August 21, 2005
"Answering"
By The Reverend Joanna M. Adams
Morningside Presbyterian Church, Atlanta
Answerizing
Exodus 1:8 –2:10, Matthew 16:13-17
“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!’â€
Matthew 16:15-16
The Reverend Joanna Adams
Morningside Presbyterian Church
Atlanta, Georgia
August 21, 2005
Answerizing
Exodus 1:8 –2:10, Matthew 16:13-17
“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!’”
Matthew 16:15-16
The Reverend Joanna Adams
Morningside Presbyterian Church
Atlanta, Georgia
August 21, 2005
This may come as some surprise to you, but when preachers get together, we sometimes tell stories about thing that happen as we practice our vocation. Preachers are especially fond of stories that fall into a category I would call “Children’s Sermons Gone Badly Awry.” Here is one. “The pastor calls the children forward for the children’s sermon one Sunday morning. After the children have gotten settled on the floor, he begins like this, ‘Today, boys and girls, I am thinking about something that is brown, has a bushy tail, and every fall, gathers acorns. What am I thinking of?’
There is a long, long silence. Finally, a child pipes up, ‘Well, I am sure the answer is Jesus, but it surely sounds like a squirrel to me!’” (1)
Not only does that story demonstrate why some ministers have anxiety about doing children’s sermons, it also illustrates a troubling phenomenon that we see all around us. I am speaking of the assumption on so many peoples’ part that they have the right answer already, no matter what the question is. This is a phenomenon writer David James Duncan labels “answerizing.” Answerizing is to true answering as, let’s say, memorizing the telephone book stands in relation to loving all the people whose names are listed in the telephone book. Questions that tap into the deep realities of our lives, that address the great mysteries of human existence, require more than a surface, canned response, and yet answerizing is usually all that is offered. In the realm of religion, it sounds like this: “What must I do to be saved?”
“You must be born again!”
“What will happen to people of other faiths when they die?”
“They will go to hell.”
In the public arena, our sound bite culture allows little room for thoughtful discourse. Preconceived notions and conventional wisdom usually prevail. I do not want to second guess Atlanta City Council in their difficult decision last week regarding the panhandling ordinance. I understand the need for people not to be harassed when they downtown, but what I do lament is the dismissive answerizing that surrounds the deep and deeply troubling issue of homelessness.
“Who are the people on the street?”
“They are drug addicts.”
“They are alcoholics.”
“They are criminals.” For one reason or another, they are no good. That’s answerizing; that’s not the truth. The true answer, the answer where we will begin to solve the problem, is this: Every single homeless person, regardless of the mess he or she is in, is a beloved child of God.
I read in the paper this week that there are Palestinians who have grieved with the Israelis who are losing their homes in the Gaza Strip. The answerizer says, “Oh, those people over there, they’ll always hate each other. They’ll never be able to understand one another.” But the truth is, anything is possible. God can make a way out of no way. God can turn hatred, if not into love, at least into civility.
I don’t know about your home and whether any answerizing is the “modus operandi” there or in your other personal relationships. You already know what she’s going to say, or he’s going to say, before he or she opens their mouth.
“Oh, you’re always going to react like that.”
“I know what you’re thinking.”
“You’re not going to change.”
“I don’t know why we even have to have this conversation anymore.” That’s what answerizing sounds like in human relationships.
The disciples of Jesus knew a thing or two about answerizing. They were experts, they thought, on Jesus, on what he stood for, on what God was up to in the world. One day, for example, Peter asked Jesus about forgiveness. “Lord, if someone in the church sins against me, how often
should I forgive? Seven times, don’t you think?” (Matthew 18:21) Notice how Peter answerized his own question before Jesus had a chance to open his mouth.
“Not seven times,” Jesus said, “but, I tell you, seventy-seven times,” which is like saying “a hundred thousand times.” Human forgiveness is a function of divine forgiveness, and divine forgiveness has no end, no boundaries. The mercy of God is from everlasting to everlasting.
One day, the disciples were arguing amongst themselves over who was the greatest in the kingdom of God. Instead of responding with words, Jesus picked up a little child, and put him right in front of the disciples and said, “Unless you change and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever becomes humble like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me.” (Matthew 18:1-5) Winning God’s approval has nothing to do with qualifying. It has to do with the nature of God.
One day, though, Simon Peter, instead of answerizing, went down as deep as a human being could go and gave a genuine, life- transforming answer to the most important question Jesus ever asked. Jesus and his disciples had spent a great deal of time together. Finally, he turned to them and he asked, “Who do people say that I am the people who have received my miracles, heard my teaching and listened to my parables?”
And they answered, “Some say John the Baptist, but others Elijah, and still others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.” Obviously the public was trying to fit Jesus into their conventional understandings of how God worked in history.(2) But Jesus expected more from his disciples. He asked, “Who do you say that I am?”
