Mark 7: 31-37 Peter’s Confession of Faith

Who do people say that I am?

Ever wonder who people say you are? We all have this idea in our head of who we want to be known as and what we want to be known for but what do other people actually say about you? How different is it from the version in your own head.

I love to hear what other people think about me because they have a tendency to view me in so many ways different than I view myself. My actions are often not interpreted or perceived the way I intended them to come across. Sometimes for better, sometimes for worse, and sometimes in ways I just never would have thought of.

Jesus learned from his disciples that people did not know the truth about who he was but his disciples did. And, he was happy with that. The people could say whatever they wanted about him and either believe or not believe. What mattered was that those he worked with knew who and what he was.

Notice that he isn’t talking to his family here! He isn’t having a conversation with his mother Mary, or his brother James, Joses, Simon, Judas, or any of  his unnamed sisters. He was talking to those whom he worked with. It was most important that they knew and understood who he was.

Anyone’s family not understand them? Despite that maybe you’ve spent your entire adulthood trying to get your mother, father, sister, brother, or extended family, to see you as an adult. Maybe they absolutely refuse to stop calling you some childish version of your name or nickname that you always hated but they just continued to call that you anyway.

Maybe they have no understanding about what you do with your life or who you are as a human being? Maybe they insist on incessantly bringing up that one embarrassing thing you did, something you did horribly wrong, a mistake you made, words you said, there could be any multitude of things that your family just won’t let go of.

Stop worrying about them, they are going to think what they are going to think and there is probably nothing you could ever do to change that. Whoever it is that they say you are probably isn’t who Jesus would say you are. And I hope it isn’t what these people would say you are. These people, the one’s in this room. The one’s you are supposed to be discipling with. Who do they say you are?

Who do you say I am? That’s going to be important in the work we do together in the future. It’s going to affect the level and depth trust we can build with one another. My knowing you and you knowing me is going to be essential moving forward in ministry and you knowing who they are because we’re going to have to call on one another to do the things we are not meant to do but they are.

Jesus wanted his disciples to understand who he was and what the implications of that would be. They didn’t. So he didn’t waste what little time he had on this earth trying to persuade them. He just let it go. He just listened to their answers and moved on with being himself.

I’m going to go against everything society has preached at you for the last three decades and tell you: What other people think about you does matter. Not to the point you should bend over backwards to fruitlessly try and change their opinions but in the sense that they can offer you a glimpse of an aspect of yourself you might not know about.

From the gossip the disciples heard, they were able to determine that Jesus was known as a prophet and not just any prophet but one of the best. They thought very highly of him and his ability to channel messages that God wanted them to hear. And, they were not wrong. We however, are human, and therefore we are often wrong. Other people only ever see part of the picture of who we are.

Interactive sermon time: Let’s have it.

Who do people say the United Methodist Church of which we are a part of is right now?

Alright then, that’s what they think. But we, the people of the United Methodist Church, specifically Highland Ave United Methodist Church. Those who have entered this building once a week or more every week of your life. Those who worship here. Those who engage in ministries through this building. Those who are the people of this church.

Who do you say the United Methodist Church, this church, is?

Huh, they don’t seem to be the same.

They can think what they want. It is not our job to fight what other people say about us, about you or the person sitting next to you or the person sitting across the room from you. We are not to waste our time and energy obsessing about who they think we are.

We are to respond when confronted “Get behind me, Satan! For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.”

Because you know who we are? We are the disciples of Jesus Christ. We are the ones who have chosen to bear his cross to free the oppressed of this world. And we are going to get stoned from time to time because the outside world is focused not on the divine but on human things and they are using it to pull you away from the church, take you away from ministry to the world, and instead care more about what they think than about what Jesus Christ thinks of them and his community of believers.

The outside world is never going to fully understand us. Like our family’s who still see us for what we did wrong 10, 20 or 50 years ago, they would rather just hold on to part of the picture and never let any information that disagrees with it in. They don’t actually want to know who we are.

It is our job as Christians to be the church that when you ask others “Who is Highland Ave UMC?” Their response is quite clear that it is where all the weird people go. The ones that don’t fit into mainstream society. That church that welcomes those that others turn away. The one that lets people be themselves, live with their own sins rather than harassing them about it every time they see them, and filled with people who try to be better on their own terms. Not people who are governed by others opinions. We want to be gleefully known as “THAT” church.

Be the church that upholds the teachings of Jesus Christ in ways that would make him proud to affiliate himself with it. Not the popular church where the cool kids go but the church for the misfit toys. The church that removes automatic exclusions and instead is willing to treat each and every human being as a gift from God that needs to work on building the strengths God gifted them with and help them to go wherever those gifts may take them. To be the church that tries as hard as it can to adapt to things which help to alleviate oppression, stereotypes, social stigmas, and all the things that prevent people from getting the help they need and finding the love of community they deserve. All those things that have been driving people away from churches for decades now.

Deny your selfish desires, take up the cross, be a Christian! Set your mind on divine, not on human things. Lose this life of ostracizing others and become one of the ostracized. Stop labeling everyone else and focus on the label God has given you.

Be people who encourage and speak positively with ease because they don’t shape themselves to society but instead shape themselves into not just accepting people as they are but loving them for being different. Be the church that encourages people to grow and change into who and what they feel called to be.

People will say what they want. Misinterpret things as they want. They will say who they think we are, sometimes quite loudly. It doesn’t really matter. What does matter is who do you say we are?

Good. Now, let’s be that.

May, the Lord bless you and keep you;
May the Lord make his face to shine upon you
And be gracious to you;
May the Lord lift up his countenance upon you
And give you peace

Photo of St. Expedite. Taken in Our Lady of Guadalupe Church New Orleans, LA. You can find the legend here: https://www.nola.com/300/the-almost-true-legend-of-st-expedite-in-new-orleans/article_46709902-d3d3-504b-b501-c8d35b679e97.html