CHOICES John M. Buchanan
Matthew 16:13-20 Broad Street Presbyterian Church
February 28, 1982 Columbus, Ohio

"Tf I'm following Christ, why am I such a good insurance risk?", a prominent
clergyman asked in an essay. He was referring to a mail advertisement which comes
across ministers' desks. On the outside of the envelope the urgent message announces
that our particular vocation makes us the safest risk around and that inside we will
discover the way to buy a lot of good insurance for a very few dollars. I'm never
sure how to feel about that information, Mostly, it makes me uncomfortable.

There is such a vast difference between the situation of a modern Christian and
that of most of our predecessors. The simple fact is that for many of the people of
the past, being a Christian was a perilous matter. In many times it was a crime,
punishable by death. In many places it brought exclusion, social alienation, persecu-
tion. With us, however, it borders on the routine, the mundane, the ordinary.....
Ernest Campbell asks: "If I'm following Christ, why am I such a good insurance risk?
If I'm following Jesus, why, when I have done my giving, have I so much left over for
myself? If I'm following Jesus, why do my closets bulge when so many are unclothed?
If I'm following Jesus, why do I have so many friends among the affluent and so few
among the poor?....If I'm following Jesus, why am I getting on so well in a world
that marked him out for death?" (A.D., August, 1981, p. 21)

The fact is that very few of us made a major decision to become a Christian.
Most of us were born into it. All of us are part of a culture which seems to assume
that Christianity is the least theological common denominator, that if you're not
Jewish, Buddhist or Atheist, you are Christian. Most of us didn't decide much at all,
and the decisions we made were probably applauded, not cursed, No one ever insulted
us, or moved away from us or excluded us from a club or fired us from a job - or
physically harmed us because we joined a church. And that fact has a way of bother-
ing people who think about it very long.

There was a point in the life of Jesus when it became apparent that to be his
friend would make one a very poor insurance risk, And at about that time Jesus him-
self began to press them, to make it impossible for them to remain neutral. They
were travelling in the countryside, near Ceasarea. It was apparent that his mission
of teaching, preaching, healing, was about to change in a radical way.

"Who are people saying I am?" he asked. Some thought Elijah, or one of the
prophets, or John the Baptist. As locked in their stereotypes as we are in ours, his
contemporaries didn't know who he was, and if they suspected it they quickly dismis~-
sed the notion. It's always easier to believe in a Messiah who is coming in some
far-off future, than in one who is already here, which is why, by the way, some
Christians have always been more concerned with the second coming than the first.

"But who do you say that I am?" he asked. Peter answered for them - "The Christ - the
Son of the Living God," a good solid, orthodox answer.

Jesus pressed the issue of his own identity. There is fundamental error in the
way we deal with this incident. It occurs because of the way we think, When Jesus
asked, - "Who do you say that I am?" - he was asking a question about them - about
their willingness to follow - not about himself. The energy in this transaction is
almost physical. Are you now willing for me to be Christ, your Lord? That’s really
the story of the New Testament: not the peculiar identity of a Galilean Rabbi, but
the extraordinary obedience of the ones he called and who had the good sense and
courage to follow, Open the New Testament anywhere, and you will read about people
following. Modern Christianity, on the other hand seems to be more about believing,

"Who do you say that I am?" We are very much inclined to anawer that intellect-
wally, As a matter of fact, our Presbyterian tradition does put a premium on theol-
ogy, the careful and reasoned intellectual approach to Christian faith. But what a
mistake to conelude that all there is to Christianity is agreeing to the veracity of
several ideas about Jeaus of Nazareth. What a tragedy to see no further than obscure
theological debates,

In one of his novels, God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater, Kurt Vonnegut addresses a
question to Christian intellectuals. In typically Vonnegut style the question is
blunt and not very polite, ‘Who haa time to read all the boring crap you write and
listen to all the boring things you say?" (see Robert Short, Something to Believe In,
pe 13) ~ oT