God put the answer in Simon Peter’s heart so he could take no credit for it, but he responded with boldness and conviction, “You are the Messiah, the son of the living God.”
“You are the Messiah, the son of the living God.” That testimony and the courage with which it was delivered, is the substance from which the community of faith draws its strength and its purpose to this very day.
Jesus said, “I tell you, you are Peter now. I’m giving you a new name, which means ‘rock.’ Upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it.”
This is one of two places in all the gospels where the word “church” appears. What is the church? It is the community that testifies in word and deed to Lordship of Jesus Christ. What is the mission of the church? It is to help people grow in their understanding of what it means to follow him, to live for him, to witness to his message of reconciliation and hope, to reflect his light. This is why we have Sunday school. That is why we have church.
“I will give you the keys to 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.” Jesus said it to Peter, but Peter was there representing the discipleship community in every age. “I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven.” That's an astounding amount of authority. Imagine being entrusted with the actual power of the kingdom of heaven. I once served a church where there were two ladies who had the keys to the closet where the sterling silver communion trays were kept. I was not one of those ladies. I learned then that keys and power go together. Jesus said, “I’m giving you the keys to the kingdom of heaven.”
“To bind or loose is to interpret Jesus’ teaching.” (3) Interpreting and implementing his teachings are now the responsibility of the church. No other institution has those responsibilities. I hope that every single one of you will be involved in Christian education in some way this coming year. I hope that you will tear yourselves away from the newspaper and the coffee pot on Sunday morning. Even if you’ve had a busy week and ran errands all day Saturday, you need to learn, and you need to be responsible for the learning of others. This is a responsibility we didn’t make up. It is a responsibility that our Lord has given to us. When we tell the children stories of Moses and Miriam, David and Goliath, Mary and Martha, Paul and Silas, when we help the children learn to share when they really don’t want to share, we are living up to the responsibility given to us by no one less than our Lord himself.
I want to say a word about youth and adult education. We live in a time when so many are satisfied with superficial platitudes and glib God-talk. We have a responsibility to go deeper than that, to grow intellectually and spiritually, no matter what age we are. We need to take the time and the trouble to learn what we need to know to be effective disciples. Christian faith ought to make us larger, bigger people, rather than closed down, small people.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, father of Justice of the Supreme Court Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. was a physician and a poet. Perhaps you remember from high school his poem about the chambered nautilus, the sea creature that, as it grows, sheds its original shell, makes another, lives in it for awhile, then sheds that one, and on and on it goes.(4) Holmes concludes his poem this way:
“Build thee more stately mansions, O My soul,
As the swift seasons roll!
Leave thy low-valued past!
Let each new temple, nobler than the last,
Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast.
Till at length thou art free,
Leaving thine out grown shell by life’s unresting sea!”
Keep growing! Keep enlarging the intellectual and spiritual world in which you live! You’ll never be sorry. When new members join this congregation, I say to them, “Do not think of this day as an arrival. Think of it as an embarkation. We are called to grow in faith, realizing that none of us will ever understand fully the unfathomable mysteries of the love and grace of God. Don’t ever be satisfied with answerizing and superficial slogans. God needs knowledgeable Christians. I think that God has saved Morningside and is filling this congregation with life today for just this responsibility. As we launch a new church school program, I believe Jesus is passing the keys to us and saying, “My teachings are in your hands now. It’s your turn, your privilege, your responsibility to wrestle to interpret and implement what I have said and done.
As I close I want to share with you something I am concerned about. Sometimes it seems to me that I am the one around here who is depended on to have the answers. I am a committed and competent minister, but the church needs more than ministers. The church needs you. Ultimately, the church is you. The future of the church depends on you. If you take the teachings of Christ seriously, then the next generation will take them seriously. And if you don’t, they won’t. In recent days, we’ve painted classrooms and refurbished the nursery and planned a great curriculum for the fall, but if you and I cannot go deeper in our commitment, it will be for naught.
One day, Jesus stopped in the middle of everything and said, “You who love me, who do you say that I am?” Instead of answerizing, Peter told the deepest truth he knew, “You are the Messiah, the son of the Living God.” You are it, your way of being, your way of showing us what God is like. You are the One.
Let the bumper sticker Christians have their easy answers. I’m trusting that you and I are willing to be the rock which Christ is building his church for the twenty-first century. Coming your way are the keys to the kingdom. Thanks be to God. Amen.
(1) L. Gregory Jones, “Answerizing,” Christian Century, November 18-25, 1998, p.1121. The idea for this sermon came from Dr. Jones’ provocative article.
(2) William H. Willimon, Pulpit Resource, July, August, September, 2005.
(3) NRSV footnote commentary
(4) Eugene C. Bay, “With all your Mind,” Bryn Mawr Presbyterian Church, Bryn Mawr, PA, Sept 20, 1998.
