| “The Rock.”
First, an apology-to those of you who, having read the bulletin board outside, came here this morning expecting to hear a sermon about The Rock who is the 6' 5", 275 lb. WWE wrestling champion, a.k.a. Dwayne Johnson-he of the raised right eyebrow and the body-slam finishing move called “Rock Bottom.” I swear, I did spend part of this week searching the internet, with the help of Google, trying to extract from the thousands of articles about this much-celebrated entertainment phenomenon at least one preachable point, but, alas, I failed miserably. In consequence, you’re stuck this morning with a sermon on a more ordinary sort of Rock, “The Rock” of today’s Second Lesson. I’m standing here now fresh from being on the radio-“Religion on the Line,” WABC, 770 on the AM dial, from 6 to 9 a.m. As many of you know, I’m co-host of that program along with Fr. Paul Keenan of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York and Rabbi Joseph Potasnik of the New York Board of Rabbis. I begin each of my own programs with a reading from Scripture, usually one of the lessons I’ll be using in church that day, one of the lessons set by the common lectionary that many Protestants follow. So today I opened the program by reading our Second Lesson, Matthew 16:13-20, which happens also to be the Gospel Lesson used today in Roman Catholic churches throughout the world. Whenever I have a solo program, as I did this morning, I’m keenly aware that many of our listeners are Jewish or Muslim, and as a Christian it’s part of my job to be able to state clearly what sets our religion, Christianity, apart from their religion, Judaism or Islam. Now, in the text I read from Matthew, Jesus asks his disciples, “Who do people say that I am?” And as I read those words, I was keenly aware that persons of religious faiths other than my own would speak about Jesus quite differently from me. For example, Rabbi Potasnik, as a Jew, would probably say something like this: Jesus was a Jewish rabbi of the first century whose teachings differed in many significant respects from those of the overwhelming majority of rabbis of that same time-the rabbis whose teachings Joe himself follows. Furthermore, Joe would go on to state his belief that Jesus was not the Messiah, not the Christ hoped-for by Jews. And how would a Muslim scholar describe Jesus? Well, last July 7th, I had as a guest on my program Imam Feisal Abdul-Rauf, and on that program he said something like this: Jesus was one of the great prophets sent to humankind by God. He was not the Son of God; he was simply the son of Mary. Still, he was one of the great human instruments by which God’s revelation has come to us, one of the indispensable links in the chain of prophets reaching back in time through Moses and Abraham to Adam and stretching forward in time to Muhammad. So that, I believe, is how a Jewish rabbi and a Muslim imam would answer this question of Jesus’s identity. But as I listened to our lesson from Matthew, I could hear Jesus turning to both Father Keenan and me and asking, “Well, what about the two of you? You’re followers of mine. Who do you say that I am?” And I could hear Father Keenan and me responding, “Jesus, we share the faith of your disciple Simon Peter. With him, we affirm that you are the Messiah, that you are the Son of the Living God!” So that’s it in a nutshell. First stated almost 2000 years ago by the apostle Peter, that’s the profession of faith which most notably sets Christianity apart from Judaism and Islam. You see, we Christians profess that Jesus is the fulfillment both of human hope and of divine promise. We profess that Jesus embodies-that Jesus incarnates-both: the perfection of goodness that we humans were created to be; and the perfection of justice, love, and compassion that God is. Other religions do not accept these claims we Christians make about Jesus. So our proclamation of Jesus as Messiah and Son of God, the profession of faith that Simon Peter originated and we continue-this proclamation of ours is what sets Christianity apart from Judaism, from Islam, and from every other religion. It is indeed this profession of faith that is the hallmark of Christianity, our distinguishing characteristic. And whenever persons decide to join the Rutgers Church, or any other Christian church, they are asked to affirm, or reaffirm, their trust in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. It is this common profession of faith that unites Fr. Keenan and me; it is this common profession of faith that unites Catholics and Protestants. But the unity between Catholics and Protestants that this one verse in Matthew 16 provides is taken away by other verses in our lesson, as I learned yet again just this morning in my radio conversation with several of our program’s Catholic listeners. For while Catholics and I are united by verse 16, which professes our common faith in Jesus as the Christ, Catholics and I are divided by our differing interpretations of verses 18 and 19 and by our differing understandings of just what the foundation for the church is that Christ is proclaiming here. In this passage, Jesus gives to his disciple Simon bar-Jonah a new nickname, saying to him, “You are Rock [with a capital ‘R,’ as in Rock Hudson, or, yes, “The Rock”]-you are Rock, and on this rock [“rock” with a lower case ‘r’] I will build my church.” So what are the differing understandings of verses 18 and 19 that divide Catholics and Protestants? I believe this is an important question for us to consider, for a number of this church’s members were previously Catholic, and some of the people thinking of joining us are now Catholic. And besides, we all need to know our own traditions even better. So what are the Catholic and Protestant understandings