Pastor's Page --     Rev. Timothy L. Seals Sermon Title:  “One Christ, One Vision, One People” Sermon Text:  Matthew 16:13-19 Occasion: St. Peter & St. Paul, Apostles Matthew 16:13-19   Now when Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?”  And they said, “Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and others say one of the prophets.”  He said to them,  “But who do you say that I am?”  Simon Peter replied, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”  And Jesus answered him, “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah!  For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven.  And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.  I 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 shall be loosed in heaven.”  (English Standard Version) All Politics aside, on the eve of the celebration of her 232nd birthday, something historic has occurred in our nation.  Of course, I’m speaking about Senator BarackObama, the presumptive nominee of the Democratic Party for the presidency of the United States of America.  He is the first African-American accorded such a high honor.  Only in America is this story possible.  Europeans belittle Americans.  They say that we are obsessed with God and money.  In their eyes, we are backward and unsophisticated.  This story could never have taken place in France, England or Germany.  The reason why is that unlike most European nations,  America is not based on an ethnicity or a class.   America is based on a concept.  That concept is found in the teachings of Jesus and the Enlightenment thinkers of the 17th and 18th centuries.  Every human being is endowed by God with unalienable rights.  Every human being, then, is of infinite value and worth. In November we may elect our first African American president, 40 years after the assassination of Martin Luther King.  If that is the case, then we will have gone way beyond King’s dream of  asociety based on character and the content of one’s heart.  We will have entered what some are calling a post racist society, where color and ethnicity give way to character.   Most Americans are already living in such society. Ideas are powerful.  Ideas have consequences.  The infinite value of every human being was taught by Jesus when he commanded his disciples to go into all the world to teach and baptize in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.  After his death and resurrection, the access to heaven and to a loving God was a possibility for all people.  It was the responsibility of the apostles to ensure that all people would be offered that possibility.  The gospel was for all people.  And, in its initial phase, the church was well aware of that.  As is often the case, however, culture got in the way.  The old ways of living and thinking intruded themselves into the church.  In Acts, we see the division of peoples, the division between the Greeks and Jews.  As we read Paul’s account of his relationship with Peter in Galatians, we see the division between the Jews and the Gentiles.  The church had to live out what it meant that the Gospel was for both the Jew and Greek.  If not, the fledgling church would have died on the vine. Christ built his church on a rock against which not even the gates of hell could prevail.  Since the third century, the church has celebrated St. Peter and St. Paul on the same day to show our unity in Christ: Peter, the apostle to the Jews and Paul, the apostle to the Gentiles.  Different ministries; yet, they are one in Christ Jesus.  On this St. Peter and St. Paul Day, we once again celebrate our unity in Christ.  There is one Christ, one vision and one people. On the way to Caesarea Philippi, Jesus asks his disciples a relevant question: “Who do people say that I am?”  That is a relevant question to ask because there were many messianic pretenders.  That was so in Jesus’ day and even after his day.  In fact, every Jewish political crisis with Rome brought out messianic pretenders as such problems signaled the decisive act of God in history to free them.  The pretenders were inspired by the likes of Judas Maccabeus two centuries before Christ.  Judas “the Hammer” (Maccabeus means “hammer”) achieved a significant victory over the Greeks and freed Palestine from their tyranny.  His kingdom existed for 100 years.  Judas Maccabeus was the one that zealots like Judas Iscariot emulated, as well as messianic pretenders in Jesus’ day and later in the era leading to the destruction of the temple in 70 A.D.  There were many messianic movements purporting to be inspired from God to drive the Romans out of the homeland like Judas Maccabeus of old.  “Who do people say that I am?”  By posing this question, Jesus distinguishes himself from all the others.  The answer given by Peter demonstrates the divine origin of Jesus and his divine authority.  His authority is not lodged in weapons.  He is not a pawn of the temple power elite.  Jesus will not force, rape or maim.  His movement is different.  It is a peace movement.  Its power and authority are from above, from God.  For anyone to know it, it must be revealed to them by his Father in heaven.  Also, Caesarea Philippi was the seat of the provincial government of the Roman empire.  It was there that Pontius Pilate resided.  Herod the Great forged a magnificent building program there in honor of his good friend Caesar Augustus.  Herod made the ancient city into a Greco-Roman jewel.  It was to celebrate all that was brilliant about the Greco-Roman civilization.  In the horizon of this city, Jesus poses his question.  It is not an accident that he poses his question there.  The city serves as a backdrop because the city of God that Jesus would build would outlast this city, for it would be an eternal city built on him. Peter answers Jesus’ question: “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”  Jesus is a different leader.  He is a different kind of anointed leader.  He is the Son of God.  His origin is in God.  If he is from God, then he will serve all people.  He frees people from their shared enemies of sin, death and the devil.  It is by his life, death and resurrection that he accomplishes what no messianic pretender could ever accomplish.  He saves the Jews, the Romans, the Greeks, the Germans, and all people.  