A Sermon on Matthew 16:13-20 prepared by Roy Owen for St John’s online worship on 23rd August 2020.
You can listen to the recording of the sermon here. The text version of the sermon is as follows:
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen.
But who do you say that I am?
Yet again the Lectionary seems to have been written for St John’s. Just as we are preparing to launch into a refurbished church, we find Jesus taking His disciples into a new area to prepare for a new task.
Jesus knew that the end of his time on earth was coming, and He needed time with His followers, so He withdrew from the great crowds and took the disciples into the area near Caesarea Philippi which was about 25 miles north of the Sea of Galilee, and mainly populated by non-Jews. Here Jesus could be at peace with His friends to speak to them and teach them. Jesus knew that they would be facing a new situation with new challenges, and His concern at this time must have been to ensure that they knew who had been guiding them and introducing them to a new way of life as they walked together. They also had to know His message and understand the love that was at the very core of His being.
Even as the disciples had to be prepared for a new task, surely we are to be ready to work in and through our new church arrangements. The root of the preparation for the disciples was to ensure that they knew who they were working for, and so He asked the question that each one of us has to answer, “who do you say that I am?”
There is a fashion in Asian and in Japanese companies for staff to begin their day, singing the company song or chanting the company motto. Perhaps the most common action amongst Christians is to pray at the end of the day. This is a habit that probably built up in us because we were taught by our parents to pray before settling to sleep. I would suggest that our habit should be, to answer the question of Jesus as soon as we become alert, in the morning. Who do we believe in? Who is going to guide our day? Who are we working for today? The question is asked by the one who is the answer and who will be with us all day long. In considering the work that lies before us in our new church, we must surely be asking from the moment we open the doors; who are we working for? It may well be that some of us get rather overwhelmed in facing the question.
Just as the body of the disciples did, “Some say John the Baptist, others Elijah, and still others Jeremiah or one of the other prophets”. They were generalising with a selection of what we would call, the ‘good’ people in their church. We too can have a tendency to think that the church in which we work is just a comfortable group of people doing reasonably good things that our neighbours will respect. But that is not enough, and so Jesus asked Peter “But who do you say that I am?”
Peter was perhaps afraid to answer that question, but he did say, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the Living God”. We know that even after the Crucifixion, Peter was slow to admit his connection with Jesus, but after the Resurrection Jesus still drove home His need for Peter to build and protect His church, as He asked, “Do you love me?” Peter’s weakness and failings were well known to Jesus, and yet he was still the man chosen to be the foundation of His church. Jesus knows all our weaknesses and failings, yet still He calls on us to recognise that we are charged with making His church in this area effective, and daily we will face the question, “who do you say that I am?”
We then need to be able to say, “You are Jesus, the Messiah, the Son of the Living God”. This question and answer also need to be at the root of our church in a new life in Christ, and we should be conscious that, just as Paul taught the Roman church “For as in one body we have many members, so we, who are many, are one body in Christ. This is the Spirit we have to carry with us into a newly prepared church, being ready to build on the talents and gifts that we have been given; the talents described by Paul as, prophecy, ministry, teaching, generosity, leading, compassion, cheerfulness, and healing. With attributes like these and bound together we can create a true body of Christ. As we work together and become progressively more confident in our ability to offer a valuable and challenging service to our neighbours – a service that Jesus directs us into. We can grow, fed and led by the penniless Galilean carpenter who took twelve ordinary friends into a new land to ask them, “who do you say that I am?” and revealed to them that they were following the Messiah, the Son of the Living God. Just as Peter hesitated in the face of the challenge from Jesus, so we will no doubt pause from time to time as we become nervous of the abilities we have been given by God’s grace, and the directions we have learned from the Holy Spirit. In those times we should be willing to depend on our friends here in this church, sharing in prayer both our doubts and our confidence, as we look back to those who built this house before we came here. Our reading from Isaiah reminds us to “Look to the rock from which you were hewn’ and perhaps more confidently, ‘Look to Abraham and to Sarah ; for he was but one when (God) called him, but (God) blessed him and made him many”. That promise is there for every individual who stands ready to answer the question “who do you say that I am?”
The gifts listed by Paul are available to each one of us and to every church, however small, that is prepared to walk with Jesus and take His message out into the world, beginning with their neighbours.
Amen