The Self of Jesus

Text: Mark 8:27-38

Oliver Sacks, the observant neurologist, has spent most of his life trying to discover what it means to have a self. What is it about our selves that makes them seem to be continuous? What is it about our selves that makes them seem to be ours, to belong to us? If someone cannot remember anything that happened more than five minutes ago, does that person have one self or many? If someone can only remember what happened long ago, is that long-ago person the same as this present person? If someone who could speak now cannot, is that the same person as before? What if someone goes crazy? What if someone is drugged? What of someone loses part of his or her brain? What if someone, as a person Sacks describes did, mistakes his wife for a hat. What is a person? What is a self? What is our self?

This is not an academic question. Who are we? Are you the same person you were ten years ago? Do you feel the same, think the same, have the same desires and fears? If you are the same person, do you rejoice at that or mourn? And if not: same question. Are you responsible for things you once did? What happens to you when you are married? When you have a child? When you get very sick? Or wounded? When you lose someone you love? Do all these things of our lives belong to us, the same person, throughout? If not, if we are sometimes divorced from our former selves, then what makes us one being?

People sometimes speak of life as a journey. It has been a long road, you might say, looking back. Just starting out, you might say, as if you knew where you were going. There is a path on which you walk, you might say. People in religious circles talk particularly about one’s faith journey. As if it were one continuous thread. Or they talk about faith development. As if faith were like a photograph being gradually revealed, or a like a souffle gradually rising. And as if your self, the center of your being, were not transformed.

Jesus asks his students, his disciples, “who do people say that I am?” Why is this question here in this story? It is not enough to say that Jesus said it and therefore it is here. A Gospel writer makes decisions about what to include and what to leave out. Of all the things Jesus said or was reported as saying, why did Mark include this thing, this strange question? Is it a rhetorical device, a way to set up Peter and his passionate answer: you are the Messiah. Is it there to show that people outside the inner circle were talking about Jesus’ ministry? Is it there to foreshadow Jesus’ inevitable death?

Or rather is it there because Jesus really wanted to know? Is it possible that Jesus was not sure who he was? Or that he had moments when he was not sure? Even though divine—as we profess—as human didn’t Jesus wonder from time to time what he was? Which of us humans knows our selves for sure, or the self we are about to be? Even the most confident and certain of us is uncertain sometimes. Who do people say that I am, I wonder? It would be helpful to know.

This story in Mark is about a turning point in the life of Jesus. Up until now Jesus has been known as a healer, a teacher, and someone who ruffles the feathers of those in authority. Like Elijah, or John the Baptist, or a prophet, as people describe him, according to the disciples. But it is increasingly clear that Jesus is trouble, and Jesus is in trouble. You don’t have to have pre-knowledge to know that he was likely to be caught and tried and punished. Now Jesus stands on the cusp.

In terms of the story of Jesus, there is no logical necessity that he be crucified. (Though maybe the necessity is theological). Perhaps he could continue to teach and heal, and in his old age someday to sit in a rocker on the porch with Peter and tell stories about the good old days. Of course, we might not be here then, in a Christian church, but maybe we would. God is powerful.

I bring this up because I’m convinced that that is what Peter is thinking. What he was thinking when Jesus tells Peter that he, Jesus, is about to go to his death. (It is pretty clear that Peter does not hear the part about rising again.) Don’t do it, Jesus. Stay here with us in our little band of disciples. Peter is Jesus’ friend. Peter does not want to lose his friend. And maybe Jesus does not want it, either. Jesus is tempted by Peter’s remarks. Jesus is tempted to turn his back on the resurrection, to succumb to Peter’s vision of the future. Get behind me, Satan! thinks Jesus. You are thinking of human things, he says. And so Peter is, being human and all. And so, perhaps, is Jesus. Maybe Jesus is talking to himself a little. Who will Jesus be? Will Jesus save his self, the person he has been, or will he lose it, becoming someone different. Not a healer, but Messiah, and therefore certain to go to the cross. You might say he has no choice, but he has the same choice all humans do. That we all do.

We sometimes ignore how intertwined the story of Jesus is with the story of Peter. But the story of Jesus is not the story of a lonely leader and a bunch of clueless followers. Peter is there. Clueless like the rest, maybe more so, but close to Jesus. Peter is more than a sidekick. They say you are Elijah, or John the Baptist, the disciples say. Yes, but what do you say, Peter? If Peter had answered differently, would the world have been different? You are the Messiah, says Peter. And Jesus knows who he must now be. I must go to Jerusalem, he says, and be killed, and rise again.

Our steps towards one’s future are less like a journey than a series of shocking transformations. Peter is changed by Jesus, Jesus changed by Peter. That’s how it works with us, too. It is like a dance, a series of proposals, tentative or bold, a series of responses, timid or passionate. Our partners are often other people, but sometimes events, positive or not—illness, accident, birth, inheritance, addiction—invite us forward or they lean too close. With God, we are in a faith dance, more than a faith journey. Wondering, questioning, accusing sometimes, yelling, loving, thanking. Sometimes taking a rest.

Who are we? We are dance partners with God, and with God’s creation. The person we once were and the person we will be are joined together in the dance. Our selves are defined not by our memories or our abilities or the consistency of our thoughts. We propose to God and respond to God’s steps. Sometimes gracefully, sometimes awkwardly, sometimes foolishly. But on we go. Dancing. We in God’s arms. God in ours.