Who do you say that I am?

Address given at St Mary's Cathedral, Limerick on Sunday 27th August 2017, the 11th after Trinity

Today’s Gospel reading (Matthew 16:13-20) is about the answers to two questions.

First, Jesus asks his disciples, ‘Who do people say that the Son of Man is?’, referring to himself, and they reply, ‘Some say John the Baptist, but others Elijah, and still others Jeremiah or one of the prophets’.

Notice that all of these are figures from the past. Even John the Baptist, who was Jesus’s contemporary and cousin. Herod, the ruler of Galilee, had ordered John’s execution, and we are told he believed Jesus must be John returned from the dead, when he heard reports of Jesus’s ministry.

Second, Jesus asks, ‘But who do you say that I am?’, and it is Peter who replies on behalf of them all, ‘You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God’.

Jews at the time believed that God would send his Messiah, meaning ‘anointed one’, to be a king on the throne of Israel who would restore the fortunes of the Jewish people.

Notice this is not the first time Jesus has been named as the Son of God – if you remember 2 Sundays ago, the disciples in the boat ‘worshipped (Jesus), saying, “Truly you are the Son of God”’, after he came to help them in the storm.

The same story is told by Mark and Luke, as well as Matthew - but only Matthew records Jesus’s reply to Peter. Let’s look at the story from 4 different perspectives: that of Jesus, of Peter, of Matthew, and finally of ourselves today, 2,000 years on in Ireland.

Why, I wonder, did Jesus ask these two questions when he did?

The disciples have been following Jesus for quite a while, watching his ministry, learning the ways of the kingdom of heaven from him. Jesus’s fame has been spreading, crowds are pressing around him, wondering if Jesus might herald the arrival of the Messiah. The Jewish authorities are suspicious, starting to question his ministry, and preparing to oppose him. Jesus surely knows that the time is coming soon when he must go to Jerusalem to confront them, and quite likely be killed by them.

But are the disciples ready for this? Are they up to the task of continuing his ministry, of building the kingdom of heaven? I think Jesus decides to test them. First he asks an easy question – by their answers he knows they understand the context of his work. Then he asks the hard one – and it is Peter who speaks for all of them. Jesus sees that Peter has leadership qualities, despite all his weaknesses. And he praises Peter, marking him out as the rock on which the church – the ‘people of God’ – will be built, with a pun on his nickname Peter, which means a rock in Greek.

The disciples must have passed Jesus’s test, because from then on he intensifies his teaching. He begins to prepare them for his final trip to Jerusalem, his crucifixion, and resurrection – as we will hear in next Sunday’s Gospel reading.

But why is Jesus so secretive, why does he order them to tell no one that he is the Messiah? Because, I think, a public claim to be the Messiah would be very dangerous both for them and for Jesus - it would be like raising the banner of revolution. Jesus does not see himself as an earthly king, and besides, it is not yet time – he still has a lot to teach the disciples before they are fully ready for their task.

Peter is loyal and bold, but also impetuous and foolhardy - as we saw two Sunday’s ago, when he tried to walk on water, lost his nerve, and began to sink.

Peter could also be obtuse and wrong-headed – next Sunday we will hear Jesus publicly chide him, saying, ‘Get thee behind me, Satan!’, when Peter tries to dissuade Jesus from his path of sacrifice. But at this moment Peter for all his faults surely feels encouraged by Jesus’s praise. And Jesus’s assessment of him is correct, of course - it is Peter who will take the lead in publicly proclaiming Jesus as Messiah on the day of Pentecost.

I wonder if Peter was puzzled when Jesus said, ‘I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven’? Jesus is telling Peter he is like the steward of a rich man’s household, who is given the keys of the house and authority over the other servants when the master travels away. A bit like Carson the butler in Downton Abbey, I suppose.

Over the ages Popes have claimed that by these words Jesus has given them authority over other bishops, because they are Peter’s successors as Bishop of Rome. But I find this entirely unconvincing – surely Jesus confers the position of steward on Peter in a personal capacity.

And indeed, Peter does go on to act as steward of the infant church at the Council of Jerusalem, when he sides with Paul to persuade the church to accept gentiles into full membership - but that is to jump ahead. Jesus’s plan for salvation works through human history, and Peter will not understand the implications of his words for many years to come.

