8/24/08                                                                           MATTHEW 16:13-23

“THE TWO-STEP CONVERSION”

Rev. James Singleton

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.”

            That is the great question we must all answer for ourselves at some point in our lives. Who do you say that I am? It is much easier to answer the first question Jesus asked his disciples: Who do people say that I am? That question is objective. That was a question in which all of the disciples could chime in with an answer: “Some say John the Baptist, but others Elijah, and still others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.”

            All we have to do to answer that question is obtain some books on Jesus, read about what the authors say about him and we have the answer to the question. All we have to do is spout out the words that our mother or Sunday school teacher or minister told us about Jesus and we have answered the question.

            Answering the question, “Who do people say that I am?” is easy. It makes no demands of us. We can just regurgitate what we have been fed or what we have picked-up along the way. But the other question is a different story. The other question, “But who do you say that I am?” requires a conclusion from us. It makes the demand upon us to digest what we have been fed over the years about Jesus and come up with our own opinion. It is subjective and personal.

            When Jesus posed that question to his disciples, eleven of the twelve went strangely silent. They weren’t certain, yet, what they thought of him. They were still dependent upon what others said about him. Only Peter stood up before the congregation and made a confession of faith, “I believe you are the Messiah.”  

Peter stated publicly that he believed Jesus to be the Savior of the world and his own personal Master. Peter had taken the first step toward conversion. We are not converted to Christianity until we have reached our own personal decision about who Jesus is and what he means for the world and our own personal lives.

Coming to that conclusion may mean that we reject or rebel against or modify some of what others have said to us about Jesus along the way. You cannot live off of the faith of someone else. You must eventually wrestle with Jesus until you know what you believe about him yourself.

If you make a confession of faith because you have come to experience the incredible and amazing grace of Christ in your life; if those words are spoken because you have come to realize that Jesus is the Way and the Truth and the Life and every other way you have tried has only led to frustration, lies and dead ends, then that confession of faith comes from your heart and you are undergoing conversion.

            Who do you say Jesus is? Do you have an opinion of your own or are you living on what others have told you? The first step to conversion to Christianity is being able to make a confession of faith based upon your own personal belief. Perhaps, for someone here today, this is the day to take that first step.

            Why do I keep referring to a confession of faith as the “first step?” Wouldn’t coming to my own conclusion about who Jesus is and making my confession of faith in him be the one and only step? Most of us here today have already taken that first step. We made our confession of faith a long time ago. So aren’t we fully converted?

            That’s what Peter thought. Notice that he made his confession of faith after reaching his own conclusion about who Jesus is. And the next thing he knows Jesus is saying to him, “Get behind me Satan” and has turned his back upon him! What happened? 

What happened was that Peter had taken the first step to conversion, but conversion is a two-step process. As of yet, he had not taken the second step. Here is a warning to all of us who have made our confessions of faith and believe we know Jesus so well. Have we taken the second step? Let me explain.

            Emile Durkheim, the founder of sociology, wrote a classic book entitled The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life. In the book Durkheim sought to answer the question, “Why is it that different people in different places think about God in different ways?”

In other words, where did each society come up with its view of God? He studied a group of aborigines in the interior of Australia who were just inventing their concept of God. He noticed that they went through various phases.

            In the first phase the tribe developed certain collective traits and values and these traits and values were looked upon as the prime traits that people of the tribe should possess. With one tribe it might be physical strength. With another wisdom. With another courage and so on.

Then, little by little, they associated the traits that they thought characterized them with an animal. Strength would be characterized by an ox; courage by a lion; cunning by a fox; wisdom by an owl, etc. This is called Totemism, when a group of people associate their social traits with an animal. The animal symbolizes the traits which the tribe thinks of itself as possessing.

            The next stage is intriguing. The group then begins to worship the animal. But here’s the question Durkheim asks, “If people are worshipping an animal that is nothing more than a symbolic representation of their own traits and values, what are they really worshipping?”

The answer, of course, is—themselves! Durkheim’s conclusion is that religion turns out to be phenomena in which the group worships itself. A society’s god is nothing more than a symbol of itself.  

            We don’t worship an animal, we worship Jesus. But who do we say Jesus is? Is it possible that we turn Jesus into a totem of ourselves? Over the past 15 years, whenever I listen to conservative American white protestant television preachers speak about Jesus, it’s amazing how often Jesus has been reduced to sounding like a white protestant with a conservative American political agenda. Who is being created is whose image?

