In
the name of God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.
Today’s Gospel is about questions and answers to questions. The first
question is about public opinion; “who do people say that the Son of Man is?”
The second is about the opinions of the disciples only; “but who do you say
that I am?” These two questions are still being asked, and the answers in
today’s reading resemble answers still being talked about today. The nature and
meaning of the Son of Man are still live issues.
Scholars and theologians have been debating for some time about the
meaning of the title ‘Son of Man.’ For some, it is a Messianic title, for
others it is simply a way of saying that someone is human, and nothing more.
There are variations on these themes, but there is no final consensus on what
the phrase means. In today’s Gospel, the implication is that it is a Messianic
title.
The
disciples offer a number of suggestions in answer to the first question; these
suggestions are reducible to one: the Son of Man is a prophet. No one actually
says that the Son of Man is Jesus, or that Jesus is merely a prophet like the
others in the list. But that is all that the disciples come up with, at least
as a report of what people in general are saying.
Then
Jesus asks the disciples for their own thoughts, not just a summary of poll
results. It is interesting that Peter answers, and no one else. Peter silently, in his own mind, makes two
connections: that Jesus is the Son of Man, and that the Son of Man is the Messiah.
Peter then blurts out, without any preamble or explanation, the words "You are the Messiah". And then he adds to the
Messianic title, and proclaims that Jesus is not only the Messiah, but the
“Son of the living God.” We are well beyond mere prophecy here. Peter is
declaring the uniqueness of Jesus, and his particular relationship with God.
Jesus is no mere prophet, but is another kind of person entirely. Rather, he is
the fulfilment of prophecy, the fulfilment of Messianic expectations.
Jesus
says to Peter, “Flesh and blood have not revealed this to you, but my Father in
heaven.” Peter, in other words, has perceived clearly in Jesus, signs of God’s
activity and nature. Peter has listened to Jesus’s teaching, seen his signs and
wonders, and put it all together in the way that Jesus knew that he would.
Jesus recognized in Peter his openness to God; Jesus names this recognition, his "Father in heaven." That is why Jesus calls him the
Rock. There is in Peter a solid core of
spiritual awareness.
That awareness, that strength, enables Peter to see the Messiah, the Son of the
Living God, when others can see only a prophet.
I’ve
been thinking about why the other disciples do not answer the question, “but
who do you say that I am?” It is likely that there is more to the conversation
than the Evangelist has recorded, but the fact that it is not recorded is
itself part of the message. It is worth considering what this
silent message may be.
“Flesh and blood have not revealed this to you,” Jesus says. The
disciples, flesh and blood as they are, have not reached the same depth of
insight as Peter. So, they preserve their silence, and in their silence, they are open to the
revelation that Peter has put before them. So that they can really hear what
Jesus and Peter are saying, they listen and don’t distract themselves. Jesus
and Peter are leading them past the stage of mere prophecy, up to a new level
of understanding. Consequently, Peter, the Rock, is someone on whom Jesus can begin building
his Body in the world, and he begins with the disciples, right then
and there, by revealing his true nature to them, and Peter’s nature as well. The
receptive silence of the disciples makes this possible.
It is
clear from this text, that the gathering of Jesus’s people, his
Body in the world, is called to be rock-like. “The gates of Hades will not
prevail against it.” The powers of darkness, of evil, will not be able to
overcome Christ's Body in the world, if it retains this character, this Rock of faith in the
Messiah, the Son of the Living God. The Rock is strong faith in Jesus as
Messiah, Son of God, Son of Man, or, as later formulas would state it, of faith
in Jesus as God incarnate, as a union of human nature and divinity.
