Reflection for Eleventh Sunday after Pentecost

Link to: Matthew 13:16-20

“But who do you say that I am?”

This question that Jesus asks in our gospel text reminds me of Moses’ encounter with God. When Moses first spoke with God, and was told by God to go to Egypt, Moses says, “Okay, I’ll go. But they may ask me who it is who is that has sent me. What is your name?” God replies, “I am who I am.”

Here in our gospel reading today, Jesus is asking the disciples who other people say that Jesus is. They give a variety of responses, none of which are who the disciples say that Jesus is. In response to “who do you say that I am,” Peter responds, “You are the Messiah, the son of the living God.”

We may wonder why Jesus is asking these questions. Surely it isn’t vain curiosity, sort of a self-esteem boosting question. Rather, it is an opportunity for Jesus to find out what the result of his ministry has been. With all that he has been doing and saying, what do people think? Have they figured it out? And then he asks the disciples, to see if they have figure it out.

But then comes an oddity. Jesus commands the disciples not to tell anyone that he is the messiah. What? Why not?

Names have power. And names, labels, and titles, can be limited. They are simply another way that we humans have found to box each other into specific roles and categories. The people that Jesus has been encountering have a very specific idea of what “messiah” is and will be. And Jesus doesn’t fit this box. Indeed, God does not fit into any box that we build.

“I am who I am.” This name for God, this title, is the freest name for God that I know.

“I am who I am.” This title for God, this name, says it all: God is who God is. It is not for us to name God, to limit God, to put God into a box. Christ commands the disciples not to tell anyone that he is the messiah because their definitions of “messiah” are limiting: they are not who Jesus is. “I am who I am” is all that Jesus is.

How do we limit God? How do we limit Christ? What boxes have we put on these names, “God” and “Jesus” and “Christ,” and are we able to open our minds and hearts and see the amazing ways that the one who goes by the name “I am who I am” is always breaking out of our human boxes and surprising the whole universe?

God is who God is and not who we say that God is.

Thanks be to God.

Amen.