Matthew the Evangelist who wrote the Gospel is unlikely to be the tax-collector Matthew whom Jesus called to be an Apostle.

Scholars believe that his Gospel was written after the destruction of the Temple in 70AD for a Jewish Christian audience. He is writing at least 40 years after Jesus’s death and resurrection, and the events of Pentecost; and 20 or more years after the Council of Jerusalem.

Matthew is keen to reinforce the Jewish roots of Christian faith, while welcoming the growing numbers of gentile Christians. This, I think, is why he, more than the other Gospel writers, emphasises Peter’s role in the story. It is Peter’s belief that Jesus is the Messiah that is the rock on which the church has been built, and it is Peter’s role as steward of the kingdom of heaven that has brought the gentiles into it.

Matthew writes from a Jewish perspective in the light of his own time, a time when the split between Jews and Christians is crystallising and becoming sharp. His audience would surely have understood that Jesus asks his questions not just of the first disciples, but of them as well. And it is the answers they give that will determine how the kingdom of heaven grows.

Fourthly, what is the significance of Jesus’s questions for us today in Ireland, 2,000 years on?

The tide of history has ebbed and flowed since Matthew’s day. The small church of Jewish and gentile Christians grew to take over the mighty Roman Empire. The historic trinitarian creeds were forged in attempts to answer Jesus’s question, ‘Who do you say that I am?’. Over centuries empires have come and gone, churches have split and the parts prospered - or not, and belief has waxed and waned. In our own day, we see Christian belief contracting in some parts of the world, including our own, but growing in others. But this has happened many times before.

Throughout this history Jesus has continued to ask each generation, ‘Who do you say that I am?’, and it remains the case that the answers we give will determine how the kingdom of heaven will grow. We share with Peter an identity as flawed disciples who are forgiven and empowered by Jesus to face whatever lies on the path ahead. May our answer be like his, and may we serve like him as stewards to build the future of the church, and with it the kingdom of heaven.

Let me finish in prayer:

O God, the fount of all wisdom,

in the humble witness of the apostle Peter

you have shown the foundation of our faith:

give us the light of your Spirit,

that, recognising in Jesus of Nazareth

the Son of the living God,

we may be living stones

for the building up of your holy Church;

through Jesus Christ our Lord,

who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit,

one God, now and for ever. Amen

Finding life by losing it

‘Get behind me, Satan! Get thee behind me, Satan!’

What a shock it must have been for Peter to hear Jesus address him in these cutting words, recorded by Mark (8:31-38).

Peter had been the first to say, ‘You are the Messiah’, when Jesus had asked, ‘Who do you say that I am?’ But Jesus then ‘began to teach them that the Son of Man must undergo great suffering … and be killed’. Peter knew Jesus was referring to himself, and he was shocked. Like most Jews of his day, he expected the promised Messiah to come as a great conqueror to destroy the gentiles – including the hated Romans - and to rule over a revived Kingdom of Israel. The Messiah would vanquish his foes, not be killed by them! So Peter remonstrates with Jesus: ‘Look here, Jesus, that can’t be right!’ he says - or words to that effect. It is then that Jesus turns on him and likens him to Satan – and he does so in front of all the others!

Why was Jesus so hard on Peter, his friend and disciple? Jesus knew that God’s way was not the way of violent earthly conquest, but the way of self-sacrificing love. I’m sure he didn’t want to die a painful death, but Jesus must have realised this was the inevitable outcome of what God called him to do. He was determined to face it bravely. But Peter tries to argue him out of it, in an echo of Satan’s tempting in the wilderness.

Isn’t this often the way it is? When we’ve made up our minds what the right thing is to do even at a personal cost, our friends and loved ones try to talk us out of it. The tempter can be the very person dearest to us! Yet we must not allow even the pleading voice of love to stop us from doing God’s will.

So Jesus seizes the moment to teach Peter and the disciples his way, the way of the cross, how to find life by losing it.

As usual, Mark compresses Jesus’s teaching to a very few words, but it goes to the very heart of our Christian faith. It is worth reflecting on it sentence by sentence.

