Foundation
Matthew 16:13-20
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13 Now when Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?” 14 And they said, “Some say John the Baptist, but others Elijah, and still others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.” 15 He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?” 16 Simon Peter answered, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.” 17 And Jesus answered him, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father in heaven. 18 And I tell you, you are Peter,[ and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it. 19 I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.” 20 Then he sternly ordered the disciples not to tell anyone that he was the Messiah (Matthew 16:13-20)
The disciples thought they were off the hook when Jesus initially asked them, “who do other people say that I am?” That’s a less risky question to answer. It’s much easier to answer for other people than for yourself. But now, a nervous silence fills the space as he asks them “who do you say that I am?”
This is the turning point of Matthew’s Gospel, and it’s the question for each of us at the heart of faith.
It matters who we say Jesus is. Not because we must pass a theology quiz, but because who we say Jesus is shapes who we are, how we live, and how we treat others.
A school that I went to is currently in the midst of a good but painful conversation about institutional racism after students raised concerns about the stained glass window at the center of campus which depicts a white Jesus standing on North America with his hands outstretched to the rest of the world. To many students, this image of Jesus speaks a message of unwelcome and carries with it the long sinful history of colonialism.
Who we say Jesus is, matters.
And now students at the school are grappling with the question of what to put in its place, and it’s not an easy question for the student body to answer.
Who do you say that I am? Jesus asks.
Of course, as you can imagine in our divided world, this is far from a unanimous decision and there are many who loudly support the old white Jesus image. They argue that it represents the history of the school, and as the devotional image they were raised with, it carries special importance to their faith. It’s what was handed down to them, they say.
When Jesus asked the disciples who the crowds said that he was, the disciples said that some thought he was John the Baptist, or Elijah, or Jeremiah, or one of the other prophets. Their answer isn’t completely wrong, since Jesus understood himself to be in the line of prophets, but it falls short of his full identity. Their answer reveals that the crowds can only understand Jesus within the categories they already knew.
I love how writer Debie Thomas imagined this conversation going in her weekly lectionary essay this week, she writes:
“I’m guessing they go on for a while, each disciple trying to drown the others out with a more succinct, authoritative, and promising answer. Not coincidentally, the answers the disciples come up with are based entirely on the religious factions they’re partial to. To put this in contemporary terms, imagine them answering Jesus’s question this way: “Here’s the Lutheran take on who you are. Oh, and here’s the Calvinist one. Of course, the Anglicans say… No, wait, let’s hear what the Evangelicals think. And the Catholics! What about the Pentecostals? Or the Methodists? Or the Emerging Church? They have opinions, too!”
She observes that Jesus, being the good teacher he is, doesn’t shut the conversation down, but understands that the only place to begin our journey of understanding is in naming what we’ve heard, examining what we’ve inherited and looking clearly at the certainties that others have handed to us.
After the disciples name all of the traditions and teachings they’ve been handed, Jesus pushes them further, Jesus makes it personal, turning to the disciples and to all of us, asking, “who do you say that I am?”
And of course it’s Peter who steps up with an answer. He steps forward with an answer that moves into new territory, beyond all the categories they’d known before. Speaking for all the disciples, he makes his famous confession, “you are the Messiah, the Son of the Living God.”
Now, Peter might have gotten the answer right, but that doesn’t mean he understood what he’d said (very often Peter’s mouth gets ahead of his mind!). After all, they’d never encountered the Messiah before and understanding what this means is going to take some time.
In fact, the very next thing Peter does in next week’s passage is to rebuke Jesus for all his talk about suffering and death, prompting Jesus to turn to him and say, “get behind me, Satan!”.
Clearly, the process of truly understanding what we mean when we confess Jesus as the Messiah is a lifetime’s journey – it was for Peter and it is for each one of us.
It’s important to notice here, though, that Peter did not come to his confession of Christ on his own. Jesus says that this was revealed to him by God. Peter didn’t figure out who Jesus was by reading smart books or spending lots of time at a desk studying a catechism or reading John Calvin. His answer came from God as he walked with Jesus, tasted bread, saw people healed, and witnessed Christ’s compassion and love for the outcast and stranger. The confession Peter makes is not about orthodoxy but it’s about relationship.
In Mark’s and Luke’s Gospels, the Confession of Peter is a real ‘aha’ moment, the big reveal of Christ’s identity.
But here, Matthew is doing something different. Seeing as the disciples had already confessed Christ as the true son of God after Jesus calmed the storm two chapters ago, Peter’s confession here doesn’t play the same epiphany moment as it does elsewhere. Instead, Matthew adds a couple verses not found in the other accounts, tying Peter’s confession to the founding of the church.
17 And Jesus answered him, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father in heaven. 18 And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock[c] I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it
Peter and his confession are the foundation for the church that Jesus is building. The Greek word for church is only used twice in all four gospels, so its use here asks us to pay attention.
The first important thing this tells us is that the foundation of the church is a gift from God, not the work of humans. Peter’s confession did not come from himself, but was revealed to him by God through his experience of walking with Jesus.
Why is this important? It’s important because it reminds us that the church was not founded on empire, power, wealth, or human achievement – and in its history, the church has gone most wrong when it has mistakenly tried to build upon these false foundations.
The church is called into being by Christ the Messiah and called to stand on a divinely given foundation as an alternative community to the world around it - where the last are first and the least of these have a place at the table - where Christ is Lord, and not Caesar.
A second important thing to notice here is the way Jesus builds the church on this foundation. He grants Peter and all the disciples the power to bind and to loose. A fancy way of saying that the disciples have the authority to interpret Scripture as they guide the church into the future. The authority to relinquish some old interpretations and the freedom to embrace new ones as the living church grows into new times and places - responding to new movements of the Spirit.
The church God is building is not a building, but the community of believers - a dynamic, living church that in every age journeys together as we seek to understand what it means to call Jesus the Messiah in our time.
Who do you say that I am?
The question echos through the ages and to each one of us here today.
Peter’s answer is the truth that that the church is built upon, and the truth that the church continues to seek fresh understanding of in each new age.
In the times we find ourselves in today, spinning at how dramatically the church and world have changed over the last six months, we find great hope when we remember our solid foundation in Jesus the Messiah and we watch with eager hearts to see what new thing the Spirit is doing to build God’s church – to learn what we must relinquish, but also, what we might receive.
Alleluia. Amen.