When Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?” And they said, “Some say John the Baptist, but others Elijah, and still others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.” He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?” Simon Peter answered, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.” 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. 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. 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.” Then he sternly ordered the disciples not to tell anyone that he was the Messiah.
Sermon by the Rev. Carole Horton-Howe
There’s a good story that makes the rounds now and then. It may have actually happened or it may be a kind of church urban legend. But there is truth in it. It goes something like this: a man walks out of church on a Sunday morning following a rousing worship service and bumps into a man on the sidewalk. He doesn’t recognize him as a member of the congregation, he’s a stranger staring up at the church steeple and the cross looking a little lost and a little curious. He says “excuse me” and steps around the stranger but the stranger stops him and says, “tell me,” pointing to the doors of the church he had attended most of his life. “What is it that you believe in there?” The church member starts to answer and then realizes that he doesn’t quite have an answer, or does not know how to put it into words. As he’s trying to compose something the stranger says, “Never mind, sorry I bothered you.” And he walks away.
It did bother him. And I think it would bother all of us if we tried on the fly to think what we would answer in his place. Why do we go to church? Can we articulate what it is that we believe in here? Would you recite the Nicene Creed? Probably not something a man on the sidewalk would stick around to hear all of. Would you say that Jesus is my Lord? Sure -- but what does that mean to someone on the sidewalk? What is it that we believe?
In today’s lesson, Jesus is the man on the sidewalk, the one who asks the question about what it all means, about what he means to us. In the lesson, Jesus is talking to his closest friends and disciples. They’ve watched him feeding thousands, teaching about the difference between words and deeds, and last week we heard about his healing a Canaanite woman’s daughter. And then he quizzes the disciples. We see him do this now and then. And Jesus doesn’t hesitate to let them know when they have not understood him or his mission. So it’s easy to imagine that they might be a little anxious when he gathers them together.
“Who do people say the Son of Man is?” Jesus lobs them a softball – the disciples can repeat what they have heard: Elijah, John the Baptist come back to life, or one of the prophets. There is no great risk to them in repeating what they’ve heard. Jesus confirms none of these. Instead he asks that pivotal question, eternally probing hearts through the ages and still grabs on to us: “but who do you say that I am?” Who knows how long they stood in silence before Peter answered. The Greek pronoun “you” is emphatic: it is both singular and plural. Simon Peter answers on behalf of the group.
Peter’s declaration about Jesus is largely about identity. The passage is the only account in the New Testament that provides an explanation of the renaming of Simon as Peter. When Simon answers “You are the Messiah, the Son of the Living God” Jesus responds with a blessing. And “you are Peter (petros in Greek) and on this rock I will build my church and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it.
Jesus’s statement is not mere simile, Jesus does not tell Peter he is “like a rock.” Instead, he gives him a new name and with it a new identity. It is the promise of Christ to build his church despite the forces of evil and death arrayed again it.
And although Peter seems to have passed Jesus’s “test” about his own identity since he heaped accolated upon him, there may be other dynamics involved.
The African concept of Ubuntu has its origins in the Bantu languages of southern Africa. It represents an ancient understanding of being, existence and reality summed up in the statement: “I am because we are; and since we are, therefore I am.” Looking through the lens of Ubuntu, the individual does not and cannot exist alone. We each owe our existence to other people, both past generations and contemporaries. Each person is part of a whole. The community creates the individual, and the individual relies on the group. This philosophical understanding exits in one form or another in every traditional ethnic group on the African continent and would have been consistent with the prevailing understanding of identity formation in Jesus’ day and location.
Might Jesus have been relying on his community of disciples to help him on his way? Might he have been seeking a conferral of his Messianic identity from the community that knew him best? Interestingly of the 20 times in Matthew that the word Messiah is used, Jesus never refers to himself as Messiah until after Peter’s declaration.
This passage describes a pivotal occasion in the lives of both Jesus and Peter. Each shares his insights with the other, affirms the other’s identity and prepares the other for the ministry that lies ahead. Jesus and Peter help each other assume their rightful identities. This is the principle of Ubuntu: “I am because we are.”
It is by grace alone that Peter makes his declaration of Jesus identity. But a few sentences later, Jesus will stub his toe on the rock that is Peter when Peter begins to argue with Jesus about what will happen in Jerusalem. “Get behind me Satan” Jesus will say to him and accuse him of being a stumbling block on Jesus’ path. How can he be both rock with the right answer and the devil in the path at the same time? The fact is that Peter is impulsive and opinionated and ultimately denies knowing Jesus at all. So he may not exhibit the flawless character, the intellectual or spiritual depth we’d like to see at the initial leadership of our church.
Barbara Brown Taylor says that she is glad to hear that Peter’s in charge of heaven’s gates. Someone like Peter, she says, may understand someone like her, someone who finds answers hard to come by, who often finds it easier and safer to repeat other people’s answers because her own do not sound good enough. Peter understands someone who goes ahead and says things and then regrets them or makes brave promises and then loses heart saying not once but 3 times, “I do not know that man.”
If Peter’s declaration is the rock on which the church is built, then there is hope for all of us because he is one of us. And perhaps the answer that Jesus seeks is not so much what we speak but how we live our lives.
Author Deborah Meister also has a pivotal question of her own for us to consider: “What do our words and actions say to others about who they are? Do they say, "Move over; get out of my way?" Or do they say, "You are precious to me, so beautiful that I am willing to offer my time, my care, and myself, so that you may flourish, too?"
So the next time someone asks you what you believe, go ahead and give it a try. You may not know who’s asking the question but you know whose you are and who you are answering. It may not flow the way you’d like but the important thing is to try – not only to say what you believe but to live it too. Amen.
