When Jesus asks the disciples who people say he is, he invites his followers to dig past identity. And into what they have seen.
what is Jesus inviting all of us into?
Proper 16A | Matthew 16:13-20
Jesus asks his followers a pair of tough questions in this gospel. They aren’t complex, of course. Jesus isn’t asking them to do calculus or recall a process from high school Biology. They are tough because they are hard to say out loud.
To him.
And I wonder if the disciples approach the moment like we would if our teacher, out of the blue asked what are people saying about me?
I’m imagining it is frightening, as if Jesus is making them dig out their old yearbooks to see what their classmates really thought of his class.
It is emotionally complex to give your teacher what he seems to be asking for. He wants you to be honest, but maybe you’re still hoping for a high letter grade…
And as much as we know Jesus isn’t that kind of teacher, it doesn’t prevent us from thinking that Jesus is handing out grades right now. We might feel like failures—that we’re not going to make the cut.
But that doesn’t come from Jesus. That isn’t him talking. That’s us, our fear talking.
The question —“Who do people say that the Son of Man is?” and his follow-up — “But who do you say that I am?” are questions we believe are complex, but wish were easy. Which makes this whole thing hilarious! We make it crazy complicated while hoping its ridiculously simple.
And we keep doing this.
I could talk for ten minutes about the phrase “Son of Man” before I even get to what Jesus is asking in that question about the Son of Man. We do that now! While wishing it were easy.
But Jesus isn’t testing them. They shouldn’t be afraid to get it wrong. Because he just got through arguing with people who don’t get it.
So let’s pick up where we were last week.
Jesus fed a bunch of people, took a break, walked on water, healed a bunch of people, and then traveled to Greek territory. There he encountered a woman who asked him to heal her daughter—it was a weird exchange, but he does.
After that, they head back to the water, healing tons of people. He feeds four thousand more people on a few loves and fish in the desert.
So Jesus is doing some amazing things in public. So many people witness this stuff. And every time it comes from need. People are hungry, so he feeds them. They are sick, so he heals them. They are tormented by demons, so he frees them. More hungry, more are fed.
Some Pharisees and Sadducees confront Jesus again and ask him to perform a sign for them. So two things right away:
1) Were they not looking at what he was doing? It’s not like Jesus was hiding these signs and wonders from people. It was all broad daylight. Are they not paying attention?
2) Jesus meets needs, not commands. He doesn’t do this stuff out of his desire. God does wonders through him to meet the needs of the people. What the Pharisees and Sadducees ask for feels like an echo of what the Adversary asks for in the Temptation in the Wilderness—prove who you are and that God’s really behind this.
Jesus hears this and bats it away.
He’s not having any of it.
“An evil and adulterous generation asks for a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of Jonah.”
Who was Jonah? The prophet God asked to go to Nineveh to demand its people repent.
And who do the people say the Son of Man is? A prophet. Preaching repentance.
Yeast
Later Jesus warns the disciples of “the yeast of the Pharisees and Sadducees.”
And the bit of comic relief that occurs over this is really telling. They think Jesus is being literal. Which is crazy. But what was a constant theme for the last two chapters of the story? Bread. Jesus feeding bread to everybody. Even crumbs.
That’s why they’re thinking about literal yeast. Their minds are still thinking “feeding ministry”.
The disciples are us, right? What are we supposed to be doing here? Is this about feeding people? But now you’re talking about religious leaders? What is the one point we can all obsess over?
This is when Jesus asks how people see him. After he has been feeding, healing, and freeing the multitudes. After he has been confronted by smarmy leaders looking to trap him. He has dealt with crazy expectations.
Who am I?
The question we wish weren’t so complicated. We wish it were truly that simple.
Who are you? You’re the Messiah.
And that leads to a whole bunch of other questions, doesn’t it?
Claiming Messiah
What Peter says, that gets him such a strong response from Jesus, is the quintessential faith response. It is incredibly simple and way more complicated than he realizes.
But Jesus doesn’t make Peter look foolish for not fully grasping what he was saying — he really is commending him for speaking honestly more than accurately. “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father in heaven.”
As Jesus spoke to the leaders about “the sign of Jonah,” Jesus calls Peter “the son of Jonah” tying him to the prophet preaching repentance. The prophet with whom Jesus seems to be aligning himself.
It seems that myriad of factors, the desire to decode the signs, to learn the truth of what Jesus is doing here puts us not in the boat with the disciples, but along the shore with the Pharisees and Sadducees. In the boat, we see the miracles, we receive the presence of Jesus, and know him for who he is. Not what box to put him in.
It seems that we, like even the disciples, put too much into the question. We desire to know the truth so much that we’d refuse to hear him speak it. As we are too afraid to name it for ourselves.
I wonder if Jesus is not asking about identity, but their relationship.
It isn’t a test — Jesus isn’t looking for a specific answer; he wants their answer.
It was the Pharisees who demanded a sign when Jesus had given thousands many signs. Why are they asking for a new sign rather than ask any of the thousands who had personal stories to share?
Jesus asks people who have wintessed it all: What do the people think? And What do you think?
I wonder how we might take these tough-yet-simple questions for ourselves. We who have witnessed the grace of God, signs of hope and wonder in our midst. What do people say about Jesus? And What do we say?