WHO DO YOU SAY I AM?

Close your eyes. Imagine Jesus. Is he handsome? With piercing blue eyes? With beautiful shoulder length hair? White?

In Sundays lection, the most definitely nondescript, most probably brown eyed, unkempt, and Palestinian Jesus asked his followers, "Who do people say I am?"

How did they respond? John the Baptist, Elijah, Jeremiah, or one of the Prophets. Do we associate "prophet" with Jesus, like our Moslem sisters and brothers do? One of the oldest historical traditions in the Hebrew Bible is about another prophet, Miriam. But many of us do not associate prophet with her as well. Sister of Moses, yes. But prophet? No.

Close your eyes. Imagine Jesus. Not your Personal Lord and Savior. But Jesus, the Prophet. Like John, like Elijah, like Jeremiah, Huldah, Anna, and, yes, like Miriam... Is the Jesus we imagine immersed with the struggles of the Palestinian people? Is he part of the Black Lives Matter movement? Is he in solidarity with farmers struggling for genuine agrarian reform?

Is he still calling the rich among us to sell everything we have, to give the proceeds to the poor, and to follow him? Or have we been, all this time, following the wrong Jesus?


*art, based on the work of Tom McElligott for the Episcopal Ad Project. Updated 2018 by Rev. Emmy Kegler.