It is a very good question. I wonder what you or I would say if we were caught off guard: who is Jesus?
What his disciples report is this: Elijah, or John, or one of the Prophets. This is in fact what Herod and his aides have been thinking because at this point in the story Herod is terrified by a guilty conscience, having unjustly decapitated John the Baptist.
In their way these were not bad answers. He did fit the mold of each of these.
Like John, he preached a Gospel of repentance.
Like Elijah, he was said to have raised the dead.
And like any of the Prophets, he proclaimed the imminence of God’s kingdom.
Then he turns to the disciples and saks, “What do you say?”
You could have given him several correct answers by now had you been one of them.
If you have read Mark’s Gospel up to this point in the story, you have heard several answers to this question. You know that he is as the neighbors say “the carpenter, the son of Mary, the brother of James and Jude and so on. “ You know also that he is a great worker of wonders—as the disciples say when he calms the storm, what kind of a human is this when even the water sand winds obey him? You know also that he is a preacher with an insistent message or theme: the Kingdom of God is here. Or near. Or within you.
And one more thing: you know that he is the son of God.. The demons know it and say it—Son of God, what are you going to do to us? They ask. And God the Father also has said it: you are my son, my beloved, a voice from heaven says. That is the most impressive answer to us. But not to them. The fact is there were many sons of God roaming, starting with Caesar himself. They always nominated him “filius Dei,” son of god, sooner or later.
My guess is when I started several of you thought Son of God. I know I would half the time.
The rest probably said what Peter said. Peter answers for the disciples: we think you are the Messiah or if you prefer the Greek, the Christ or if you prefer English that means the Anointed One. That was far more impressive than Son of God, because it was unique. The New David. The one who would liberate.
That’s the best answer, the one I suppose I would want to give.
But then he did something the scholars puzzle over and nobody else notices: he tells them to keep this a secret. The answer is correct but keep it to yourselves. I don’t want anybody to know. Why do such a strange thing?
The scholars call it the Messianic Secret, one of the special features of the Gospel of Mark, and invent ingenious explanations.
My explanation is not ingenious but I think it’s commonsense.
#1, to prevent the cover question for Time magazine this week: Does God Want You to Be Rich? When I saw this Thursday I thought it was one of those old Harvard magazine lampoons. In 1966 Time had a cover God is Dead. I think this is worse than that.
Too many people then would have expected him to defeat the enemy, elevate Israel, and make the world a wonderful place.
Too many people have the wrong idea of Messiah. He would rescue but not from what people thought. He would score a victory but not the one people imagined.
And yes he would make you rich–but not the way Joel Osteen and the megachurches mean it. I wish I could ask them a question: “hasn’t God chosen the poor of this world to be rich in faith and to be heirs of the kingdom?”
I didn’t come up with that question. That is straight from today’s epistle, from James, which Bp St John and I were saying the other day is one of the great underused books. I suppose the megachurches don’t read it. The poor are rich in faith, the poor are heirs of the kingdom, the poor are chosen. It’s a theme that runs through Scripture. I think you could find something in every Book of the Bible that echoes it.
And ever since Scripture was closed and the Age of the Holy Spirit began. I think of St Lawrence showing the poor he was helping to the persecutors and saying these are the treasures of the Church. I think of St. Augustine, and St. Gregory, and St Clare of Assissi, and St Hildegarde of Bingen, and St. Thomas Aquinas, and St Benedict, and I could keep going with this list of men and women who left prosperous lives deliberately to find discipleship and I think of St. Francis whom many consider the most Christ-like person ever to live since, who embraced Poverty.
Who do you say he is? Not, I hope, a supreme financial adviser. That’s the cheap modern version of what he was trying to prevent: a material messiah. My kingdom, he told Pilate, is not of this world.
But there is another reason. I believe. What he told Pilate must be balanced against it. My kingdom is not of this world can also be misinterpreted. And misused. And it has, by other segments of the Church, many times in the past. It has been used to keep the poor miserable, to feed off the poor, and point to the Bible as justification. It has been used to promise slaves a better life in the sky–while they made someone else’s life better here on the ground.
More recently there has been a sick variation on this. Sick as the God-makes-you-rich mock theology. It’s this:
Some Senator, who proudly identifies himself as an Evangelical Christian, when challenged about the melting polar icecaps and the diminishing rainforest and the disappearing wilderness in the Yukon said this: It doesn’t matter, the world is going to end shortly anyway, all the signs in Revelation tell us that. Some of you may remember that also, I’m not making that up either. There may be solid answers to the challenge he was given. But what he said was contemptible.
So let me offer a more intelligent example of this mistake.
Garry Wills, whom I respect, wrote a whole book a year ago which is 50% correct: What Jesus Meant. It was his answer to today’s Gospel question, who do they say I am? Wills says correctly that Jesus offered a radical vision of God’s kingdom. He says accurately that Jesus’ words should not be used for any political agenda. He says significantly that we should examine what Jesus preached about how we should lead our own lives.
But he keeps saying unfortunately that the Gospel is all “anticipatory”: and that means it is all about the future, the next world, the kingdom to come. That is dangerous.
If it were true, and it is not, then it would make perfect sense to say don’t worry about the North Pole, it’s disposable anyway. It would make sense to say just put up with misery in this life because something better is in store for you. It would make perfect sense to view this world as the vast vale of tears through which we must unfortunately pass and the body as a jail that imprisons the soul.
But it isn’t true. The idea that God is not very interested in this life is as false as the idea that God wants you to get rich.
Let me explain it this way. Christianity is in part about the future improving on the present. That is called Hope, and it’s a virtue.
Christianity is about believing in Christ as the solution to the fundamental problem of life. That is faith.
But Christianity is also about transforming this world and transfiguring this present moment in every way possible. Jesus said: when I was hungry you gave me food when thirsty, you gave me drink, when I was a stranger you welcomed me into your house, when naked you clothed me, when sick, you came to help me, when in prison, you came to visit me. That is love, and St. Paul told us which of the three is the most important.
Who do you say that I am? The new Elijah, the New Baptist, the son of Mary, the worker of wonders, the great Rabbi, the Son of God, the Christ: all of the above. But he said keep this secret. There were two more titles to come:
Suffering Servant and King of Kings.