‘If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.’

Jesus’s honesty is startling isn’t it? No one can ever say Jesus lured them to follow him on false pretences! He does not offer his disciples an easy life or a comfortable way to God. Like other great leaders, he calls us as Churchill did to ‘blood, toil, tears and sweat’. But he does not call us to do anything more than he is prepared to do himself.

First Jesus calls us to ‘deny ourselves’, to say no to our own selfish instincts. But more than simply practicing self-denial, Jesus tells us we must be prepared to take real risks – even to risk our very lives – if that is what God, through our conscience, tells us is right. We who follow Jesus must do God’s will in all things to the best of our ability.

‘For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it.’

Jesus grabs our attention with this great paradox: to save life is to lose it, and vice-versa.

The very essence of life is to risk it and spend it, not to save it and hoard it. If we live selfishly, always thinking first of our own profit, comfort and security, we lose life all the time. But if we spend life for others, if we follow Jesus’s way of loving self-sacrifice, we win life all the time.

The truth is that the only way we can find a life that matters is by losing it in the love of God and the love of our neighbours. That is the way of Jesus, that is the way of God, and that is the way of happiness too.

‘For what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life? Indeed, what can they give in return for their life?’

I’m sure you, like me, can think of people who are outwardly hugely successful, but who in another sense are living a life that is not worth living. In business, they may have sacrificed honour for profit. In politics, they may have sacrificed principle for popularity. In their personal lives, they may have sacrificed their deepest relationships for their own ambitions or desires. Such people are seldom comfortable in their own skin and often live to regret their bad choices.

It is a matter of values really - Jesus asks us where our values lie. As he says elsewhere, we are to store up our treasures in heaven, not on earth, ‘for where your treasure is, there your heart will be also’. Our values must be God’s values, not the false values of worldly success.

 ‘Those who are ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of them the Son of Man will also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.’

Many people did not like what Jesus said and did. He stood up for the poor, the despised, the rejected, and he was a friend of sinners. Scribes and Pharisees – the pious and respectable of his time – saw his behaviour as shameful. Knowing this, Jesus warns his disciples not to be ashamed to follow him publicly - for if they are, how can they expect to share in the glory of God’s kingdom?

These same words should be a warning for us. In Ireland - and in Europe generally - it has become deeply unfashionable for many people to own up to a Christian faith. Even if we believe in our heart of hearts, many of us find it easier not to speak openly about our faith for fear of being mocked or thought less of. In fact, we behave as if we are ashamed of our faith.

It is a simple truth: we cannot expect to share with Jesus the joy of shaping the world into the place God means it to be, if we do not stand up to be counted for Jesus and for his message of loving self-sacrifice.

So to sum up, when I reflect on these words recorded by Mark, I hear Jesus’s voice calling me, down through the ages:

1^st, Jesus calls me to be ready to risk everything to do God’s will, rather than my own;

2^nd, Jesus calls me to find true life and happiness by losing my life in the service of God and others;

3^rd, Jesus calls me to live my life by God’s values, not the false values of worldly success.

4^th, Jesus calls me to follow his path of loving self-sacrifice, joyfully, fearlessly and without shame.

Let us pray for the grace to respond to Jesus’s voice, in the words of St Ignatius of Loyola:

Teach us, Good Lord, to serve you as you deserve:

To give, and not to count the cost;

to fight, and not to heed the wounds;

to toil and not to seek for rest;

to labour and not to ask for any reward,

save that of knowing that we do your will.

Through Jesus Christ Our Lord, Amen

Walking on Water

1. Have you ever been out on the water at night in a small boat in a gale? I have, and I can vouch for how terrifying it can be!

When I was a teenager, I used to spend the summer holidays with my parents in a cottage on Lough Derg. The only way to get to it was by rowing-boat, though it wasn’t really on an island, and the distance to row wasn't very far. Those were lovely holidays! But I remember one stormy night when my mother and I were returning to the cottage. It was blowing a full gale, with a big sea running, and the waves breaking. With one oar each, side by side, we pulled against the wind, inching forward, sometimes being thrown sideways as the wind caught the side of the boat, shipping water all the while. We made several attempts and were thrown back, but eventually we made it to calmer waters, and arrived safely on the other shore. By that time I was shaking like a leaf and quite scared, as I think my mother was too, though she never showed it. It taught me a lesson I’ve never forgotten: respect for the water – it’s not our native element, and we must never underestimate the power of wind and wave.