            The Bible says that we are created in God’s image. But when Jesus began to talk about picking upon his cross and the need for his followers to deny themselves and pick up their cross, Peter freaked out. He protested that such a Messiah did not fit his image of what a Messiah was about and that’s not what he had in mind when he made his confession of faith!

            Do you see what happened? Peter made a confession of faith and reached a personal conclusion about Jesus. That’s step one. But the Jesus he worshipped and believed in was not the Jesus of the cross. The Jesus he proclaimed as Lord did not require him to deny himself and pick up his own cross. Peter had yet to be converted to the Jesus of the cross—the second step to conversion.

            Christians are constantly in danger of remolding Jesus into our own image. Recently a gunman walked into a Unitarian Universalist Church in Knoxville, Tennessee on a Sunday morning and opened fire with a shot gun, killing several people. He did it because of their open stance toward gays. He believed he was acting on behalf of Jesus and delivering Jesus’ wrath upon this sinful church.

            Christians can justify violence and hatred only when they take away the cross from Jesus and mold him into their own prejudiced image. As soon as we remove the cross, we are no longer required to love with sacrificial love all of God’s children and we are free to pick and choose whom God loves and whom God doesn’t and always those who lose are the ones different from us.

            Notice how Jesus has been molded into the image of the American consumer. Jesus is a multi-billion dollar industry. Walk into a Christian store and you will find Jesus tee shirts, Jesus bumper stickers, Jesus license plates, Jesus CDs, Jesus exercise programs, Jesus diets, Jesus drinks, Jesus coffee mugs, Jesus jewelry, just to name some items.

Do you think all of those people behind all of those products are interested in proclaiming the gospel, or are they interested in getting you to spend your money so they can get rich? Jesus is seen as the way for wealth and status and success.

            When many Christians confess Jesus as their Lord and Savior what they mean is that they believe in a God who will reward them abundantly with all they desire and protect them from want. For many Jesus is a glorified Santa Claus. They have removed the cross so Jesus no longer calls upon them to deny themselves or give to others.

            I remember years ago talking to a woman who was involved in an ongoing extra marital affair and asking her how she was doing spiritually. She said that she was just fine spiritually because Jesus understands and is always quick to forgive her each time she has a rendezvous. Here was Jesus the great conscience soother. Here was Jesus the Teddy Bear who is pulled out when needed and stroked for comfort. This must be the Jesus John Edwards has worshipped the past couple of years.

            Neither this woman nor John Edwards apparently knows anything about the Jesus who calls us to deny our illicit passions and remain faithful to our covenants. What about the Jesus who calls upon us to go the extra mile and seek, at all costs, to reconcile and heal the relationships we are committed to? Nailing our temptations to lust and lie and cheat to the cross is not what these people are looking for from a Messiah.

            Author Peter Velander tells about a time he was walking home from school and took a back alley way where three big white kids had cornered a black kid and were taking turns punching him. They laughed with each groan made by their victim. One of the three grabbed Velander, stood him in front of the black boy and said, “You take a turn. Hit him!” Velander stood paralyzed. “Hit him or you’re next.”

He knew it was wrong, but he rationalized that surely Jesus wouldn’t want him to jeopardize his own life. So he hit him. It wasn’t much of a hit, but it was a hit.

            Velander writes, “Thirty five years later that event still preaches a sermon to me. Jesus walked the way of the cross. He taught us the meaning of suffering as a servant. Perhaps my first chance to follow that example came in the ally by a garage thirty-five years ago. I need to ask that boy’s forgiveness—not for the blow I delivered, for that was nothing, but for the blows I refused to stand by his side and receive.”

            Too often we remold Jesus into our own image so that his main concern is with our comfort, our popularity, our reputation, our wealth. When our Jesus allows us to ignore the pain of others, to condemn and write off others as worthless, to cheat and hurt and reject and just look out for ourselves, then we are worshiping nothing more than Totem Jesus who is made in our own animal image. That’s when Jesus turns on us and says, “Get behind me Satan...for you are not setting your mind on divine things but on human things.”

            Who do you say Jesus is? We are fully converted only when we confess that our Lord and Savior is the Jesus who goes the way of the cross and that we are ready and willing to take up our own cross and follow him.

                                                                                    AMEN.