There are a series of texts in the Gospel of Matthew, chapters 16-18, that speak of people coming to faith in Christ. All of them have to do with receiving and responding to an invitation. So our theme for the next five weeks is "Invited by Christ." Today we look at Peter, who is invited to verbalize who he thinks Jesus is, after living with Jesus for several years, observing miracles and listening to his teachings. When Peter is invited to express his faith, he says, "You are the Messiah (Christ) ('king' or 'anointed one'), the Son of the Living God."

         What has to happen in a person's life to bring them to a place where they can make such a bold statement, a faith statement about Jesus that begins a personal relationship? We live in a culture that avoids such statements and commitments. We guard our personal independence and like to keep control of our life. We choose our spiritual practices carefully, making sure each one meets a particular need in our lives, or is tailored to fit our personality.

We also tend to be cautious with spiritual commitment because we have some questions, reservations, doubts. Some of these are intellectual, others come more from painful experiences with Christians or churches. What questions do you have that need to be answered, or maybe just validated, before you could make a faith statement about Jesus Christ?

         We come to this experience in Peter's life with our questions. We begin to observe what it was like for him to express faith in Jesus as the Christ, the Son of the Living God. We suspect that Peter has been thinking about this for some time. I do not think Jesus surprised Peter with his question, "Who do you say that I am?" Peter has spent a few years now following Jesus around, listening, observing, puzzling, and thinking. So his answer certainly comes out of his experience. But it is clear that his answer also is inspired, it comes from beyond himself.

         Someone once asked Bob Dylan how he went about writing his songs. He said they just popped into his head, whole. There are times when we understand something, not through painstaking logic or study, but suddenly, as if from beyond ourselves. Peter's answer comes not from his logic or his superior reasoning powers. In fact this is an insight that comes from God. Perhaps his observations lead to inspiration.

         I was at a workshop on Thursday. The speaker was all over the place, and I was struggling to take notes. He would begin to present a list of four items, starting with #2, and after #3 he lost interest in that list and jumped to another subject. That one had six points, three of which he promised to talk about in the afternoon, but then point #1 took him three different directions. We spent the morning wandering and leaping. I said to the person next to me, "This fellow is not a linear thinker." He said, "Yes, and those of us who learn that way are having a difficult time of it." But by the end of the day, the pieces began to connect together.

         I think that life is often like that, especially spiritual life. We would like a logical, step-by-step approach leading to faith. Instead we stumble first into an unexpected experience of being deeply loved, and then sometime later come to feel forgiven, and in a completely unrelated way one day we read a portion of the Bible and it seems to be written directly into our life. It all does not seem to connect. It is random, puzzling, does not come with instructions. Christ seems to come at us in bits and pieces: a scripture here, a hymn there, a moment of peace in the quietness, an insight, healing, a sense of hopefulness. But there comes a time in life when God becomes real, and it is clear that despite my pain and sorrow and struggle in life, God is for me and God is with me.

         So Peter, I think, in a moment of inspiration, sees that his observations of Jesus connect in a way that he can speak in faith: "This teacher I have been following is in fact the long awaited Messiah, and he is the Son of God." When Peter is able to speak that, his life changes, and he is set on a journey, a way of life, a time of discovery. What is interesting is that the answer he gives is correct, and yet he cannot grasp all that the title "Messiah" implies. In the next section, Jesus begins to speak of the necessity of his death, and Peter rebukes him; "Never," he says. "This will never happen to you." That is the way it is with faith, even faith inspired by God. We get it right, but we don't understand all of what we say. For faith in Christ must always be lived, it must be worked out in our lives.

         Peter was invited to verbalize who he thought Jesus was. His answer is a statement of faith that shapes his life from then on. I think it normally takes some time for people to come to that place. It usually involves a trusting relationship with a friend who is already on the journey of faith. It usually includes a vocabulary, learned from God's Word. The word "Christ" has a meaning that must be learned. Usually the statement of faith includes some discovery or revelation that allows us to begin.

         For me the discovery came towards the end of my college years. I had been struggling for some time with new and difficult information found in religion and philosophy classes. It did not fit well with my earlier faith, shaped mainly by Sunday School lessons and youth group talks. The comfort of faith had been replaced by a thousand questions that would not be quiet. Study did not seem to resolve the questions one way or the other. It became compulsive thinking, round and round. Then one day I was walking across the campus, the questions swirling, when the thought came to me, not a voice, but a thought, "Why couldn't I rest, why couldn't I accept?" My anxious reading had not disproven anything, my limited intellect would never read as much as those who taught me, and yet they believed. Why couldn't I?

         And so I did. I was able to say, "This is what I believe about Jesus." "He is Lord, the way, truth and life." It did not put an end to the questions, they still come, and yet it quieted them down. That opened a new richness of relationship with Christ that I had been missing. It also moved me ahead to become more active in faith. It has been most helpful to move from just thinking, to doing. Faith comes through the mind, but also through the hands and feet when they do God's will. I was able to come to a place of admitting that I do not have all the answers, but I know God is for me, and God is with me.

         Peter did not understand all it meant to confess that Jesus was the Messiah and Son of God. He did not have any idea of the cross, and he had to deal with that later. For him it would expose a significant inner fear that would lead him to deny Jesus during his trial. But he found his way back to faith. Even through pain or failure we can find our way to faith, or we can be found by grace. In his confession of faith, he does not capture all there is not know about Jesus the Messiah, but his words of faith clearly set him on his way. R.T. France writes, "Peter has gone beyond the popular notion of Jesus as one prophet among many. He has seen Jesus as the one climactic figure in whom God's purpose is finally being accomplished."

What Peter does is to keep the focus clearly on Jesus. Peter's answer is not about his own inner feelings or religious experience; it is not on his ability to think his way to the truth of God. He says, at some risk, "This is who Jesus is." In his day, the word "Messiah" carried a very strong political meaning. After all, he word means "king" or "anointed one." The Romans were keenly aware of anyone who claimed to be Messiah, and treated them as rebels. Peter risks personal safety when he makes such a statement.

         There are real obstacles and resistance one must face to say "Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God." Some families do not want to hear those words. It may also place us in strange territory. When Abraham was called by God to move to a promised land, he had to leave behind all that he knew, and go to a strange land, a land in which he felt "not at home." It was in that new place, that strange place that he was able to establish his own identity as the father of faith. Sometimes faith in Christ feels strange, feels out of sync with the world around us, feels even wrong in some ways. But because Abraham responded to God's call and lived in faith, he was set on a path of blessing.

         We are invited to believe in Jesus. We are invited to confess that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, the Lord of heaven and earth. The path of faith leads us to know God. The path of faith brings us to the place where we come to experience that God is for us. The path of faith opens our eyes to recognize Jesus, to know who he is, and it is that discovery that shapes our lives.

         In Christ we receive the forgiveness of sin, we receive grace that heals and renews, we receive hope that lays hold on the eternal, and we receive love that is from above. But we believe not because of what we receive. We believe because we have come to know who Jesus is. He is the Lord, the Messiah, and the Son of God.

         I invite you to believe in Jesus.

        Amen.