I Am What I Am

"I Am What I Am"
Mark 8:27--9:1


One of my favorite cartoons, that I liked to watch when I was growing up, was “Popeye.”  I’m not sure why I liked Popeye.  I thought Olive Oyl was a ditz.  Bluto was a pinheaded jerk.  I like watching Wimpy stack up all those hamburgers and eat them all in one gulp.  I tried that once and it didn’t work.  That was before I realized the magic of cartoons and you can do lots of stuff in cartoons you can’t do in real life.

I ate my spinach, out of a can, religiously, because I held on to the fantasy that if I just downed that stuff, like Popeye did, I’d be instantly stronger.  If I ate my spinach, I’d have those forearms that looked like anvils.  I’d be able to bop all the bullies who tormented my life.  I think that’s why I liked Popeye.  As I grew up and realized the fantasy wouldn’t happen, I suddenly developed a strong aversion to spinach.  I have never touched the stuff since.  The cooked kind, the kind that comes out of a can, that is.

It was my childhood hero, Popeye, who first coined the phrase, “I am what I am.”  And that was followed up by, “I’m Popeye the sailor man.”  Then he’d give a couple of toots on that corn cob pipe of his.  Popeye was not a complex character.  After all, he’s just a cartoon.  But as a cartoon character, the extent of what he was, was summed up in five words:  “I’m Popeye the sailor man.”  What ever I thought Popeye was, whatever I wanted Popeye to be, from Popeye’s self-definition, all he is, is a sailor man.

It’s a tough lesson to learn, to allow people to say, “I am what I am.”  Why is it that we have a hard time allowing people to be who they are, and what they are on their own terms?  Instead, we try to fashion them out of our own image, making them into something they aren’t nor wish to be.  We feel the pressure ourselves, from others, to be this kind of person or that kind of person according to others ideas.

Imagine how hard it was for Jesus.  Jesus constantly tried to define himself on his own terms.  But everyone around him had their own ideas.

In the part of the story read from Mark’s Gospel a few minutes ago, Jesus is preaching a self-definition sermon.  He’s telling the disciples and the crowd of people standing around who he is.  He’s telling them what kind of ministry he’s going to do.  He tells them where his life is headed because of who he is.  He plainly states he is going to experience terrible suffering at the hands of his listeners; he is going to be violently rejected; he is going to be murdered; and, then he is going to rise back to life after he is dead.

Get yourselves in the flow of what’s happening.  First, Jesus spoke to a large group of disciples and the surrounding crowd.  Then Peter took Jesus aside and criticized him for preaching such a terrible sermon, for saying such things about himself.  Peter took Jesus aside, right there in front of the crowd.  But Jesus returned the favor, and assaulted Peter, also right in front of the crowd.  And then Jesus turned and addressed the larger crowd again.

Jesus did so, partially in response to something he saw in the faces of the disciples and the people who were watching the whole thing between him and Peter.  I don’t know what Jesus saw in their faces, but evidently it was a collection of looks that needed to be challenged.  It’s not clear who Jesus is actually talking to when he says, “Get behind me satan.”  Is he talking to Peter only?  Or to the disciples and the looks on their faces?  Or the crowd?  Or all three?

By bringing satan into the conversation, by saying, “Get behind me satan,” Jesus is signaling that this is a continuation of the temptation in the wilderness.  Remember, before Jesus launched himself out into ministry, he spent 40 days and 40 nights in the wilderness.  He ate nothing.  He was there to get clear what his identity was before God.

Satan came and tempted him three times.  The temptations were all about Jesus’ choice of his identity.  First, would Jesus turn the stones into bread and eat, thereby defining himself and his powers as to be used for himself, first and foremost?  Would Jesus take care of himself first, and pay attention to his own needs?

Secondly, would Jesus jump off the highest point of the temple and thereby wow the crowds?  Would Jesus define himself by using his miraculous powers only for showy display?  Would Jesus’ actions focus all the attention on himself for his own grandiose showmanship?

And lastly, would Jesus bow down and worship satan and thereby gain control of the world?  Would Jesus define himself as a puppet of malicious power?  Would Jesus define himself as a person who bows before quick opportunity with satan, rather than the harder and longer road of self-denial with God?

All those temptations were about Jesus deciding who he was going to be.  He had some hard choices.   Had he chosen differently, had he chosen to define himself according to satan’s whimsy, everything would have changed, and everything would have been lost.

So, here, Jesus was being pressured by Peter and others to give up his bleak self-definition.  Jesus recognized it instantly for what it was.  It was satan, coming at him again, using the disciples against him, trying to get him to define himself differently.  Imagine having to be on your toes all the time, holding on to that which is ultimately most important:  the self-definition you have chosen to be, letting go of all the other options.  Imagine how hard it is to strongly and simply say, “I am what I am.”

As I looked at and thought about this story, I wondered what it was that Peter didn’t like about Jesus’ self-definition.  And then I put myself in the story, and tried to imagine other people’s reactions.

Part of our Presbyterian process of calling a minister to a particular church involves bringing the person in who is the final choice of the Pastor Nominating Committee to meet the congregation.  That final choice person gets to meet the congregation, preach a sermon in worship as well as lead worship.  Then there is the congregational meeting and you all get to vote.  Thumbs up or thumbs down.

Imagine it is the morning of the candidating sermon.  The candidate the Pastor Nominating Committee has chosen, after looking at so many dossiers, and talking with people and interviewing, is standing up to lead worship.  The church is packed.  Everyone wants a look at the new guy or gal.  The Pastor Nominating Committee is sitting proudly on the front row, waiting for the person to make a big first impression.  As he or she leads worship, everything is clicking along great.  Everyone seems pleased as worship progresses.

