When I served as rector of a parish in Charlotte, North Carolina, I had a personal assistant. Her name was Judy, and she was a rare gem. Judy had a dry sense of humor. She was competent, crusty, and very practical. As a native Southerner, she often served this benighted Yankee rector of that aristocratic Southern parish by translating the customs of the culture to me. Time and again, she was known to say, “I hear what you’re saying, but what do you mean?” Her point, as I understood it, was that sophisticated Southerners often say one thing, but mean something entirely different. For example, she taught me to watch out whenever someone begins a sentence with the words “Bless your heart”, because some insult always follows. Like this: “Bless her heart, she doesn’t have a clue.” Or “Bless his heart he never did amount to anything.” People don’t always say what they mean, or mean what they say, or know the meaning of what they’re saying. It’s commonplace in the South, but others do it too.

That’s what Jesus was up to in today’s reading. He was pressing the people around Him to say what they really thought and to know what it really meant. Jesus decided to ask His closest followers a public opinion question. He asked, "Who do people say that I am?"

The answers were all over the map. One replied, "Some say that you're John the Baptist." That always confused me. Perhaps they hadn't heard that John was dead, or maybe they meant -- "They think you're following in John the Baptist’s footsteps -- helping people turn away from their sinful ways and toward God." Another chimed in and said, "Some say that you're Elijah." That meant some of the people thought Jesus might be the one sent by God to prepare the way for the Messiah. Someone else added, "Some say that you're one of the prophets, like Jeremiah." That meant someone sent to speak God's word to the people. Understandably, there were all sorts of speculations about Jesus and who He was or what His role was. Most of them were good reports. Most of the people in the street thought that He was a good man sent by God -- even a prophet.

There’s always been a lot of speculation about who Jesus was. And that’s still true. Some say that Jesus was a good man, a great moral teacher, a miracle worker, or even one of God's special prophets. Most of them are descriptive ideas, because as the stories about Him go He was a good man, He did teach people about God and about how God wanted people to behave toward others. He did heal many people of their afflictions. He did speak like a prophet. But then, characteristic of Jesus’ style of teaching and spiritual direction, He went further. Jesus asked, "Who do you say I am?" You see Jesus never seemed to be content to leave conversations on a theoretical level. He always seemed to press people to the next step – to think personally and practically and to come to terms with God them selves – right then and there.

Also characteristic, Peter's the one who answered. He was, after all, often the most outspoken and daring or blundering of Jesus’ circle of friends. Peter said, "You're the Messiah – the Son of God." Now the word Messiah, in Hebrew, or Christ, in Greek, meant Anointed One. And, while that generally meant someone who had been anointed with oil – representing that the person, like a prophet or a priest or a king, had been filled with the power of God – with the Holy Spirit – to be able to do what God wanted him to do – in Jesus’ time it had come to mean something more specific. People believed that the Messiah was the one God would send and fill with the power of the Holy Spirit to save His people.

Now, since the Jewish people thought of them selves as God’s people, they believed that God would send this Messiah to save them. And since other peoples had dominated them for the better part of 800 years – by the Assyrians, the Egyptians, the Babylonians, the Greeks, and the Romans – they thought of that salvation as political liberation. And since, over those centuries, the Jewish people had picked up customs from those foreign empires, they thought that salvation would also involve their moral restoration and their religious or spiritual renewal. So they saw the Messiah as powered by God to restore them to moral purity, to renew them spiritually, and liberate them politically – to make them the greatest nation on earth. I imagine that’s what Peter had in mind when He told Jesus, “You’re the Messiah.”

Now just suppose that Jesus asked us that question. "Who do you say I am?" What would you say? A really good man? A great moral teacher? A miracle-worker? A prophet? A revolutionary? How would you answer Him?

One of the things that set Jesus apart from other good people, moral teachers, prophets or even revolutionaries was that He claimed to be more than human. He put Himself on a par with God -- saying such things as this: "The Father and I are one." "I am the way, the truth and the life. No one can come to the Father but by me." "Whoever has seen me has seen the Father." So I ask you, do you suppose that a good person, a moral teacher, a prophet, a revivalist, or even a revolutionary would say that sort of thing? I don’t think so. C. S. Lewis, the British writer, English professor and literary critic put it this way: "Many say that Jesus was a good man or a great moral teacher. But a man who claimed the things that Jesus did wouldn’t be good. He'd either not be telling the truth and be unaware of it, in which case He'd be self deluded, like a man who calls himself a poached egg. He'd not be telling the truth and be quite aware of it, in which case he'd be a liar and a charlatan. Or he was telling the truth and is God. You decide. Was He a liar, a lunatic, or the Lord?"

The religious leaders of His time made their decision. They believed that Jesus was a charlatan or a nut and certainly a blasphemous heretic. And that's why they had Him killed -- because He called Himself God. But Jesus wouldn’t let us get away with knowing what other people believed. He’d ask us what He asked His first followers. Who do you say that I am?

Now, if we, like Peter, believe that Jesus was and is the Messiah -- the Son of God, well then, again, Jesus doesn’t leave us with the option of merely comfortably making that assertion – like some litmus test for membership in a club. Even though He replied to Peter that God was the one, who revealed that truth to him and that it was the foundation of God’s Kingdom, Jesus didn’t leave it at that. He never left things up in the air. In all 3 synoptic Gospels, in the very next passage Jesus told Peter and the others what it means to be Messiah and to follow the Messiah. It means the cross, He said. It means personal sacrifice, not just the benefit of personal salvation, but also the cost of personal sacrifice. C. S. Lewis had something to say about that too. In his series, The Chronicles of Narnia, Aslan, the lion, was Jesus in Narnia. Over and over, many of the characters in those stories said, "Aslan’s not a tame lion, you know." Likewise, if Jesus is the Messiah, God's Son, then we must remember that He's not tame – not ours to tame -- to make Him be and do what we want for our personal benefit. No. If He is the Messiah, God sent Him to tame us – to train us to be the people He wants us to be and to do what He wants to do – as He did, to give our selves to God for the benefit, help and salvation of others. Peter thought Messiah would come to live up to his expectations, to benefit him, but Jesus came to help Peter live up to God’s expectations. The same holds true for us.