of “the foundation upon which the church is built”? What are these varying understandings that constitute such a defining difference between Protestants and Catholics. Jesus says to Simon bar-Jonah, “You are Petros, you are Peter, you are Rock.” Petros, the Greek word transliterated into English as “P-e-t-e-r, Peter,” was not really a name; that is, it was not a name that any parent would give to a child way back in Jesus’s time. You see, petros was not a proper noun but a common noun. It was just one of the ordinary words in Greek for a “rock” or a “stone.” So Jesus calls Simon “Petros” as a nickname, not a proper name, and we should probably translate verse 18, “You are Rock,” rather than, “You are Peter.” Catholics have traditionally understood Jesus to be saying to Simon: “You are Rock, and on you, a rock, I will build my church.” That is, Catholics have understood Jesus to be saying that Simon Peter himself is the rock block on which Christ’s church is to be built. And Catholics believe that after the death and resurrection of Jesus, Simon Peter went on to become the first Bishop of Rome, from which they deduce that the rock upon which the church is founded is the rock of that office-“Bishop of Rome.” You see, Catholics believe that after the death of Simon Peter the risen Christ established a line of successors to the apostolic office of Simon Peter, an unbroken line of successors filling the office of “Bishop of Rome,” or, to use more familiar terminology, the office of “Pope.” Catholics affirm that the Pope, as the apostolic successor to Simon Peter, continues to fulfill the role of Peter as the Rock upon which the church is founded. So, in Matthew 16:18, Catholics understand Jesus to be saying to Simon, “You are Rock, and I will build my church, first on you personally, and, then on each of your apostolic successors -on each Pope personally, in his turn.” Thus, contemporary Catholics understand Pope John Paul II to be the rock on which the church continues to be built, the person commissioned to speak infallibly from his throne, the guarantor of the faithful witness and soundness of the church and of its strength and integrity. Catholics believe that without the office of the Pope the church would be built on sand, rather than rock. Now we Protestants don’t recognize the authority of the office of Pope, yet we obviously believe ourselves to be founded on rock, not sand. And we obviously believe ourselves to be an intrinsic part of the authentic church of Christ. So what is the way in which we Protestants read Matthew 16:18? Well, we understand Jesus to be saying to Simon, “You are Rock, and I will build the church first on you and on your profession of faith in me as the Messiah and the Son of God, and subsequently on the countless other Rock’s-those myriads of other followers of mine who profess the same faith that you do.” Protestants believe that Jesus did single out Simon Peter, and did speak of him and his faithful witness as fundamental for the founding of Christian community. But we Protestants go on to believe that the spiritual succession to Peter, the rock foundation upon which the church continues to be built-the spiritual succession to Peter lies not in the office of Pope, but lies instead in the whole company of us believers, the whole company of those of us who, like Peter, have professed faith in Jesus as Messiah and Son of God. And that is what we Protestants mean when we use that magnificent expression “the priesthood of all believers.” “The priesthood of all believers” is the company of spirit-filled persons in all places through all time, the whole company of the faithful, on whom Christ has built the church. You see, we Protestants believe that the church stands not on the single stone block of an apostolic papal succession. We believe that the church stands on a foundation formed out of myriads of rocks, out of countless individual stones joined into one by the risen Christ, as Christ continues to fit to the first rock, that of Simon Peter, the rock of each subsequent follower-myriads of rocks bonded into one foundation with the mortar of the Holy Spirit. Our Protestant vision that the church is founded on the person and faith of the ordinary believers of all times and places is, I think, a far riskier and scarier one than the Catholic vision that the church is founded on one single apostolic office. For the clear implication of our Protestant vision is that each and every one of us, each and every member of the church-past, present, and future-is directly accountable to Christ for the faithful witness and soundness of the church. In our Protestant vision, the place where the buck stops is you and me. For it is each and every one of us who is responsible to Christ for the strength and the integrity of the church. In our Protestant vision, if we don’t like what’s happening in the church, it is we, motivated by Christ and guided and energized by the Holy Spirit, who have the task of reshaping and redirecting the church. We cannot absolve ourselves from responsibility by pointing to some hierarchy or to some office above us, for in our Protestant vision: “I am the church, you are the church, we are the church together.” You and I, fitted to other believers by Christ and bonded with the mortar of the Holy Spirit, are The Rock’s [with a capital ‘T’ and a capital ‘R’]-The Rock’s upon whom the church is built. Let us pray: O God, what an awesome responsibility you gave to Simon Peter and to all of us who like him profess that Jesus is the Messiah, Your unique Son! You would build the church on us and on the witness offered by us in faith. As we undertake to fulfill Your commission, may we be strengthened by Christ and upheld by the Holy Spirit. Amen. |
Return to Sermon Archive