ALL SAINTS MARGARET STREET

Sermon preached by Fr. Gerald Beauchamp at the Parish Mass on the Fourteenth Sunday of Trinity, 12th September 2009

Readings: Isaiah 50. 4-9a; James 3. 1-12; Mark 8. 27-end

A young curate was visiting an old people’s home. He went to see an elderly parishioner who was suffering from memory loss. He sat down beside her. ‘Do you know who I am?’ he asked. The elderly face searched his but the mind behind the eyes wouldn’t supply the answer. Finally, she gave up. ‘No, I’m afraid I don’t know who you are’ and then added, ‘but if you ask the nurse, she’ll tell you who you are.’ In this morning’s gospel Jesus asks a fundamental question: Who do you say that I am?Like Oscar Wilde Jesus knew that there’s one thing worse than being talked about and that’s not being talked about but before we get to the text let’s look at the context.

Jesus has taken the disciples to Caesarea Philippi. On the face of it this looks like an odd choice. If you’re going to ask difficult questions it’s often good to go somewhere quiet but Caesarea Philippi and the surrounding villages was something of a conurbation. It was full of distractions. 25 miles north of the Sea of Galilee Caesarea Philippi stood 1000 feet up overlooking a fertile valley. The area was littered with the shrines of ancient Syrian Baal worship. A cave near Caesarea Philippi was said to be the birthplace of the Greek god Pan, thegod of nature. According to Greek mythology Pan’s mother was so scared by his appearance that she abandoned him at birth. Pan induced ‘panic’ which is where the English word comes from. He was half man and half goat. Pan was ‘nature out of control’. Before it was called Caesarea Philippi the town was named after Pan: Panias. Today it’s called Banias, an Arabic corruption of the Greek.

Panias was put on the map after a battle. The ancient Jewish historian Josephus tells us that around 200BCE the Greek king, Antiochus III defeated the Egyptians and established his rule in Palestine and Syria. So, the Holy Land came under the control of the empire established by Alexander the Great. The area then passed into the hands of the Roman Empire and in 26BCE Caesar Augustus presented the town to King Herod. In honour of his benefactor, Herod built a white marble temple to Caesar. After Herod's death in 4BCE, his kingdom was divided among his sons, and the tetrarch Philip used Panias as his capital. Philip renamed it Caesarea Philippi to differentiate it from Caesarea Maritima which, as its name suggests, was on the coast.

But for all its gentile and pagan associations there was something very special about this area for Jews. In a cave at Caesarea Philippi there was a spring. This spring is one of the sources of the River Jordan, the ‘Ganges of the Gospels’. Perhaps there was method in Jesus’ madness. Perhaps he was trying to get at something very deep. In his questioning Jesus starts digging. Who do men say that I am? he asks generally. "John the Baptist; and others say, Elijah; and others one of the prophets" the disciples reply. So far, so good: the conversation is staying Jewish. Despite the manifold distractions of Baal worship, grottos to Pan and temples of Caesar the disciples are staying with their roots. They have their eyes focused on the prophetic tradition. The prophets weren’t like the seers of other religions, conjuring with bones or claiming to be fortune-tellers. The prophets pointed out the error of the ways of the present generation. They didn’t speculate about what future generations would get up to.

But then Jesus homes in. He’s not concerned about ‘them’ (the men). He’s concerned about ‘us’. Who do you say that I am? Peter’s confession You are the Messiah is spot on. Throughout his ministry so far Jesus had been laying a trail. There was a lot of speculation about who the Messiah would be, this saviour who would free Israel – turning out the Romans, cleaning up the temple, making people right with the Lord. Jesus’ words and deeds had caught the public attention and the public imagination. But now was the time for a correction. Jesus could not be a Messiah simply in the wonder-working sense. The kingdom couldn’t just be realized on the back of gasps of admiration. There had to be something more: or rather, something less. The something ‘less’ was the cross.

Jesus didn’t let his followers down gently: Then he began to teach them that the Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected ... and be killed ... and rise again; although it looks as if the disciples never heard beyond the suffering. It seems that the final promise of triumph was drowned out by the sounds of their hearts breaking. Suffering, rejection and killing was a million miles away from the healing, acceptance and living that had characterized the ministry of Jesus so far. Peter, so forceful in his profession that Jesus is the Messiah was vehement in his rebuke. So much so that Jesus tells him Get behind me! Satan. Peter having been so right was suddenly so wrong.

But we can understand Peter’s confusion. What Jesus was saying just didn’t fit. Jesus was the Messiah because he had been ‘anointed’ at his baptism in the Jordan, the holy river. He was surrounded by angels in the wilderness. He taught, healed, and held sway over creation with authority. People were amazed at the deeds of power. Their astonishment witnessed to this Jesus being no ordinary man. But Jesus is also the anti-Messiah. He was a great teacher but his parables and signs were often difficult to understand. He undermined tradition. How could the Messiah eat with sinners, break the Sabbath and require those who recognised him (especially demons) to shut up? Wasn’t Jesus mad? Might not he be possessed? Some thought so. Some turned against him.

Jesus was engaged in a radical process of discernment. He’d taken the disciples to a place where they would have to sort out the wood from the trees. They’d managed that. In the midst of the hurly-burly of Caesarea Philippi they’d remained faithful to their roots. In the midst of speculation they’d been focused. But now they have to move beyond the speculation. They had to take off the rose-tinted spectacles of ‘It’ll be alright when the Messiah comes’. It’s a thing that we all do – thinking that someone else will solve all our problems. We have to see that true engagement requires change; and change requires that some things have to die before there can be a new life. The cross is the sign par excellence of this truth: a truth that Jesus didn’t just talk about but finally embodied. In cross-examining his disciples he invites the cross to examine us. And so after the question Who do you say that I am? comes the call: "If any man would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me”. And after the question and the call comes a commission: and whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel's will save it.

Water has to flow. Water sealed up in a cave becomes a stagnant pool. The water turns rank. Nothing lives in it. It smells. We fear death and disease. We avoid it. But water that flows, that moves, that changes,that gushes out of the cave and down the hillside; that tumbles over waterfalls and floods the plain making it fertile and luxuriant, this water we are drawn to. It is attractive and life-giving.

The wellspring of our faith is questioning: (Why this? Why that?) not requests for information but deep existential questions about life’s meaning and purpose. And for me and I’m sure for many of you we find ‘answers’ to our questions in the life and ministry, the death and rising of Christ. It is in our experience of living and dying ‘in him’ that we find new life of a sorts; new life that enables us to claim Jesus as our Messiah and to affirm his (and our) resurrection. And so we can say with Peter You are the Christ. But our profession of faith cannot stop there. Faith doesn’t just stop at the lips, the mouth of our internal cave but must spill out into our words and actions so that others too may know what we know and come to believe what we believe.