Matthew 16: 13-20
Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father in heaven. Flesh and blood has not revealed this to you. As a priest, I find this passage both daunting and liberating. I could preach a hundred sermons; I could lead worship for a hundred years; I could offer scores of classes; I could baptize, marry, and bury countless numbers of people and eat a million deviled eggs at a million parish receptions, but I cannot make a single person believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God. I cannot make anyone see that Jesus is the human face of God. I can proclaim it, can cajole, argue, pester, and plead — but only God can convince.
By this point in Matthew’s Gospel, lots of people have heard Jesus teach. Many people have witnessed his healing power at work. Thousands of people have been miraculously fed by him. But only Peter sees the truth. In a moment of supreme clarity, Peter understands that Jesus is not just another prophet, not just a gifted teacher or a charismatic healer: he is the Son of the living God. When we see him, we see God. Jesus is the way God is; God is the way Jesus is. There is no doctrine or prayer book that Peter can refer to, no tradition he can fall back on. This is a moment of divine inspiration, when Peter experiences the truth for himself. Now, to be sure, Peter will falter and fail many times after this, and he will not always live out the truth that he proclaims. And he will spend the rest of his life realizing all the ramifications of that truth. But at least in this moment, by the sheer grace of God, he gets it.
My great hope would be that everyone in our parish would know what Peter knows in the deepest way possible. The good news is that we all have at least an inkling of that: I wouldn’t be preaching and you wouldn’t be watching right now if we didn’t. But Peter’s story sheds light on our own stories in some significant ways.
To begin with, God wants us to experience this truth ourselves. Our parents can’t do it for us, our spouses can’t do it for us, our children can’t do it for us, our priests can’t do it for us. While the faith of others can at times inspire us and comfort us, there is no substitute for experiencing for ourselves the truth that Jesus reveals God. Second-hand faith can only get us so far. This is no doubt why Jesus is so excited by Peter’s confession of faith and why he orders his disciples not to tell others that he is the Christ. They need to see it for themselves.
But Peter’s faith still needs to deepen and grow, and so does ours. What I have experienced in my own life and have seen in the lives of others is that fully accepting the love of God which Jesus embodies is a process, and not always an easy one. Scratch the surface and we may realize that our faith is actually more about following rules and earning rewards than it is about receiving God’s love as a gift. Or we may discover that we, for whatever reason, cling to a punitive image of God, a God who is angry, mean, and vindictive. Or when confronted with the kind of love Jesus demonstrates, we may be forced to admit that we really don't love ourselves and don’t feel worthy of being loved by anyone, much less by God. We may talk a good game, but believing that Jesus really is the Son of God will often demand that we let go of a lot of baggage.
And we can’t do that on our own. Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father in heaven. Only God can give us such faith, and that is exactly what God desires to do. The Holy Spirit is already alive in us, leading us into fuller, deeper knowledge of God’s love. We can’t force that to happen, and we don’t need to: we just need to keep showing up and letting God do what only God can do. This is what Paul is getting at when he writes in Romans today: I appeal to you therefore brothers and sisters, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds.
So as we let the Spirit renew and transform our minds, what will we see? We will see that God is self-giving love. Compassion is God’s nature and mercy is God’s language. We will see that God’s love embraces everyone, seeking always to forgive, to heal, and to save, and there are no exceptions to that. We will realize that the love Jesus reveals is the same love that creates the universe, and that love is the greatest power in the universe. We will know that nothing ultimately defeats that love, not even death. We will understand that all of us are loved unconditionally, infinitely, and forever.
I cannot make you believe that. But I know it’s true. And I know God wants you to know it as well. And I know God can make that happen — which is the only reason I can preach it.
No comments:
Post a Comment