Sermon text: Matthew 16:13-20
The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all. Amen. Amen.
The gospel lesson assigned for this 13th Sunday in Pentecost is one that is often overlooked and rarely quoted in modern Christianity. But as Bible passages go, Matthew 16:13-20 is an essential passage to the mission of the church and a flash point of division within Christianity. Matthew 16:13-20 contains Peter’s confession that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God. And Jesus replied, telling Peter that he was blessed because the Father in heaven had revealed this truth to him.
During the Reformation, Matthew 16:13-20 became a doctrine of great contention, second only to the doctrine of justification by grace through faith in Jesus Christ alone. As you probably know, as most of you lifelong Lutherans, the Roman Catholic Church claims that the papal office was established by Jesus here in Matthew 16 and in John 20:22-23, where we read Jesus breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, their sins have been forgiven them. If you retain the sins of any, they have been retained.”
My task this morning is to address two specific questions. The first: upon which rock is the church built? Is it the person of Peter, the first so-called pope? Or is Jesus referencing something else in the reading as the foundation upon which the church is built? Second, why does an answer to such a question as this make a difference in the grand scheme of things?
One of the challenges in preaching in today’s gospel is that the English translations don’t provide the kind of information we need to clearly establish exactly what Jesus said and where in Matthew 16:13-20 that rock is rooted. So, the opening part of this sermon is going to take a little bit of a look at Greek grammar. Kind of obscure to us folks these days, especially English speaking, because we have long since disregarded any use for masculine and feminine pronouns. But of course, we can’t agree even on the difference between masculine and feminine these days. So we can’t really expect too much exegetical work in that part of the Bible.
So let’s begin.
The conversation began with Jesus when he asked his disciples, “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?” The disciples told Jesus that some say that he’s John the Baptist, others Elijah, and still others Jeremiah or one of the prophets. Then Jesus asked the disciples, “But who do you say that I am?” And Simon Peter answered and said, “Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.” And Jesus answered and said to him, “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah, because flesh and blood did not reveal this to you, but my Father who is in heaven. And I also say to you that you are Peter, and upon this rock, I will build my church, and the gates of Hades shall not overpower it.” Now listen to what that sounds like, that last part, when I replace Greek words with English words.
“I tell you, you are Petros, Peter, and on this petra, rock, I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.” Petros and petra, Peter and rock, rock and Peter. The two sound a lot alike, but grammatically speaking, there’s a big significant difference between the two. Now the Roman Catholics insist that when Jesus said that he would build his church on the petra, Jesus meant that he built his church on the person of Peter.
Enter grammar. Here are two words that sound alike: petra and Petros. Now, when you hear a Greek word and it ends in an “a” sound, either an “ah” or an “an” or just an “a,” an alpha, it’s a feminine construction. And if you’re talking about a specific thing, you link these constructions together more strategically than we do in English with our sort of sloppiness of how we use our language. But here’s the difference between Petros, Peter, and petra: it’s all in the sound that the word makes on the end. For example, Robert becomes Roberta if you add the “a” sound. Marcus becomes Marcia. The “a” sound at the end of the word petra means that Jesus is using a feminine form of the word for rock. It’s kind of like calling a ship “she.” It’s one of the few rare uses, but it becomes obvious during a conversation about a boat or a ship that “she” is the boat. Well, it’s kind of that sort of dynamic going on with this “a” sound, this feminine sound on the word petra. That same sound comes out when Jesus says “build my church.” The Greek word for “church” ends in an “a” as well. It links the church to the other feminine noun that we’re using at the moment, which is petra. The word “rock” and the word for “church” are linked together by grammar. Jesus wasn’t asserting that Peter in his person is the pope and that the church is built on the rock who is Peter. The grammar of the sentence forces us to look away from Peter as the rock to something else that might be symbolized by the feminine form of the word “rock,” petra. Enter another word that ends with an “a” — a word that you hear me use a lot around here, and that’s the English word for “confession.” In the Greek, the word homologia, “confession,” is also a feminine noun because it ends with an alpha, an “a.” “Who do you say that I am?” Petros, Peter, answers: “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” That’s Peter’s confession, his homologia. To which Jesus replied: “Upon this rock,” that is, the statement that Peter made, “I will build my church, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail over it.” Jesus also says that Peter’s been enabled to speak this good confession because God the Father revealed it to him. Peter was blessed because God the Father created faith in Peter’s heart and put the confession into his mind and into his mouth. By the way, the sentence is constructed grammatically. Jesus tells Peter and the other disciples and the rest of his church that upon that rock he shall build his church — my church, mou ekklesia — will be built on what? On what the Father has revealed to Peter and what Peter said. Christ’s church is built on the confession of faith that God gave and revealed to Peter, namely Peter’s confession of Jesus when he said, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” Later, when St. John is given to write his gospel bearing his name, he included Peter’s confession in his gospel too: John 20:30 and 31. “Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples which are not written in this book. But these things are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing in him you may have eternal life in his name.” When Peter spoke his confession of faith, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God,” he was confessing that Jesus is the anointed one, the promised Messiah, and that all the offices of the Messiah are filled. Prophet, priest, and king were being filled completely and perfectly by Jesus Christ. As king, Jesus not only established the law, but he perfectly kept the law. As prophet, he not only speaks for God, he fulfills the words of God that God spoke through his prophets. As priest, he not only offers up a sacrifice for sin, but he himself becomes the sacrifice for sin. The confession of Jesus as the Christ, the Son of the living God, includes all these topics and titles and much more. No one can make this confession unless God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit reveals it — that is, reveals Jesus’s true identity to the one who is confessing Christ Jesus. 1 Corinthians 12:3: no one can say Jesus is Lord except by virtue of the Holy Spirit.
