Sermon "The Gospel According to You"
Rev. Lonnie Richardson
Sunday, August 22, 1999
Matthew 16:13-17
The Gospel According to You
(Learning to Live with Our Religious Differences)
Matthew 16:13-17
Now when Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, "Who do men say that the Son of man is?" And they said, "Some say John the Baptist, others say Elijah, and others Jeremiah or one of the prophets." He said to them, "But who do you say that I am?" Simon Peter replied, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God." And Jesus answered him, "Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jona! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven.
I'm a Christian. But a few week ago the air conditioning in my car was looked over by a Muslim mechanic. I ate food prepared by Hindu hands. And a Jew solved my software problem. Welcome to multi-religious America.
I'm not sure that we mainline Protestant types know how to live in such a world. After all, our major project, well into this century, was to make a "Christian America," to concoct a country so uniformly Christian that we would never encounter anyone who was unable to confess with, Matthew 16, "You are the Christ, the Son of God."
Have you noticed? Even in "God We Trust" America, Christians are increasingly feeling like a minority in the very culture we thought we had made Christian. Although 82 percent of Americans claim to be Christian (Gallop, 1993), increasing numbers of us are asking, how are we to live as Christians in communities which are bubbling with the vitality of other religions? What do you say (should you say anything?) to the person who sits next to you at work and is a Moslem? Your Hindu dermatologist....What about her? Is she going to hell because she doesn't believe Matthew 16?
Of course, Matthew 16 comes out of just such a time as ours. When Jesus asked Peter, "Who do people say that I am?" Followers of Jesus were a tiny minority on the margin of Judaism. When Peter said, "You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God!" He said so amid dozens of vibrant, counter religions. Not one verse of the New Testament was spoken for a time when Christians were the majority. Christianity was a minority movement.
I say that because sometimes it's difficult for American Christians to remember that our faith originated in a conflicted religious marketplace where encounter with folk of other faiths was a daily, even hourly reality.
So how could Peter, knowing full well that the response of most people to Jesus' question, "Who do people say that I am?" Would range from, "You are an inspired and wonderful teacher," to "You are a charlatan and a complete quack," but few would say, "You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God!" How could Peter make such bold, exclusive confession of faith in Christ?
Now, in one sense it's odd to expect guidance for our encounter with other faiths from this text. From one perspective, this text in which Peter says, "You are the Messiah, the Son of God," kills inter-religious dialogue rather than encourages it. After you have said, "You are the Messiah, the Son of God," what else is there to say? You can't say something silly like, "and Buddha is also the only Son of God." Therefore, this text has a long history of usage by the church as validation for Christian persecution of other faiths. And that is a sad fact.
Such usage is misuse. Because it's not just that Peter says to Jesus, "You are the Son of the living God," but rather that Peter says, "You are the Son of the living God." You. Jesus. In Jesus, God comes among us not as a crusading warrior but as a suffering servant. You are the Son of God, come among us not as the caustic, condemnatory denouncer of other religions but as one who says simply, graciously "Follow me!"
To my knowledge, Jesus never said anything against anybody's religion, except his rather fierce criticisms of his own followers! Therefore, to say of Jesus, "You are as much of God as we ever hope to see" (which is what Christians say of him), is to say that, in our encounter with other faiths, we must speak to others as Jesus spoke to us. As Christians we believe, not just that we have met God, but that we have met God as Jesus.
Other faiths believe they have met God in the words of Mohammed, a wise and righteous warrior, or as the Buddha, an introspective mystic. That will make a difference in how they view us Christians. And Jesus makes all the difference in how we view them, how we talk to them, how we listen to them. As we see it, when Peter said, "You are the Messiah, the Son of God," he set the rules for our encounter with folk of other faiths.
Jesus is judgment upon some of the ways we Christians have attempted to relate to people who believe differently from us. The well-meaning soul who says, "Hey, you're Hindu, I'm Christian, but that's not really important. After all, we're all saying fairly much the same thing," is wrong. If you will sit down and actually listen to the Hindu for more than five minutes, you will see that she or he is not saying the same thing as Christians say. For you to say otherwise is an affront to Hindus.