6
Answerizing Exodus 1:8 –2:10, Matthew 16:13-17 “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!’†Matthew 16:15-16 The Reverend Joanna Adams Morningside Presbyterian Church Atlanta, Georgia August 21, 2005
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Answerizing
Exodus 1:8 –2:10, Matthew 16:13-17
“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!’”
Matthew 16:15-16
The Reverend Joanna Adams
Morningside Presbyterian Church
Atlanta, Georgia
August 21, 2005
This may come as some surprise to you, but when preachers get together, we sometimes tell stories about thing that happen as we practice our vocation. Preachers are especially fond of stories that fall into a category I would call “Children’s Sermons Gone Badly Awry.” Here is one. “The pastor calls the children forward for the children’s sermon one Sunday morning. After the children have gotten settled on the floor, he begins like this, ‘Today, boys and girls, I am thinking about something that is brown, has a bushy tail, and every fall, gathers acorns. What am I thinking of?’
There is a long, long silence. Finally, a child pipes up, ‘Well, I am sure the answer is Jesus, but it surely sounds like a squirrel to me!’” (1)
Not only does that story demonstrate why some ministers have anxiety about doing children’s sermons, it also illustrates a troubling phenomenon that we see all around us. I am speaking of the assumption on so many peoples’ part that they have the right answer already, no matter what the question is. This is a phenomenon writer David James Duncan labels “answerizing.” Answerizing is to true answering as, let’s say, memorizing the telephone book stands in relation to loving all the people whose names are listed in the telephone book. Questions that tap into the deep realities of our lives, that address the great mysteries of human existence, require more than a surface, canned response, and yet answerizing is usually all that is offered. In the realm of religion, it sounds like this: “What must I do to be saved?”
“You must be born again!”
“What will happen to people of other faiths when they die?”
“They will go to hell.”
In the public arena, our sound bite culture allows little room for thoughtful discourse. Preconceived notions and conventional wisdom usually prevail. I do not want to second guess Atlanta City Council in their difficult decision last week regarding the panhandling ordinance. I understand the need for people not to be harassed when they downtown, but what I do lament is the dismissive answerizing that surrounds the deep and deeply troubling issue of homelessness.
“Who are the people on the street?”
“They are drug addicts.”
“They are alcoholics.”
“They are criminals.” For one reason or another, they are no good. That’s answerizing; that’s not the truth. The true answer, the answer where we will begin to solve the problem, is this: Every single homeless person, regardless of the mess he or she is in, is a beloved child of God.
I read in the paper this week that there are Palestinians who have grieved with the Israelis who are losing their homes in the Gaza Strip. The answerizer says, “Oh, those people over there, they’ll always hate each other. They’ll never be able to understand one another.” But the truth is, anything is possible. God can make a way out of no way. God can turn hatred, if not into love, at least into civility.
I don’t know about your home and whether any answerizing is the “modus operandi” there or in your other personal relationships. You already know what she’s going to say, or he’s going to say, before he or she opens their mouth.
“Oh, you’re always going to react like that.”
“I know what you’re thinking.”
“You’re not going to change.”
“I don’t know why we even have to have this conversation anymore.” That’s what answerizing sounds like in human relationships.
The disciples of Jesus knew a thing or two about answerizing. They were experts, they thought, on Jesus, on what he stood for, on what God was up to in the world. One day, for example, Peter asked Jesus about forgiveness. “Lord, if someone in the church sins against me, how often
should I forgive? Seven times, don’t you think?” (Matthew 18:21) Notice how Peter answerized his own question before Jesus had a chance to open his mouth.
“Not seven times,” Jesus said, “but, I tell you, seventy-seven times,” which is like saying “a hundred thousand times.” Human forgiveness is a function of divine forgiveness, and divine forgiveness has no end, no boundaries. The mercy of God is from everlasting to everlasting.
One day, the disciples were arguing amongst themselves over who was the greatest in the kingdom of God. Instead of responding with words, Jesus picked up a little child, and put him right in front of the disciples and said, “Unless you change and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever becomes humble like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me.” (Matthew 18:1-5) Winning God’s approval has nothing to do with qualifying. It has to do with the nature of God.
One day, though, Simon Peter, instead of answerizing, went down as deep as a human being could go and gave a genuine, life- transforming answer to the most important question Jesus ever asked. Jesus and his disciples had spent a great deal of time together. Finally, he turned to them and he asked, “Who do people say that I am the people who have received my miracles, heard my teaching and listened to my parables?”
And they answered, “Some say John the Baptist, but others Elijah, and still others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.” Obviously the public was trying to fit Jesus into their conventional understandings of how God worked in history.(2) But Jesus expected more from his disciples. He asked, “Who do you say that I am?”
