A Dangerous Answer

Proper 16A: Matthew 16.13-20

Before he became a pastor, Frederick Buechner grew up among the very sophisticated East Coast elite. Many of those he rubbed elbows with were urbane people, who fancied themselves too “sophisticated” to engage with anything resembling God or religion. When he was a young man, Buechner mentioned at a high-class dinner party that he was going to seminary to become a pastor. His hostess for the evening fixed an incredulous gaze on Buechner before asking, "A pastor? Really. Tell me, was this your own idea or were you ill-advised?” Many years later, Buechner taught a semester at Wheaton College, the respected evangelical Christian college. At lunch one day, sitting with some students, he overheard one student casually ask another, “What has God been doing in your life lately?” Buechner mused to himself that if a question like that were asked back in New York City, the ground would open up, buildings would crumble, and grown men would faint dead away.

Many times, how a question sounds depends on the setting! This is certainly true about the question Jesus poses to the disciples in today’s gospel lesson. Every now and then Jesus quizzes his disciples to see how much they are taking in, how well they’ve been paying attention. Here he asks questions that touch on something truly central to what Jesus was up to: “Who do people say that the Son of Man is? Who do you say I am?” Now, Jesus could have asked these questions in any number of places—in the Temple, on a mountaintop, on a boat by the sea. But instead he chose to ask them outside Caesarea Philippi.

Now, Caesarea Philippi was a relatively new city in Jesus’ day, but it was built near an ancient pagan shrine on the slopes of Mount Hermon. Because waters bubbled and gurgled through caves at the base of the mountain, the people who lived there had long believed this to be the doorway into the underworld, a place where the spirits of the deep tried to communicate with the living on the surface. Those with keen faculties, they believed, would be able to hear the whispers of the departed and the voice of the underworld gods trying to communicate with those above. Sometimes brimstone gases were emitted, and the offensive odor only confirmed that belief. Over the centuries, a variety of religious sects had used the place as a cultic shrine. They cut niches in the rock walls of the mountain just above the burbling caves and set up statues of gods they thought might be resident there. More recently, that is, around 20 B.C., Caesar Augustus, the Roman Emperor, had given the town and its surrounding region to King Herod, you know, the one who tried to kill Jesus when he was an infant. Herod built up the city, including a temple of white marble dedicated to a new deity, the “divine” Caesar. After Herod died in 4 B.C., the region passed to King Philip, who further built up the place and renamed it Caesarea Philippi, literally “Philip's Caesarville,” to flatter and honor his patron, the new emperor, Tiberias Caesar.

So Jesus and the disciples were standing in a place that just oozed pagan idolatry and power politics. In fact, you couldn’t have found a place in Palestine that better symbolized the ways of the world, the ways of brute force, of the exploitation of the weak, of “might makes right.”

It’s no small thing then that it was here that Jesus asked the disciples, “Who do people say that I am?” I mean, it would have been one thing for Jesus to ask the question in some quiet village in Galilee, but it's quite another matter to ask it in Caesarea, amidst the idols and monuments to imperial power and all that goes along with them. The setting transforms Jesus’ question from a question of curiosity into one loaded with implications.

You see, when Simon Peter replied, “You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God,” his answer wasn’t just revelatory, revealed by God, but also revolutionary. Theological, yes, but also political. Given where they were, in King Philip's city dedicated to Caesar, Peter's confession, that Jesus is the Christ, could be seen as a shot across the Roman political bow, a clear challenge to Rome’s rule. For, it was thought that the Messiah would be an anointed military leader who would come like the heroes of the Old Testament to lead an army of Jewish freedom fighters to kick out the infidels, the Romans, and restore Israel to its former glory. That’s what the Jews of Jesus’ day were expecting.

But, that’s not what Jesus is about. Jesus is not that kind of Messiah. This again goes back to where they were when he asked his question. Standing against the backdrop of the symbols of worldly power—idols and altars to false gods, pagan shrines, an imperial stronghold—in that context, Jesus’ identification as the Messiah was meant to be a challenge to the powers-that-be, clearly, just not in the way that was assumed. As each of the Gospels show, Jesus wasn’t just claiming to be the rightful ruler of the Jews, but also that his way of ruling is the right way of ruling, God’s way of ruling. Jesus’ just and merciful rule then not only challenges but contrasts with the rule of worldly authorities.

Seen in this light, Simon’s confession takes on a greater significance. To identify Jesus as the Messiah is a claim of allegiance. It is to declare oneself not just for who should rule, but also about what vision should rule, about what is true and good and right. To confess that Jesus is the Christ is to make a claim of a certain vision of the world, not only of who Jesus is, but also about the world as God sees it and where we fit into it, how we are to live.