Today’s Gospel reading (Matthew 14:22-33) brings this memory back to me. I feel I can identify with the disciples, even though I don’t think I was in real danger, as they must have been. The Sea of Galilee, more than 200 metres below sea level in the Jordan rift valley and surrounded by hills, is renowned for the fierce and dangerous storms that suddenly appear out of nowhere, and abate just as quickly.

The story of Jesus walking on the water comes immediately after the feeding of the 5000, and it is recorded in the Gospels of Mark (6:45-52) and John (6:15-21) as well as Matthew, but not in Luke’s. I want to try to enter imaginatively into the story, drawing on all three accounts, and then finish by reflecting on what we can learn from it today.

2. First, why did Jesus send the disciples away by boat and go up himself into the mountain alone to pray?

Matthew tells us that when Jesus heard that Herod had executed John the Baptist, he went across the lake to be by himself. Herod’s rule did not extend there. Perhaps Jesus was afraid that Herod would try to arrest and kill him as he had John. And no doubt he wanted time to pray for God’s guidance on what he should do next.

But the crowds followed him. And we heard last week about what happened then – the miracle of the feeding of the 5000.

After that John tells us that Jesus realised that the crowd was ‘about to come and take him by force to make him king’. This I think is the clue. Jesus knew that earthly power was not what God intended for him. It was a dangerous situation. Perhaps Jesus thought the disciples might complicate it, because they were still thinking of him as an earthly ruler as well.

So Jesus sent them away, dismissed the crowd, and went up the mountain into the night to pray about it, until early morning.

3. Meanwhile, the disciples were in trouble in one of the lake’s notorious storms.

They had set out in the boat in the evening light, unaware of the coming storm. Mark records that Jesus ‘saw that they were straining at the oars against an adverse wind’. I imagine the night must have been bright and moonlit despite the storm, for Jesus to be able to see the little boat.

Matthew agrees with Mark that, ‘early in the morning’ Jesus ‘came walking towards them on the lake’. The Greek words translated as ‘early in the morning’ literally mean ‘in the 4th watch of the night’. In those days, with no clocks, time during the night was counted in 4 watches of 3 hours each. So at around 3 am, Jesus walking on the high ground after praying clearly saw the little boat struggling through waves and spray, and came down to the shore to help.

John adds that ‘they had rowed about three or four miles’, so they must have been making painfully slow progress through the storm. I can empathise with that!

4. But what is this about Jesus walking on the lake? Should we imagine Jesus far from land, in the middle of the lake, walking on the water over the waves?

This is how most Christians have imagined the scene, I suppose, and many artists have depicted it. But there is a difficulty with translation here. The Greek words translated as ‘on the lake’ could equally mean ‘towards the lake’, or ‘at the lake’, that is by the lake shore.

The truth is that there are two perfectly possible interpretations of this passage. The first describes a miracle in which Jesus actually walked on the water. In the second, the disciples boat was driven by the wind to the shore, Jesus came down from the mountain to help them when he saw them struggling in the moonlight, and Jesus came walking through the surf towards the boat. Both interpretations are equally valid. Some will prefer one and some the other.

All three Gospels agree that when the disciples saw Jesus they were terrified, believing him to be a ghost, until Jesus spoke to them, saying, ‘Take heart, it is I; do not be afraid’.

However we interpret the Greek, the significance to the disciples is perfectly clear: In the hour of their need, Jesus came to them, to help and reassure them.

5. Only Matthew adds the detail about Peter trying to walk on the water too.

It’s a charming vignette, and so in character for Peter, from the other things we know of him. He was brave and impetuous, but often found it hard to live up to his good intentions. Remember, it was Peter who swore undying loyalty to Jesus only to deny 3 times that he knew him the next day.

When Jesus said ‘Come’, Peter bravely ‘got out of the boat, started walking on the water, and came toward Jesus’. But his courage failed him and he started to sink. ‘Jesus immediately reached out his hand and caught him, saying to him, “You of little faith, why did you doubt?”’

