“Who do you say I am?” Jesus asks his disciples in the
gospel this past Sunday. This is a question with which Christianity wrestled for
centuries. Christianity sought to define Jesus, arguing, debating, even
engaging in violent fighting with each other over this fundamental question.
Finally, in 451 AD at the Council of Chalcedon, the hypostatic union formally defined Jesus as being fully human and
fully divine.
As fundamental as this question was for the early Christian
community, it remains equally fundamental for all people in the present. Our
Jewish and Muslim brothers and sisters answer that Jesus was a prophet of God.
Other world religions would define him as a holy man. Even Agnostics and
Atheists, while denying the existence of God, would have to say that that
Jesus, as a human, established a philosophical way of living human life.
As Jesus put his disciples on the spot, so he puts us on the
spot. He pointedly asks us the same question, “Who do you say I am?” We cannot
get out of this one. We have to answer and answer truthfully. We cannot BS our
way out of this question. The way we define this question has a direct impact
on how we live our lives.
The follow-up question is, “Do we really own our answer to
Jesus’ question?” James Fowler, in his study of the six stages of faith
development, would probably say most of us don’t. Do we answer with Peter, “I
believe that you are the Christ,” because someone else has told us to answer
that way, or do we really believe and own our answer? (For a more thorough understanding of the 6 stages of spiritual
development, I suggest going to the website,
www.exploring-spiritual-development.com/JamesFowlersStages.html)
As I reflect back on my own faith development, I began to
question all the religious symbols, the validity of my belief in the
consecrated elements of Mass at the age of 12 years. Were Jesus to have asked
me who I think he was at that time, I would have answered in the same manner as
Peter but with little conviction. Heh, one has to cover’s one’s butt, just in
case, right? At that time in my life Jesus was primarily a stain glass window,
someone who I thought had very little interest in my life, ah, the ego-centrism
of youth. Did this deter me from going to Mass? No, I went to Mass in spite of
my lack of faith. Call it an insurance policy just in case I was wrong. Do we
not, as human beings, often answer to the contrary of our beliefs just in case …
?
Unlike our fundamentalist Protestant brothers and sisters, I
do not believe that this question is a question that is asked us once in our
lives, when we make some formal confession of faith about Jesus being our
personal Lord and Savior. Rather, I believe that this question of Jesus pursues
us all of our lives. Jesus repeatedly asking us, “Who do you say that I am?” Jesus
is asking you and me to answer this question honestly. This is a question about
a personal relationship. “Where do I stand in my relationship with Jesus?” Do I
say and do all the “right things” in order to “score” with Jesus, when it is
really just one big ruse to try and get what I want? Do I say and do all the
right things because I am told to do so without any critical reflection on what
I am saying or doing? If I do not believe that Jesus is the Christ, the son of
the living God, do I have the courage to answer Jesus honestly and express it?
Personally, this
question of Jesus has dogged me all of my life. I have spent a good portion of
my life studying my faith and questioning my faith. In some ways I continue to
move back and forth between Fowler’s 4th stage of spiritual
development where one demythologizes the religious symbols and the stories of
one’s religious tradition and the 5th stage of spiritual development
when one reengages those same symbols and stories and owns them after
considerable critical reflection.
I can truthfully reply to Jesus, “I believe that you are the
Christ, the son of the living God.” This is a statement that I do not make
because I am an ordained permanent deacon, and am suppose to say it. I don’t
say it because the Archbishop tells me to do so, or because of the expectations
of the people whom I serve. While I believe in the creedal statements we are
asked to make when celebrating the sacraments, my belief in Jesus is not formed
by them. Though I have been touched and recognize the flow of grace from the
celebration of the Mass and am spiritually fed by the Eucharist, my faith in
Jesus is not based on this experience either.
My answer to Jesus’ question was formed not in the critical
laboratory of theological classes of the seminary, but in the depths of pain
and darkness. My answer to Jesus’ question was not out of a clutching for a
thread of hope and deliverance, but when there was no other way but to let go
in trust and fall into the embrace of God.
I believe that it is in this state of brokenness that one
begins to see beyond the creedal statements, see beyond the religious symbols
and the black and white answers that a religious tradition offers, to the utter
mystery of God that defies all human rational thought, understanding, and
control.
The experiences of life, the joys and the sorrows, the exhilarations
and the sufferings, help us to honestly answer Jesus’ question. Creedal
statements are of no use to us in the midst of great suffering. Any
intellectual, theological statements and pious platitudes are patronizing and
insulting at best to someone in great pain. It is when we are in the depths of
darkness and the question of “Who do you say that I am?” is asked that the BS
stops and that an honest answer emerges from our lips. So, Jesus asks you, “Who
do you say that I am?” What is your answer?
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