Then comes the sermon.  The all important sermon.  The candidate stands to preach.  Everyone is anxiously waiting for a wowser sermon, a powerful message.  Imagine, as the candidate opens his or her mouth and says this:

I want to tell you what kind of Pastor I’m going to be.  This church is going to be the worst experience of my life.  I will suffer for everything I say and do while I’m here.  By the time I’m through here, every Elder, Deacon and Trustee will hate my guts.  They won’t be able to run me out of town fast enough.  The pews you sit in now will be totally empty, every Sunday morning, because everyone will have gone to some other church.  Even your most loyal members will leave this church and not come back.  In fact, people will hate me so much that a few of you will make it your personal mission to have me eliminated.  It won’t be enough for them to throw me out on my chin, or assassinate my character.  They will want to really assassinate me.  They will justify their actions by saying it’s God’s will--that they are doing God and the church a favor.  You will kill me; but I’ll be back.  I will come to life again, after I’ve been dead and buried out in the cemetery.  That’s what kind of Pastor I’m going to be.

Well, after everyone had sat there for a while with mouths gaping in disbelief at what they just heard, how long do you think it would take the moderator of the Pastor Nominating Committee to march up, take the candidate aside, away from the microphone and say, “Uh, what are you thinking?  Are you crazy?  That isn’t at all what we expected to hear.  That isn’t what we wanted to hear.  You’re supposed to make us, the PNC look good.  You’re here to get votes, make us proud; you’re supposed to be the driver of the bus, not throw yourself under it!  C’mon.  Take a breather.  Regroup yourself.  Tell them it was all a big joke and preach something uplifting.  You know, like Guideposts.  Preach like Norman Vincent Peale or Joel Osteen.  Be positive.  Be funny and witty.  Go ahead; show them what you can do.”

At that point, the candidate would have a decision to make.  In that fictitious scene, the candidate has defined himself in a particular way.  Probably just about everyone in that sanctuary, if the candidate had defined himself in that way, would want him to back down from that self-definition.  If the candidate does, though, he wouldn’t be true to himself.  If he doesn’t back down, then he will in fact be voted down as unacceptable.  At least he would be rejected for who he really was, not for what others wanted him to be.  At least he gets to keep some self-respect and integrity, even though it didn’t take him very far.

That’s what Jesus was facing in front of his disciples and the crowd that day.  “This is what I am; this is who I am,” Jesus announced to the crowd.

I am going to suffer because none of you will understand me.  You will reject me, mainly because you didn’t take the time or energy to get to know me.  Your leaders will not only disavow me, they will literally destroy me.  And then, believe it or not, I will arise alive.  That’s who I am.  That’s the kind of Messiah I am going to be.  If you want to follow me, then that’s the kind of person you will be following.  If you don’t like it, don’t follow me.  But I will not change just so I am more marketable or suitable to your status quo tastes.  Take me or leave me; that’s your choice.  But take me or leave me on my own terms.

Jesus needs to be allowed to be who he is by his own self-definition.  We want Jesus to be a lot of things.  He can only be what he says he is.  He’s not a hero like we define heroes.  He’s not Superman, Batman, or Popeye.  Jesus isn’t Indiana Jones or a Transformer or Spiderman.  He doesn’t have a star on the Hollywood walk of fame.

He’s Jesus.  He’s a person who loves the people the world hates.  He has a very hard time with the those the world calls “The Beautiful People.”  He eats with people we wouldn’t be caught dead with.  He touches people that to us are sick and disgusting.  He tells people to give up things they think are valuable, and tells them to acquire things they think are valueless.  Instead of teaching people how to get ahead in the world, he told people how to get ahead with God, and be losers in the eyes of the world.

Pay attention.  Pay attention to what Jesus says and does that gives us an idea of who he is by his own definition.  And once we have paid attention to that, then we are faced with a decision.  Will we follow Jesus as he is--as he defines himself to be?  You can’t follow the Jesus of your imaginings, the Jesus as you’d like Jesus to be.  Jesus will not allow us to do that.  Whenever we reprimand Jesus for being something we’d rather him not being, or saying something we’d rather him not say, he turns and says to us, “Get behind me, Satan.”  Jesus knows what’s going on.

When we try to fashion Jesus into something he is not, we are in league with satan, who tried to do the same thing in the three temptations in the wilderness.  The tempter tried to get Jesus to be something he was not.  To define himself in a way other than the direction Jesus wanted to be heading.  Jesus said, “No.  A thousand times, no; I am what I am.  Follow me, or get out of the way.”

If you decide to be a follower of Jesus, you have to realize that in that following, you will be defined in a similar way as Jesus was.  The world will look at you the same way it did Jesus.  It will put the same kind of pressure on you as it did on Jesus to be some other way.  You will wake up every morning of your life and you will have to say, “A thousand times, no; it’s Jesus’ way or no way.”

You will be enticed with all kinds of delicacies, all kinds of other self-definition options to veer away from Jesus.  Your friends and most trusted colleagues may take you aside and try to rattle your cage, and dust what they perceive to be the cobwebs out of your head.  You will even find yourself fighting against your own will to compromise your own determination and definition to follow Jesus.

It’s not going to be easy, is what I’m trying to say.  It’s not easy to be a follower of Jesus.  But as some point, usually every minute of your life, you have to say like Popeye, “I am what I am.  I’m Steve the follower of Jesus.”  Toot, toot!