Who Do You Say I Am?

Matthew 16:13-20 — Proper 16A / Pentecost 11

The Million Dollar Question

If this worship service were an episode of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?, today’s Scripture would hand us the million-dollar question. It’s the one Jesus poses to the disciples as they travel through Caesarea Philippi — and the theologian Paul Tillich once called its answer the center of the Gospel, the very heart of the Christian message.

Put simply: Who is Jesus?

This is more than a question of identity. These verses mark a turning point in our life as Christians — the passage begins with a statement of belief and ends with a call to faith. That movement from passive belief to living faith is a journey every one of us has to make.

Who Do People Say I Am?

Now when Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?” And they said, “Some say John the Baptist, but others Elijah, and still others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.”
— Matthew 16:13-14

It’s interesting that Jesus starts by asking about other people’s opinions. Sometimes it’s only by looking at others that we see ourselves clearly. And each answer the disciples offer — Moses, Elijah, one of the prophets — represents a version of faith many of us secretly want.

Moses was the giver of the law. By Jesus’ time, the Ten Commandments had been sliced and diced into 613 precise rules, with 1,521 further “emendations” piled on for good measure. Some of us crave that kind of religion — a step-by-step manual for living. Ten easy steps to a successful Christian career. Four spiritual laws to salvation. We treat the Bible like an owner’s manual, guaranteed to keep us safe on the highway of life.

Elijah was the miracle-worker — the one who called down fire on Mount Carmel and rode a whirlwind straight into heaven. What a ride! There are plenty of days I want my faith to work that way — to just make the hurt disappear. I think of a woman I once knew, battered by her husband, staying and hoping a miracle would change him. It never came. Or the man who believed God had the perfect job waiting for him, and saw no particular need to go look for it. We all want, sometimes, a faith that asks nothing of us — that lets us climb aboard the chariot and fly above life’s hurdles.

The prophets called out the nation’s sin — and if social media is any indication, America has more prophets than people these days. Everybody knows exactly who’s ruining the country. Republicans blame Democrats, Democrats blame Republicans, and everybody in between blames everybody else. We love standing in judgment of others; for some of us, it’s the most satisfying religion there is.

Moses. Elijah. The prophets. Three ways we’d love for Jesus to be — a rulebook, an escape hatch, or a judge we can wield against everyone but ourselves.

Who Do YOU Say I Am?

But then Jesus changes the question. He turns to his followers and asks, “Who do you say that I am?”

In that moment, something breaks open for Simon Peter. The clouds part.

“You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.”
— Matthew 16:16

The Messiah. The Anointed One — in Greek, the Christ — sent by God to make the world right. Jesus is more than anything we’ve ever wanted or dreamed religion to be.

But how did Peter know this?

This scene falls near the very end of Jesus’ ministry, right before the road to Jerusalem and everything that happened there on that Friday. So Peter’s confession comes after three years of following Jesus — watching him heal the sick, free the oppressed, raise the dead; touch lepers, restore the dignity of women, forgive sins, and sit down to eat with tax collectors, soldiers, Samaritans, and everyone else the respectable world had written off. There was something in what Jesus did and how Jesus lived that revealed who Jesus was.

The Rock and the Confession

“Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father in heaven. And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it.”
— Matthew 16:17-18

Catholic tradition reads this as Peter himself being named the rock — the head of the Church. Others read it differently: that the foundation isn’t Peter the man, but Peter’s confession — that the Church is built wherever people don’t just believe Jesus is the Messiah, but live it out.

And living it out means taking up Jesus’ own mission as our own:

The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.
— Luke 4:18-19

What we’ve seen in Christ, we go and do. This is what faith is. Live the Jesus way, and the church is born, evil is defeated, heaven’s treasures are unlocked, and people are set free.

So What?

If we believe, like Peter, that Jesus is the Messiah, we have a job to do — not just to affirm it, but to embody it. Jesus calls us to take up our cross and follow: to become Messiah-shaped people, reconciling, feeding, healing, seeking the one lost sheep even at the cost of leaving the ninety-nine behind.

Will you?

Across the centuries comes that million-dollar question. You’ve polled the audience. You’ve used your fifty-fifty. You’ve phoned a friend. There are no lifelines left. You’re on your own to answer the greatest question of your life: