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“More Than the Right Answer” 

This is the word of the Lord, thanks be to God... 

There are few things in life more satisfying than knowing the right answer.  

Maybe it goes all the way back to when we were kids in school. The teacher asks a question, and you know it. Your hand goes up. You get called on. You give the answer. And the teacher says, “Exactly.” 

There is a tiny little rush that comes with that moment. I got it right.  

And some of us spend a surprising amount of our lives chasing that feeling.  

We learn as children that there are right answers and wrong answers. There are answers that earn you points on a test. Answers that get you a gold star. Answers that prove you were paying attention.  

And church can sometimes work that way too. If you grew up going to Sunday school, you learned that there were certain questions.  

Who built the ark? (Noah) 

Who fought Goliath (David) 

Who was swallowed by a big fish? (Jonah) 

And if you were ever completely stumped, there was always one answer worth trying: Jesus. 

Sometimes we learn Christianity as though faith is primarily about knowing the right answers. And to be fair, the answers matter. What we believe about God matters. What we say about Jesus matters. The church has spent two thousand years wrestling with those questions because words shape the way we understand God and the way we understand ourselves.  

But in our passage this morning, Jesus asks his disciples a question that cannot be answered like a Sunday school quiz.  

Jesus and his disciples have traveled to the district of Caesarea Philippi when Jesus asks them: Who do people say that the Son of Man is?  

And the disciples have answers. 

John the Baptist. 

Elijah. 

Jeremiah. 

One of the prophets.  

They have apparently been paying attention to what people are saying about Jesus.  

But then Jesus changes the question. But who do you say that I am? 

Suddenly, Jesus isn’t asking them to report what they have heard. He asks them Who do you say I am? 

And Peter answers: You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God. 

And for once in his life, Simon Peter absolutely nails it. Jesus tells him, Blessed are you, Simon, son of Jonah! 

Peter has gotten the answer right. But what Peter doesn’t know yet is that getting the answer right is only the beginning. Because Peter knows who Jesus is. He does not yet understand what it means. And before very long, he is going to discover that following Jesus requires far more than knowing the right answer.  

But before we get to Peter’s answer, I think we need to pay attention to the question Jesus asks first. Because Jesus doesn’t begin by asking the disciples what they believe. He begins with the safer question. Who do people say that the Son of Man is? And that is a much easier question to answer, because you can answer it without revealing anything about yourself.  

You can tell Jesus what everybody else thinks. And apparently, everybody has an opinion.  

The disciples tell him, Some say John the Baptist, but others Elijah, and still others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.  

These are some of the great figures in Israel’s story. Prophets. Truth-tellers. People through whom God has spoken and acted. The crowds have clearly figured out that there is something extraordinary about Jesus. They have watched him heal people. They have heard him teach. They have seen him feed thousands with a few loaves of bread. They have watched him challenge religious leaders and cross boundaries that respectable people were not supposed to cross.  

In some ways, not much has changed.  

Ask people today who Jesus is, and you will still get all kinds of answers. A great teacher. A moral example. A religious leader. A prophet. Someone who taught us to love our neighbors. Someone whose teachings have shaped Western civilization.  

People still have plenty to say about Jesus. And we can spend our whole lives talking about these answers. We can debate what Christians believe about Jesus. We can talk about what the church has gotten right and what the church has gotten terribly wrong. We can recite the Apostle’s Creed and explain what every line means.  

And none of those things are bad. In fact, I think Jesus begins with these questions because paying attention matters. All of it becomes part of the answer to that first question Who do people say I am?  

But Jesus does not leave the disciples there. Because eventually there comes a point when borrowed answers are not enough. Eventually the faith of our parents is not enough. The faith of our grandparents is not enough. Even the faith of your pastor is not enough if faith remains words someone else has handed to you.  

This is why Jesus turns the question around and asks But who do you say that I am? 

There is no hiding behind the crowd anymore. Jesus has moved from information to confession. And Peter, as Peter so often does, is the first one willing to open his mouth.  

Now, if you know much about Simon Peter, you know that this does not always go particularly well for him. Peter has a habit of speaking first and figuring out what he thinks later. But this time, Peter gets it exactly right.  

You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.  

And Jesus responds, Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah! 

It is the answer every Sunday school kiddo dreams of giving. Peter raises his hand. Peter gives the answer. Jesus says, Exactly.  

But what happens next tells us something important about faith: Jesus does not simply congratulate Peter for knowing the right answer. He tells Peter that this confession is going to become the foundation for something much bigger than Peter himself.  

You are Peter, and on this rock, I will build my church. 

Because knowing who Jesus is was never meant to be the end of Peter’s discipleship. It was the beginning.  

Jesus says to him, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father in heaven.”  

And then Jesus does something interesting. He gives Simon a new name. You are Peter, and on this rock, I will build my church. 

Now, Christians have spent centuries debating exactly what Jesus means when he says, On this rock I will build my church. 

Is Peter the rock? 

Is Peter’s confession the rock? 

Is Jesus the rock? 

Entire branches of Christianity have had some spirited conversations about that question. But whatever conclusion we reach, I think there is something important happening here that we can easily miss while we are busy arguing about the rock.  

Peter answers a question about Jesus and Jesus responds by telling Peter something about himself. You are the Messiah, You are Peter. Peter discovers something about who he is because he has begun to understand who Jesus is. And that is what happens when our confession becomes more than the right answer. Knowing who Jesus is begins to change the way we understand who we are.  

If Jesus is simply a great teacher, then we can admire his teachings. 

If Jesus is simply a good moral example, then we can try to imitate him. 

If Jesus is simply an important historical figure, then we can study him. 

But if Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of the living God, then we cannot simply admire him from a distance. 

His identity makes a claim upon us. 

If he is the Christ, then we are his disciples. If he is Lord, then our lives belong to him. If he came proclaiming good news to the poor, then we have to care about the poor. If he forgave his enemies, then we have to wrestle with what forgiveness looks like. 

The answer Peter gives cannot remain an idea in Peter’s head. It has to shape the person Peter becomes. 

And Jesus tells him that it is going to shape something even bigger. 

“On this rock I will build my church.” 

Notice whose church it is. Jesus does not say, “Peter, go build me a church.” He says, “I will build my church.” That distinction matters. Because the future of the church does not ultimately rest on Peter’s competence. Thank God for that. Peter is going to have some wonderful moments. Peter is also going to have some absolutely spectacular failures. He will make promises he cannot keep. He will eventually swear that he has never even met the man he has just confessed as Messiah. And Jesus knows all of that. 

Yet Jesus still looks at this wonderfully imperfect disciple and says: “You are Peter, and on this rock, I will build my church.” 

Jesus calls him now. And maybe that is good news for the rest of us. 

Because sometimes we imagine that faithful discipleship belongs to people who have figured everything out. People who never doubt.  People who could answer every question correctly if Jesus suddenly handed out a theology exam. 

But those are not the people Jesus uses to build his church. Jesus builds his church with people like Peter. People who know some things and misunderstand others. People whose faith can be courageous one day and shaky the next. People who love Jesus deeply and still occasionally get things spectacularly wrong. 

People like us. 

Our faith does not have to be perfect before God can use it. Our understanding does not have to be complete before Christ can call us. Peter's confession matters. “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.” That is the right answer. But Jesus is going to spend the rest of Peter’s life showing him that the right answer is not something you simply know. 

It is something you learn to live. 

And that brings the question back to us. Because two thousand years later, Jesus still asks: "Who do you say that I am?” Most of us probably know the right answer. We are sitting in a church, after all. We know what we are supposed to say. 

Jesus is the Messiah. Jesus is the Son of God. Jesus is Lord. 

But the question for us is not simply whether we can give Jesus the right answer. 

The question is what that answer is doing to us. 

If Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of the living God, then what difference does that make when we walk out those doors? 

Because eventually every confession becomes a way of life. 

If we say that Jesus is Lord, then something other than ourselves gets the final word. 

If we say that Jesus is the Messiah, then we are placing our hope somewhere other than our own ability to hold everything together. If we say that Jesus is the Son of the living God, then we are trusting that the living God is still at work—even when we cannot yet see what God is building. 

And I think that last part matters especially when Jesus says, “I will build my church.” 

Our calling is to be faithful to the Christ who is building it. 

Sometimes that faithfulness will mean holding onto something precious. 

Sometimes it will mean letting something go. 

Sometimes it will mean trying something we have never tried before. 

Sometimes it will mean admitting that we do not know what comes next. 

But through all of it, the church belongs to Jesus Christ. 

And the future belongs to God. 

Peter certainly did not know what was coming. 

When he stood in Caesarea Philippi and said, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God,” he could not possibly have understood everything those words would eventually require of him. 

In fact, as we will discover soon enough, Peter still has quite a bit to learn. 

But Jesus does not ask Peter whether he understands everything that is coming. 

He asks him who he believes Jesus is. 

And Peter gives him the best answer he has. 

“You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.” 

Then he spends the rest of his life learning how to live as though it is true. 

Maybe that is discipleship. Maybe discipleship is waking up each morning and learning, again, to live according to the answer we have already given. 

To love because Jesus is Lord. 

To forgive because Jesus is Lord. 

To serve because Jesus is Lord. 

To risk something because Jesus is Lord. 

To hope because Jesus is Lord. 

To trust that the church does not depend entirely upon us because Jesus is Lord. 

So when Jesus asks us, 

“Who do you say that I am?” 

May we answer with Peter: “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.” 

And then, by the grace of God, may we spend our lives becoming people who live like we mean it. 

Because faith has always been about more than the right answer. Amen.