Sermon: Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost, Matthew 16:13-20, August 27, 2023 Faith-La Fe Lutheran Church, Pastor Jonathan Linman

Sermon: Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost, Matthew 16:13-20, August 27, 2023

Faith-La Fe Lutheran Church, Pastor Jonathan Linman

Evey generation in every culture has a tendency to create Jesus in its own image. Because it’s so difficult to bridge the gaps between Jesus’ day and culture and ours in North America in 2023, we can’t help but understand Jesus in ways familiar to us. You can readily see this tendency in art and images of Jesus down through the ages and cross-culturally. Among Northern Europeans, Jesus is often portrayed in art as being white, blonde and blue-eyed. And while we don’t know what Jesus looked like, it’s most likely the case that he had dark hair, dark eyes, and was olive skinned as are natives of the Mideast.

It's human to tend to end up creating Jesus in our own image. Again, Jesus and has messages have to make sense to us. That is, Jesus needs to be translated into language and cultural terms that we understand and can relate to.

But then, too, human sin and shortsightedness can get in the way of seeing Jesus for who is really was and is. We humans tend to want to make Jesus become our chaplain to support whatever it is we’re up to, to give sacred permission and license to our doings and sometimes to legitimate even our most wicked schemes.

This kind of thing was evident on the belt buckles of soldiers in Hitler’s army – Gott mit us. That is, God is with us. Jesus is on our side.

We all are prone to this tendency to create Jesus in our own image. In terms of my view of Jesus and his teaching and what he was up to, my Jesus aligns pretty well with the progressive politics of the Democratic Party.

Then those on the religion right, especially Christian nationalists, want a Jesus who is muscular, a warrior to fight the battles of culture wars – an image of Jesus far from that of the Prince of Peace.

All of this, of course, gets us humans into big trouble when we resist letting Jesus be who he really is. And seeing God in Christ on our side, whatever side of the spectrum we’re on, can give the appearance of divine legitimacy for unspeakable evil and human suffering.

We see these dynamics of viewing Jesus according to our own human terms played out in today’s gospel reading. Jesus was traveling with his disciples and asked them, “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?” That is to say, what’s the very human popular opinion about me?

The disciples’ replies reveal that from the human perspective of the religious culture of Jesus’ day, popular opinion was that Jesus was a prophet like John the Baptist, or Elijah or one of the other historic, Hebrew prophets.

In short, they created Jesus in their own image in terms familiar to them. They knew about prophets. So naturally, they understood Jesus to be a prophet. What else could they say from their limited, human points of view? Of course, their answer missed the mark and didn’t fully capture who Jesus was.

But then Jesus turned his attention to the views of his own disciples: “But who do YOU say that I am?” That’s a good question for us in our day, too, by the way. Who do you say that Jesus is? You don’t need to answer right now! But think about it. Your answers could actually reveal a lot about you and your needs and desires…

But turning back to today’s gospel story: Simon, son of Jonah, spoke on behalf of the twelve and gave the response. Simon said, “You are the Messiah, [the Christ, the anointed one] the Son of the living God.”

This seemed to please Jesus when he said, “Blessed [happy] are, Simon son of Jonah!”  But then Jesus goes on to say, “For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you but my Father in heaven.”

That is to say, getting the right answer about Jesus as the Messiah, the Christ, the anointed one as Son of the living God, was not something Simon came up with on his own. In fact, Simon, as we shall see in next week’s gospel where Jesus predicts his coming death and resurrection, gets it wrong when he told Jesus, “God forbit it, Lord! This [that is, your suffering and dying] must never happen to you!” – a completely natural, human response. But for Jesus, his death and resurrection were the centerpiece of his identity as Son of the living God – and that continues to be true for us today. But Peter got it wrong and said so. And Jesus retorted: “Get behind me, Satan; you are putting your mind on human things and not divine things.”

