An oracle of the word of the Lord?
In the late 70s, two friends of mine housesat for the poet James Merrill—and got out his Ouija board.
There is a moment close to the center of Matthew, Mark, and Luke when Jesus asks his disciples to say who they think he is. It’s a strange question. By this point in their time together so much had already happened: miracles of every kind, sermons on the mountain and on the plain, conflicts with religious leaders, powerful demonstrations of spiritual authority, teaching. And yet after all this, as the disciples made their way toward yet another village in Caesarea Philippi, Jesus asks them not only what strangers think he is all about—how he’s doing in the polls—but what the disciples themselves make of him.
It’s all very well that some in the crowd think that he is John the Baptist come back from the dead, or Elijah, Jeremiah, or one of the other ancient prophets. But this isn’t what he’s after. Instead, he insists on going personal and, in the present tense, he asks, “But who do you say that I am?” (Matt. 16:15).
His point-blank question is, of course, meant to put them on the spot, to provoke an honest response. When Peter gives it—“You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God”—he offers the answer on which the church is built. But just as vital as the answer, I think, is the question itself, “But who do you say that I am?” It’s important that Jesus asks this not at the beginning of his relationship with the disciples but well down the road, and indeed not far from the end. It is as if to know who Jesus is means having to ask about him again and again; it means accepting the fact that you can never quite “get” him; it means acknowledging your need to know him for yourself and know him today.
