A Little Bit of Lectio: Who Do You Say that I am?

There is something startling about the second question in today's Gospel. Jesus is presented with all kinds of ideas about who people says he is, but he wants the disciples to state clearly who THEY say he is. Most people have several different answers to Jesus' first question, "Who do people say that I am?" The answers include Elijah, John the Baptist, and some of the prophets. But Jesus sharpens the question and moves from this more superficial way of knowing to the disciples own experiential or heart knowledge. He asks, "And you, who do YOU say that I am?"

I am reminded of the kinds of knowing found in last week's stories from Genesis with Adam and Eve in the Garden. As I told the third graders who attended a prayer service with us, the tree of knowledge of good and evil is not simply about knowing in our minds what is bad vs what is good. Instead the passage refers to a deeper, more intimate way of knowing good and evil, namely, deep within our selves. To "eat of this tree" is quite literally to take good and evil and the act of judging within ourselves. The way I illustrated this for 3rd graders was to ask how many of them knew what it felt like to stand on one foot for fifteen minutes. Several hands came part way up and then dropped down again. The kids knew they could imagine what it would be like, but they also saw clearly that only in doing it would they REALLY know in their muscles, memory, emotions, etc. (After the liturgy one of the adults present told me one little girl tried the whole time to stand on one foot!!)

I am also reminded of the conversation from last week between Eve and the serpent as the two of them theologize ABOUT God rather than speaking TO or WITH him. Two forms or levels of knowing, the first which is interesting and maybe even important for Eve, but which involves only a part of her being until she commits to the definition she has come to --- a definition which is not the same as God's self-revelation --- and establishes herself as estranged from God.

And finally I am reminded of my perpetual eremitical profession several years ago when I responded to the Bishop's question about what I desired in a statement which publicly claimed Jesus Christ as "Lord and Spouse" I had never used the term "Spouse" before, and never publicly! The question in Mark's Gospel, "Who do YOU say that I am?" was on my mind and heart. And at this moment, there was no call for my education in theology, no need for theologizing. Instead, I was being asked to bring my whole self before God and the assembly and ask the Church to accept this self gift in the name of Christ. Theologizing was over. Speculation had no place in this exchange. Wishfulness and indecisiveness was definitely out of line here. Instead it was time to claim that identity publicly which had been given privately many years earlier. This was my moment to answer Jesus' question, "Who do you say that I am?" from the knowledge I carried in my heart; I was actually surprised, and perhaps a little scared by my response.

There are all kinds of ways to avoid a genuine response to Jesus' question. Rote answers carved from creeds and catechesis are the most common. Playing it safe and refusing to answer for fear of what others will think is another common one. I answered on that day of vows, ". . . Jesus who is my Lord and Spouse" but in another situation I might as easily have responded, "You are the one who called me "little one" and who tried to coax me to drink a glass of milk in the hospital all those years ago when I was so very frightened"; and I might have continued, "you have been my elder Brother present at every bedside ever since, revealing the steadfast compassionate love of God to me." There are many other ways to answer Jesus' question in my own life. I call him Christ, and Lord, and Brother, but the content of those terms, consistent as they are with Tradition, is always partly my very own. So should all such answers to Jesus' question be, I think.

Peter apparently answers the question Jesus asks, and does so in the terms of personal experience and trust required: "You are the Christ", but when Jesus begins to redefine what being God's anointed one means in terms of suffering and death, Peter rebukes him and belies the authenticity of his own confession. Once again Divine reality conflicts with human theologizing --- and once again theologizing is estranged from the human heart and the trusting knowledge of faith. Peter even takes Jesus aside to instruct him in the truth of what the term Christ REALLY means (certainly not suffering and ignominious death!)! And Jesus' criticism is devastating: "Get behind me Satan. You are thinking not as God does, but as human beings do!" He might well have said, Get behind me pseudo-theologian! You are thinking like human beings do, but I need you to know me, and claim that knowledge in a different and more exhaustive way!

The challenge of this Gospel is the same as the challenge to Adam and Eve in the garden, viz, allow God to reveal himself on his own terms. Trust in that revelation. Live from it and for it. Spend some time answering Jesus' question for yourself. He knows who the Church says he is, and what textbooks in dogmatic theology claim and expound on, but who do YOU say that he is?