title: Who Do You Say That I Am?

themes: identity-in-christ confession-of-peter funerals-and-eulogy release-from-savior-complex being-known-vs-being-seen ecclesiology-servant-church

text:
**Scripture:** Matthew 16:13-20; Exodus 1:8-10

> Preaching on Peter's confession at Caesarea Philippi alongside Pharaoh's fearful non-recognition of Israel in Exodus, the sermon argues that to say 'you are the Messiah' is also to say 'I am not' — the first article of faith is not what God will do but that we are not God. Drawing on a summer of doing funerals for strangers, the pastor reflects on the gap between who we are and how we are seen, and locates freedom in being released from the burden of saving ourselves, others, or the world: we are beloved children of God right now, called simply to be partners in Christ's sacrifice as his servant church.

**Illustrations:** high-rock-lake-summer-appointment, hearing-your-own-eulogy-joke, pharaoh-did-not-know-joseph, israel-in-egypt-vs-us-history, moses-burning-bush, jesus-before-pilate, church-of-christ-in-every-age-hymn

---

# August 23, 2026
## Ordinary Time
## Exodus 1:8-10	Matthew 16:13-20

#### Exodus 1:8-10

Now a new king arose over Egypt, who did not know Joseph.
He said to his people, “Look, the Israelite people are more numerous and more powerful than we.
Come, let us deal shrewdly with them, or they will increase and, in the event of war, join our enemies and fight against us and escape from the land.”

#### Matthew 16:13-20

Now when Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?”
And they said, “Some say John the Baptist, but others Elijah, and still others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.”
He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?”
Simon Peter answered, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.”
And Jesus answered him, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father in heaven.
And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it.
I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.”
Then he sternly ordered the disciples not to tell anyone that he was the Messiah.

# Who Do You Say That I Am?

The summer after my first year of seminary, I was assigned to a lake.

It was a strange appointment. It included a small boat that I could drive around in and a small apartment connected to a pavilion. And it was a ministry that had been going on at this lake for many years — High Rock Lake in North Carolina, right by Lexington, North Carolina. I would lead a Sunday service in the morning on the lake and then go and assist at First UMC Lexington.

It was a good place for me to have some independence, but I also gained a lot of experience. And one of those things that I learned through experience there was about funerals.

I think I did twelve funerals that summer over a two-month period. Before that, I had been to a few in my life, but they were mostly family members I didn't know.

On High Rock Lake, I was in that space of people who were dying — people whom I'd never met before, but they welcomed me in. I learned a lot about being a pastor in that space. A lot of experience about bringing dignity in that space, of speaking for people, of hearing what are the words that should be spoken, listening to the families and loved ones tell of the people — again, many of which I had never met before — but hearing what should be said over them as we remember them.

---

## The Question

*Who do people say that I am?*

It is a strange question of Jesus.

There used to be a joke many years ago about people wanting to know what others would say during their funeral. And a kind of joke in a few movies or TV shows of someone pretending to be dead to hear the eulogy.

*Who do people say that I am?*

If you listen, if you think about your own life — who would people say that you are?

I think we need to hear this question in that kind of context. Jesus has turned his face towards Jerusalem. He knows he is heading towards the cross at this point. He is not asking about who the scribes and Pharisees say that he is, who Caesar says that he is, how popular he is. He is asking the people he has spent the most time with: who do you say that I am?

Now, I think the point of this question — and the point of thinking about it again in connection to funerals — is not that that should drive us to, if we're uncomfortable with the answer right now, to change our life right now.

The point is: who are we?

---

## The Distance Between Who We Are and How We Are Seen

*Who do people say that I am?*

There's a deep disconnect for many of us between how we try to live and how people see us. Between who we think we are and how we show ourselves.

We need to be comfortable with that distance in order to live truthfully in this world.

When I give a eulogy or speak at someone's funeral, my goal is not to be as brutally honest as possible. That's not the proper location for that. It's not to lie or be deceptive, but to speak truthfully in light of who God is and who this person is as a child of God.

What's so sad often is not the distance between the words spoken at someone's memorial or funeral versus how they lived. What's sad is how we often do not see the people around us in the same light as we do after they pass. It's a lot easier to focus on the imperfections, the annoyances, when someone is with us.

---

## Fitting Jesus Into a Category

*Who do people say that I am?*

The first answers people offer to Jesus's question are prophets.

People are responding, the disciples are responding, with figures they can relate to. They're fitting Jesus into a category of understanding.

That's how we all process and think. It's pattern recognition. We see the pattern of someone's life, we relate it to the pattern of other people's lives. For those who are particularly close to us, we lift up in different ways — but it's an understandable thing.

The disciples are also trying to mime who the public say he is. Then, Jesus shifts the question

*Who do **you** say that I am?*

---

Our Old Testament reading is the beginning of Exodus — the beginning of this next great journey of the people of Israel and their relationship with the Triune God. The Exodus becomes the singular identifying marker of the people. God raised them out of slavery in Egypt through the waters of the Red Sea.

