TELICHE. OR CONFESSION BETHANY RESBYTERIAN CHURCH
atthe! 16:13-23 LAFAYETTE, INDIANA
March 12, 1974 JOHN M. BUCHANAN

The incident recorded in the iew Testament Lesson this morning is
agiders by many to be the most important event in the Gospel record. It
contains one of two Gospel references in which Jesus used the word “church"
It includes the words of our Lord, "You are Peter, and on this rock I will
build my church"; words which are inscribed across the cupola of the
Basilica of St. Peter in Rome; words on the basis of which the whole massive
structure of the Papacy is built; words - the interpretation of which still
divides Christendom. The incident includes another famous saying of our Lord:
"Get behind me Satan": addressed to that same Peter.

But foremost about the passage is the fact that it represents Jesus
asking a question about himself - first, in regard to how other people
understood him, and second, ia regard to the personal convictions of the
disciples themselves.

Let's reconstruct. In terms of time it happened at the apex of his
career, just before it took a sharp turn downward toward the long road of
suffering, humiliation and death. The crowds were still with him: people
from all over the countryside were literally flocking to him to hear what
he said, to receive healing and forgiveness and comfort. To be sure there
was opposition, but at this point it was remote, confined to the cities -
primarily Jerusalem,. surfacing only in the form of an occasional Scribe or
Pharisee who sought him out in order to gather evidence and report it
dutifully to the authorities. In terms of popularity it was the hign point
in his ministry.

And so he took a reading. “How are we doing? What are people saying
about me? Who do men say that the Son of Man is?" The disciples reached
immediately into their bag of superlatives. "John the Baptist. But better
yet, some are putting you in the same league with the real super-stars,
those heroic figures out of our past -Elijah - Jeremiah." "That by the way,

is an honor not often paid to men during their lift-time. The significance

CLICHE OR COHFESS IGN -2- MARCH 17, 1974

of the Presidency of Harry Truman, for instance, which almost no one sav

at the time becomes clearer every year. And the man from Missouri must be
chuckting over the irony of it all. In any case, people were responding
very favorably to Jesus - comparing him with the greatest figures in their
history. And we don't know whether Jesus was pleased with that or not.
Much is ordinarily made of the fatt that the people had actually failed

to understand nim: that their superlative comparison with Elijah and Jeremiah
missed the real significance. But hat isn’t in the text. Jesus didn't
respond at all to the report. Instead he turned the question on them, and
suddenly tne situation changes altogether. It's one thing to give a public
relations report, an opinion about the feelings of the people. It's an
entirely different thing to have to answer personally. "But who do you say
that I am.*

Peter answered it: "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God? That
was the breakthrough: that is wnat Jesus was looking for apparently. Did
any of them see tne truth yet? And so he said, "Blessed are you Peter - you
didn't figure that out by yourself - God has revealed it to you - as fe has
to me. I am the one who was promised - I am the fulfillment."

If they knew that, however vaguely, they were ready to understand that
he must suffer and die. And so desus began to lay out before them what he
saw happening. And main Peter - "God forbid, Lord! This shall never happen
to you.” That is to say, the breakthrough didn't last very Tong. For one
fieeting moment in time, Peter had seemed to understand, but now, with this
reaction, demonstrated that he had not yet comprehended the essential thing
about being the Messiah; namely, love that suffers and dies."Get thee behind
me Satan". He was as rough on Peter at that moment - rougher in fact - than
aon anyone else. in his mind, apparently, there was a great deal at stake in
understanding the relationship between being the Christ and being obedient
unto death. And Peter, just when it looked as if he had it, failed the test.

Obviously, with ali that going on, it is a key New Testament passage.

CLICHE OR CONFESSIO.I te Be MARCH 17, 1974

It is important historically, but more ta the point, personally. Because
that question "Who do you say that I am" and the. answer to it - have been at
the heart of Christian experience for 2,900 years...

Let's come at it now from our situation. The issue for me in the
passage is that it isn't much of an issue anymore. This Central Christian
confession, “You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God", has become
in our day, I would submit, Tittle more than a cliche. Partially, it is a
result of living 20 centures after the fact in a civilization heavily
influenced by Christianity: It's a little difficult to sense the importance
of a personal response to the question "Whe do you say that I am" in a
culture that baptizes everybody and everything with piety.

