The Twelfth Sunday after Pentecost, 08/23/2020 | Sermon on Matthew 16:13-20 | by Paul Bieber |

 

Matthew 16:13-20 Revised Standard Version

¹³ When Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, “Who do men say that the Son of man is?” ¹⁴ And they said, “Some say John the Baptist, others say Elijah, and others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.” ¹⁵ He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?” ¹⁶ Simon Peter replied, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” ¹⁷ And Jesus answered him, “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jona! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven. ¹⁸ And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the powers of death shall not prevail against it. ¹⁹ I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.” ²⁰ Then he strictly charged the disciples to tell no one that he was the Christ.

 

also

Isaiah 51:1-6

Psalm 138

Romans 12:1-8

 

The Rock of Our Belief

 

 

Grace, peace, and much joy to you, people of God.

 

We’re way up north again. Last Sunday’s Gospel took us to the region of Tyre and Sidon, north of Galilee. Today we’re twenty miles due East of Tyre, at the headwaters of the Jordan river in the Golan Heights, north of the Sea of Galilee: a place that had been called Paneas, dedicated to the Greek god Pan, and before that to Baal, that idol well-known to us from the Old Testament. Then Philip, one of Herod the Great’s sons and the Tetrarch of this northern area, rebuilt the city and named it after Caesar and himself: Caesarea Philippi, Philip’s Caesarea, to distinguish it from Caesarea Maritima, a Mediterranean port.

 

The event that takes place in this place of idolatry is the centerpiece of the Gospels According to St. Mark and According to St Matthew: the confession of St. Peter. So Peter will be “rehabilitated” today; last Sunday I contrasted Jesus’ question to Peter two weeks ago, “O man of little faith, why did you doubt?” with Jesus’ praise last week of the Canaanite woman, “O woman, great is your faith!” Today Peter’s faith will be praised (but just wait till next Sunday).

 

It’s important to remember that Peter, Cephas, the Rock, is not presented to us as some kind of perfect avatar of faith. (Think: rooster crowing.) Nor is the rock from which Israel was hewn, Abraham, the father of us all in faith, but not one who was blameless. (To Sarah: Tell them you’re my sister.) When Jesus says, “on this rock I will build my church,” he is not referring to Peter or even to Peter’s faith as something that Peter generated from inside himself.

 

But I’ve gone off the track. Peter does get praised today, and rightly so. Isaiah calls believers to look to Abraham and Sarah as the beginning of the story of a salvation that will be forever. In a place where false gods have been worshiped for centuries (perhaps millennia when we speak of Baal, the fertility god of the region), Jesus asks his disciples what people think of him. This unscientific poll reveals that the superstitious thought of Herod Antipas (Philip’s brother, the Tetrarch of Galilee), that Jesus was John the Baptist redivivus, has some currency, but most people think of Jesus as one of the Old Testament prophets come back to prepare the way for the Messiah. Close, but not quite.

 

Then Jesus asks his disciples the question that he asks of every human being who has ever heard of him: But who do yousay that I am? (“You” is emphasized in the Greek.) All of us whose faith is mixed with doubt and fear, we of little faith, we who have prayed, “Lord, I believe; help my unbelief!”—all of us must answer this question. What think ye of the Christ? Who do you say that Jesus is?

 

He is the rock of our faith. He is not a prophetic forerunner of Israel’s Messiah, the anointed Davidic king, the Christ. He is, as Peter confesses him in this place on Israel’s outskirts, this place associated with other gods, as the Son of the living God, himself the anointed, the Christ. On the rock of who Jesus is, he will build his church. Christ is the builder and cornerstone of the church of which each believer is a living stone.

 

Christ gives Peter the keys, not to the Church, but to the reality of which the church is sacrament: the kingdom that draws near in Jesus. These are the keys to bind and loose on earth what will be bound and loosed in the kingdom of heaven. The door of heaven is opened by the forgiveness of sins. The key that locks up heaven is our rejection of the confession of who Jesus is, the one who can forgive sins. The Office of the Keys exercised in the church is the calling of complacent sinners to repentance and the absolution of repentant sinners: the finding of lost sheep.

 

We are called to trust the absolution we receive and in this way to be transformed, renewed by God’s way of mercy, rather than conformed to the ways of this world that cultivate our own self-righteousness, our attempts to justify ourselves, secure our own lives, to have enough of whatever it is that we think will generate a feeling of being complete inside ourselves.

 

Caesarea Philippi is on the boundary between Israel and the world. The absolution is on the boundary between the confession of the One who forgives sins and opens heaven, and the world’s conformity. We can continue in the idolatry of trying to secure our own lives by somehow getting enough of whatever Caesar or myself dictate, or we can offer ourselves as a living sacrifice: holy, acceptable to God, discerning his will.

 

But how could I live that kind of life? If Peter and Abraham weren’t spiritual avatars, I certainly am not. Yet, when I confess my sins, and when I confess that Jesus is the One who has been anointed to work the forgiveness of my sins by his cross and the renewal of my life by his rising, I am not trusting anything I generated from within myself, or acquired from without, to somehow be enough. I am trusting that the absolution is the righteousness of God in the life of the community of living stones of God’s temple, members of Christ’s body.

 

Faith, whether little or great, is after all the gift of the Holy Spirit who calls by the gospel, gathers, enlightens, and sanctifies each of us and all of us. Jesus says that Peter’s confession was revealed to him by the Father, not something he came up with from within himself. So that Jesus might be revealed to us the Triune God has given us the Word and the sacraments, that is, the church in which the gospel is taught purely and the sacraments administered rightly. This is the holy church which will remain forever, and the powers of death will not prevail against it.

 

The church is not built on the confession that Peter or any of her members make, which would turn the effect into the cause. The church is built on the rock of our belief, which is Christ, the reality Peter confessed at the border between Galilee and the world, between the place where Jesus can be found and the place that seeks our conformity to its idols, especially the idol of self. But we to whom Jesus’ identity has been revealed, we whom the Holy Spirit has gathered as members of his body, we are invited to serve the Father by offering ourselves as living sacrifices.

 

That’s a paradox. Old Testament and pagan sacrifices are killed to be offered, as indeed Jesus was on the cross. But he invites us to trust the forgiveness he won for us there and so, dying to our own self-righteousness, to live in the free gift of God’s mercy. This means that the spirit of the age will no longer set the agenda for our lives; instead the Holy Spirit beckons us into discerning the will of God—what is good and acceptable and perfect. Flesh and blood cannot reveal this to us, but we have heard the word of absolution that transforms us, renews us, and sets us free. Who do we say that Jesus is? He is the One who offers this forgiveness, this life.

 

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

 

 

The Rev. Dr. Paul Bieber

San Diego, California, USA

E-Mail: paul.bieber@sbcglobal.net