Pentecost 13A 2023

13th Sunday after Pentecost, Year A

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

Brothers and sisters in Christ: grace and peace to you from God our Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

Every time I read this Gospel passage, I am quickly reminded of my trip to the Holy Land in 2015, when I got to visit the site of this scene from Matthew’s Gospel account. Caesarea Philippi in the very northern edge of Israel. Archeologists and historians have somehow figured out the spot where Jesus has this conversation with his disciples. This spot is somewhat central to a variety of temples to various pagan & Greek gods. We saw the temple of Pan (god of nature and music), to whom this city was originally dedicated; I recall seeing a temple to Zeus king of the Greek gods, and there were about a dozen other temples there at one time.

Behind the temples, there’s a cliff, with a large, dark cave in it, with a small body of water at the front of the cave. This cave was known as the Gates of Hell/Hades. For Greeks, they believed that when you died, your spirit would have to go to cross the river Styx, and the boatman would take you across to Hades. This cave was the beginning of the journey to meet the boatman. And it’s a fitting description: the cave is definitely dark and creepy.

So if you can picture this scene, Jesus is standing with his disciples, in front of the gates of Hell, between a bunch of pagan temples, and he asks them: “who do people say the Son of Man is?” At this point, the disciples have been taught that Jesus *is* the Messiah foretold by the prophets. They know that he is God’s Son. Standing at this spot, with the gods of the world, the gods of the Roman Empire surrounding them, makes it quite a powerful moment, and a deeply profound question coming from their Lord and Teacher.

Jesus doesn’t call himself the “Son of God” though. He uses the title “Son of Man”. This is a title that is also used in Ezekiel and Daniel in the Old Testament, and definitely has overtones of the Messiah. Jesus is not taking a poll of public opinion here. He’s asking this "to provide a contrast between the way the world views Jesus and the way Jesus appears to the eyes of faith.” [Long, 183.]

Matthew (Peter’s Confession (Matthew 16:13–20))

The disciples give four answers: Some think of Jesus as John the Baptist, others as Elijah, still others as Jeremiah, and some as one of the prophets (Matt. 16:14). Each identification makes sense in its own way. John the Baptist, like Jesus, was a startling and controversial preacher of the kingdom, and even Herod thought of Jesus as a resurrected John the Baptist (Matt. 14:2); Old Testament prophecy indicated that the old prophet Elijah would reappear at the end of the age, as a signal of the arrival of the “great and terrible day of the LORD” (Mal. 4:5); the suffering prophet Jeremiah, like Jesus, tangled with the authorities and experienced painful rejection; and the classical prophets, like Jesus, spoke with power as they announced the new action of God in the world.

In all four of these cases, there is something familiar about Jesus to the public. In popular opinion, they’ve seen Jesus before: “John [the Baptist], Jeremiah, Elijah, or whoever.... Nothing about Jesus is new, unique, or challenging; he is merely one of the old prophets recycled. The people have turned Jesus, who is a window to the kingdom of heaven, into a mirror. They look at Jesus but see only the reflection of religious ideas from their past.” [Long, 184.]

Obviously, all of these ideas about Jesus are wrong. The disciples knew that. We know that. But just like 1st century Judea, the world today has some incorrect ideas about Jesus. And this is common across all 2000 years in between. Society has always been “tempted to transform Jesus into its own image. Jesus has been described as a great teacher of wisdom, a social reformer, a champion of individual freedom and worth, a gentle nature lover, a mystic, or a streetwise revolutionary.” [Long, 184.] There are some for whom Jesus is little more than a good luck charm: pray to him and things will go your way. Do you remember in 2012 when Jesus was described as a “community organizer”? Yeah the world has definitely tried to describe Jesus in ways that fit its own narrative. If Jesus is just who *I* say he is, then I can choose how he fits into my life of faith.

Think about that for a moment. If Jesus is just a wise teacher, then I can choose whether to learn what he teaches. He is really no more important than Buddha or Ghandi or Confucius. If Jesus is just a social reformer, then his efforts - and the changes they led to - largely died with the collapse of the Roman Empire. Nothing but a gentle nature lover? Completely forgettable. If he’s just that good luck charm, then I only pray to him when I need something, rather than praying to him daily, in joy and in sorrow, giving praise and thanks.

When one of us mere mortals decides to define who Jesus is, we put Jesus in a box that puts limits on him. It limits his true identity, sure, but it also limits his authority, his reach, and his influence. In particular, it limits his authority and influence over the life of the one who put him in that box.

But here’s the thing: Jesus is not who we say he is; Jesus is who *He* says He is. That list that the world made isn’t all bad. The problem is that the world tries to limit him to just one of the things on the list at a time. Jesus is more likely all of them. He’s certainly a wise teacher. He’s also a social reformer AND a champion of individual freedom and worth, AND a gentle nature lover, etc. But this list leaves out His most important identity: He is the Christ, the Son of the Living God; this is Peter’s answer.

