Year A
Isaiah 51:1-6
Psalm 138
Romans 12:1-8
Matthew 16:13-20

May the words of my mouth… O God… speak your Truth…

Caesarea Philippi… where today’s Gospel story takes place… is in the northern part of Israel… it’s north of Galilee… north of the Sea of Galilee… much nearer to Lebanon than to Jerusalem… it’s very close to the city of Dan…

Jonathan Greer… Assistant Professor at Grand Rapids Theological Seminary… writes… according to the book of Kings… Jeroboam… the first ruler of the newly seceded northern kingdom of Israel… established two sanctuaries to rival the temple of Solomon in Jerusalem… the first one was at Dan along the northern border… and the second at Bethel… along the southern border… not far from Jerusalem… it was generally understood that YHWH worship was to take place only in Jerusalem… at THE Temple… and so Jeroboam’s sanctuaries were widely vilified… especially since he commissioned the construction of two golden calves… and installed one at each shrine… he also ordained a new priesthood… and established his own pilgrimage festival… and these two shrines were portrayed as places of active worship throughout the duration of the northern kingdom…

You can get away with a lot more in the country… than you can in the city… wide open spaces… with smaller populations… mean fewer eyes… the Jerusalem Temple was right in the thick of it… and you probably couldn’t swing a cat… without hitting a scribe or a Pharisee…

We think about how horrible the golden calf in Exodus was… such idolatry… it was after all… what angered Moses so much that he destroyed the first set of tablets… but Greer also writes that scholars have found some subtle details… which suggest that Jeroboam’s cult was traditional… and even Yahwist in nature… the calves… many would argue… are best understood as vehicles for YHWH… the invisible deity enthroned above them… just as the cherubim on the Ark of the Covenant… served as a conveyance for the invisible deity enthroned above them… and all of this biblical and archaeological research… all of the evidence which either supports or disproves Biblical claims… all of it… is intended to reveal Truth… with a capital T…

And it’s one of these Truths that Jesus is after in today’s Gospel… Who do people say the Son of Man is… was it John the Baptist who had just been killed… or Elijah… or Jeremiah… or one of the other prophets… No… Simon Peter said… you… Jesus… are the Messiah… the Son of the Living God… but what Simon Peter said wasn’t all that mattered in this story… what mattered too… was where he said it… and that’s part of the back story…

Dr. Ryan Fraser… at Church of Christ in Bethel Springs, TN… writes… Caesarea Philippi is situated on a terrace 1,100’ above a fertile valley… and is one of the most beautiful areas in Israel… one of the four major headwaters of the Jordan River is located here… producing sparkling… turquoise… spring-fed water…

During the Hellenistic period… which lasted from 323 – 31 BCE… the city was originally called Panias… because of its close association with the Greco-Roman god Pan… and in the year 2 BCE… one of Herod the Great’s sons… Philip… renamed it Caesarea in honor of the Emperor Augustus… but in order to distinguish it from the harbor city of Caesarea Maritima on the Mediterranean Sea… it became known as Caesarea Philippi…

A cave immediately to the north was said to be the birthplace of the god Pan… the god of nature… fields… forests… mountains… flocks… and shepherds… and a sanctuary… shown on the bulletin’s cover image… was built there to honor him… and in the niche to the right… Pan appeared and played the flute to three dancing goats… a pagan rite which assured the fertility of the herds… and at the mouth of the cave… worshipers would make sacrifices to Pan… to the pagan mind… this cave was a gate to the underworld… also known as Hades… where fertility gods took up residence during the winter…

In the New Testament… this region lay at the northernmost limit of Jesus’ ministry… and here… in this non-Jewish region… away from the watchful eyes of Herod Antipas… Jesus and the disciples could find some privacy… and so it’s significant… that Jesus chose to ask this immensely profound question here… since there were few areas anywhere with more religious importance… this was an area filled with the temples of ancient Syrian Baal worship… historians have identified at least 14 such temples… and while it may have been away from Jerusalem’s watchful eyes… it was a place beneath the shadow of ancient gods…

Fraser wrote… just think about it… Jesus was standing in an area littered with the temples of the Syrian gods… a place where the Greek gods looked down… a place where the most important river in Judaism sprang to life… a place in which was located a magnificent temple of white marble built by Herod the Great to the godhead of Caesar…

And here… of all places… he stands and asks men… who they believe him to be… it’s almost as though Jesus is deliberately setting himself… against the background of the world’s religions… in all their splendor and glory… and asking to be compared with them… and when Peter responded as he did… Jesus said you are Peter… and on this mountain of rock… in this place which is emblematic of the denial of God’s Truth… I will build my church… and not even the Gates of Hell… which are located right over there… will prevail against it…

It was quite a moment… so it’s curious… isn’t it… it’s odd… in a way it doesn’t make sense that even after affirming Simon Peter’s insight… no… revelation… Jesus sternly orders them not to tell anyone that he’s the Messiah… and I’m reminded of the passage in Luke 22… when day came… and the assembly of elders… chief priests and scribes… gathered together… and they brought Jesus to the Council… and they said… If you are the Messiah… tell us… Jesus replied… If I tell you… you will not believe…

So maybe Jesus sternly ordered them not to tell anyone who he is… because no one they told would believe… I mean… look at how much time the disciples spent paddling around with Jesus… look at how much time he spent teaching them… look at the healings and miracles they witnessed… and still… even after Jesus tells Peter… on this rock I will build my church… and the Gates of Hades will not prevail against it… Peter’s fear of social condemnation is more powerful than what he believes to be True… and he denies Jesus three times…

But back for a moment to the Gospel… who do we say the Son of Man is… because who we say he is… determines what we do… is Jesus a man who just seems to be God… or a God who just seems to be a man… or an incomprehensible union… a perfect synthesis of the two… as St. Anselm said… faith seeks understanding… and we are called into a consciousness that is coherent with the mind of Christ… we are called to do God’s work… as Jesus said in John 14:12… the one who trusts in me will not only do the works that I do… but will do even greater works…

In the Book of Acts (ch.7 v.51)… when Stephen recounts our salvation history… just before he’s stoned to death… he affirms what God said to Moses in Exodus 32:9… I have seen this people… how stiff-necked they are…  we too are a stubborn and stiff necked people… both individually and corporately… we spend more time and money preventing God’s will from being done on earth as it is in heaven… than we do making it happen… we worship the ignorant… shortsighted… superstitious… and idolatrous… gods of power… and we don’t always hold people accountable in a way that’s commensurate with the power they wield…

So what Jesus is saying… is that his Truth can help us overcome all of the little theologies of position… and authority… and prestige… like those represented where Jesus and the disciples were in today’s Gospel…

We are theological creatures… we make our own meaning… but there are just some understandings we’ve just got to come to in our own time… some conclusions we’ve got to draw on our own… some Truths that must be illuminated from the inside out… because until we’re ready… unless we’re open… we can be presented with irrefutable scientific facts… and if they don’t fit our agenda… if they reveal our weaknesses… we can deny and deflect them… but when our collective voices aren’t stifled… when they’re given the chance to be heard and counted… we can deny the Pans of the world and embody more of the Gospel… and like Peter… stand fast in the Truth for which Jesus died… without denying it later on… once… twice… or even three times…