Matthew 16.13-20

Matthew 16.13-20 (NRSV) SERMON: Peter’s Declaration about Jesus

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?’ ¹⁴And they said, ‘Some say John the Baptist, but others Elijah, and still others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.’ ¹⁵He said to them, ‘But who do you say that I am?’ ¹⁶Simon Peter answered, ‘You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.’ ¹⁷And 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. ¹⁸And 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. ¹⁹I 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.’ ²⁰Then he sternly ordered the disciples not to tell anyone that he was the Messiah.

William Barclay has been a source I have used in preparation for this homily.

My text this morning is written in Matthew 16.13:

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?’ 

Today’s reading contains some of the most discussed verses in the New Testament, especially the words of Peter in verses 16-19; but it is important to place them into their context. It takes place in the district of Caesarea Philippi, about 20 miles south of the Sea of Galilee. Jesus asks his disciples who people say he is and they reply, John, Elijah, Jeremiah or one of the prophets. Then Jesus asks them who they themselves think he is and this is when Simon Peter replies: “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” Jesus responds saying that it is God who has revealed this to Peter and that Peter is the rock on which the new Israel will be built and over which death will have no power. In addition, Peter will be given the power to admit people into the kingdom which is coming, because his teaching and disciplinary actions within the community will be endorsed by God. Then he tells them to tell no one that he is the Messiah.

Jesus and the disciples had once more withdrawn from the crowds. The end of his ministry was drawing near and Jesus needed more time to be with his disciples and prepare them for their future ministry. Where they were was outside the domain of Herod Antipas and the population was mainly non-Jewish and Jesus would therefore have peace to teach the twelve. Jesus needed to know if anyone really understood: was there anyone who, when he had left this fleshly life, would be able to carry on his work?

When we are faced with challenges, we need to withdraw, gather together with those close to us and discern a way forward. There is a very real sense that this happens each week when we gather together with the people of God, to receive teaching and nurture to discern God’s will for us.

Peter means rock and here Jesus is once again Jesus using the powerful tool of metaphor to do some important teaching. An informed Jew at the time would have understood the image better than most of us today. The rabbis applied the image of a rock to Abraham as the founder of their faith, but never intended this to let people think that Abraham was more important to their core understanding that God is the rock (see Deuteronomy 32.4, 31, 1 Samuel 2.2, 2 Samuel 22.2 also Psalm 18.31). But it was permissible to call someone a rock and by doing so you would be paying them the greatest compliment, because it would turn one’s mind to God, who alone is the true rock.

In the light of this Old Testament teaching, St Augustine drew the conclusion that Jesus was referring to himself here as the rock, being the incarnation of God, and that he was paying Peter a wonderful compliment. Barclay paraphrases, Augustine suggesting that Jesus would have being saying something like: ‘...You are Peter; and on myself as rock I will found my Church; and the day will come when, as a reward for your faith, you will be great in the Church.’

It is important that we understand the way people wrote over 2000 years ago: how people wrote a hundred years ago is profoundly different to today and so going back that much further needs careful consideration. It is therefore a mistake to read important passages like this with uncritical modern western eyes.

There is also the dimension that this metaphor refers to the truth – the foundation of the Christian message – and this is the truth that Jesus is the Messiah; the Son of the living God. It was God himself who had opened Peter’s eyes to this truth. ¹⁷And Jesus answered Peter, ‘Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father in heaven.’ We all know that reason, by itself can be dangerous for it leads to the horrors and evils of things like Nazism – and today people are realising that if one takes a fundamentalistic approach to rationalism and science this too, is dangerous. This is why the Church requires us to find truth in the Bible, plus reason, plus the combined wisdom of the ages. Within the Methodist tradition, we are required to add experience, because all these together provide the checks and balances to ensure that we find what really is true.

Yet another dimension is that the rock is a reference to Peter’s faith – which is also central – because membership of the Church is by faith – and this gift from God is part of the foundation of what it means to be a Christian. For our very salvation is the free gift of God of faith that is offered to all, again within the Methodist tradition affirming that all NEED to be saved, all CAN be saved, and can KNOW that they are saved and all can be saved to the UTTERMOST. And all this is by faith alone.

But the more literal understanding also contains important truth – and this is that Peter himself is the rock, because he is the first initial foundation stone of the whole Church because he was the first to come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah.

Often the authors of the biblical books use images to make a particularly important point and, as Barclay points out, ‘... the details of the picture are not to be stressed; it is the point which is being made ...’ Here, the purpose of the metaphor is to show how Peter is the foundation in the sense that he is the one person on whom the whole church is built because he was the first to come to understand who Jesus really is. We know, from the rest of the New Testament, that Jesus did not mean us to understand that Peter, literally, was the foundation. In fact, others are also referred to as foundations: in Ephesians 2.10 the prophets and the apostles are said to be the foundation of the Church because it was upon their work, witness and faithfulness that the Church was founded. This is why their works are included in the Bible. Paul also refers to Jesus as the corner-stone, or cap-stone, because Jesus holds everything together, and without him everything would just fall apart. Peter, in his writings, speaks of Christians as living stones confirming that all those who believe are part of the building blocks of the church – part of its very fabric. Paul, writing to the Corinthians, refers to Jesus as the only foundation as we read: ‘For no one can lay any foundation other than the one that has been laid; that foundation is Jesus Christ.’ In our Gospel reading, Jesus was not saying to Peter that the Church depended on Peter; merely that the Church began with Peter.

Matthew’s reference to the Church is also not as many people would assume it is today – a denomination or a building, but the gathering of the people of God – so Jesus is here too saying to Peter (as Barclay paraphrases) ‘Peter, you are the beginning of the New Israel, the new people of the Lord, the new fellowship of those who believe in my name.’

Jesus then goes on using an image of a fortress – ‘... the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it ...’ On the top of the mountain overlooking Caesarea Philippi, there was a great castle. As Jesus was talking to his disciples, this could have caught his eye and so he expanded his metaphor to include what it offered. Within the fellowship of believers, we should feel safe and secure because Jesus is holding everything together and Jesus and his ways should be the norm.

Hades was never, in Jewish tradition, a place of punishment, just the place where the dead went, and so the essence of what Jesus is saying here, is that his death and Resurrection would mean the defeat of the power of Hades and death. This is the wonderful good news that death is only tragic for those people left behind; because of our sadness and the fact that we miss the person who has died; but for them, they do not go to the place of death, but to the presence of our Lord, Jesus, the Messiah – which (as Paul put it) is better by far!

We have the keys of the kingdom, because we have been entrusted with the message of the Good News that death is a lie, death is not the end, death has been defeated, because there was a man in history, Jesus, from a town in Galilee, called Nazareth – and he revealed God to the world and overcame death for us. When we make the same discovery, together with Peter, we have the same privileges and responsibilities to fulfil.

Today all people are confronted with the same question: ‘Who is Jesus’? John Robinson’s writes:

Who this man was, was a man ... who yet stood in a unique relationship to God, speaking and acting for him. He was ‘the man who lived God’, his representative, his plenipotentiary to whom ‘everything was entrusted and yet who was and could do nothing ‘in himself’’.

This mystery makes perfect sense when we answer the question with Peter: Jesus is ‘... the Messiah, the Son of the living God.’ 

Who do you say the Son of Man is?  Amen.