Whether Jesus was miraculously walking on water, or whether he was walking through the surf on the shore to help the disciples in the boat, Peter surely learned this: It is not always easy to follow Jesus, but Jesus is always there to catch him when he stumbles and sinks.

The Gospel writers differ on what happens next. Matthew and Mark both tell us that as soon as Jesus got into the boat, the storm ceased. But John says that ‘immediately the boat reached the land toward which they were going’. Whichever it was, the disciples must have been very relieved that they were safe. Only Matthew records that they worshipped Jesus, saying, “Truly you are the Son of God”.

6. Finally, as Jesus’s disciples today, what can we learn from this story, 2000 years on?

Well, surely the same things that Peter and the disciples learned! They were privileged to know Jesus the man and sail the Sea of Galilee with him. But we are privileged too to know the spiritual reality of the living Christ.

In life the wind is often against us. Life for every one of us sometimes feels like a desperate struggle, with ourselves, with our circumstances, with temptations, with sorrow, with the consequences of decisions made. But none of us need struggle alone, for Jesus comes to us across the storms of life, bidding us to take heart and have no fear in his calm, clear voice. In the hour of our need, Jesus will come to us as he did to the disciples long ago, to help and reassure us. Just listen for his voice saying, ‘Take heart, it is I; do not be afraid’!

If we seek to follow Jesus, we will find like Peter that it is not always easy. It will test our faith at times. Our faith will not always be enough and we will have doubts. But when we feel ourselves going under, if we cry out ‘Lord save me’, Jesus will be there for us, just as he was for Peter, reaching out his hand to catch us. Jesus is always there to save us when we are sinking. Just listen for his voice saying, ‘You of little faith, why did you doubt?’

Feeding 5000 (or 500 million!)

1. Today’s Gospel reading (Matt 14:13-21) is wonderfully apt for the day that’s in it!

The August bank holiday is a great time to have a picnic. Provided the weather is good, of course, which thank God it is today, and please God it will be tomorrow! A picnic - this is what Matthew is telling us about, isn’t it? A truly gigantic picnic!

To those of us brought up in the Church the miracle of the feeding of the five thousand is a well-loved, familiar story from childhood. We can all picture the scene, because so many artists have painted it over the centuries.

Jesus wants to get away by himself for a while. He sails across to the other side of the Sea of Galilee, to a deserted place, but the crowd spots him and follows by land, getting there before he does. I haven’t been to the Sea of Galilee, but I imagine it as a bit like our own Lough Derg; a little bigger in area, and wider, but not so long. In my minds eye I see Jesus sailing from Terryglass over to Portumna Forest Park!

Jesus we are told ‘had compassion for them and cured their sick’, and no doubt he talks to the crowd about the good news of God’s kingdom too, as he usually did. And when it gets late and they are hungry he arranges to feed them. In a grassy place, miles from anywhere, the disciples serve a bountiful picnic to the crowd. Jesus provides the food miraculously from five loaves and two small fishes. Everyone eats their fill, and the leftovers fill twelve baskets!

It’s the only one of Jesus’s miracles that comes in all four Gospels. They all tell the same story, with the same numbers: a crowd of 5,000, 5 loaves and 2 fishes, and 12 baskets of leftovers.

John adds the charming detail that a boy gave the loaves and fishes to Andrew, who gave them to Jesus saying ‘But what are these among so many?’ What a generous boy he was! I imagine the boy’s mother sending him off with a packed lunch, and though he must have been hungry himself, he offered it to Andrew to give to Jesus.

What I want to do today is to reflect on what we, today, can learn from this miracle. But before we get to that I think it’s useful first to reflect on the miracle itself, and second to reflect on what those present on the day would have learned from it.

2. So what really happened that day? What miraculous thing did Jesus do?

I suppose that most Christians over the last 2000 years have believed that what Jesus did was quite simply to multiply the loaves and fishes until there was enough to go round. The miracle was to multiply the physical items. If this is what you believe, you are in good company; be content with it, and may you remain undisturbed in your faith. If we believe that Jesus is God, and God is almighty, then Jesus as God can do anything he pleases. There is no reason to believe that he didn’t simply multiply the loaves and fishes.