Here we have the second lesson of the gospel reading. The church’s one foundation is the confession that Jesus is the Christ, the Savior from sin, death, and the power of the devil. The church is built upon this one foundation, this one rock. It’s all about theology first, the preaching and teaching of God’s word and the forgiveness of sins. Everything else the church does flows from these two imperatives.
To confess Christ is to acknowledge Jesus himself as the rock on which the church is built. That’s the Old Testament lesson from this morning: Psalm 51:1. “Listen to me, you who pursue righteousness, who seek the Lord. Look to the rock from which you were hewn, and to the quarry from which you were dug.” Having been blessed as individual Christians and members of the church, God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit put his words into our hearts and our minds and our mouths. Romans 10:10: “For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved.” In holy communion, Jesus puts his body and blood for the forgiveness of sins in us. He moves the conversation from Peter’s confession of Christ to the church in the distribution of the forgiveness of sins, which was and remains the main reason for his incarnation, life, death, resurrection, and the church’s existence and purpose. Jesus gives the disciples, soon to be apostles, a promise: “I will give you the keys to the kingdom of heaven. And whatever you shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven. Whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.” The pastor exercises the office of the keys, by which the kingdom of heaven, according to Christ’s instructions, is to be maintained. It is not the exclusive property of the clergy as they see fit to use it. No one, not even the pope, can administer the sacraments of holy absolution by virtue of their own personal authority. As it says in the liturgy, faithful pastors serve in the stead and by the command of Christ himself in distributing the forgiveness of sins to those who confess. Jesus here provides a real physical link between his person and work 2,000 years ago and our persons and our works today. For our confession is always current: 1 John 1:8-9. “If we say we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and righteous to forgive our sin and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” This is what Christ promised to give in his word and in the office of the keys. Now, have you ever lost keys? I find myself doing that more and more lately, by the way. Or even forgotten that you needed a key to get into some place or something. We human beings are prone to losing things. And our tendency to lose things isn’t limited to material things. The truth is the visible church is not immune to losing or forgetting things either. But losing, forgetting and forsaking the good confession — Christ is the Son of God, the Son of the living God, the promised Messiah for our salvation and all it means for us and for our salvation — is the most eternally fatal thing that so-called churches and churchgoers can do. Gifts like his real presence at the altar, his regenerating power in the water of holy baptism, his promise of forgiveness and absolution, even his assurance that what he says can and should be believed, trusted, and spoken, flow from the confession of Jesus as the Son of the living God.
Many churches and Christian denominations have lost the good confession of their Christ. Their assemblies and works no longer rest on the rock’s foundation. They do not know what it means to call Jesus the Christ, the Son of the living God. But it should be no surprise to us that many congregations and denominations have forsaken the good confession. After all, Jesus came unto his own and his own received him not. That’s the world’s rejection of the rock of salvation. But the rejection of the rock of salvation doesn’t negate what he has given us. John went on to write in John 1:12 and 13: “But as many as received him, to them he gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in his name, who were born not of blood nor of will of the flesh nor of will of man but of God.” Christ gave us something better and more sure than just a feeling or a theoretical or abstract knowledge of the forgiveness of our sins: 2 Peter 1:19. “So we have the prophetic word made more sure, to which you would do well to pay attention as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts.” In the gospel text of this morning, Jesus teaches what it is that I, as a pastor, am supposed to do for you and how you, as the confessor of your sins, ought to receive the words that I speak. As the catechism teaches, your forgiveness is as sure and certain as if Christ himself were speaking to you directly.
Thus, we conclude with Psalm 103: “For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his loving kindness toward those who fear him. As far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us,” so your sins are forgiven — it’s sure and certain, as if Christ were here himself speaking. Amen.
May the peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.