He asked them, “But who do you say that I am?”

I don’t know what you think about democracy, but I’m growing increasingly unimpressed as the years go by.

Winston Churchill once observed that “Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all of the others.”

And he may be right, but the people of California, with their goofy gubernatorial recall election are determined to prove Churchill wrong.

I recently heard someone arguing the other side of the issue and praising California for having such a pure version of Democracy. And they are right, of course, what is happening out there is a pure version of democracy, which explains why the wizards who developed our system of government rather intentionally chose not to establish a pure version of democracy, but rather to establish a democratic republic, a place where we the people elect folks to go be the government so that we can get on with our life, liberty and pursuit of happiness agendas.

Well, I mention all of that today because I want to assure you – or at least remind you - that the Kingdom of Heaven, to which we are called to have a primary allegiance, is not a Democracy. We are citizens of a Monarchy boarding on Dictatorship. God is in charge.

Period. End of conversation.

And that leads us to some realities that, at first glance, we may not like very much: We don’t get to vote on how God does stuff, there are no polls being taken that will shape the divine will, the fact that you or I don’t like something is quite honestly our problem, not God’s.

And for that we can be glad.

Because, you see, majority opinions and right decisions are often far distant from one another.

But I’m not sure that we always understand that.

We even sort of approach prayer as a way of influencing God and more than a few of us, and I know that I have been guilty of this at times, but more than a few of us think that if we can get a lot of people praying than God will surely pay attention, as if God needs us to remind him of what to do.

We fail to realize that the primary purpose of prayer is not to change God to our way of thinking but to have God change us to her way of thinking.

And our unhealthy obsession with polls in our culture causes us to confuse popularity with faithfulness, success with righteousnesss.

What foolishness!

Even the most casual student of history understands that all sorts of evil has emerged from a majority approval.

For a hundred years a majority of people in this country approved of slavery, for a hundred and fifty years a majority of people in this country refused women the right to vote, for two hundred years a majority of people in this country thought that racial segregation was a good idea, and who knows what the future generations will look back on and shake their heads and ask “what were they thinking?” when it comes to us and our majority rules.

And I am even less of a fan of polls when it comes to matters of faith, it is far too easy to end up serving what we want to be true about God rather than the more difficult and unpopular pieces of what is true about God; far too easy being what the world thinks we should be, rather than what God thinks we should be.

Every once in a while we will run into a question or a decision at Consistory and one of us will suggest that we poll you, the congregation to find out how you all feel about it.

And of course that can be useful for the trivialities of our Church life, but when it comes to the core issues of faithful service and proclamation, as much as I like you all and respect you, that kind of Congregational majority rules polling is always asking the wrong question, it is always asking what do you and I think or what do you and I feel about something.

The right question is the one that gets us to what God wants out of us as a Church, and out of you and me as people, rather than merely discovering what most of us like and don’t like! In Mark’s gospel we find Jesus taking a poll. He says, “who do people say that I am?” and he gets a poll result: “John the Baptist, Elijah, one of the other prophets.”

And the disciples weren’t stupid here, they understood what he was asking, he was asking “What is my role, how do people see me fitting into their Theology, their notion of God and life?” And people saw him as a successor to his cousin John, a disturber of the traditional and safe ways, they saw him as Elijah or one of the great prophets of another age who would speak an authoritative word from God.

But here’s the difference: Jesus wasn’t asking it so that he could find out what he was supposed to do, he wasn’t asking it so that he could fit himself into their expectations, he was asking the question to try to discover whether or not they were getting it, whether or not the people were understanding his role.

You see the difference, don’t you?

Our leaders ask all of these questions so that they can please the public and be popular and be re-elected, our Lord asks the question to determine if we have any idea of what is going on in life.

And then he asks the important question.

And the important question was – and remains: “But who do you say that I am?”

This is not a poll question, this is not a question that will shape Jesus ministry.

This is a test question, it is a measurement of your faith and mine

“But who do you say that I am?”

I remember, when I was an assistant football coach at an obscure HS in North Jersey, we were losing a game at halftime and the head coach – a dramatic Irishman, there’s a redundancy – stood the starters in front of the locker room mirrors and made them stare at themselves throughout the half time break as he reviewed the litany of fumbles, penalties, missed assignments and general all around dopiness that had marked the first half.

And he said “Look at yourselves!”

This question from Christ has always reminded me of that locker room.

This question from Christ takes me and shoves me in front of the mirror and shakes me by the face mask and roars “But who do you say that I am?” in my ears.

And then it reviews the litany of my life, the pains that I have inflicted upon others, the sorrows that I have struggled through, the blessings that I have not deserved, the loves that have sustained me, the forgiveness that has set me back on my feet and restored me.

And my answer can be no different than Peter’s: you are the Christ.

You are the one who shows me how to live and then makes it possible for me to follow.

You are the one who is the clearest glimpse of God that we can ever have, the incarnate diety in human flesh, the model of friendship, the model of love, the one who has known all of the hurts and loves and losses and victories of life in this world, the one who knows all of my failures and errors and fears and who waits to greet me when my time here is finished.

You are the Christ.

It didn’t matter whether the other disciple believed that.

It mattered that Peter believed that, he passed the test of one crucial question.

It doesn’t matter whether anyone else in the world believes that.

It matters that you believe that.

It matters that I believe that.

It matters that we pass that test of one crucial question.

“But who do you say that I am?”

“You are the Christ.”

And it matters and it is true, not because it is popular, not because we voted on it. But because it is simply true.

In the book of Proverbs we come across a vision of Wisdom.

And wisdom is not presented to us as a bunch of ideas or thoughts, but as a living breathing entity who challenges us to use our heads.

“How long, O simple ones, will you love being simple?”

If I have a quarrel with much of modern Christianity it is that it is so simple that it lacks the strength of the Biblical and Historical Church, it is shallow in just the spots where my soul needs depth, it is content with simply repeating holy sounding cliches over and over and over again without any call to action, without any demands for justice, mindlessly reminding us that Jesus loves us and we love Jesus and on and on, making Jesus sound more like Barney the Purple Dinosaur that the Christ, the Son of the Living God.

I go to various meetings and events and I hear the name of Jesus repeated and repeated so often, and in such sugary tones, that I start to think that our faith is known as Jesusanity, rather than Christianity.

For it is the Christ-ness of Jesus that makes Jesus important, it is that divine expression of the fullness of our God in human form, not just the human form.

Now that is complicated, no question about it, it is hard work to wrap your mind and soul and heart around that, there is a depth to the mysteries of the incarnation and the atonement and the resurrection that I don’t even want to touch upon today, but I do know that I will never understand or be able to use the power that comes to us through Christ if I settle for a simple answer, or a borrowed answer, to the crucial question: “But who do you say that I am?”

I do know that I need to search with passion and with joy to discover what it means in my life, in my families live, in our congregational life to say “you are the Christ!”

“How long, O simple ones, will you love being simple?”

And the promise that we are given in Proverbs is clear, when we are willing to move beyone the simple: “I will pour out my thoughts to you: I will make my words known to you.”

Struggle with the question, listen to the answers that others have given, learn from the traditions and wisdom that are available to us, but don’t just go along, blindly accepting the results of a poll.

This question is far too important for a system as flawed as democracy to be of any help.

Give your servant, therefore, an understanding mind.