The Tenth Sunday after Pentecost

A Peculiar Church
Matthew 16:13-20

The passage we heard as this morning’s Gospel is usually referred to as the “Confession of Peter.” Peter witnesses, proclaims, “confesses,” that Jesus is the Son of God. Similar passages appear in Mark and Luke’s Gospels. God reveals to Peter the wonder of Jesus’ identity. It’s a powerful and important passage and remains a strong witness to us today of who Jesus is.

As powerful and important as Peter’s words are as witness and revelation, interpreting Jesus’ words is a bit more problematic. As I work to interpret Jesus’ words I’ve drawn heavily on a commentary on Matthew’s Gospel by Eduard Schweizer that we used in seminary. My focus in particular is on the phrase spoken by Jesus: “You are Peter and on this rock I will build my church.”

What was Jesus’ vision for the future for his followers? What did Jesus hope to build?

When Jesus says, “on this rock I will build my church,” the Greek word that is translated “church” is ecclesia. It is the root of our contemporary churchy words like ecclesiastical. But there are two very important things to know about that word ecclesia as it is used in the Bible.

One. Although it has now come to be a part of words meaning church, it was not a religious word in Jesus’ day. It was a general, entirely secular word meaning simply “gathering” or “assembly.” It did not mean “church.” Schweizer translates it “community.” It just meant any community of people who were gathered or assembled.

Two. The word is virtually absent from all four Gospels. It appears here and in one other place in Matthew and that’s it. It appears a lot in Paul and the post-Easter letters, but it is not a part of the Gospels. The words and activities of Jesus' life and ministry do not include the word “church.”

Jesus’ proclamation to Peter about being the rock upon which Jesus will build his church does not appear at all in Mark or Luke’s telling of the Confession of Peter. (The Confession itself is not recounted at all in John.) Writing about this particular phrase, Schweizer states: “the saying about the community [or church] is a post-Easter addition, possibly Matthew’s own. In all four Gospels the word “community” appears only here and in 18:17. In the post-Easter epistles and in Acts it appears frequently, but always in the phrase “community of God,” which translates the Old Testament expression “levy of God,” meaning Israel. The New Testament is aware throughout that Jesus, unlike the Qumran community or the Pharisees, does not seek to establish a special community but to call the whole people of God back to their Lord.”

Whether or not Jesus actually said the words proclaiming Peter as the rock upon which the church would be built is a matter of scholarly debate. Schweizer thinks that Jesus did not say these words; that the words were added by a later author. So what can we say about Jesus’ vision?

I think we can say that Jesus had absolutely no idea whatsoever of anything that we might call “church.” Nothing that we might call church was a part of Jesus’ vision… Church as an institution with any sort of organizational and leadership structure, whether that leadership be papal, episcopal or congregational… Church as something with defined membership guidelines… Even church as a group of people ascribing to a particular creed or confession… None of these was a part of Jesus’ vision.

The word “peculiar” shows up in some of our hymns and Rite 1 collects in its archaic sense of “special.” We sang one last week, which is probably why it’s in my head: “Let every creature rise and bring peculiar honors to our King.” “Peculiar” always means particular. It used to mean particularly special, uniquely wonderful. Only in the 17th century did it come to mean particularly odd, uniquely strange.

I’m not sure how far to push this idea, but maybe it’s helpful to think of everything we call church as peculiar. In both senses of the word. Our own special, uniquely wonderful way of knowing and sharing and praising God. But totally strange, odd, unknown to Jesus. Our current churches would be peculiar indeed to Jesus’ vision.

Jesus does not talk about ecclesia or church. The words Jesus uses are words like people and kingdom. Jesus talks about all of God’s people. All of God’s people. And about bringing them to God’s kingdom and bringing God’s kingdom to them. Jesus’ ministry is about making God’s kingdom real for all of God’s people.

To say that Jesus’ did not talk about ecclesia, whether you translate it church or community, is not a license for us to abandon our particular faith communities. That, I think, would be equally incomprehensible to Jesus. There is only the “people” of God; not "a person" of God. There is no singular.

God only knows if there are any limits on how broad the expanse of God’s people is. Only God knows.
But the people of God are a people bound together by God. Bound. United. Held together by God. Not by human choice, but by God. The people of God are not just individuals, each cared for by God; they are a people… a people bound to one another by God. Not by our choice, but by God's power.

The absolutely greatest differentiation we might imagine amongst us is trivial compared to what binds us one to another. The link is forged by God’s desire and by God’s power. It is literally infinitely stronger than anything on earth.

I am bound to people of God whom I do not know by the power of God.  People I do not know, do not understand, maybe don’t even like… the bond uniting us is full of God’s power.

That turns the world upside down.

Whether the words in Matthew’s Gospel about Peter and the church are Jesus’ own or a post-Easter addition is an issue debated among scholars. The collect appointed for this day is definitely post-Easter, appearing first in the 1928 Book of Common Prayer. “Grant, O merciful God, that your Church, being gathered together in unity by your Holy Spirit, may show forth your power among all peoples, to the glory of your Name.” It is the Holy Spirit’s presence and power that gathers, unites the people of God. It is God’s spirit, love and power that gathers us into unity. Not us. The Holy Spirit. That gathers the people of God into unity. And then we pray that we may, by how we live and serve as God’s people, show forth God’s power to the world. That we, by our words and actions, may proclaim God’s power to gather and unite. That’s the particular power this collect is talking about—God’s power to gather and unite. We pray that even this peculiar church may be a witness to the world of God’s power to gather and unify.