May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts together be acceptable in your sight, O God, our rock and our redeemer. Amen.
Standing in the Roman city of Caesarea Phillipi, named and claimed by Herod the Great’s son Phillip as an administrative center for himself in the early decades of the Common Era, and next to the ancient springs and worship location for the Roman God, Pan, Jesus asks his disciples who they think he is.
We sometimes overlook the geography of our scripture, as it’s complicated to understand the nuance of space and context two thousand years later and five thousand plus miles away from our lives. And yet, as a city who has painted a purple line on the streets to mark the points of our own history we wish visitors to revisit, location does matter to how and what we hear. And Jesus brings his disciples to this place, at the foot of Mount Hermon, twenty five miles north of the Sea of Galilee; to a city named after both the Roman Emperor, Caesar, and the local Roman ruler, Phillip, and home to a spring emanating from a cave known as ‘The Gates of Hades’, and asks them two questions.
Who do people say that I am? Who do you think I am?
I once heard that no one confesses their faith in a neutral space. Whether we like it or not, or acknowledge it, or not, where we find ourselves informs the trajectory of our belief. ‘Who is Jesus to you?’ is a radically different question when posed on a street corner by a guy in a sandwich board with flames on it than posed in a classroom setting full of grad students or posed in the waiting room of a doctor’s office. It could be a different question based on whether you were at Trinity Church in the City of Boston listening to the choir and marveling at this space set apart in the middle of the city, or if you were in a rec center basement on folding chairs two hundred miles away from the nearest international airport. Jesus’ question to his disciples was not offered in isolation from the power structures they were currently standing on and in—whether of the Empire or the prevailing centuries old worship of the gods—it was offered to them, and to us, because of them.
Jesus isn’t trying to trip up his disciples. This isn’t some sort of game where he’s putting them in impossible situations to get them to stammer or flail as a source of Survivor-esque entertainment. The reality was that in their hands were coins with the emperor’s face on them; all around them were plenteous ways of worshipping; all pointing them to alternatives to the man with whom they had sat, and eaten, and traveled together. The clarity of the other options are highlighted in this space—and Jesus doesn’t decry or deny them or diminish them. He instead asks, in the face of everything which could distract, who they think he really is.
And Simon Peter replies, ‘You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.’
Let’s forget for a moment that Peter, sweet Peter, my favorite among the disciples (let’s not pretend, we all have a favorite), is going to mess this all up in about three verses by telling Jesus to not talk about the inevitable suffering and death that he will face. Peter is ready to acclaim the Messiah, but not a Messiah that is too complicated just yet.
But in this moment, Peter has a flash of understanding and recognition—in this moment, all that surrounds him and narrates the power of this space loses its grip on him. The money, the structures, the framework of political import, the recurring phrase ‘this is how we’ve always done it’, slips to the side, and Peter names what few have been able to name: that Jesus is the one we have been waiting for and is now here.
And Jesus says some very complimentary things to Peter, that he is the rock upon which his Church will be built, that he will hold the keys to the kingdom, that the gates of Hades will not prevail against him. And Jesus reminds Peter that his recognition of God is a gift given to him by that same God—not earned through effort, but shared with him freely. And perhaps pointedly gifted by God to someone who will quickly rebuke Jesus for mentioning the hardships to follow; who will deny Jesus in the face of Calvary; who will struggle to reconcile his fearfulness and his faithfulness throughout his entire life.
So, if Peter is the rock upon which Jesus’ church is built—then just like we do with the scripture we read together, it is appropriate to note the geography, the location, of our cornerstone.
For Peter, in this moment, the acclamation of God in this moment isn’t etched into metal and used transactionally; it isn’t located in a single space, one specific location being holier, and therefore more powerful, than another space. The presence of God, and therefore our capacity to acclaim God in Christ, appears to be made manifest most often through the imperfections of God’s own people. A people who can name Jesus as Son of the Living God in one breath, and who refuse to imagine that same God as hung from a cross as a warning to the people. A people who can share fish and bread with baskets leftover, and also lock themselves in a room in fear.
Our faithfulness—our belief—the acclaim of the disciples is never offered in a neutral space. One which is separated from the claims of politics and powers; which is divorced from our personal wants and desires and egos. It is never separated from where we have come from, what we have known, and what we wish to let go of—not from the distractions of ‘real life’, or the images of how we imagined a life of faithfulness could possibly be—images culled from selections of reality around us or served to us with an agenda. Our faithfulness is not something we can work our way up towards, quietly delighting in certificates of achievement tacked to our walls and “believer of the month” stickers placed on our car bumpers.
The Confession of Peter is our reminder that when we believe we have figured it out, when we believe we have arrived, that it is actually not of our own doing, and we are never not impacted by the world around us, which will always offer us a better, an easier deal. Peter holds the keys to the kingdom as the first in line to acclaim Jesus as Christ, and the first to deny him. And so do we. Telling ourselves that we’ll reconnect with our faith later, when it’s more convenient. When it’s easier and a lighter load, when we are in a better space.
But real people know that there is no better time ahead in real life, and no one knows that better than Peter will by the end of the Gospel. The coins will surround us, the temples will beckon us, the fear will cow us, and our hopefulness will waver. And still, God’s gift of love, of calling us to Godself, as God did with Peter, will not end. Jesus was not finished with Peter when he recanted—and Jesus is not finished with us when we do either.
When we think we are empty, surrounded by every opportunity to say no to the living God, to the gift of the church, of the ekklesia, the gathered, also imperfect, faithful community, is that we are invited once again to say yes. To name Jesus. To reach beyond all that tells us to limit God, and rest in the almost, but not quite, and declare it good enough. Jesus doesn’t compel Peter, but invites him to think bigger, risk greater for God—and in doing so, becomes the rock for us all, church.
Amen.