Why does truth need to be hidden?
Gospel Reading: Matthew 16:13-20
For Sunday, August 21 , 2011: Year A—Ordinary 21
This is some kind of powerful, charismatic, traveling Rabbi.
I mean, with the miraculous production of food from almost nothing, the controlling of the winds and the waves, the walking on water, any one would find him hard to resist. Too good to be true?
Con Artists
Because I have been alive for a while now, and because I like people and I like stories, I have run across quite a few con artists. I have been victim to some, but mostly not. After about three or five or seven or twelve experiences, I began to develop a sensitivity to the art. Or, at least, I can kind of recognize the moves they make.
Short and Long of It
There is the short con. You are hailed by a stranger, gregarious or apologetic; they introduce themselves, touch you, either shake your hand or touch your shoulder, offer some sort of complement and then begin to tell you a story.
It is usually about three quarters of the way through the story before I realize where it is going. He is going to his mother's funeral in Chicago, he ran out of gas on the freeway, his wife and kids are in the car right now on the side of the road, he only needs twenty dollars, to get him to his cousins in Madison.
Then there is the long con. It's by someone you actually develop a relationship with. It is always kind of an intense and important relationship that draws you in closer and tighter, through demands of loyalty, secrecy and special knowledge.
Our Special Secret
When I read this week’s text, I get the same uneasy feeling I get when I am in the presence of a con artist. All the signs are there. Jesus asks the disciples, "Who do people say that I am?" Then he continues, "OK, that’s the rest of the people, but we have a special relationship—who do you say that I am? That’s right, The Messiah."
He goes on to say to the twelve that you alone know the truth; you understand. And because of your special status you have special abilities. "I grant you unprecedented power, what ever you bind or loose on earth will be bound or loosed in heaven!" Cool. But here is the thing, you cannot tell anyone what you know about me—that is our secret. Our special secret.
I am a little less suspicious of the Jesus who says what is done in the darkness will be exposed to the light.
The Hardest Question
A con artist swears you to secrecy because if you tell other people what he has convinced you is true they will laugh at your gullibility. Why does truth need to be hidden?
Russell Rathbun is a preacher at House of Mercy in St. Paul, Minnesota, the author of Midrash on the Juanitos (Cathedral Hill Press, 2010) and the curator of The Hardest Question.