But many Christians find this difficult to accept, and look for other explanations. Such simple multiplication seems to break the laws of physics, the laws God has established for the material world, which he seems to have made to behave quite predictably.

Some Christians see in this miracle a sacrament. They believe that those present received only the tiniest morsel of food, yet were strengthened by it in a spiritual way so they could return home satisfied. If this is so, then it is a miracle which we re-enact every time we take communion, and go out strengthened to walk the road of love that Jesus has shown us.

Other Christians see in it something at the same time both perfectly natural, and quite miraculous. Surely the majority of the crowd would not have set off on their long trek around the lake without taking some food with them. But they are humanly selfish, and afraid to produce what they have in case they must share it and be left without enough themselves. Then Jesus takes the lead. He takes the boy’s small offering and shares it with a blessing and a smile. And his example prompts the rest of the crowd to share, so that before they know it there is more than enough for all. If that is what happened, the miracle is how the touch of Christ changes selfish people into generous people.

But in the end, I do not think it matters a whit what we believe happened that day, and I do not think we all need to believe the same thing. What does matter is this: when Jesus is there the sick are healed and the hungry soul is fed.

3. So what did those present at the miracle learn that day?

Jesus’s miracles don’t yield their meanings all at once. They work like slow fuses, revealing their meanings bit by bit to those who ponder them.

The crowd who followed Jesus around the lake experienced someone who really cared for them. An ordinary man might have been resentful that they were invading his privacy with their continual demands. But not Jesus. He graciously made time for them, even though he wanted rest and quiet. He healed those who were sick. And when it was late and they were hungry, he arranged for them to eat to give them strength for the journey home. Most of them probably didn’t see what he did or how he did it - with 5000 there, how could they? But afterwards, as they mulled over the events of the day and talked to others about it, I feel sure that they came to realise that this man Jesus cared for them in the same way that, as Jews, they believed God cared for his chosen people.

What of the disciples? They experienced Jesus’s miracle directly, and Jesus made it into an action learning lesson for them. They ask Jesus to send the crowd home when they become anxious that it is late and everyone is hungry. But Jesus is uncompromising, that is not his way. He challenges the disciples, saying ‘They need not go away; you give them something to eat.’ What are they to do? They certainly don’t have enough food for such a crowd. In consternation, after searching around to see what there is, they bring him the 5 loaves and 2 fishes and tell him this is all they have. Only then does Jesus take charge, when they have run out of ideas, when they have offered him what little they have. Only then does Jesus bless and break the bread, perform the miracle, and give the disciples enough to feed the crowd with more left over.

They may have been slow to understand what Jesus was teaching them. On a later occasion Mark records Jesus reminding them of the miracle, and saying: ‘Do you not yet understand?’ But they did come to understand in the end, or the miracle would not have been recorded in all 4 Gospels. In years to come they understood that Jesus had taught them an important lesson of faith to guide their work. The lesson of faith is this: what they have to offer may be woefully inadequate to do what Jesus asks; but if they bring it to him, if they place it in his hands and let him use it, Jesus will bless it and he will give it back to them, but multiplied unimaginably, and now more than adequate for his purpose.

4. Now at last we can turn to see what we can learn today from Jesus’s miracle.

Jesus had compassion for the crowd and cured the sick. Jesus saw the crowd were hungry and arranged to feed them. Today as we look around the world, we see millions of people, made in God’s image like us, suffering and dying from preventable disease. And we see more millions of people hungry, many starving to death. Closer to home, the deepening economic recession will likely increase the suffering of the poor and the sick. As Christians, surely Jesus is calling us to show the compassion and care that he showed to the crowd by the Sea of Galilee.

We in the church, in all our denominations, are Jesus’s disciples today. There are many more of us now than there were disciples then. Jesus is calling us just as he called them to carry out his mission of love. And we need to learn the same lesson that he taught them, that lesson of faith.

The lesson of faith is this. Though the needs of the world seem altogether too big for us to make even a dent in them, we must not be daunted. Let us offer what we have to Jesus. Let us allow him to use it. He will bless and multiply what we offer. And it will be enough!