He saves Israel and her enemies. Jesus inspires both Israel and her enemies by one vision.  One vision will join them and usher them beyond their doubts and fears to life eternal.  There is one vision for humanity that Jesus gives for its enlightenment.  The one vision is built on the rock.  The rock is Christ Jesus himself.  The rock is not Peter or any other disciple.  How could they be: they are human.  No human is big enough to embrace all people with a vision that meets their deepest longing.  The rock is Christ Jesus, against whom the gates of hell cannot prevail.  The gates of hell can prevail against us humans every now and then.  In this life, we are the militant church.  We are a fighting church.  We fight against sin, death and the devil until we die.  This is the source of the spiritual warfare in which each Christian is enlisted.  Every now and then the gates of hell get the better of us.  Being human and therefore vulnerable, the gates of hell flood us with negative and destructive thoughts and behaviors.  Later in the story, Jesus speaks about going to Jerusalem and dying.  Peter stands in Jesus’ way and says, “Never!  This shall not happen to you.”  Jesus tells Peter, “Get behind me, satan.  You do not have in mind the things of God, but the things of men.”  Indeed many times that was the case with Peter.  No, Peter cannot be the rock because the gates of hell taunt him as they do us.  But, they cannot prevail against Christ.  All who are baptized into Christ have put on Christ.  Sin, death and the devil no longer have power over them.  Jesus is the rock on which we stand through Baptism.  It is Peter’s trust and faith in Christ that we emulate and celebrate this morning.  Through that faith, he took the Gospel all over the world, he together with the other apostles and their successors.  This was the vision that empowered both Peter and Paul.  They lived this vision.  And, they died because of it.  Church tradition says that both Peter and Paul died in Nero’s persecution of Christians in 64 – 68 AD.  Their day is celebrated together because they died together in that persecution in the 60’s.   Over their lifetimes they had their differences; in the end, however, they died for Christ, being united to Christ Jesus’ vision. There is one Christ.  There is one vision.  And, from those two come one people.  Peter says, “As you come to him, a living stone rejected by men but in the sight of God chosen and precious, you yourselves like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.” (1 Peter 2:4-5)  Many living stones go into the building of the new spiritual temple in Christ Jesus.  There are different gifts, which are all necessary to build up this one people.  Concerning the one people, Paul says, “For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility by abolishing the law of commandments and ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place of two.”  (Ephesians 2:15)  The Jew and Gentile were at once at enmity.  In Christ Jesus they are made one, inasmuch as Christ has torn the dividing wall between. It is a sad legacy that the church throughout the centuries has erected barriers that God has torn down in Christ Jesus.  We see the tension in Peter himself.  He had experienced the freedom of the Gospel.  He saw how Cornelius and his family had come to Christ and were empowered by the Holy Spirit.  According to Paul, when Peter got around Jews he was one way.  Around Gentiles, he acted another way.  Around Gentiles, he was open to them.  He ate in their homes and had fellowship with them.  When he got around Jews, he pretended not to like Gentiles.  He shunned them.  Peter let his culture get above Christ.  Paul saw right through that and called him on it.  It was the height of hypocrisy.  We have done the same.  To our shame, Martin Luther King used to call Sunday morning the most segregated hour of the week.  My former church got into a debate about whether to reach out to the Hispanic people that were moving into the neighborhood.  The church was African-American.  I recall one elder getting upset at the debate, for, as he saw it, the church must reach out to all people.  He told a joke to illustrate the absurdity of the debate.  He said, “There was a Christian man who died.  His angel allowed him to witness his funeral service.  He was impressed by all the great things people were saying about him.  He was eulogized as a good Christian.  He loved him family and friends.  He attended church every Sunday.  He sang in the choir.  The man smiled and was ready to meet St. Peter at the pearly gates.  So, off he went to heaven.  When he got there, Peter was not at the gate, so he walked through the gates and approached heaven’s door.  He knocked.  There was no answer.  So, he knocked again, harder this time.  He then heard a voice from inside, “Quienestaalli?”  The man got a puzzled look on his face.  He was certain this was heaven, so he knocked again.  The door opened.  A very friendly man with a loving smile on his face said, “Bienvenidos, hermano.  Estamos en cielo.Por favor entre usted!”  The man said, “Never mind.”  He turned around went in the other direction.  The elder then said, “We better learn to live with all people, because we will have an eternity with them.” This St. Peter and St. Paul day affords us an opportunity to rehearse our mission statement.  The mission of St. Luke Lutheran Church is to make loving disciples.  If we do that well, then we will have achieved our vision.  What is our vision?  “St. Luke Lutheran Church is a diverse, Spirit-filled and Spirit-driven community of believers ready to serve Claremont and surrounding areas.”   We are in the process of accomplishing that.  We thank the Lord for our growth.  God is providing for us and will continue to do the same.  Let us not forget that we stand on a rock, the rock of Christ.  We are joined to him in Baptism, and nothing can shake us off that rock.  The gates of hell cannot prevail against Christ.  Let us follow Peter and Paul.  We emulate Paul’s unswerving commitment to principles.  We emulate Peter and Paul’s willingness to die for Christ, rather than surrender him.  And, we thank God for our country, which God has placed on the forefront of bettering the world.  God bless America.  Amen.