What first appears as graciousness -- "Hey, we're all heading in the same direction after all" -- is actually the height of arrogance -- "Hey, your Hinduism is really unimportant and insignificant." No. When Peter confessed of Jesus, "You are the Messiah," he was saying something singular, different. Jesus is not the embodiment of a mess of vaguely religious emotions and pious platitudes. He is Jesus, someone who lived, spoke, and died in a very specific way. It was possible to get him wrong, as this episode demonstrates. Everything nice that folks said of Jesus ("He's a great prophet, a wonderful teacher of wisdom, a fine moral example.") was not accepted by Jesus as truthfully describing him.
Statements like, "Well, you're Jewish, I'm Black Muslim, but what really matters is that we're all just human beings," shows, not that someone is open minded about religion but just the opposite. One is so closed minded about religion that one cannot even conceive that a person's religious belief is the most important thing in that person's life.
So I'm saying that the first step toward learning to live with our religious differences is learning to respect those differences. As Christians, we are to relate to people of other faiths as Jesus related to them: with respect and love, knowing that they are beloved children of God. With humility, knowing that we didn't come to Christ, he came to us. With joyful curiosity in learning more about what they have learned of the ways of God, hoping that one day they may in turn ask us to share what we have learned of
God in Christ. With the awesome responsibility of knowing that they are quite right in judging the claims of Christ by watching how we live. From what I've seen, most people do not believe in Jesus, not because they think Jesus is a fraud, but rather because they see so little of Jesus in the lives of those of us who profess to be following Jesus!
One last thing to keep in mind in your encounters with people of other faiths: when Peter makes this stunning confession, "You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God," Jesus doesn't say to Peter, "Great! Now you have got the point, go out and arm wrestle everyone else into seeing things the way you now see them."
Jesus says, "Blessed are you, Simon! Flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father in heaven." In other words, Peter, you believe in me, not as a personal intellectual achievement, but rather as gift. Grace. If this morning you can say, when asked, who is Jesus, "the Messiah, the Son of God," it's only because it has been given to you. No place for smugness, or self-righteousness here.
Note that first Jesus asks about them, "Who do others say that I am?" That mechanic who worked on my car last week, the chef who prepared my lunch, who do they say Jesus is?
But then, quite quickly, Jesus moves to the heart of the matter. "Who do you say that I am?" The gospel according to you, that's the question. The ultimate fate of others who do not believe in Jesus, the significance of their relationship to God, that's a matter between them and God. Your greatest concern is not, "What about them?" Your care should be, "What about me? What do I say about Jesus? How does my life -- in the way I go about the world, in the manner in which I relate to others -- how does my life demonstrate that Jesus really is the Christ, the Son of the living God?" The gospel according to you.
Pastoral Prayer:
Faithful God,
We dwell in a time and a place where the fragments of broken
promises are strewn about our marketplaces, courthouses,
churches, offices, schools, playgrounds, living rooms and
bedrooms. . . the wreckage of once great hopes and ideals, the
debris of shattered trust.
In all creation, you alone are truly fail-safe. You faithfully keep your promises to us even when we carelessly break your heart, even when we crucify our Lord anew by breaking faith and abondoning responsibility. Forgive us for the times we have failed to mirror your faithfulness in our relationships with people who ar trusted in us. Heal whatever hurt we have caused. Give them the power and the bravery to forgive us. Help us in turn forgive those who have violated the trust we once put in them. Let your grace flow over and between us, washing away any lingering bitterness. Support us while we make new beginnings together.
Teach us that we cannot be faithful to anyone if we are not faithful first to you. Help us respect, love and trust you above anything else. Anchored by faith in you support the commitments we have made to family, friends, associates, clients, community and country.
Help husbands and wives remain faithful to one another in mind as well as body. Help fathers and mothers fulfil the covenant they made when they brought children into the world. Help sons and daughters honor and obey their parents. Help us become more dependable friends and coworkers. Help us treat our superiors, associates and clients with respect and integrity. Make us worthy of the trust others place in us so that they can glimpse in our lives something of your steadfast love and faithfulness. Amen.
Communication Resources, Inc.
