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The Fourth Sunday after Pentecost The Internet this week has been buzzing with the story of an Episcopal priest on the west coast who recently wrote an article in her diocesan newspaper in which she described how she considered herself to be both Muslim and Christian. People, not surprisingly, are of two minds about this. For some, her embrace of the beliefs of two faiths is an exciting and enriching development, potentially a way to more fully experience God. For others, however, this is an anathema, a scandal, the worst sort of syncretism. For those in this camp, it just isn’t possible to claim to be both Muslin and Christian, for to claim to be one is to deny tenets that are essential to the other. By coincidence, several small groups at Saint Mary’s have been reading a book recently called Five Voice, Five Faiths. This book is an introduction to five world religions: Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, Christianity and Islam. The day after this story broke, the Tuesday prayer group happened to be discussing Islam. As our discussion progressed, what struck me and several other members of the group were the notable similarities between Judaism, Islam and Christianity, In fact they do have much in common: a common patriarchal figure, Abraham, belief in one God, emphasis on a life of prayer, reliance on scripture, some of it shared, a belief in prophets, again, many of them shared, and so on. But despite the similarities, there is one thing that is to my mind, impossible to reconcile across the three traditions—the person of Jesus. Even though Judaism and Islam revere Jesus as a teacher and a prophet, those of us who profess to be Christian are bound to see Jesus in a different way. How to understand Jesus has long been the question. “Who do you say that I am?” Jesus asks his disciples in today’s gospel. Peter, as always, has the quick answer: “You are the Messiah of God.” “Who do you say that I am?” might still be the essential question for us today, and how we answer that question has implications for how we live the rest of our lives. “Who do you say that I am?” At first glance, it might seem that to be Christian would mean echoing Peter’s answer, “You are God’s Messiah.” That is a perfectly good answer, of course, because we as Christians do understand Jesus to be not just a prophet or a great teacher, but the anointed one, the Christ, long promised to God’s people. The problem for Christians over the years, though, has been trying to understand exactly what this means. It is a question that has beset the church across time, and it is question that we continue to ask as we travel our own journeys in faith. “Who do you say that I am?” Jesus’ disciples could affirm that he was the Messiah based on their time spent with him and his teachings to them, but their understanding of what that meant was also shaped by the expectations of their Jewish faith. And when their Messiah was hung on a cross to die, those expectations were shattered. Jesus’ resurrection, however, renewed their belief that he was indeed the Messiah. The mobilization of this band of frightened and dispirited folk who, after the resurrection and ascension, took on the task of spreading the gospel throughout the known world, may be the among the greatest witnesses to the reality of Jesus as Messiah. “Who do you say that I am?” As time passed and the church spread and grew questions emerged about the nature of Jesus as Messiah—was Jesus human? Was he divine? Could he be both? Not surprisingly different church leaders came up with different answers, and not surprisingly, great arguments ensued over whose answers were really correct. To settle the disputes, the Emperor Constantine called a council for the entire church to be held at Nicea—the first great ecumenical council, called specifically to resolve the questions about the nature of Jesus. The result of this council, and the three that followed it, was the formulation we know and recite together each week, the Nicene Creed. “Who do you say that I am?” The second paragraph of this creed, which begins, “We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father…” might be one way we answer this question. But in the post modern and post Christian world in which we find ourselves, the philosophical concepts in which the creed is embedded are increasingly foreign to us. More recently biblical scholars have sought to understand Jesus the man, not in philosophical terms, but rather in the context of history, based on what we know about 1st century Palestine and Second Temple Judaism. “Who do you say that I am?” There are many ways we might answer this question. We might answer it based on the witness of Jesus’ earliest followers, found in scripture, or we might answer it with the words of the creeds, or with an understanding of the historical Jesus. But however we frame our answer, it will necessarily also be shaped by our own experiences of Jesus—what we’ve been taught, yes, but also our experience of Jesus and his abiding love for us—experience gained in prayer, in the Eucharist and in our daily lives, in our participation in Christian community and the larger world. “Who do you say that I am?” “You are the Messiah of God.” When we affirm that Jesus is the Messiah of God, we are affirming not only his unique status as Son of God, as our Savior, as one who loves us without reservation, but also our status as the ones called to live out the gospel, to work to fully instantiate the Kingdom of God that his life and death ushered in. When we affirm that Jesus is Messiah we acknowledge that it is through Jesus that we come into special relationship with God and we affirm that when we enter fully into that relationship, our lives are forever changed. Today we will baptize four young children, Sydney, Peyton, William, and Samantha, and we will mark them as Christ’s own forever. As we present these children for baptism we will also renew our own baptismal vows, affirming once again our belief that Jesus is the Messiah of God, affirming that we, too, are Christ’s own. And we will promise—parents, godparents, and congregation— to do all in our power to ensure that these children may also come to know Jesus as a savior, may also come to live their lives in Christ in the sure promise of his love and salvation. It’s not an easy task we take on when we make these promises, but it is an awesome one, in the fullest meaning of the word. I invite you as we stand to renew our baptismal covenant in just a few moments to think about that question, “Who do you say that I am?” and what it means to affirm it in your life.
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