August 21, 2011
Pentecost 10
Romans 12:1-8
Matthew 16:13-20
(prayer)
Last week, we read the rather compelling story about Jesus and the Canaanite woman along the Lebanese coast. That encounter inspired Jesus to open his message up beyond (what he called) ‘the lost sheep of Israel’. And so from that point on in the narrative we can read about Jesus travelling more in Gentile territories and ministering to broader groups of people.
In today’s reading from Matthew 16, Jesus ventures north and east of the Sea of Galilee (his home base at Capernaum): to the region of Caesarea Philippi. The city of Caesarea Philippi was on the eastern side of the headwaters of the Jordan River, but Jesus may not have been up that far: the Tetarchy of Philip was a Galilean-sized region to the east – Jesus may have been just over the border. But it is significant that he was travelling beyond Galilee and Judea, among people of ‘other nations’.
Even there, on foreign soil, Jesus was known. Rumours about him abounded. And so Jesus asks about the gossip. The same story is told in both Mark (ch 8) and Luke (ch 9) where Jesus asks “Who do people say that I am?” But here in Matthew the question is a little more veiled: “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?”
[Aside: The phrase ‘son of man’ is used in the Hebrew Bible (aka Old Testament) over one hundred times. The Hebrew phrase ben-adam means son of humanity (adam=man as opposed to animal, not man as opposed to female); from the Genesis 2 creation story, where the first human is created out of the earth/dirt (adamah). For the most part within Hebrew history the phrase ‘son of man’ simply means a person, a human, a mortal. The exception is found in the book of Daniel, which uses the phrase in a divine context. 7:13As I watched in the night visions, I saw one like a son of man coming with the clouds of heaven.
And he came to the Ancient One and was presented before him. 14To him was given dominion and glory and kingship, that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion that shall not pass away, and his kingship is one that shall never be destroyed.
As we read the New Testament gospels it appears that the phrase son of man took on Messianic significance. The phrase in the book of Daniel 7 of one like a son of man coming upon the clouds of the sky to unite the world was consistent with how the early church viewed Jesus after his resurrection. And so, it is likely that the Gospels' use of the son of man eighty-three times represents an apocalyptic title of Jesus. When Jesus is quoted using the words, we can assume that he is referring to himself – often the phrase denotes the suffering and passion that destined to be part of Jesus’ ministry. Now whether this phrase goes all the way back to Jesus or whether it is an addition of the gospel writers is not all that clear (in today’s passage, it looks like Matthew’s author made the conscious choice to change the language of the older Marken text).]
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What are people saying – who is Jesus?
Some say: John the Baptist (who had been executed by this time) or Elijah or Jeremiah or one of the other prophets of old. That’s pretty high praise, really. People saw Jesus as standing in the line of great and admired leaders of the faith.
But...who you say that I am? And here Matthew does not use son of man: like Mark and Luke, Jesus speaks in the first person to his disciples – who do you say that I am? Simon is the one who speaks up: “You are the Messiah!” Matthew adds “the Son of the Living God” (not in Mark or Luke).
That’s big – it’s one thing to see Jesus as a prophet but to see him as God’s ‘anointed one’ was a much more significant claim. So how does Jesus react: he sternly ordered the disciples not to tell anyone that he was the Messiah. This is what biblical scholars call the Messianic Secret. It is found throughout the book of Mark (the first gospel to be written) and scholars debate whether the goal is to wait until the right time to reveal who Jesus is (understood after the resurrection) or to allow Jesus to avoid celebrity status and move around more anonymously or even to keep Jesus from upsetting the authorities. The messianic secret also appears a few times in Luke and Matthew (as they copied the sections from Mark). Earlier in Matthew (chapter 12) we get a clue to how Matthew viewed things:
14The Pharisees went out and conspired against him, how to destroy him. 15When Jesus became aware of this, he departed. Many crowds followed him, and he cured all of them, 16and he ordered them not to make him known. 17This was to fulfil what had been spoken through the prophet Isaiah:
18‘Here is my servant, whom I have chosen, my beloved, with whom my soul is well pleased. I will put my Spirit upon him, and he will proclaim justice to the Gentiles. 19He will not wrangle or cry aloud, nor will anyone hear his voice in the streets. 20He will not break a bruised reed or quench a smouldering wick until he brings justice to victory. 21And in his name the Gentiles will hope.’
Matthew is the only gospel to include this Isaiah quote here. For Matthew the secret was to keep Jesus safe.
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The Matthew reading from chapter 16 today, also has an addition that Mark and Luke don’t have for the same story: the commending of Simon.
Simon was one of the first disciples of Jesus – a fisherman from the shore of the Sea of Galilee – he joined Jesus along with his brother Andrew and fellow fishers James and John: remember “come fish with me…for people!” After Jesus’ death and resurrection, Simon was one of the key leaders who kept the Jesus Movement alive. At some point during their time together, Jesus noticed a strength and determination in Simon and gave him a nickname: Cephas – the Aramaic word for rock. Because the books and letters of the New Testament were written in greek, we are more used to the anglicized-greek translation of Cephas: Peter (from Petros – a male version of Petra, which is greek for rock).
