"Who do you say I am..."

Have you ever asked a simple question and gotten a different answer than you were expecting? And, when you really think about it, it’s not even a real answer! It’s an answer that wakes you up, that jolts you, that rocks your world, that turns all your preconceived notions upside down. It’s like the blinkers got removed, the sunglasses got taken off and you could see something clearly for the first time.


Jesus is great at that! Watch him in his interactions with the Pharisees and the Scribes. He’s forever setting them on their ear and not answering their questions the way they expect. He’s opening up their eyes to a different possibility. It’s sort of his trademark interaction.

Here, he asks the disciples who people say that he is. They give him the standard answers and then Peter pipes up with a wild and crazy answer… Jesus is the Christ of God (anointed of God). Wow!! That’s pretty out there!! Maybe Peter was expecting a pat on the back or something. What he gets is something else. The disciples learn that the Christ of God is not what they expected… that the Christ will die… Whoa!!! Hey, no, that’s not what’s supposed to happen to the anointed of God!! Yup, that’s exactly what’s supposed to happen… And more than that, the disciples are told that if they want to follow, then they need to give up their lives rather than trying to save them… Talk about turning their ideas upside down! Interesting too that in Matthew and Mark, this story has the added touch of Peter pulling Jesus aside and going “No!! You can’t”… and Jesus telling Peter to “get behind me, Satan”.

And it begs the question from us too… Who do we think Jesus is?? We have all sorts of images… There are books written about the changing faces of Jesus throughout our cultural history. But really, who is Jesus for you? If Jesus were to stand in front of you right now and ask you that question… what would you say? Odds are, whatever you said, he’d shake up your world. He shook up Peter’s world…

And it continues in the Second Reading… In Christ there is no Jew or Greek, no slave or free, no woman or man. Wow… talk about rocking the cultural world of the 1st century AD! A world that was severely segregated… But in Christ there are no divisions… So, that was then… what about now?? What are the divisions that we have set up that Paul would say have been abolished in Christ? In Christ there is no Baptist or Catholic, no divorced or married, no Clergy or Lay, no gay or straight, no black or white, no Aboriginal or non-Aboriginal, no rich or poor.

Does it shake your world? Oh sure, maybe not all of them… you’re OK with most of them… but there’s one that’s not sitting quite right. Take a look though and see what it is… Because in Christ there are no divisions, all are One… Who will you be sitting down next to at the Eternal Banquet Table… odds are it’ll be the one that makes you squirm right now… But imagine a time when it won’t make you squirm! Imagine a feast in which all are welcome at the table… welcome by the host and welcome by the others around the table… Sounds like paradise to me!