Dear Friends,
This past Wednesday, I mentioned that the site for today’s reading was Caesarea Philippi, a community well north of Jerusalem and Galilee, where Jesus conducted most of his earthly ministry. The location is important. It was first called Panias because it had an altar to the Greek god Pan. When Herod the Great built a temple to Augustus Caesar there, he called it Augusteion. After Herod’s death, Philip, a son of Herod who was Rome’s ruler in this area, expanded it and made the temple complex more elaborate. Philip dedicated it to the god Augustus and himself and pompously renamed it Caesarea Philippi.
It was in this unlikely, unholy place, which had held so many shrines dedicated to so many gods, that Peter made his momentous confession in Matthew 16:13–20 that Jesus is “the Son of the living God.” (16:16) Peter’s confession of faith is included in all four gospels (see also Mark 8:27–33, Luke 9:18–32, and John 6:68–69), but only Matthew and Mark specify the location as Caesarea Philippi. The irony of this pagan location somehow makes Peter’s confession of faith in Jesus all the more powerful.
Before reading Matthew’s account of Peter’s confession, take a moment with God for contemplation and illumination:
God of revelation, mere flesh and blood cannot reveal divine truth; only your Spirit can give that gift. Be with us in these moments of reading so that our eyes, minds, and hearts may give us understanding. Through the words we read today, may we know your Word more deeply. Amen.
Referring to this passage as Peter’s confession can be confusing, especially to us Presbyterians. We seldom use the word confession to describe our faith. We think of confession as our admission of sin and short-coming; it’s part of our weekly worship, or was until the pandemic rendered weekly worship impossible.
But even though we’ve made things a little clearer in recent decades by calling our faith statements affirmations of faith, the term most commonly used over the centuries has been confession of faith. When the reformed Christians were establishing their theological foundation in 1646, they wrote the Westminster Confession of Faith, a very long, complex document that covers everything from creation to the end times, including the revelations of God; the authority of the scriptures; the requirements for salvation, faith, and life; the Trinity; predestination; free will; church governance; and the sacraments, to name but a few(!). It’s the foundational document of our own denomination.
Peter’s confession is far simpler and more to the point than the Westminster Confession as he openly declares, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.” That single sentence reverberates through the ages to today.
So how did Peter come to this simple but pivotal statement? In Caesarea Philippi, Jesus “asked his disciples, ‘Who do people say that the Son of Man is?’” (16:13) The disciples responded without hesitation with a list of some of the wise and prophetic leaders from the distant past in the Hebrew scriptures. They knew that many among Jesus’s followers were beginning to speculate that he was another such prophet, just as was their own contemporary, John the Baptist, whom the disciples also named.
The disciples, however, were different from the crowds of people who followed Jesus from town to town. They had access to Jesus in ways that others did not, and Jesus pushed them further, asking them directly, “But who do you say that I am?” (16:15) With this question, Jesus was intensifying the commitment he sought from them.
“Simon Peter answered. ‘You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.’” (16:16)
These were desperate times for the captive people of Israel, and there was a deep yearning for a Messiah – a new king, anointed by God – to save them from their misery. But even in the face of such Messianic fervor, the disciples didn’t say that the crowds who followed Jesus thought him to be the longed-for Messiah. Maybe for the crowds, the thought that the flesh and blood person in their midst could actually be the Messiah was just beyond their grasp. Moreover, to so name him was surely dangerous, given the complex politics of the times.
But here, Jesus was speaking only to his small band of disciples, and he skillfully steered the conversation to this pivotal point with his deceptively quiet question. He was forcing them to dig deeply into their own unfolding faith. Although it was Peter alone who so explicitly and courageously declared that Jesus was the Messiah, he spoke for the entire group of twelve disciples. And with his answer, Peter not only took on leadership among the twelve, but changed everything.
We post-resurrection Christians cannot help but look at this passage and wonder what took them so long? Why couldn’t the disciples and even the crowds readily recognize that Jesus, the keen teacher, the miraculous miracle worker, the loving and compassionate friend to outcasts and strangers, was indeed the long-awaited Messiah? As we so often should when we read the gospels, we must place ourselves in the times: what seems blatantly obvious to us two millennia later is only beginning to emerge as a new faith reality, even for those closest to Jesus.