Along the way of transforming Christianity from following Jesus to believing
ideas about Jesus we have allowed it to become a boring intellectual exercise. At
the same time we have managed to take out most of the demand, the discipline, the
sacrifice. Ernest Campbell writes: "Do you believe in Christ? It isn't so hard to
answer that...,But when someoné asks, ‘Are you following Jesus?'.,.,this can get to
be expensive.,." (op. cit., p. 20)

I am grateful for the assist we are given at this point by behavioral science.
The psychologists know that there is something about humanity which ties personhood
to personal will, choice, commitment. It's difficult to put in words, other than
poetically, but the people who try seem to be saying that to be a person you have to
want to be, will to be, try to be, chose to be, Shakespeare, that is to say, was
correct: to be or not to be - that is the question, It is not a sure thing.

“You must wager. There is no choice, Pascal observed long ago. Existentialist
philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre used to say that we are condemned to freedom, Hans Kung
modified that a bit, with great insight, I think, by writing "We are free. But we
are not free to be free..,.in the long run it is impossible to remain undecided in
regard to reality....Not to chose is itself a choice," (Does God Exist, p. 438)

One of the people who thinks and writes most helpfully about modern life is
psychiatrist-philosopher, Rollo May. In a little book on ereativity he observes:
"In human beings..,..are assertion of the self, a commitment, is essential if the
self is to have any reality.,,..A man or woman becomes fully human only by his or her
choices,..'! (The Courage to Create, p. 5)

The crux of the matter literally, has to do with the choices we make: not simply
the intellectual preferences we establish, but the commitments, the choices to be, to
live, to act according to certain convictions. We become Christians, not on the
basis of orthodox theology, but obedient living. "Who do you say that I am?" The
answer is played out in life, or it is no answer at all.

There are libraries on the question of the nature of Christ, and each generation
must think through the mystery of the incarnation in terms which are understandable
and relevant to that generation. Through it all, across all the centuries, the
Christian consensus has been this, at least: Jesus of Nazareth is the decisive,
once-and-for-all revelation of God. But the crux of the matter is not in nodding in
agreement with that assertion, but in believing it by allowing it to take shape in
our life, by allowing it to influence the choices you make every day. Some af those
choices are financial, Some are social, Some have to do with your world view and
others have to do with your relationships with your family. Some of those choices
are political, economic, public, Some of those choices have the possibility of be-~
coming costly. Some may make us unpopular. Some may put us in conflict with company

~3-

policy, with majority pinion, with fashionable political and social ideology. So
be it. He didn't promise that discipleship would be easy and we have no reason Co
expect that it will be so for us. In fact, we have every reason to wonder why it

hasn't cost us a bit.

If Christianity isn't a matter of believing ideas about Jesus alone, it isn't a
nater of slavishly imitating him either, It is the demanding business of taking
what we believe about him - even if it isn't vary adequate, or very much: even if
it is the vaguest sort of attraction to his idealiem, or goodness, or gentleness -
and gomehow summoning the raw courage to live Like that.

What he did promise was that in following him, we would be blessed with his
presence, his spirit, his grace and truth, What he did promise was that in following

him we would find our peace, our salvation.

Years ago a remarkably gifted man, Albert Schweitzer wrote a major work of New
Testament Scholarship "The Quest of the Historical Jesus." New Testament Scholars
still use it. The last paragraph in that monumental work, however, becomes personal,
pastoral. Schweitzer wrote, out of his own experience obviously,

"He comes to us as One unknown, without a name, as of old by the
lake-side, he came to those men who knew him not. He speaks to us the
sane word: ‘Follow me!'...4nd to those who obey, whether they be wise
or simple, he will reveal himself in the toils, the conflicts, the
sufferings which they shall pass through in his fellowship, and, as an
ineffable mystery, they shall learn in their own experience who he is,"

AMEN.

Great God of truth and love, give us courage in this Lenten season = to believe by
being: to be your people each day; to follow, gladly, faithfully, wherever your Son
leads,

AMEN,