Who do you say 'I' am?

I have been asked to post this, which is the outline of a sermon I preached last week based on Matthew 16:13-20

Who do you say I am?

Who are you?

• What you look like – who is happy with what they look like?
• What you do or did for a job? How much you earn – never enough it seems
• Where you come from? Nationality
• Your name?
• What you have achieved – record A level results again this year
• Ethnicity, gender, age, ability...

Is there a difference between I and ME? (reflection on the work of George Herbert Mead)

2 constituents; the body as “thing” and the “stream of consciousness”.
The body can be observed as a thing, existing in the world, it can be measured, weighed etc Remember occasions when I have slept awkwardly, cutting of the blood supply to my arm and awoken to find that it has “gone to sleep”. There is a loss of sensation, I can still move it but cannot feel the movements. If I touch my face with it I can feel my face being touched but I cannot feel my hand touching it. It is as though I am no longer subjectively involved with my arm, it is a thing that exists in the world; this is part of what comprises “me”.

The other aspect of “me” is my “stream of consciousness”, the succession of events, ideas and experiences that I call from memory out of my past. This too has a “thinglike” quality and I can tell you about “me”, what goes through my mind, what things give “me” pleasure, what things hurt “me”. You cannot see this aspect of “me” directly, but I can, and I can tell you all about “me” in the same way that I can talk about my body. This aspect of “me” cannot be measured but I can still view it as an object.

So “me” as the repository of all the objective information of my existence. Every thought, feeling, idea, every event or encounter in my life are gathered together to establish “me” as a person in the world, and all of it, if I wish, can be known objectively.

Mead wants us to understand that the self is a process of interaction between the objective “me” and the subjective “I”. I am aware that “I” can describe “me”, I can look at me and observe me. I can see the changes in me as I grow older or develop skills but I also know that “I” am the same. If I meet a teacher from school whom I have not encountered for 15 years everything about “me” has changed, I am older, heavier, wrinklier, my beliefs have changed, my associations, hobbies, job have changed; but “I” am the same “Mark Gilborson” who she taught all those years ago. I could go on to describe everything that has happened to “me” in great detail, what I thought, where I had been, who I loved and who loved me. But after I had told him all there was to tell about “me” “I” have evaded him. The “I” that described “me” has remained estranged and alienated because “I” cannot be known as an object “I” am not a thing. In a sense “I” can play with “me”, I can think what it would be like to be you, to think your thoughts, live your life in your body. Perhaps in a state of mental illness “I” may choose to be Napoleon because “I” am free to be anything “I” choose. In great contrast everything about “me” is set in stone of the history of the past.

“I” do not exist in the past or even in the future “I” exist now and now is not a part of time, now is the non-existent point that separates the past from the future; the next second is not now, even the next millionth of a second is not now. Now has no extension in time, yet I know that now exists because that is where “I” am. Immanuel Kant in his Critique of pure reason wrote “nothing is more real and existential than the now in which I live” and yet he senses that now is not a segment in the flow of history.

I am unable to tell you what “I” am thinking, because when I have told you, in the process of reflection, my thoughts have become part of my past and I have told you what “I” was thinking when you asked me. I sense that everything about “me” evolves, changes and decays, but “I” remain an unchanged essence. I cannot prove that “I” will exist when you bury “me” but as I consider this I sense that as “I” live in the now, that “I” will always exist because now always is. ...

Jesus says to Peter ‘who do you say I am?’

Not what do you say I have done, or look like or will achieve, not my age or ethnicity or gender – something MUCH deeper – who am I?
Jesus waits – he doesn’t ask him this at the start of their relationship – he allows him to get to know him before asking the question.
What has happened before this question?

Well interestingly immediately before this Jesus is again hassled by the Pharisees and Sadducees as they test him by asking for a sign from heaven – Jesus effectively refuses, haven’t they seen enough already? Of course not they haven’t gotten to know him, but what has Peter seen?

• Peter sees how Jesus values him, a lowly fisherman, when he is called to
follow and in that Peter see that he has a new purpose.
• Peter see healing after healing, power that is extraordinary and life
changing
• Peter hears Jesus speak in a revolutionary way as he witnesses the sermon on
the mount
• Peter sees Jesus at prayer, wanting to be with his Father
• He hears Jesus teach ‘do not worry’ and ‘do not judge others’
• He hears of wise and foolish builders, sees the calming of the storm and is
reminded of the considerable cost of following Jesus.
• He is there when Jairus’ daughter is brought back to life and the blind and
mute and deaf healed.
• Peter is one of the disciple commissioned to go and tell of the kingdom and
work miracles in God’s name
• Peter hears parables of untold wisdom, miraculous feeding of thousands.
• Peter tries, and fails to walk on the water
• He experiences the faith of the Roman centurion and the Canaanite woman

And after all this – Jesus asks him – ‘who do YOU say I am ‘

I am not the things I have done, good or bad, nor what I look like, or do, or where I have been.


How would you describe yourself?



These are some of the ways the Bible describes you as - You are amazing – you are:

Psalm 139:14 – you are fearfully and wonderfully made
John 1:12 – a child of God
1 Cor 12:27 – a member of Christ’s body
1 Cor 6:20 – you have been bought with a price WHY?
Zech 2:8 – God’s people are the ‘apple of his eye’