In a few chapters, after Moses has fled Egypt, he is shepherding and encounters a voice from a bush that is burning but is not consumed. The bush tells him to take off his shoes, for he is standing on holy ground. Moses asks who is speaking to him. The bush says, _I am that I am._

The God who _is_ speaks.

Yet here, we are a few generations after Joseph is lifted high in Egypt and Pharaoh looks out the people of Israel and does not know how they are. Because he does not remember the story and does not know who they are, he is threatened by them. He says,

>"Look, the Israelite people are more numerous and more powerful than we. Come, let us deal shrewdly with them, or they will increase and, in the event of war, join our enemies and fight against us and escape from the land

The thousands of years, rulers have been suspicious of the people they ruled. The people of Israel had been in Egypt longer than the United States has been a country. Think about that for a minute. The people of Israel had been in Egypt longer than most of the families of the people in this room have been in North America.

There wasn't as much of a technological difference between the time of Joseph and of Moses, but there was a population difference. The people had changed. Generations had passed and Pharaoh saw a people speaking a language he did not know and because he did not know what they said he did not trust what they said. They were a threat simply because they were not understood.

---

Near the end of his earthly life, Jesus is asked in the trial with Pilate, "Are You the King of the Jews?" He avoids the question. He turns it back on Pilate and the others present.

When Jesus asks his disciples, *who do people say that I am?* The disciples don't avoid the question. They give a set of stock answers, though. They list important people, so Jesus presses the point. *Who do you say that I am?*. Even here, Peter doesn't avoid the question. He says, _You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God._

For Peter to say _you are the Messiah_ is also to say _I am not._

The first acknowledgement of the Christian faith is not in what God is going to do to us, but that we are not God. That other people are not going to say that you are God, that I am not going to say that you are God.

When we speak over our loved ones at memorials and funerals, we don't acknowledge them as the Messiah. They don't have to be our saviors to be loved. The Christian hope is that we will see them face to face in the new creation, but it is not the hope of flesh and blood.  In the same way, Peter was not using flesh and blood to see who Jesus was as the Messiah, the Son of the living God.

He did so by faith.

Faith — that fickle thing that some days can fill you and other days empty you out. The reality that can be the rock in certain seasons. It can also feel like a chain when the disconnect between what you believe and the world you life feels so great.

---

*Who do people say that I am?*

What if we ask that question of ourselves. Who do people say that you are?

And the first step of freedom is that you are not the Messiah. I am not the Messiah. I am not here to save the world. My purpose and impact is not based on that.

There's a lot of different things we can take and move on from this and hold on to — many logical consequences and faith consequences in all this. But I think it is very important to begin here with this ultimate faith claim, because this is the first step of faith. Again: it's not that Jesus saves, it's not heaven is my future — it's that _I am not the Messiah._

I am not there to save the people around me, to save you, to save myself. My purpose is different. My call is different. And that is good and beautiful.

*Who do people say that I am?*

It's not about a bucket list, right? That's not what Jesus points to. He's not asking for a list of all the things he did. It's not about a CV or resume of all the things he did.

*Who do people say that I am?* Who am I?

Not what I did. Not why I did it. Who am I?

**Who you are right now is a beloved child of God.**

Who you are right now is worthy of love.

And that doesn't mean we shouldn't change things, we shouldn't work on things, and we shouldn't try and become holier, kinder, more full of love. But right now, you are not deficient.

_This world_ is deficient. This world is full of brokenness and pain and hurt and diseases that take our loved ones away and situations that break families apart.

Right now, you are loved and you are worthy — because the **yes** of God is greater than any no **that** we can say or speak.

This is why we are called to be a part of the church. We sang a hymn earlier that may be unfamiliar to some of you, The Church of Christ in Every Age.

>The church of Christ in ev'ry age,
>beset by change but Spirit-led,
>must claim and test its heritage
>and keep on rising from the dead.

We are, today, beset by change as a church but we are still spirit led. We are beset by change because our world is and we are called and gathered to offer Christ to such a place as this. Verse 3 is the heart of it, though.

>Then let the servant church arise,
>a caring church that longs to be
>a partner in Christ's sacrifice,
>and clothed in Christ's humanity.

You are not the messiah. I am not the messiah. And yet we are called to be partners in Christ's sacrifice, clothed in Christ's humanity. We are free to do that because the burden of saving the world is not on our shoulders. The burden of saving ourselves. The burden of saving our families and friends. You are released from that weight. You don't have to carry that weight anymore. You can be a partner in Christ's sacrifice.

Our confidence in this is not in ourselves. Our Rock is not Peter or even what Peter said, but what Jesus said to us.

> Come to me, all who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest.

*In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.*