Partiatiy, it's a result of knowing - as Peter did not -- how the story’
ends. We know about Easter. Peter hadn't been there yet. I'm an avid
reader of John MacDonaid murder mysteries. One time I broke the fundamental
rute: I read the last chapter first - and then the rest of the book. And -you
know, it really did spoil it. fot only the tension of wondering who did it,
but even the masterfully complex characterizations - even the cdbailed
description of cities arid ships and hotels. It just wan't the same exper-_
jence - I knew how it was going to turn out.

And so, - submit, the radical impact of the events reported in the ‘few
Testamant doesn't get through to us. When Peter says “You are the Christ,
the Son of the Living God", instead of gasping.in astonishment we retort:
"Big Dealt: doesn't everybody know that?”

By conscious, disciplined act of will we have to clear our minds and
try to stand where the discipies stood. Helmut Thielicke observes: "Peter
feels himself driven to a confession the madness of which hardly hits us
amymore because, in the meantime, the words have become ail too familiar.
But at the time this confession was uttered, it must have been a powerful
shock to those who ncard jt." (How to Believe Again, P.42)

Another commentator suggests that it is difficult - if not impossible -

CLICHE UR CONKESSTON ~4- oe MARCH 17, 1974

to imagine the effact on a mature mind of coming in contact for the first
time with the Beatitudes. S8tessed are the poor - the meek - the peacemakers?

The ilew Tastament consistantly portrays a man ta whom people responded
in one way or another. When he was born shepherds and kings moved, Herod
raged, infants were slaughtered. Again Theilicke puts it almost poetically:
“Wherever the Savior shows up everything, including the opposition, is
aroused and swings into action. He awakens homesicknees tn the prodicali son
but hate springs up in the elder brother...... there are men who find peace
torough him, but Judas, too, goes to work.” (P.39)

Today, with the single and biessed exception of young people, the
universal resnonse to desus Christ seams to be a blase' shrug of the
shoulders. If there is one thing the world seems to be saying to the Church
it is this:"Khatever you claim about Jesus Christ, it doesn’t matter very
much.* And yes, that's precisely what the church says back to the world:
"Tt's just not important: we'd like you to jain our club, to suppport our
building project, to cook tn our kitchen and serve on our committees. But
let's not get all hung up over semantics: lat's not allow Jesus Christ to
get in the way."

THat, it seems to me, presents the modern church - and modern Curistians
with the most important task of ail - To be honest about Jess Christ: to
clear out all the underbrush: to wipe the theolagical slate clear and stand
with Peter as that piercing question is asked: “But you - who do you say
thet I am?"

Sometimes the traditions and creeds of the past are not mucn help at
this point. The early church violently debated the question of the nature
of Christ and was nearly divided by those who held the he was a god-like
man those who believed he was a man-like God, Tha issue was resolved with
the writing of the Jicene Creed - which uses philosophic concepts that are
totally meaningless to 20th Century Americans. It is a less than meaning-

ful act of confession for me to say that Jesus Christ is of the same

CLiLHE UR CGHFESS LON -5- HARCH 17, 1974
“substance” as the father ~ which is the way that creed puts it.

The confusion and lack of clarity that surrounds the issue is made clear
to me by two personal experiences. In my first parish I was close friends
with the local Southern Baptist minister. We were both just out of seminary -
he was more liberal than his people expected - I was more conservative than
the local Presbyterian realized - and we met thealogically in the middle.
Besides, mystudy was the only place in town where he could enjoy a cigar
without being seen. I was preaching on the incarnation and the bulletin
board in front of the church said: Sermon: "The Divinity of Christ." That
caused a little confusion among the Southern Baptists, my friend told me.
Because Southern Baptists are of the opinion that Presbyterians don’t believe
in the Divinity of Christ.

Hore recently I was talking with a very perceptive person who wondered
whether Presbyterians believe in God. Because ali we ever talked about was
Jesus.

There it is - the dilemma - the issue isn't an issue anymore: the words
have become cliches through centuries of use: the creedal definitions of the
past use tanguage with which we are unfamiliar; and our own style and practice
are so ambiguous at this point that peqie are not surewhat it is we are
Saying.

"Who do you say that I am" There's somethim about being a Christian that
necessitates a personal response to that. And while this has been, and will
continue to be for a few more minutes, a rather heavy exercise, allow me to
make some suggestions.

Elton Trueblood - who combines theological expertise with a dynamie and
personal faith, submits that as individuals we have to go back beyond the
creeds of our church, back through all the phrases we have learned to use

and begin, simply, with what we know. (A Place to Stand,Ch. 2"The Center of

Cetitude!)

