The next time you are watching the news and you hear any politician or public official asked a really tough question I want you to listen for something. You’ll hear the question and the answer will almost always begin with, “That’s not the question. The question is...” and the interviewee will be off and running on their “talking points” and never really answer what has been asked. This kind of deflection stops them from every appearing like they don’t know an answer.
But sometimes a public official is stopped in his or her tracks by a question that is so good they actually do have to think about an answer. It happens so rarely that when you see it it will stick in your memory for a long time.
One of the best questions that I have ever heard came from Bob Sirott and was directed at Cardinal Francis George. Sirott was going through the usual litany of questions that the Cardinal had heard a thousand times before and could answer sound asleep without engaging a single neuron. Cardinal George is a very, very, intelligent man and one doesn’t get to be a Cardinal by flubbing questions on gay clergy, or women clergy, or married clergy, or Father Flager, or clergy misbehavior. So while Sirott was running through his obligatory list of questions the Cardinal was responding with his own list of non-spontaneous answers.
Then Sirott asked a question the clearly the Cardinal had never heard before and had no pat answer for. Sirott asked, “Is there anything that you’d like to do that you can’t do because you’re the Cardinal?” It was a great question and it stopped the Cardinal, who does have a gift to gab and in person is a “hail-fellow-well met” and made him think. You could see him lean back in his chair and in the moment he was taking to answer the question I thought to myself, of course there is! You can’t just wander down the street to take in a movie, have a beer with your buddies at the corner watering hole. You couldn’t just settle in with friends to watch a Cubs or Sox game at the ball park. Dinner out can be done but it would be hard and you would still be on stage with people watching you. In the moment the Cardinal was thinking I’m sure he came up with a list far longer than mine but then he finally caught himself, regained his composure and said something like, “There are, but I like being the Cardinal. It’s all right. It’s good.”
It was such a basic question but sometimes those questions are the best.
Actually today’s question of Jesus and Peter’s answer has become one of our talking points. Most of us can do this in our sleep. After 2,000 years of repetition it is our basic response to the question of who Jesus is. “He is the Messiah, the Son of the living God.” has become a talking point. It can be an automatic response. Unless we take it a step further. If that is true, so what. That is the real question, the more basic question. And it is harder to answer than you might wish.
You may have come to believe that to have Jesus as your Messiah all you would have to do is be sensitive, caring, kind, compassionate. And to a certain extent that is true but it is not the whole story. A member of the Rotary or Kiwanis Club is expected to be that. What happens when you confess Christ as your Messiah is that you are expected to act as if he really were your Messiah and his being such makes a huge difference in your life.
It did for Peter and it did almost immediately the right answer came out of his mouth. As soon as Peter confesses who Jesus is, Jesus tells Peter who he is. When Peter figures out – by a sure gift of the Holy Spirit – what Jesus is up to then Jesus tells Peter what he is to be up to. He is to be the church.
You can’t be a church member just by believing what the church believes, as important as good theology is. You’ve got to work in the church. You’ve got to work in the world on behalf of the church. That’s the stumbling block for most people. They want the church to always be there for them but if you ask them to make a sacrifice, to work, to make Christ known in what they do, they begin to back off. Still, Jesus’ promises that he would build his church on the testimony and deeds of ordinary women and men, boys and girls, who he has chosen to use to get done whatever he wants to get done in the world. People like you and me.
And the weird news is that Jesus seems to believe you can do it. He believes that you, like Peter, can be his witnesses. And please always remember that it is Peter he uses, imperfect, full of bluster, brag and bravado, Peter that gets chosen and gets used. Peter may have fumbled a few times in his life but he still was a powerful force in spreading the Gospel. Peter calls Jesus the “Christ,” the Savior of the world; Jesus calls Peter the very “rock” on which he will build his church to save the world.
So on his way Jesus doesn’t just call Cardinals and Pastors and Professionals to spread the good news of his Gospel but ordinary limited persons like Peter. You may not think you have what it takes but Jesus does.
Jesus thinks you are up to the challenge because he not only said, “I am the light of the world” but “You are the light of the world.” The first is a basic promise, the second proposition is a basic challenge. What would it mean to live as lights to the world. How would that effect your outlook on life, the way you treated others. The way you talked about God. The way you shared the gospel.
How would that get you away from your talking points and like the Cardinal force you to think about who you are and what you claim to be. Claiming Christ doesn’t put you on easy street but puts you to work. It makes you the church. It makes you Christ’s witnesses proclaiming the basic message that Christ is real in your life and his presence makes a difference in how you feel but how you act.
Act as if you really believed that Christ believed in you and you’ll be surprised as Peter was, and I’m sure the Cardinal is, and all of us are everyday, of the things we can accomplish in Christ’s name and for his sake. Amen.
21 August 2011
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