Dear friends in Christ, grace and peace to you from God, who lives and breathes and moves among us. Amen.
Caesarea Phillipi is a place in northern Israel about 25 miles north of the Sea of Galilee. It is a place of much ancient history. It is the place where Jesus has brought his disciples to ask them a pivotal question:“Who do YOU say that I am?”
I wonder if you can picture being in this place, like the disciples.
Imagine, if you will, standing with your good friends in a cave tucked high into the rocky terrace of a cliff. Fragments of ancient temple relics are strewn about, and pictures of Greek gods are etched on the stone walls that surround you. These idols and artifacts are not of the living.
Yet as you look out from the cave, you are treated to a sweeping view of the Jordan River Valley below, and deep, verdant greens. It’s incredibly noisy, in this place, with water rushing down into the valley, feeding the Jordan river and all that lives and breathes and grows below. This remarkable view says something important about the realm of God: that God is alive! with life, shades of green, the rush of water, fertile soil, movement, and being.
It is to this place – where the contrast between death and life is palpable – that Jesus brings his disciples to ask them: “Who do YOUsay that I am?”
All throughout Mathew’s Gospel, Jesus has been priming his disciples to answer this tough question, with, shall we say, mixed results. But in today’s gospel, we have reached a turning point in Jesus’ ministry. You see, the opposition and rejection of Jesus has been growing and deepening, and Jesus needs an answer from his followers about who he really is. The answer to this question will define what this new community of Jesus-followers is really all about.
Will it be about pagan idols like the ones etched in stone all around them? Will it be about another prophet, more or less like John the Baptist, Elijah, or Jeremiah? Or, will this community be revealed as something altogether new and different?
“But who do YOU say that I am?” asks Jesus.
Peter takes the lead in confessing the truth, but his “right” answer is not so much a personal triumph as it is pure gift from God. He responds:
“You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.”
It is a radical, revolutionary answer; within it, we hear the truth that God lives in Jesus. That God moves in Jesus. That God’s very breath is the breath of Jesus. That all that Jesus has revealed in his ministry of healing, feeding, mercy, and liberation reveals the life of God, too.
Friends, what does it mean to you to believe in a livingGod in Christ? What does it mean to be a community of faith that believes in a living God in Christ?
I wonder…
even in these difficult days, as we grieve the loss of too many loved ones to COVID19; do we not see a living God in weary health care workers who continue to courageously show up on the front lines to heal and care for those who are sick and alone?
I wonder…
even as we lament lost time with our friends and family during this season of pandemic; do we not see God working in our love for neighbor as we wear our masks, social distance, and check in on those who are isolated?
I wonder…
even as we are confronted with the continued sin of racism in our communities; that inequality that persists for our black, brown, and indigenous neighbors; and the loss of jobs, housing, and food security for so many;
do we not see see the living God working through community organizations and churches who have reoriented their operations on a dime to respond to the need for food and basic necessities; do we not see the living God in volunteers and activists who continue to share their gifts of time and money in their hopes of dismantling injustice?
I wonder…
even as we mourn the loss of being in our sanctuary, worshipping and singing, and just being together; even as we long for things to just get back ‘to normal’; do we not see what God might be doing in our midst as the church engages in new ways of connecting and caring for people?
Dear friends, where do you see God living and working in your life, and in the life of your neighbors? This isa difficult time for so many of us, and yet we live in hope. Through faith, we glimpse a God on the move, making a way, connecting us to love, healing, feeding, liberating, and reconciling all things in Jesus. As Pastor Emmy Kegler reminded me during a video message this week, “God is already way out ahead of us.”
May it be so.
And may we, like Peter, be a people with eyes to see God living and moving and breathing right in front of us; calling us to magnify the life of Jesus in our own hearts and in our work together.
Amen.