The question of who we say we are — or rather, finding out how to answer that question — is perhaps our culture”s foundational concern.
When we’re kids, we wonder what we’ll grow up to be. We search, through school and college and work, searching for a role that will define us, and who we are.
And we look to relationships, with a partner, with parents, with children, and the roles we fulfil in all of those places.
Who do you say that you are? What comes to mind if you’re introducing yourself, or describing yourself? Your work, past or present? Your family roles? Your culture, or your ancestors’ cultures? The things you love to do? The people you feel most at home with? The church you belong to, even?
Which of those things makes you who you truly are?
The Gospel this week presents us with a different question.
Not, who do I say that I am, but who do *you* say that I am?
And who do I say that *you* are?
Identity, and role, and relationship — all of those things are important. But here in this exchange between Peter and Jesus, we have an example given to us, of those definitions not coming from our own self-identification, but by seeing and being seen by someone *outside* of ourselves.
Peter goes first. He is asked directly by Jesus — “who do you say that I am?” At this point in the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus and his disciples have been travelling through a while, moving through different cities, with Jesus teaching and healing and telling parables and announcing the imminent reign of God. This is what Peter has seen.
Jesus hasn’t been proclaiming his identity explicitly — *telling* people who he is. But in all those things he’s been *doing*, he’s been revealing who he truly is, for those who have eyes to see.
And so despite not having any evidence for Jesus’s messianic identity, Peter is able to see Jesus for who he is. Flesh and blood, physical realities, haven’t convinced him — Jesus says that Peter sees a spiritual reality in Jesus, the man he calls teacher. Despite all the times Peter has misunderstood, or got it wrong, he is able to truly see Jesus in that moment.
And then notice what Jesus does in response. Jesus sees *him*. He sees Peter. Not for the person he is in this moment — a small-town fisherman who left everything behind to travel with Jesus — but for the person he will become. Greater than anything he probably believes he is capable of. The rock, the foundation, upon which Jesus will build his church. His community. His living body.
In fact the name Peter, which Jesus gave to him the moment Peter began to follow him, means originally “rock”. There is a sense that Jesus has *always* known this about Peter. That the moment he cast his eyes on him, he saw his true self, and gave him this name, a name that hinted at what he was going to become for the early group of Christians trying to live and grow as a brand new church.
But it’s in *this key moment* in Jesus’s ministry, at a point when he is still keeping his true identity hidden from many of the people he’s ministering to, that Jesus and Peter model for us this interchange, this almost *choreography*. Seeing Jesus, being seen by Jesus.
They model for us what it looks like not to define ourselves as individuals, but to define ourselves through community with others. Discovering who we truly are in allowing ourselves to be seen by another person. And not just seen, but known. Recognised. “Who do you say that I am?” And then, seeing and knowing and recognising the other, in turn.
Peter and Jesus are showing us an example of how we can be with one another, like Paul describes in our epistle reading. Paying attention to the gifts we see in others, and naming them, and encouraging them. But in this exchange in our Gospel reading today, they’re also showing us, more fundamentally, how we know and are known by God.
It can be scary to place our identity in the hands of another. Especially if we have experiences of not being seen for who we really are — if we’ve been excluded, or been the victims of prejudice. Many of us have these experiences in different ways. In the Church of England, I’ve had colleagues who didn’t believe I could be a priest because of my gender — they saw in my a limitation I didn’t see in myself, a limitation I didn’t believe Jesus saw in me either. It’s painful, to feel like you’re not being seen for who you truly are.
Perhaps this is why Jesus invites Peter to go first. Who does Peter say that Jesus is? Who does he see when he looks at him? He invites Peter to start the exchange.
Because who Peter sees is the Messiah. The one the Jewish people were all waiting for, the one whose salvation has been proclaimed by prophets and psalmists. To see Jesus for who he is, for Peter, is seeing someone who is worthy of our trust, someone who cares for those who are laid low, who brings joy and gladness to those who suffer.
I wonder who you say Jesus is? Who do you see when you look at him?
When I look at Jesus, I see someone who trusted women with some of the biggest responsibilities of all. From his mother who directed him to begin his miracles at the Wedding at Cana, to the Samaritan woman who evangelised to her whole hometown, to Mary Magdalene charged with bringing the first announcement of his resurrection, Jesus constantly defied his culture’s attempts to overlook women, to imagine them as lesser agents than men.
He treated all people with the same unconditional love, the same patience, the same understanding. I trust him.
But I wonder who *you* say Jesus is?
Who is it that you follow, and worship?
Because all of us are invited to join this dance, this back and forth, of discovering or remembering who Jesus is, and through this gaining the courage to allow ourselves to be seen by him in turn. And not just seen, but called to become the people God sees us becoming, just like Peter.
This series of readings we’re in the middle of, from Matthew’s Gospel — you might have noticed that Peter features quite often. And you’ll probably also notice preachers like me saying again and again that he is flawed, or immature, or confused. I think a few weeks ago I called him ‘puppy-like’! I say this about Peter all the time because it’s *so important* that the first followers of Jesus weren’t chosen because they were amazing people, clever or well-behaved or devout. They were the opposite of that. In fact after doing well in today’s reading, it really doesn’t long for Peter to mess up again.
But Jesus sees who he will become for that really church, the first Christian community finding their footing after the revolution that was his resurrection from the grave. Jesus sees who Peter for who he *truly* is.
We can be afraid of others defining us because we are afraid of being made *less* than who we are. Confined, or misunderstood, or ignored.
But in Jesus God always sees the *whole* of who we are. Not defining us by our achievements *or* our faults. Seeing us only as divine children of our heavenly creator, who loves us and lives in us.
When we know this deep within ourselves, we can live as a community who sees one another through that lens, that perspective. This is what the Church is. And *as* the Church we’re called to go out and see the whole world through the very same lens.
Which we can only do, probably, with the confidence that comes from knowing that we are children of God, beheld always by that divine compassion.
And we can only do *that*, if we turn to look at Jesus, and meet his gaze.
So who do you say that he is?
Who is Jesus to you?