With Peter’s momentous statement, the disciples no longer needed to confine themselves to whispered discussions about who this person Jesus was. In addition to all they had seen as they traveled with him, through Peter, they were able to come to and articulate a new awareness, thanks to Jesus’s expert but subtle guidance. It takes Matthew sixteen chapters to get to this point – more than half of his gospel – but at last, they confess. They affirm who Jesus is. He is the Messiah, the Christ.
Matthew’s story of Peter’s confession is more detailed than those of the other three gospels. Only Matthew gives us a glimpse into what almost feels like a private conversation between Jesus and Peter. And that conversation, just three verses long, becomes the foundation for the faith and the church that will grow from its words. I’ve found at least five essential points in the three short verses that comprise this conversation. And there are more that I won’t go into today: all the words in Jesus’s singular conversation with Peter have been dissected, discussed, preached about, and taught with undying interest through the centuries.
First, when Jesus says to Peter, “For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father in heaven,” (16:17) he is telling Peter that his confession of faith is not the result of his human (“flesh and blood”) reasoning; it’s not something he has deduced from living with Jesus. It is a divine gift.
And so it is for us. Confessing Jesus as the Christ is not a puzzle that we’re able to solve by the power of our intellect, nor is it proof of our moral capacity for believing steadfastly even in the face of what might seem to be compelling evidence to the contrary. The integrity of our affirmation of faith is, like Peter’s, not of our own doing; it is a gift of the Spirit, pure and simple.
Second, in this conversation, we hear the word church for the first time in the gospels. (We’ll hear it again only once more in the gospels, also in Matthew, in chapter 18:17.) Jesus says to Peter, “You are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it.” (16:18)
Presenting the growing congregation of believers as a church is an entirely new concept. Jesus is laying the foundations for the church that is to come, the church that will continue the work that he has begun. The seeds for our own church here in Scottsville have been sown.
The “gates of Hades” is the Greek equivalent to the Hebrew Sheol, the place of the dead. Jesus is telling us that not even death will be able to thwart or overcome the work of the church that is now begun. These tremendously encouraging words resonate even today, when we worry so much about the significant decline in church membership in the United States as well as all the threats that seem to loom over us. Surely Peter was heartened by such assurance; I know that I certainly hold onto these words of Jesus as a promise and comforting reassurance in hard times for the church, for our world, and for me personally. Even in the worst of times, even if our numbers diminish, our church built upon the rock will not disappear and will prevail over sin and death.
And that brings us to the third point, about Jesus’s saying, “You are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church.” Does Jesus mean that Peter is the foundation of the church? Our Roman Catholic sisters and brothers certainly think so. Peter’s status is officially conferred on each pope in succession.
Protestants, on the other hand, emphasize that it is not Peter, but Peter’s confession of faith, that is the rock. We are called to be like Peter and all those who have followed him through the generations confessing that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of the living God.
Equating Peter, and all persons of faith, with a rock is a repeated theme in the Bible. “Like living stones, let yourselves be built into a spiritual house.” (I Peter 2:5) Peter may be the foundational rock, but we are the stones that comprise the structure of the house of God. It is we who give it strength and resilience; it is we who witness to the faith that keeps it standing.
Each time we affirm our faith, each time we share our faith in testimony, mission, and witness, we are offering ourselves to be the living stones that built and continue building Christ’s church. When we help neighbors who are struggling in extraordinary circumstances, we testify to our faith in Jesus. When we share the bounty God has given us with our local foodbanks, we testify to our faith. When we pray for one another, we testify to our faith. When we serve on church committees or participate in Bible studies, we testify to our faith. When we read our Bibles and contemplate God’s revelation, we testify to our faith. When we share our joys and concerns and even when we enjoy simple fellowship with one another, we testify to our faith. All of the many things we think, believe, say, and do are testaments to our faith, which Peter defined so elegantly and simply: “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.” How fortunate we are to have those words and our belief to guide and sustain us!
Although all the disciples are empowered by Jesus, Peter is given the greatest affirmation and support for his courage, insight, and leadership within the group of disciples, and in this quiet conversation, he is also given new responsibility. As you read through the New Testament, count how often Peter is named first when Jesus’s early followers are listed.
