Who am I?

Mark 8:27-38

Who do you say that I am? Its a good question to answer, but we need to put some thought into it. Most of the time we answer quickly, covering ourselves in the familiar. With scripture reference, or with what is expected from what we have been taught. The question still remains to be answered though. Who is Jesus to you in your life?

To answer this we must sit with the weight of the question. First of all this is a discipleship question. If we cover it in Scripture and add a dash of the expected answer we haven't sat with the weight of why we follow this Jesus. 

Now don't get me wrong, the answer may lead us to a Scripture which encapsulates for us why we follow and how we know Jesus. It doesn't give us the easy answers though, or the snap answers of titles we so often like to cling to.

There is a way of wrestling with a question we were taught in seminary. It comes from a theological reflection book by Killen and DeBeer and it first leads us to really sit with the question. Don't answer it right away. Sit with it for awhile. Ask it over again until and image comes to you. From this image write down from the tradition or Scripture what that image relates to. Then you will find a new way forward or the truth of the answer.

The thing is this method takes time to learn and really engage in. We have to sit in the quiet and contend with the answer. The scripture today doesn't relate to us the silence or pause that must have met Jesus question. After all it is much easier to answer who do others say that I am than who do we say that Jesus is. It is why we go after the easy answer of name dropping or the expectations we have been raised with. 

To sit with it is to discern. Listen, something we are not good at right now. To wait for the still small voice inside which gives us sometimes the places we'd rather avoid. Because, most often the reason we follow, the reason we know who Jesus is comes to us in the valleys of our lives. The places we have felt most desolate, most dejected, and most at a loss for our path in this walk. 

So go and sit. Ask the answer question, who do you say that Jesus is? See what comes, because then you will truly know why you have come on this journey. Why you follow in this way. And you will find a greater connection than you thought possible to following Jesus.