How About You? | Matthew 16:13-20

by Dan McCoig

How About You? | 23 August 2020 | Dan McCoig

Peter’s declaration about Jesus

¹³ Now when Jesus came to the area of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, “Who do people say the Human One is?”

¹⁴ They replied, “Some say John the Baptist, others Elijah, and still others Jeremiah or one of the other prophets.”

¹⁵ He said, “And what about you? Who do you say that I am?”

¹⁶ Simon Peter said, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”

¹⁷ Then Jesus replied, “Happy are you, Simon son of Jonah, because no human has shown this to you. Rather my Father who is in heaven has shown you. ¹⁸ I tell you that you are Peter. And I’ll build my church on this rock. The gates of the underworld won’t be able to stand against it. ¹⁹ I’ll give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven. Anything you fasten on earth will be fastened in heaven. Anything you loosen on earth will be loosened in heaven.” ²⁰ Then he ordered the disciples not to tell anybody that he was the Christ.

1.

Jesus has never struck me as someone overly concerned about his image or reputation.  I’ve known people who are and I think, it must be exhausting to be them.  Apparently, they constantly monitor what they say and how they look and what they do to determine how it will play before others.  I’m not altogether what their motivation is.  To be liked?  Perhaps.  To be popular?  Perhaps.  To be well thought of?  Perhaps.  To avoid confrontation?  Perhaps.  To not rock the boat?  Perhaps.  I don’t know.

I’ve always admired people who are comfortable in their own skin.  They know who they are and what they value.  This knowledge drives their lives.  I’ve always pitied people who never quite seem to arrive at a place where they know who they are and what they value.  They, too often, let others tell them who they are.  Too often, their values shift with the winds.  I recall a sermon I heard ages ago where the preacher noted that the truths of life, capital T, can never be broken.  Instead, we break ourselves upon them when we violate or neglect them and in doing so leave a wake of destruction.

2.

Today, we begin our Harvest Season.  Our theme is Peace is Doing, Not Waiting.  We will be reading from the Gospel of Matthew every Sunday from now through November 22, culminating with Matthew 25.  Recently, our church’s leadership, the Session, endorsed the Presbyterian Church, U.S.A.’s Matthew 25 Initiative, making us a Matthew 25 Church.  The emphases of the Matthew 25 Initiative are:

• Building congregational vitality
• Dismantling structural racism
• Eradicating systemic poverty

During this season I invite you to read Matthew’s gospel through at least a couple of times.  Good books always require multiple readings.

There are 28 chapters in Matthew.  Read a chapter a day.  In two month’s time, you’ve read the gospel through twice.  In October we will be having a Sunday school class on Matthew.

Pay attention to what Jesus is like.  What he says and how he says it.  Pay attention to how Jesus interacts with people – those who are favorable to him and his message as well as those who seek him and his followers serious harm.  Pay attention to the disciples and how they relate to Jesus – understanding him on some days and misunderstanding him on others.  Put yourself in the story.  What do you see and hear and feel?  If you were to speak, what would you say?  Ask, how is the Jesus I meet in the gospel alike or different than the way he is often presented by the church and Christians in our time?

The point of the Christian gospels is not so much to give us information about Jesus, but to present Jesus to us so that our encounter with him will transform us and our world.  The Christian faith isn’t information.  The Christian faith is transformation.

3.

Today’s lesson is a conversation between Jesus and his disciples.  Jesus has been busy in Matthew’s gospel in the run up to this conversation.  He has had a run in with his chief opponents, the Pharisees and the Sadducees.  He has miraculously fed a crowd of 4,000 folks and another crowd of 5,000.  He has healed diseases of the body and of the mind and of the spirit.  He has calmed a storm and walked on water.

Jesus has been busy.  Jesus’ actions were drawing a lot of attention.  Who in the world was this person?  Who can do such things?  The disciples were there.  They heard the questions.  They also heard the answers people were suggesting.  They also had questions of their own.

