experiment it is believed that a person can break free by their own sense of worth and commitment. Every individual has dignity and can create their own possibilities.
Not so in the first century in a group paradigm. Jesus is from Nazareth and he is judged by the whole. Nazarenes are Nazarenes. Any person in that group is that group’s person.
In this first century group paradigm the community identity was sharpened by the family identity. In small hamlets like Nazareth it was absolutely necessary that family work traditions were upheld. A community needed a distribution of labor and there was no room for any individual to stray from the family responsibility. Indeed there was great shame heaped upon a father when the sons failed to do his work with him.
To know a family then was to know any member of the family. Joseph worked with his hands. Jesus must work with his hands. When Jesus left the group, when he, in something that was likely interpreted to be the action of a Prodigal Son, dared to follow his strange yearning to leave and speak and preach and act for God, no doubt some degree of shame was visited upon his family.
We see this quite vividly elsewhere in Matthew’s gospel.
In the 13th chapter of Matthew Jesus came home to Nazareth. He had strayed but his reputation as a healer preceded him. He was permitted to speak in the synagogue.
Whatever he said or did Matthew says the people were astonished and said the following, "Where did "this man" get this wisdom and these mighty works? Is not this the carpenter’s son? Is not his mother called Mary? Are not his brothers James and Joseph and Simon and Judas? Are not all his sisters with us? Where then did this man get all this?" And Matthew adds that they took offense at this.
They took offense? The Greek word is eskandolon - they were scandalized, shocked and disappointed by Jesus. He had failed the family.
In order to grasp the meaning of today’s gospel account we must do the stressful work of setting the cultural scene. Jesus did not live in America.
The prevailing paradigm was not the cowboy or the free individual, but the eyes of the group, bestowing honor and shame based on conformity.
It is with this background that we find Jesus and the disciples in the region of Caeserea, and Jesus asked his disciples, "who do the people say that the Son of Man is?" Who do people say that I am? Jesus wonders aloud to his friends. Recognizing that Jesus has been condemned for his individuality, we can sense the gravity of this question.
In a world where no individual has the right to claim his own destiny, Jesus needs to hear what the group thinks of him. The aspect of this I cannot fathom is his emotional state in asking this question. Is he objectively gathering information coming in from the frontiers of his ministry? Does he, in a culture that demands group conformity, need group approval? Is he asking for reassurance? We simply cannot know with certainty his internal motivations for asking this question.
The answers are strange. Some say John the Baptist, who is dead. Some say Elijah, who lived almost a 1,000 years before and ascended into the mystery of God’s heavens, others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.
These strange answers are a menagerie of heroes past, those who had a stamp of divine approval, those who shaped the life of Israel.
The diversity of answers pointed to the group problem. It is as if the disciples are saying to Jesus, "the people cannot figure you out because you don’t conform well enough. We your disciples and the people that hear you do not know who you are. We are all confused. Jesus, the people don’t know how to put you in a group. You are alone."
And it is in that instant of aloneness that his deepest question emerges.
Jesus looks to his disciples - "Who do you say that I am?"
And something on the order of spiritual electricity is exchanged between Jesus and Simon Peter. Simon Peter says, "you are the Messiah, the Son of the Living God." And the deepest truth of that proclamation fills Jesus and Peter simultaneously. Jesus has come home, not to Nazareth but to a family that knows and does the will of God. Peter has offered the affirmation that Nazareth and his family cannot offer.
Friends, what I am imagining here is that Jesus has, gradually over time, come to understand his life, his mission, as being fused to the life and mission of the God of Israel. Through his prayers, his experiences as a healer and teacher, he has seen lives changed and transformed.
Yet he has been rejected, over and over, by the groups in his society that are the bestowers of honor. His family. The people of Nazareth. The leaders of Jerusalem.
And Peter, in a supernatural moment of grace no longer confused by this group-think, utters words that any individual would have struggled to claim for themselves.
You are the Christ…
Now you may be concerned that I am imposing an uncomfortable weakness on Jesus the man. But I see it in reverse. I see that Jesus, though like us encumbered by the culture in which we was raised, is bestowing upon Peter, and us as well, the freedom and power to transcend the cultural forces that entrap us.
Look at what follows closely.
The spiritual electricity between Peter and Jesus reverses itself.
"Blessed are you, Simon son of Jona, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you (because nobody with flesh and blood had the independence to see it) but my Father who is in heaven.
Yes, you are Simon, son of Jona, Jesus says, but you are more than that. Much more than your father’s son. You are now a member of this family which does God’s will, therefore you are Peter and on this rock I will build my church…
I am suggesting that in proclaiming Christ as Peter did we are transformed with him. And if Jesus can build his church on Peter’s life, and Peter’s proclamation - then he can certainly use me and you!!
Peter’s story is our story.
He confesses Jesus as God’s son yet wants to control Jesus when Jesus says he must suffer.
He steps out on the water to walk with Jesus and he falls when he becomes self-absorbed.
He sleeps in Gethsemene after swearing that nothing would come between him and Jesus.
He denies Jesus three times then cries bitterly in his shame and repents.
Yet Peter returned to the Lord and the Lord to Peter. As individuals we know Peter all too well. I am Peter. You are Peter.
The Risen Christ asks us, "who do you say that I am?"
When we name him Lord and Savior we receive the power to live as Peter lived… A flawed life with a living faith, forgiven and blessed by Jesus, the Son of the Living God. AMEN.