In Peter’s confession, he tells Jesus what it is to see Jesus through the eyes of faith. To proclaim Jesus as the Christ/the Messiah is to believe that Jesus is the answer to prophecy and the fulfillment of all of God’s promises. To see Jesus through the eyes of faith is to believe what Jesus claims about himself: all of it.

Jesus’ response to Peter is a good explanation of why faith is a gift from God, and not something we can come up with on our own. “Flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven.” Peter has seen Jesus’ true identity, which shows his own faith in Christ, and his teacher gives him a star for the day - he got the answer perfectly right. (Don’t worry, this is Peter, so you know he puts his foot in his mouth in the very next paragraph…but it’s nice to see him get the right answer, too.)

But Peter’s confession is his own, too. It’s both his confession of faith and a gift from God. This gives us 2 important insights. First, to come to faith in Jesus as “the Christ, the Son of the Living God” is to finally give up any thought that you have earned this great faith that you now proclaim. That’s not how it works. Faith is not a sign of our ability to reach great achievements in faith. Rather, it’s “a sign of God’s willingness to bend down to us, to be ‘Emmanuel’ in our world. Peter is able to say what he does only because God came near to Peter through Jesus, the Son. Peter is not merely informed about Jesus; Peter knows Jesus, an intimacy possible, of course, only because Jesus has entered into communion with Peter. Jesus has given himself, given the very self of God, to Peter, and Peter’s confession, then, is not an answer to a theological riddle; it is the expression of a profound relationship.” [Long, 185.]

Second, “this does not mean that faith comes only through mystical experience, irrational illumination, or some kind of channeling of the divine Spirit. The Gospel of Matthew makes it absolutely clear that Jesus was a teacher and the disciples were diligent students under his instruction. Peter was in class every day, listening to Jesus’ words, watching Jesus perform kingdom deeds. Peter’s faith was a disciplined, ‘schooled,’ informed faith.” [Long, 185.]

So Peter’s bold and passionate confession are followed by a promise from Jesus. A couple of promises, actually. The best part of this passage is in verse 18: “…on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.” Remember where they are standing when Jesus says this? In front of the Gates of Hell! Now, aside from being a bold and very obvious visual reference in the backdrop of this conversation, it also has a symbolic meaning. “The ‘gates of hell’ is a symbol for everything that opposes God’s will—the powers of death and destruction that ravage human life. Jesus’ promise does not mean that the church will be free of trouble. Indeed, through the ages the church has experienced every kind of distress imaginable. The promise is not that the Christians will not go through hell; the promise is that hell does not hold the winning hand and that the powers of death will not have the last word. When all is said and done, hell’s devastation will be exposed as an empty threat because Jesus, who calmed the savage winds, shouted out the chaotic demons, subdued the devastation of disease, and conquered death, will save and protect” his flock. [Long, 186.] This next couple of verses explain the second promise, and these verses are the foundation of what we call the “apostolic” church - remember that line in the Nicene Creed? This refers to the authority of priests that Jesus gives to Peter and the 12, who then passed that authority down through every early priest and on down through Martin Luther to all the pastors today who confess this tradition - all denominations who confess these ancient Creeds. We call it “apostolic succession”, and it is where bishops and pastors draw our authority from. We do not get our authority from the congregation; we draw our authority from Christ himself. This passage is why.

Jesus has built a church, and it has withstood every kind of distress imaginable. It still stands…even when it seems weak, it still stands. We are a part of that same church, that Christ himself began 2000 years ago. We join Peter in confessing this Jesus of Nazareth as the Christ, the Son of the Living God.

The question each of us needs to ask is the question Jesus asks his disciples: “Who do you say that I am?” In other words, who is Jesus to you in your daily life? Is he Lord or is he just a wise teacher? Is he your savior, who redeemed you and paid the price for you, or is he just a good moral example we ought to follow? When we answer as Peter does, our choices and decisions can sometimes become more difficult. Remember those little “WWJD” wristbands? If Jesus is truly your Lord, what impact does that have on your choices and decisions? How does that change your priorities?

The first core value of the North American Lutheran Church states that we are “Christ-centered”. Christ is central to our beliefs. And that means Christ as the Son of the Living God. Christ as our Lord and Savior. He guides our values and principles, certainly. But most of all, He died for us to ensure that we would be set free from sin. He conquered death to guarantee our eternity. Like he did with Peter and the other disciples, Jesus offers himself to us. He comes to us in Word and Sacrament, reveals himself to us, and gives us faith - faith in Him that we need to walk the path he has called us to.

Unlike Peter, however, we *are* called to tell people that He is the Christ. “Jesus is Lord” is the first confession of the Church. It is a good start to how we share him with the community. Let us share this confession with our neighbors. Yes, we can share it by speaking it. But let’s also share this confession by living out this faith. Let’s let the world around us know that Jesus is Lord in the choices and decisions we make.

I pray that our choices as a congregation and as individual disciples of Jesus Christ in the days ahead will carry the Gospel to the community around us, and bring others to the faith we share.

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