Jesus question of who folks say that he is has nothing to do with Jesus wondering about his image, his reputation.  I’m not sure those sorts of things mattered to him at all.  Jesus question is for his followers to understand him better.  Yes, he is powerful like an Elijah.  Yes, he is charismatic like a John the Baptist.  Yes, he is prophetic like Jeremiah.  But he is more.  He is the revelation of God.  In everything Jesus says and does, he is showing people God.  The words of truth, the acts of healing and compassion, the miracles that calm storms and feed people with food left over – that’s who God is, that’s what God is like.

Jesus asks Peter specifically to answer.  How about you?  Who do you say that I am?  And, Peter gets it exactly right.  “You are the Christ, the son of the living God.”

This is the sort of answer no one arrives at because they are smart enough or good enough or virtuous enough or liked enough.  This is the sort of answer no one arrives at because they have their theology in order and neatly arranged.  This is the sort of answer that comes from God’s spirit directly to Peter’s spirit and to ours as well.

Don’t ask me why some see God in Jesus and some don’t.  Matthew wondered the same thing in his gospel.  There are stories in Matthew’s Gospel where some see Jesus for who he is, God, and others can’t see him for who he is at all and project all sorts of other identities on him.  It’s the Spirit’s doing.  That’s one point of today’s lesson.

4.

Next, our lesson turns its attention to the church.  The word church occurs only twice in the Christian gospels.  Both times are in Matthew’s Gospel.  One of them is right here in today’s lesson.

The word church occurs a lot more in Paul’s letters of the New Testament, which predate the gospels by nearly a generation.  Scholars suggest that we run across the word church in Matthew because Matthew’s community was wondering about who the church is and what the church should be about.

I don’t know about you but I grew tired of this pandemic some time ago.  I’ve lost count of the persons who have told me they want their former lives back – B.C.:  before covid.  I get it.  The layer of complexity and potential hazard this pandemic has added to life feels like a weight on the shoulders or a chain around the feet.  It complicates our interactions and decisions.

Regrettably, we will be in this pandemic for a season or two more if not longer.  If we hadn’t cultivated the virtue of patience with God’s help before, now is a good time to begin doing so.

The pandemic has disrupted everything.  You name it, it’s been disrupted.  School life.  Disrupted.  Civic life.  Disrupted.  Economic life and commerce.  Disrupted.  Church life.  Disrupted.  It makes me want to stomp my feet and holler.

Notice what Jesus tells Peter about the church.  First, Peter gets his new name.  No more Simon for him.  He is now Peter and will be forever.  The Rock.  Second, Jesus tells Peter that he will build his church upon him.  It’s helpful here to know what Jesus meant when he used the word church.  Church is God’s called out company, an assembly of the faithful.

For the moment, we, the church – God’s called out company, God’s assembly of the faithful – are away from our familiar spaces and are missing so many familiar faces.  But we remain the church.  God still entrusts us to be Jesus hands and feet, head and heart in the world.  God still entrusts us to embody Jesus in the world – to say Jesus-like things, to do Jesus-like things.  The other plagues throughout human history were not able to derail the church from its work and mission.  This plague will not derail the church from its work and mission either.

5.

The church’s identity is bound to Jesus’ identity.  Just as the gospels present Jesus to their readers so that others may respond to him in trust and follow him in life, so, too, is the church to present Jesus to the world so that the world may respond to him in trust and follow him in life.  But we all need something, rather someone, to show us and others what trusting Jesus looks like, what following Jesus looks like.

Peter was the early church’s rock upon which others could build their own faith and discipleship.  He was an odd choice.  Impetuous.  He had a habit of speaking before thinking.  He could be timid and cautious, too.  He could boldly proclaim Jesus as God in one moment and withdraw and deny that he ever knew Jesus in the next moment.  Sounds human to me.  And, that’s the point.  That’s the stuff the church is built on.  That’s the stuff the church is built from.  Human stuff.  Peter.  You.  Me.  Us.  But its this human stuff that is infused with God’s spirit – a spirit in and through us that can and will revitalize a congregation, can and will dismantle racism, can and will eradicate poverty.

Peter tells us who Jesus is.  Matthew presents Jesus to us.  How about us?  Do we tell others who Jesus is?  Better yet, do we as a church present Jesus – the Jesus in the gospels?  Amen.