Notice how in this exchange Jesus moves Simon quickly from belief to action, from a declaration of conviction to an assignment, from confession of faith to vocation. And he does so using a witty play on words, though you wouldn’t know it from the translation. Jesus says “Blessed are you Simon son of Jonah. For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father in heaven. I tell you, you are Peter (petros in Greek) and on this rock (petra) I will build my church.” It is the same word that Jesus uses in both instances, first the masculine and then the feminine form of the Greek word for “rock.” There is however a subtle difference between the two. Petros, or Peter—the name Jesus gives Simon—means a stone or a pebble, a small piece of a larger rock, while petra means a great big rock or rock formation. So that makes Peter a chip off the old block, a piece of the Rock of Ages, on which Jesus will build his church.

That gets us to the thorny matter of what Jesus meant by his clever word play. It’s something Catholics and Protestants have been arguing over it for centuries. What exactly is the “rock” on which the church will be built? Was it Peter, who is considered the first Pope, as Catholics contend? Or was it Peter’s confession of Christ, which Protestants argue? I don’t know about you, but I don’t see why it can’t be both, both Peter and his confession are the rock. For, who Peter is and will be is defined by his confession of Christ, and his confession comes out of who he is as Peter. One leads to the other.

The same is true about us— our identity is directly related to who we say Jesus is. Our answer to Jesus’ question defines who we are and how we live —or at least it should. A colleague of mine tells me of a professor friend of his. This friend was born a Christian, that is to say, he was baptized and raised in the church, but, when he went to college and then graduate school, he was disillusioned, disappointed by the church’s response to the Civil Rights Movement and grew away from the Christian faith. He became, in his own words, “sort of a Christian, but one who didn’t actually practice Christianity, a believer but not a doer.” He ended up becoming an expert in East-West business relations. In the 1980s, at a conference on business in the Soviet Union, he had a conversation with an official from the Soviet bloc. “You are a Christian,” she said, “I’m an atheist. Tell me – what difference does your belief in God make in the way you vote, the way you spend your money? Tell me, when is the last time that you did something because you stopped and asked yourself, ‘What does God want me to do in this case?’”  The professor was stunned. He said, “I realized that though I believed like a believer, I lived like an atheist.” It was a stunning moment of honest recognition for him and thanks be to God, it eventually led him back to a vibrant Christian faith.

But it makes me wonder how we would respond, if we were asked that question. If we believe that Jesus is “the Christ, the Son of God,” then what difference does that make in how we live, in how we spend our time, what we do with the money God has given us, the talents we have received, the jobs we take and the friendships we maintain? Do we live as “practical atheists” or as people whose behavior confirms their belief? Sadly, many of us think that “Christian” is synonymous with being a sensitive, thinking, caring American. But, of course, it means so much more.

Charles Colson was a politically powerful man, serving under President Nixon. Obedient to the President, Colson did some terrible things against the people of the United States. Then he got caught, went to prison, and there had his life turned around. In jail, he came to be a sure, certain believer. But maybe even more impressive than that, Colson became a vibrant, engaged, courageous “doer.” He began the world-wide Prison Fellowship that goes into prisons and reaches people for Jesus Christ. He also founded the Chuck Colson Center for Christian Worldview, was an editor of the magazine Christianity Today, and had a radio ministry, Breakpoint, which was heard on more than 1,400 outlets across the United States. In his life after prison, after his conversion, Colson showed that he not only believed in Jesus but also followed Jesus. Little wonder that one of his most popular books is entitled How Now Shall We Live?. Colson was all in favor of orthodox belief, but he knew enough about Jesus to know that such belief ought to lead to risky, courageous Christian action.

And so it has been for countless Christians throughout the ages, Christians who have not only professed their faith but also staked their life on Jesus Christ. Sometimes their faith led them to courageous actions, sometimes their profession was itself an act of courage.

Who do you say I am? If Jesus were to ask us this question today, in our context, how would we answer him? It’s easy to profess Jesus as Lord, God’s anointed, here, in the safe confines of this church. But what does it mean for us to name him in the face of the gods and symbols of power of our day?

However we answer, our answer must mean more than just believing. Naming Jesus as Christ, the Son of God is not just something we say, but something we do, that we live out. It is what makes us who we are. It’s what guides our lives by, what we take direction from, something we draw strength from. It not only enables us to endure assaults but empowers us to do the courageous, to storm the very gates of hell, confident that they cannot withstand the Church, the power of Christ in the world. That is quite a claim, quite a promise, quite a power. But that power is given to us because of who Jesus is. And, for that we say, Thanks be to God!