Who do you say that i am?

   And among the scholars? Some say he was a “peasant Jewish Cynic” ^1,2 who offered “free healing” and “open commensality,” thereby spreading “religious and economic egalitarianism”.³ Others say that he was a “prophetic sage offering primarily counter-order wisdom,”⁴ or (and I like this one) that he was a “spirit person and mediator of the sacred”.⁵ Some don’t see the cynic/sage/wisdom figure Jesus but do see a “millenarian prophet” Jesus with a decidedly ascetic bent,⁶ while still others see Jesus in the line of the “classical hero” who patterns the heroic life for his followers.⁷ Finally, Wright sees a prophet whose “vocation” was to proclaim and embody the completion of Israel’s history, enacting “the return of YHWH to Zion” as king of the long promised kingdom.⁸
           It’s all very interesting—if sometimes confusing—and it matters. As N.T. Wright pointed out, “What you say about Jesus affects your entire worldview. If you see Jesus differently, everything changes.” Jesus' question, “Who do you say that I am?” is an invitation to take personally and seriously the possibility that maybe we need to see him differently. It is an invitation, as Robert Funk has suggested,⁹ to venture beyond the iconic Christs of popular culture, ecclesiastical hierarchies, and even scholarship, and allow ourselves to be confronted by Jesus of Nazareth.

           Jesus’ question is an invitation to take personally and seriously the necessity to stop taking refuge in the answers of others and answer for ourselves. It is an invitation to stand as existentially naked as we are able before the one in whom our existence takes on new meaning.

https://www.journeywithjesus.net/Essays/20050815JJ.shtml

Who do you say that i am?

big questions about life

There are several big questions that people ask about life and the universe. Jesus’ question “Who do you say that I am?” is one of these fundamental questions that are in the hearts and minds of humans.

People say that the poor don’t drive cars, that indigenous inhabitants of Australia are not worth bothering about; that Muslims are terrorists; that all unemployed are dole bludgers and the elderly are a burden on society, that if you are rich you are to be admired, that if you are a top sportsman, you are worthy of idolisation etc… Often these opinions are conveyed in non-verbal ways. Jesus’ question calls us to reflect on who we say we are and who we say others are. It also challenges us to consider who we say God is.

If people asked us “Who do you say that I am?” how might they react to our stereotypical answers? In the reading from Hebrew Scripture, we heard that the new Pharaoh said the Israelites were a threat. Previously Pharaohs had said they were welcome members of society.  Things changed radically for them when the Pharaoh said this about them. Having labelled them a threat, he then felt compelled to eliminate the threat by ordering the midwives to kill boy babies. Midwives say by the very nature of their work, that all babies are important, welcome members of the community.

Rev Julianne Parker

(see sermons page for full sermon)

the human that God uses

" The challenge and the invitation that Jesus holds before us is the possibility that we too as human beings can be the temples of God's presence, the vehicles of God's action. We can enter into the realm of God in the world. We can become the body of Christ. If we affirm God in Jesus, we are opening to the possibility of God in ourselves.

If that sounds too lofty and theological, think of it in terms of the incident that arises out of the lore surrounding the Polish pianist, Paderewski. A mother wanted to encourage the progress of her young son at the piano and so she bought two tickets to a Paderewski performance. When the night arrived she found their seats near the front of the concert hall and they eyed the large Steinway parked by itself on the stage. Soon the mother found a friend to talk with and she did not notice the boy slip away. When 8:00 p.m. arrived the house light dimmed, the spotlights came on, the Steinway was bathed in light, and only then did this mother notice that her son was seated at the piano bench, where he began innocently to plunk the keys in a rendition of Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star. The audience roared, his mother gasped, but before she could retrieve her son, Paderewski himself appeared and moved quickly towards the keyboard. "No, don't quit, keep on playing," he whispered to the boy. And reaching past him with his left hand the Master began improvising a bass part, and then with his right hand, he reached around on the other side of the boy to add a running obbligato. The crowd was spell bound and the piece concluded in thunderous applause as the boy announced, "I didn't know I could do that."

That's incarnation. We are only human; we do not feel worthy or able, but by some miracle of grace, it is the human that God uses. God whispers in our ear, "don't quit, keep on playing," and as we continue, we are lovingly enfolded, graciously inspired, and from our feeble efforts something wonderful can emerge."

http://day1.org/885-the_abiding_question

Who do you say that i am?