Matthew places this nick-naming right after Simon confesses Jesus to be the Messiah. John’s gospel has Jesus giving him the nickname on the day he called Simon away from his fishing boat. Mark simply notes that Simon was also called Peter by Jesus, but doesn’t tell us how or when that happened. I couldn’t find any reference to the formal nicknaming in Luke, but Simon is referred to as Peter throughout. When the Apostle Paul was writing his letters, he referred to Simon mostly as Peter, but also used Cephas a few times, which supports the likely scenario that when Simon was nicknamed it was the Aramaic word for rock Chepas…but later greek-speaking Christians came to know him as Petros, which is why we call him Peter.
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I like to think that it was at that moment where Simon could not contain his belief that Jesus was the long awaited anointed one of God (the Messiah) that he was commended for his solid faith. ‘You are a rock, Simon!’
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Even though, Jesus did not seem to want the news to spread too quickly, once Peter said the words and they were out, there was no going back. The disciples had to look at Jesus differently from that point forward. Their outlook was changed – their thinking had been transformed.
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I love the phrase "God is not finished with me yet". It’s kind of a fun statement of faith of active God who (as we say in the United Church Creed) ‘has created and is creating’. It highlights the hope that we are not yet set in stone - that we have the opportunity to become more than we are: to learn, to grow, to transform – and that this is somehow consistent with the mysterious mind of God.
Even from the early decades of the Christian movement, it has been believed that Transformation is the central desire of the person of faith. We see that in the part of the letter that Paul wrote to the young Christian church in Rome which we read this morning: ‘be transformed by the renewing of your minds’.
Paul writes that the followers of Jesus are to see themselves as holy, living sacrifices – offered to God; life itself is worship!
To understand this, we need to understand Paul’s experiences of worship and sacrifice. The sacrificial system was a central element in Judaism until the temple was destroyed as part of a failed Jewish revolt against the roman occupation in the year 70CE. Paul was active as an early Christian leader in the 50s, so (to Paul) bringing offerings of grain and livestock to the temple at festival times was an important part of the worship life that he was nurtured on.
This letter to the Christian church in Rome was written after Paul had been an active missionary for quite some time: probably about the 57 or so. As a result, it is a comprehensive epistle which contains a fairly complete teaching on what it means to receive God’s saving love as a free gift through faith. By this time, Paul had worked out his theology and had come to believe some key things about what it meant to connect to God through Christ Jesus.
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Paul may have been nurtured within the Jewish Temple worship system, he was quite clear that the grace of God through faith in Jesus was available to be people beyond Judaism. Paul argued quite strenuously that the gentile believers did not have to first convert to Judaism to become Christian. So he needed to speak to a broader audience in language that would be real for them.
So worship was not tied to the fruits of one’s agricultural labours, especially in the urban context of the City of Rome.
Life, itself, is worship. Our bodies, themselves, are offered as living sacrifices. This knowledge had to have an effect on a person. Within each life, there is something to offer in the service of God. Here in Romans, we see a shorter version of what Paul had earlier written to the Corinthian Christians – together, we are like a body of Christ and each of us a part of something greater than ourselves. And like our physical bodies, many parts are needed to make the body complete. And so, even though people may offer different gifts to the service of God, it is the combination that makes things whole.
It is a strong teaching of Paul and the early church that we are not meant to be able to have all of the gifts and skills within each of us, but that we are to rely on each other to be more together, than we ever could be apart.
As well, this inter-connectedness requires us to not rank the gifts and skills between people, but to keep the wider, common good in mind. The variety is not to be lamented and resisted, but to be embraced because of the greater possibilities that exist when gifts interact.
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And so thank God for the variety within the world – thank God for the variety within the Body of Christ – thank God for the variety within this room.
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Life is a gift. Knowledge and wisdom are gifts. Paul was a very rational theologian: be transformed by the renewal of your minds...think with sober judgment. Our reason can see that there is wonderful value in the sharing of gifts and skills.
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Simon Peter looked at his experience with Jesus and had come to believe he was the Messiah – the anointed one of God. And Jesus acknowledged the gifts and skills Peter had, with which he could serve the church.
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Each of us has our own reasons for nurturing this spirituality we seek. Within each of us is the ability to work with others for the common good. This attitude is somewhat counter to the ‘winner-takes-all”, “look out only for number one” approach that is promoted in our world today. We don’t have to be conformed to this worldview. We can still be transformed into something deeper where the compassion that comes from God, the commitment to other’s dignity that Jesus lived is our model for how we relate to the world. We are not to be people of conformity, but of transformation.
After all, if God has created and is creating, then maybe there is still work to do. It only makes sense: at least that what my sober judgement tells me. What do you think?
// Let us pray:
Send you spirit, O God, to renew and transform. Amen.
#210VU “You Lord Are Both Lamb and Shepherd
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