Next,
Jesus, still addressing Peter, says, “I will give you the keys of the kingdom
of Heaven.” In other words, Peter, by seeing Jesus clearly for who he is, has opened himself, or has been opened by his "Father in heaven," as Jesus says, to direct perception of divine reality, to a level beyond what the other disciples have reached, so far. This awareness of divine reality is called here "the kingdom of Heaven." And this experience is expressed as a gift from Jesus to Peter, because Jesus, who embodies the Kingdom, visualized as handing over the Keys, has recognized in Peter this leap in perception. The Keys have always been within reach; now Peter is able to perceive them, to "receive" them, as it were, to become aware that they have always been there, waiting for him, so to speak. In Tradition, the "power of the Keys" has long been regarded as juridical and jurisdictional, as mere institutional authority in the Church; but it is much more than that. The "power of the Keys" is that unity of mind, that unity of spirit, between Peter and Jesus, that makes Peter's understanding, and our understanding, of Jesus as Messiah and divine Son, possible. That understanding is available to all of us, and so the Power of the Keys is available to all of us. It is not the possession of one person only, of one authority only.
It is clear from this text that, at the very least, life in the Church has eternal consequences. “Whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in
heaven.” We can, in other words, create our own eternal destiny. We all of us
have the ‘Power of the Keys,’ the power of access to the Kingdom. And one of
the Keys is faith in Jesus as Messiah and Son of God. Peter was the first to recognize Jesus for who he is, and so he was the first to receive the 'Power of the Keys,' that is, Jesus helped Peter become aware of what his declaration means. Jesus made him aware of the consequences of his faith, the power of his faith. We, all of us who know Jesus as Messiah and Son of God, have the same power, to loose in heaven what we loose on earth.
“Then he sternly ordered the disciples not
to tell anyone that he was the Messiah.” You would think that the disciples,
having learned who Jesus is, would want to proclaim the news far and wide, to
announce the arrival of the Messiah at last, to announce the end to all earthly
injustice and the beginning of God’s reign, right here and right now. But no, that is
not the kind of Messiah Jesus is. There is much that he has to undergo, and
there is much for the disciples to experience, before they can reveal this secret.
In the very next line, which is not in today’s reading, the Evangelist says,
“From that time on, Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to
Jerusalem and undergo great suffering.” The disciples, including Peter, do not
yet know the full nature of Jesus’s Messiahship. And so they must remain
silent, until they are truly ready.
Who
do we say that the Son of Man is? These days, there is a tendency to neglect
the revelation of Jesus as Son of God, and to emphasize his nature as Son of
Man; a tendency, in other words, to neglect the real meaning of the
Incarnation, and to dwell too much only on the humanity of Jesus, on the ‘Jesus
of History,’ so-called. This has several consequences. One is to think of Jesus
only as the Son of Man, as only human. So that is why the disciples report that
people, probably including themselves, think that the Son of Man is merely a prophet.
Being only human, they think, he can’t be any more than a prophet. It’s a
logical, natural conclusion to reach.
This
idea has consequences for the Church. If we imagine that Jesus is only human,
then our association with him in community can’t get beyond the level of mere
affinity. We hear his prophecy, we hear his teaching, we like him, and it, and
so we think of ourselves as nothing more than followers of the great prophet and teacher.
This is good as far as it goes, but it goes no further than that.
But
let us hear what Jesus actually says about himself, and about his Body in the world. When
Jesus accepts the titles of Messiah and Son of God, he follows them immediately
with a description of his Body in the world, which is more than a community of like-minded followers
only, of disciples only. His community is built upon the Rock of the revelation of
Jesus as Messiah and Son of God, far beyond a prophet. The powers of Hell
cannot overcome that Rock, because it is founded on God himself, and not merely on our affinity for a prophet. The ‘Power of
the Keys’ opens the way to the kingdom of Heaven. The power
to bind and loose means that in our earthly lives we are creating our eternal
destinies. Peter was the first person to recognize the Messiah; once he did this, Jesus was able to reveal the true nature of the
community which would flow from that recognition. May we all recognize Jesus as Son and Messiah, now and always. Amen.
In
the name of God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen. (24.VIII.14 Adv., 27.VIII.17 Adv.) (revised 27.viii.23)
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