God put the answer in Simon Peter’s heart so he could take no credit for it, but he responded with boldness and conviction, “You are the Messiah, the son of the living God.”
“You are the Messiah, the son of the living God.” That testimony and the courage with which it was delivered, is the substance from which the community of faith draws its strength and its purpose to this very day.
Jesus said, “I tell you, you are Peter now. I’m giving you a new name, which means ‘rock.’ Upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it.”
This is one of two places in all the gospels where the word “church” appears. What is the church? It is the community that testifies in word and deed to Lordship of Jesus Christ. What is the mission of the church? It is to help people grow in their understanding of what it means to follow him, to live for him, to witness to his message of reconciliation and hope, to reflect his light. This is why we have Sunday school. That is why we have church.
“I will give you the keys to 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.” Jesus said it to Peter, but Peter was there representing the discipleship community in every age. “I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven.” That's an astounding amount of authority. Imagine being entrusted with the actual power of the kingdom of heaven. I once served a church where there were two ladies who had the keys to the closet where the sterling silver communion trays were kept. I was not one of those ladies. I learned then that keys and power go together. Jesus said, “I’m giving you the keys to the kingdom of heaven.”
“To bind or loose is to interpret Jesus’ teaching.” (3) Interpreting and implementing his teachings are now the responsibility of the church. No other institution has those responsibilities. I hope that every single one of you will be involved in Christian education in some way this coming year. I hope that you will tear yourselves away from the newspaper and the coffee pot on Sunday morning. Even if you’ve had a busy week and ran errands all day Saturday, you need to learn, and you need to be responsible for the learning of others. This is a responsibility we didn’t make up. It is a responsibility that our Lord has given to us. When we tell the children stories of Moses and Miriam, David and Goliath, Mary and Martha, Paul and Silas, when we help the children learn to share when they really don’t want to share, we are living up to the responsibility given to us by no one less than our Lord himself.
I want to say a word about youth and adult education. We live in a time when so many are satisfied with superficial platitudes and glib God-talk. We have a responsibility to go deeper than that, to grow intellectually and spiritually, no matter what age we are. We need to take the time and the trouble to learn what we need to know to be effective disciples. Christian faith ought to make us larger, bigger people, rather than closed down, small people.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, father of Justice of the Supreme Court Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. was a physician and a poet. Perhaps you remember from high school his poem about the chambered nautilus, the sea creature that, as it grows, sheds its original shell, makes another, lives in it for awhile, then sheds that one, and on and on it goes.(4) Holmes concludes his poem this way:
“Build thee more stately mansions, O My soul,
As the swift seasons roll!
Leave thy low-valued past!
Let each new temple, nobler than the last,
Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast.
Till at length thou art free,
Leaving thine out grown shell by life’s unresting sea!”
Keep growing! Keep enlarging the intellectual and spiritual world in which you live! You’ll never be sorry. When new members join this congregation, I say to them, “Do not think of this day as an arrival. Think of it as an embarkation. We are called to grow in faith, realizing that none of us will ever understand fully the unfathomable mysteries of the love and grace of God. Don’t ever be satisfied with answerizing and superficial slogans. God needs knowledgeable Christians. I think that God has saved Morningside and is filling this congregation with life today for just this responsibility. As we launch a new church school program, I believe Jesus is passing the keys to us and saying, “My teachings are in your hands now. It’s your turn, your privilege, your responsibility to wrestle to interpret and implement what I have said and done.
As I close I want to share with you something I am concerned about. Sometimes it seems to me that I am the one around here who is depended on to have the answers. I am a committed and competent minister, but the church needs more than ministers. The church needs you. Ultimately, the church is you. The future of the church depends on you. If you take the teachings of Christ seriously, then the next generation will take them seriously. And if you don’t, they won’t. In recent days, we’ve painted classrooms and refurbished the nursery and planned a great curriculum for the fall, but if you and I cannot go deeper in our commitment, it will be for naught.
One day, Jesus stopped in the middle of everything and said, “You who love me, who do you say that I am?” Instead of answerizing, Peter told the deepest truth he knew, “You are the Messiah, the son of the Living God.” You are it, your way of being, your way of showing us what God is like. You are the One.
Let the bumper sticker Christians have their easy answers. I’m trusting that you and I are willing to be the rock which Christ is building his church for the twenty-first century. Coming your way are the keys to the kingdom. Thanks be to God. Amen.
(1) L. Gregory Jones, “Answerizing,” Christian Century, November 18-25, 1998, p.1121. The idea for this sermon came from Dr. Jones’ provocative article.
(2) William H. Willimon, Pulpit Resource, July, August, September, 2005.
(3) NRSV footnote commentary
(4) Eugene C. Bay, “With all your Mind,” Bryn Mawr Presbyterian Church, Bryn Mawr, PA, Sept 20, 1998.
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