Who Do You Say That I Am?
Today’s Lectionary Passage: Matthew 16:13–20
Yesterday we spent some time on a street corner talking with a woman who was living out of her car.
Her story of losing nearly everything after a personal tragedy is one we have heard countless times. Life can unravel astonishingly fast.
We helped with some immediate needs, but mostly, we listened.
We listened to a human being tell us what had happened to her life.
And as I stood there with her, I found myself thinking about this Sunday’s Gospel reading.
Jesus asks his disciples:
“Who do people say that the Son of Man is?”
They give him the answers they have heard: John the Baptist. Elijah. Jeremiah. One of the prophets.
Then Jesus makes it personal:
“But who do you say that I am?”
Earlier this week, as we were getting our heads and hearts around Matthew 16:13–20, we watched The Chosen, Season 4, Episode 2. As Jesus and the disciples entered the region of Caesarea Philippi, someone watching with us asked, “Are they sacrificing goats in there?”
Someone else answered, basically, “You don’t want to know what’s going on in there.”
The television portrayal is dramatic, of course, but the history of Caesarea Philippi makes Jesus’ choice of location fascinating.
The area had long been associated with the worship of the god Pan. Later, Caesar Augustus gave the region to Herod the Great, who built a temple there honoring Augustus. Herod’s son Philip developed the city and renamed it Caesarea Philippi—a name carrying the weight of Caesar, empire, political power, and Philip himself.
And there, Jesus asks:
“Who do you say that I am?”
Think about the juxtaposition.
They are standing in a region marked by competing claims about gods, rulers, kingdoms, and power.
Rome knows what power looks like.
Caesar knows what lordship looks like.
And these disciples have been walking with a very different kind of Lord.
They have watched Jesus notice the unseen.
Touch the untouchable.
Welcome the outcast.
Heal the sick.
Honor women.
Receive children.
Feed hungry people.
Confront religious hypocrisy.
Cross boundaries others would not cross.
And now Jesus asks them:
“Who do you say that I am?”
Peter answers:
“You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.”
And Jesus tells him that flesh and blood did not reveal this to him. This knowing came from God.
But here is something I don’t want us to miss.
Peter gets the title right before he fully understands what the title means.
Immediately after this passage, Jesus begins telling his disciples that he will go to Jerusalem, suffer, be killed, and be raised again.
And Peter objects.
The same Peter who has just confessed, “You are the Messiah,” still has to learn what kind of Messiah Jesus is.
Peter knows who Jesus is, but he is still being converted in his understanding of how Jesus exercises power.
Maybe we are too.
We can say “Jesus is Lord” and still spend a lifetime learning what kind of Lord Jesus is.
Jesus is not Caesar.
His kingdom does not operate by domination or power for power’s sake.
His is the power of truth and love, mercy and justice, self-giving and sacrifice.
So I wonder if this isn’t still the most important question we can ask ourselves—and perhaps one of the most important questions we can ask one another:
Who do you say Jesus is?
We have been answering that question all of our adult lives.
As a Catholic kid, I, Clare, would have told you who Jesus was based largely on what my dad and the Dominican nuns taught me. It was a good start.
There is an old little chorus running through my head even as I type this: I want to know more about my Jesus. I want to know more about my Lord.
That desire has never left me.
The more I know Jesus, the more I love him.
Jesus has taught me about our heavenly parents, the Father and the Holy Spirit. He has grown me in faith, hope, and especially love. He has shown me a heart turned toward the poor, the under-resourced, the judged, the forgotten, and those pushed to the edges.
And that brings me back to the woman on the street corner.
Because the question “Who do you say that I am?” isn’t answered only by what I believe about Jesus.
It is answered by who I am becoming because I believe it.
Standing there with a woman living out of her car, I am confronted again with the Jesus I say I follow.
Do I see her?
Do I have time for her story?
Do I recognize her dignity?
Do I see a problem to solve—or a person to love?
Do I believe Jesus is present here too?
Suddenly Caesarea Philippi doesn’t feel quite so far away.
Because there are always competing ideas about what matters, who matters, what power is for, and whose life deserves our attention.
There is still plenty of “Caesar is Lord” in our world.
Power that protects itself.
Power that treats human beings as expendable.
Power that decides some lives matter more than others.
And then there is Jesus.
The One who keeps turning toward the person everyone else has learned to walk past.
Which means his question is not merely theological.
It is deeply personal.
And before I point it toward anyone else, Jesus turns it toward me:
Clare, who do you say that I am?
And I find myself answering:
You are the One who seeks the lost.
You are the One who sees the person everyone else walks past.
You are the One who reaches toward the homeless, the migrant, the enslaved, the sick, the rejected, and the judged.
You are the One who says, “Let the little children come to me.”
You are the One who confronts power without becoming like the powers you confront.
You are the One who judges righteously because you alone know the whole truth.
You are the One whose kingdom does not look like Caesar’s kingdom.
And Jesus, I want to know you.
I want to love what you love.
I want to see whom you see.
I want to tell the truth the way you tell the truth.
I want my life—not merely my words—to answer the question:
“Who do you say that I am?”
Maybe that is the invitation for all of us this week.
Not simply:
What do I believe about Jesus?
But:
If someone watched the way I treat the person standing in front of me—the person on the street corner, the person I disagree with, the person who needs something from me, the person everyone else has learned not to see—who would they say I believe Jesus is?
Because sooner or later, our lives answer the question our lips confess.