"Look first at the evidence" he advises: Time is dated on the basis of the

CLICHE SR COMFESSINN (6) MARCH 17, 1974

the birth of Jesus Christ. That is a fact, Lives have been dramatically
changed by him and by the power he let loose in history: not just a few,
but millions upon millions of lives. That is another fact. History has
been changed ~ Trueblood points out that when you Took at the whole expanse
of history Karl Marx is not sufficiently revolutionary even to be mentioned
compared with Jesus Christ. That, too, is a fact.

Following that line of reasoning there is a whole new school of
theologians insisting that personal Christian faith must begin at the point
of confronting, understanding and affirming the humanity of Christ. John
A. T. Robinson, for instance, comes right out and says that the images
of the past are destructive of tne reality they are meant to define.

In a very provocative Tecture Robinson points out thaty the past men
could say that Jesus was the divine Son of God without at the same time
denying that he was fully a human being. Buttoday we know about genetics,
for instance, and tliat same time - honored formula means to some people
that the genes and chromosomes of Jesus of Hazaretn were fakes: that he
was not, really, one of us.

The New Testament begins with the total humanity of Jesus. He was
not, as veseem sometimes to believe, and insertion from outside history,
but one born in history - like everyone else. In Matthew's and Luke's
Gospels long genealogies trace his ties with the human family back to “braham
and Adam and God. This was not, they weresaying, a divine being coming
“yom no where, but God coming into the life of the world through the ordin-
ary life of a first century Jew.

THe uniqueness of Christ in the New Testament is precisely here. In
the life of a man God did something new. This Jife - related to all the
rest - became the way God chose to reveal his love for al? men: this life
became the normative human life. In all his freedom and integrity and
compassion, desus Christ was God acting in history - and at the same time,

a man living human life as God intended for atl men to live,

CLICHE OR CONFESSTOY ~Ju MARCH 17, 1974

Reaardless of what else we vant to say bout Christ, we must be absotute-
ly clear about or conviction that he was one of us. Every feeling you have
ever had - Was experienced by Jesus. Every fear of death you ever felt -
was felt by him: He got as tired and angry and disappointed and frustrated
as you and I da. ‘Uhen they crucified him it hurt - and when he died he too
wondered why God in heaven had so abandoned him. |

If wa are to move from cliche to confession about our Lord I think it
witl happen only after we have affirmed and embraced hin as one of us. There
if a pop song that goes "But your hand in ‘the hand of the man from Galilee."
And the beauty of that confessional act is in the fact that his hand Witt
not Tift us out of this "vate of tears", but rather be scorched and scarred
by life along our own.

That's where Peter had to back away from his breakthrough. He did not
yet know that this man, in wiom God was acting, would go alj the way with him
and for him. He did not yet know about that Jove that suffers and dies in
order to express itself. But we do know about it.

And to us comes the question"Hho do you say that I am?" And we must
ansuer as best we can. Our response is finally called out of us by the same
love - not intellectually out of our minds - but out of our hearts.

dohn Baillie summed up a devotional essay one time with these words -
after exploring al] the ways men have defined themselves theologically:

"YT do know that in fact it is the conStraintof Jesus

Christ from wich I find it most impossible to escape. I

just cannot read the Gospel story without knowing that I

am being sought out in love...If there be someone who is

aware of no such constraint, I cannot of course, nope to

make him aware of it by speaking these few sentences.....

I am not now arquing. £ am only confessing"

(A Reasoned Faith, P.118-119)

CLICHE OR CONFESSTO. -8- MARCH 17, 1974

50, in the Presbyterian CHurch, one becomes a member, not by affirming
an elaborate theological formula - but by an eloquently simple confession -
"IT believe in Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior - I trust him ~ I intend
to follow him.” And one remains a Christian, I would suggest, on that
same basis. By going back, daily, to that incident near Ceasarea Phillipi;
back past ali the cliches - aj1 the creeds ~ al] the tappings - and con-
fronting the man Jesus. "Who do you say that I am?” And confessing,: in
whatever words we have - You are the Christ - you are what Tife means to
me - You are God incarnate - you are my teacher - my friend - and you I

would follow. AMEN

FATHER, breakthrough our cliches, our comfortable and wordy theologies, and
in this Lenten Season, help us to see the man Jesus - who lived like us,

whe loved and died for us. AMEN