Sermons

“Who Do You Say That I Am?”

Luke 4:14-21; Matthew 16:13-17 – Rev. Rebecca Littlejohn

Vista La Mesa Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), La Mesa, California – July 31, 2016

Holy God, bless the speaking and the hearing of these words, that we might be opened to the presence of Christ and follow him more faithfully. We pray in Jesus’ name, Amen.

It’s good to be back. Before I left, and up until about Wednesday, I was a little grumpy about having to preach this morning, after having been at camp all week. I knew I was going to be exhausted; though I hadn’t even thought about the possibility that I might lose my voice, which almost happened. I considered pulling out an old sermon, but I hate doing that, so I decided I’d just try to riff on the camp themes a little. But by Friday, my attitude had changed. The idea of being able to talk for 12-15 minutes – without having to interrupt myself to holler at everyone to be quiet or to call someone out by name and tell them to stay in their seat – had become very attractive. I came to understand, this week, why Paul called self-control one of the fruits of the Spirit. So if you’ll indulge me, I’ll go ahead and get into our theme for the week.

As you heard from Michaela a few weeks ago, the theme for all our camps at Loch Leven this summer was “Get Real: Finding Your True Self in Jesus”. We began the week with the passage we just heard from Matthew, where Jesus asks the disciples what people are saying about him, and then asks them point-blank who they think he is. This question was, in some sense, the hook for the whole week. The scriptures we heard talked about Jesus as friend, teacher, healer, God-with-us, and Savior. But the truth is that 4^th, 5^th and 6^th graders, like most of us, are far more interested in themselves than they are in Jesus, so instead of making it about who Jesus is, the curriculum invited them to ask the question “Who am I?” in relation to the stories we were hearing about Jesus.

At first, I was a little worried that this self-reflective twist was going to be too much. Had we come up the mountain for a week of navel-gazing? How was focusing on ourselves going to teach us about Jesus? But honestly, when you’re 8 to 11 years old, figuring out who you are is a big part of your job. And camp is a great place for it. So many of us grow up in well-defined boxes. Our families have helped us know who we are and what we like and what we are capable of. Being in a new place, where no one knows about those definitions and limitations means that we can test them out. Camp is a great place to try new things and take risks. You don’t even have to be a 5^th grader for this to be true. Loch Leven offers all sorts of ways to test yourself, from standing on a rolling log in the swimming pool to learning to shoot an arrow at the archery range to using a rope system to climb 80 feet into a tree. As you saw, our kids did these things. As a counselor, I assumed that my job would be to accompany them to each location and stand by and watch. It was hot, and those things seemed challenging, so I was fine with that. But as it turned out, there were enough bows and ropes for me to take a turn. So I did learn how to shoot an arrow, and I have the bruise to prove it. I did learn how to climb Mr. Majestic, though I didn’t get far up because I got clipped in last and only had about twenty minutes. Camp is a wonderful place to challenge yourself and discover new things that you can do, or perhaps how you deal with failure. We do learn more about who we are at camp.

But what does all that have to do with Jesus? Isn’t all this personal accomplishment getting in the way of reflection on Christ? Well, as it turns out, there are a lot of other people at camp too. And the more we learned about Jesus, the more it became clear that one of the ways we define ourselves is by how we relate to other people. Jesus was a friend, to other people. Jesus was a teacher, for other people. Jesus was a healer, of other people’s wounds and illnesses and broken places. If we’re going to find our “true selves” in Jesus, it’s going to have something to do with how we relate to others.

And that right there gets tricky. Defining ourselves through others can be problematic. We do a lot of talking at camp, and with kids everywhere they gather, about bullying. They’ve heard a million times about being nice to those who are different and including those who are left out and not calling names and so on and so on. Our kids even did their skit from Youth Sunday about bullying for the Talent Show on Thursday night. But no matter how much we talk about it and understand bullying in our heads, it still happens. We’re all trying to be our best selves at camp, but it’s hot and nobody sleeps very well, so we’re all a little cranky and sensitive. Things happen. Feelings are hurt. Accusations are made. Defenses go up. Crying ensues. If we’re doing well, hugs follow. But then the cycle starts all over again. Knowing about Jesus is one thing. Being like Jesus requires unlocking a whole other level.

There can be other problems with defining ourselves in relation to others. Our family groups this week were divided up by color. I was in the Gold group. There was also a Red group, a Blue group, a Purple group, a Green group, and a Silver group. On Monday night, before the Silly Olympics, the Silver group leaders had their whole group claim their identity by spraying that temporary hair color you use at Halloween on their heads. So their group was walking around with silver streaks in their hair. Did I mention that I was in the Gold group? And yet, suddenly, I had multiple people coming up to me and saying something about me being in the Silver group? I had sprayed nothing on my head, and yet somehow, everyone was suddenly noticing a silver streak up there. You gotta be careful when you start defining yourself in relation to others. It’s different than letting others define you!

Let us turn to scripture once again to understand what this really means. The passage we heard earlier from Luke was the one we read the last day at camp. This is sort of Jesus’ debut, his announcement explaining what he’s all about. And what does he say? He tells us what he’s going to do, but not in the personal accomplishment sense. He tells us what he’s going to do for others. Good news for the poor. Release for the captives. Sight for the blind. Freedom for the oppressed.

This is what it means to find our true selves in Jesus – it means discovering how God is calling us to serve others. One of the words the kids learned this week was “agape” a Greek word for love that refers to the kind of love Jesus had for us, the kind where you would lay down your life for someone, or at least be willing to make personal sacrifices for someone else’s sake. This is the kind of love that gives up a flashlight for someone who is more scared of the dark than you. This is the kind of love that sits with the kid everyone else has been avoiding. This is the kind of love that stays out of the activity circle to sit with the kid struggling with homesickness. This is the kind of love that interrupts bullying. It’s hard. It’s risky. But I do think these kids understood what we were talking about, even if they struggle with it as much as we do.

When we had our final family group time on Saturday, the Gold group made a prayer circle. We took turns going around and sharing the thing about Jesus that we would like to be more like. We heard words like kind and gentle and nice and good example. Sure, there were some who just wanted to be able to fly or “do magic” but mostly, that circle was a group of people longing to be better followers of Jesus. What we’ll do when the haze of exhaustion wears off remains to be seen. But I have high hopes.

One of the things we said over and over again this week at camp was that you can’t listen if you’re talking. I’m not entirely convinced that’s true though. I’m pretty sure a lot more got through than we realized. At least we knew they weren’t sleeping! I pray that we aren’t either. Alleluia and Amen.