And now we come to the fourth point about this amazing conversation. When Jesus said to Peter, “I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven” in verse 19, he was elevating Peter to a place of trust and maturity. Keys are an important symbol in Jesus’s time, just as they are in ours. I vividly remember my parents giving me my first key to our house. It was affirmation that I was mature enough and responsible enough to have a key. Just before the schools were closed last spring due to the pandemic, Nan and I picked up our granddaughter from her school. As we drove her home, Nan started digging through her purse for her key to the house. With quiet pride, our granddaughter showed us her new keychain, with its single, triumphant key to her house. She, like me, knew this was an important step in growing up. For Peter, being given the keys to the kingdom of heaven was even more than a sign of his maturing; it was the means of opening the door to new opportunities, and, more importantly, to heavy new challenges.
And finally, Jesus shows Peter the responsibilities of leadership when he defines the boundaries of Peter’s authority. “Whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.” (16:19) It is unclear exactly what “binding” and “loosing” mean, but in the traditions of rabbinic Jerusalem, they are judicial terms defining what’s forbidden and what’s allowed for members of the congregation. Jesus’s reference to the keys to the kingdom of heaven in the same sentence might further indicate that Peter was being given the power to excommunicate people from and admit or readmit them to the church. At the very least, we may assume that during his lifetime, Peter remained the supreme guarantor of the tradition of Jesus’s sayings and was thus in a position to make ecclesiastical rulings about matters arising in the early church.
The conversation ends there, and Matthew returns our attention to the rest of the disciples when, in verse 20, Jesus “sternly ordered the disciples not to tell anyone that he was the Messiah.” Are you as surprised by this as I was many decades ago on first reading this passage? It’s jarring, especially after that intimate, instructive conversation with Peter. You might imagine the twelve wondering why they were to be silent when they had such good news to share.
I’d tell you, but our lectionary planners clearly want us to wait because they’ve divided this gospel unit into two parts. Next Sunday, we’ll learn much more about this puzzling Messianic Secret and why Jesus needed his openly affirmed messiahship to be kept hidden. Considering how rich and instructive today’s reading is, maybe our lectionary planners want us to spend some time this week in contemplation about Peter’s confession of faith and Jesus’s quiet instructions to him.
I hope that in those moments when you’re able to do so, you’ll find some respite from thinking about all that troubles us these days by focusing instead on Peter’s simple, yet profound confession of faith. “You are the Messiah, the Son of the Living God.”
Joys and Concerns:
Prayers of hope and help for all who continue to suffer from Covid 19, including the cascading economic and social effects it brings with it.
Prayers of concern and solidarity with all our sisters and brother along the Gulf Coast as they brace for two nearly simultaneous hurricanes.
Prayers of hope for justice and equity to find their place in our suffering world, and for our eyes and hearts to open to the needs and tragedy that continuing injustice brings to us all.
Prayers for California as terrible wild fires rage there.
Prayers of healing for all in our congregation who suffer from frailty, illness, pain, and loneliness; may they know that there’s a great cloud of witnesses who hold them in their arms.
Prayers of gratitude and appreciation for all the acts of kindness, large and small, that emerge every day during these times of anxiety and fear; they bring sustaining hope.
Let us pray together:
Forgiving God, we confess that we conform to this world more often than to yours. We conform to this world’s frantic pace, which renders us too stressed and hectic to notice all the blessings you provide. We conform to this world’s reckless waste, exploiting what you entrust to our care. We conform to this world’s shallow values, oblivious to the giftedness of people different from us. We conform to this world’s impatient attitudes, preferring the latest instead of the lasting. Forgive our conformity and transform us, O God.
Though you are known by many names and depicted in many ways, gracious God, we know you most fully in Jesus Christ, our Messiah, your Son. We thank you for forming us into the church, the body of Christ in the world. Help us to live as he taught us: loving you, loving neighbor, unified in Christ, using our varied gifts and skills in the service of ministry until all is transformed into what is good and acceptable and perfect.
In Christ’s name, we confess our faith even as we confess our weakness. We rely on the assurance of your forgiveness and your help to enable us to rise above our failings, so that we may more freely do the work you would have us do. Amen.