So, it wasn’t Peter’s brilliance that led to his confession of faith in Jesus as the Christ, the one who died and rose three days later. Rather, that insight was itself a gift of God. It was God’s revelation to Simon that led him to confess Jesus as Christ.

And this remains true of us today: if we confess Jesus as the Christ, the Son of the living God, our confession of faith today still persists as a gift from God to us who otherwise in our humanity still cannot comprehend the confounding, mysterious wisdom of God.

Going on with the story, this gift of true insight having been given to Simon, Jesus says still more: “And 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.”

That is to say, Christ builds his church on the rock which is the teaching about him being the Son of the living God, and Jesus builds his church also on Peter, the apostle, who would be sent to be a teacher to proclaim Jesus as the Christ, the savior. So, the teaching and the teacher go hand in hand, and all of the forces of death and the abyss will not diminish or overcome the power of the divine teaching of the church.

And Jesus is still not finished addressing Peter when he says, “I 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.”

Here, Jesus gave Peter the authority as apostolic teacher to unlock for others the mysteries and gifts of the dominion of heaven. And his teaching authority was binding. And Peter’s teaching authority also had the power to loosen or free people from other forms of bondage – for example, by forgiving people of their sins.

The gift from God to Peter that led to his confession of faith in Jesus as the Son of the living God thus led to Jesus commissioning him to be an apostle, one sent to teach and proclaim Christ, to pass on to new people and generations the faithful teaching about Christ. 

So it is that Roman Catholics understand Peter as the first Pope, the first in a long line of the apostolic succession of popes to this day in the person of Pope Francis.

But here’s the remarkable thing: the gift of apostolic authority given to Peter is also given to many, far and wide. That’s what we Lutherans also believe. Even we here are part of a long lineage and stand on the shoulders of those great teachers who have preceded us, as suggested by the prophet Isaiah in today’s first reading: “Listen to me, you who pursue righteousness, you who seek the Lord. Look to the rock from which you were hewn and to the quarry from which you were dug. Look to Abraham your father and to Sarah, who bore you….” (Isaiah 51:1-2a) That is to say, we are beckoned to acknowledge our ancestors in the faith who taught us that faith.

And the truth of divine teaching that saves us continues to this very day, again, as suggested by Isaiah: “Listen to me, my people, and give heed to me, my nation, for a teaching will go out from me and my justice for a light to the peoples. I will bring near my deliverance swiftly; my salvation has gone out…” (Isaiah 51:4-5a)

By God’s grace, we share with Peter in the apostolic teaching authority given to him, and this is further suggested by another one of our great teachers, the apostle Paul, who understands that each of us baptized believers is a part, a member of Christ’s body, the church. As such we share in Christ’s teaching authority and are integral to the ongoing mission of the apostles. As Paul writes, “For as in one body we have many parts and not all the parts have the same function, so we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually we are parts one of another. We have gifts that differ according to the grace given to us: prophecy, in proportion to faith; ministry, in ministering; the teacher, in teaching; the encourager, in encouragement; the giver, in sincerity; the leader, in diligence; the compassionate, in cheerfulness.” (Romans 12:4-8)

In other words, each of us in our own God-given ways has access to the keys to the kingdom of heaven. It’s not unlike the large number of lay leaders in any given congregation who tend to have keys to various parts of the church building! But it’s not just rooms that we unlock. No, in our respective and various ministries in daily life, we unlock for others the truth of God’s reign in Christ through the little and big things we do and say – offering prophetic words, or words of encouragement and deeds of cheerful compassion, some of us leading, some of us teaching, all of us giving and ministering in our own ways as we share in the apostolic mission which Christ gave to Peter and the other apostles and to us.

And God in Christ in the power of the Spirit still gives us the gift of the confession of faith in Jesus as the Christ, the Son of the living God, letting Jesus be who he really is, helping us to resist the temptations to create Jesus in our own image – and all of this to unlock the gifts of God’s reign for all people and all of creation, for the healing of the nations and of the cosmos. Thanks be to God. Amen.