Sermon – Matthew 16:13-20
13Now when
Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, “Who
do people say that the Son of Man is?” 14And they said, “Some say
John the Baptist, but others Elijah, and still others Jeremiah or one of the
prophets.” 15He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?” 16Simon
Peter answered, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.” 17And
Jesus answered him, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah! For flesh and blood
has not revealed this to you, but my Father in heaven. 18And 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. 19I 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.” 20Then he
sternly ordered the disciples not to tell anyone that he was the Messiah.
Thomas
Jefferson had a book which he called ‘Morals of Jesus.’ It was his own creation.
He took the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, in English, French,
Latin, and Greek. Then he cut them up into sections and laid out the sections
side by side, arranging them in the order that he thought the events happened, deleting
any multiple narrations of the same event.
But
Jefferson cut out any section that was related to the miracles of Jesus, because
he did not believe that miracles could happen in a universe which was governed
by natural law. It is not that he didn’t believe in a God, he just believed
that God set up the universe with immutable laws which could not be broken. The
stories of the miracles of the Gospels seemed to Jefferson to be remnants of an
irrational past.
But
that’s not all Jefferson did. He cut out all the sections which had to do with
Jesus being the Son of God. He viewed this as superstition which was not really
about Jesus’ actual purpose, which, for Jefferson, was to show us the way to
salvation by living the life which God intended for us to live. For Jefferson,
Jesus was a teacher of eternal truths. But you will look in vain in his version
of the Gospels for the angels and the shepherds, the wise men, the
resurrection, and even today’s story about Peter saying to Jesus, ‘You are the
Messiah, the Son of the Living God.’
For
Jefferson, Jesus was a great moral teacher. For many people of Jesus’ time, he
was a prophet who spoke to tell of what God was going to do. But for Peter and
the disciples he was God’s action for his people and for the world. Yes, he taught
eternal truths, yes, he spoke of God’s will. But this did not go to his true
identity – his identity of Messiah, anointed one, he who brings in the kingdom
of God – and the Son of the living God, who reveals the Father to us.
This
God is far different than Thomas Jefferson might have thought. This God is also
far different than the people of Jesus’ time thought. This God is also
different than Peter and the disciples initially thought. But Jesus will reveal
his Father to us on the cross. And faith that he is the Messiah (the Christ)
and the Son of God is the belief that creates the Church and makes it one.
I
often like to call our attention to the fact that on any Sunday the vast Church
worships around the world. We are not simply a few people in one room; but we
are part of the great Church of every people, nation and language which
worships the Triune God. In India, in China, in Venezuela, in Germany and Sweden,
in Ethiopia, in Japan, in every country in the world and every city and town in
the United States, the Church gathers to worship. And what unites us is not our
people, nation, or language, not our worship style or even that we agree on how
we ought to live our life together – it is our faith in Jesus as the Son of God
and Messiah of Israel. It is upon this rock that the Church is built. It is
upon this rock we stand for our individual futures and the future of the
Church.
Where
does this faith come from? We can be grateful that Thomas Jefferson, while not
believing in the miracles of Jesus or his divine Sonship, did strongly believe
that faith could not be forced on anyone. His ‘Bible’ was for his personal use
and not a text which he published or tried to have enforced. He strongly
believed that no government could prescribe, require, or enforce faith. That is
something he shared, actually, with Martin Luther. And, ironically, with Jesus
himself.
For
Jesus says to Peter, ‘Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah! For flesh and blood
has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven.’ For Jesus, faith
is not a matter of our intelligence, our wisdom, our will. It is a gift of God.
St. Paul says, ‘No one can say ‘Jesus is Lord,’ except by the Holy Spirit.’ The
Holy Spirit creates whatever faith we have. We should never say, ‘I don’t have
enough faith,’ for this is to discredit what God the Holy Spirit has done. And
if we desire more faith, we ought not to try to produce it within ourselves, but
we ought to ask the Holy Spirit.
Jesus
calls Simon ‘blessed.’ And we are blessed, for God has given faith to us, in
whatever size and shape it comes. And because God has given us the Spirit, we
are children of God. Jesus is the Son of God by nature, begotten of the living
Father before all ages. We are the sons and daughters of God by adoption, begotten
of the Holy Spirit in time and for eternity. We rejoice that we are blessed,
with Peter, to believe with him that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of the Living
God.
The
Rev. Maurice C. Frontz,
St
Stephen Lutheran Church
August
23, 2020
