Photo: Pietro Perugino: Delivery of the Keys / Public domain
How remarkable that we read the gospel according to St Matthew today looking for insight and grace from the Holy Spirit to lead and guide us in our daily lives.
How especially remarkable is today’s gospel and next week’s also which are part of a whole, full of drama and passion and divided understanding of what Jesus said and how he is understood.
Jesus and the disciples are now in the region of Caesarea Philippi, which is in pagan territory, away from the crowds and a place given over to temples of gods like Pan and acknowledging Caesar as a god.
Jesus asks them in this place who d the people think he is and the disciples respond with answers that he is like the great prophets of old. Then he asks them who do they think he is?
This is one of Simon’s best responses in the gospels. He answers for the whole group because they would not have been thinking as individuals as we do today. He replies that Jesus is the Messiah, the Christ.
Jesus blesses Peter for responding in such a forthright fashion and tells the disciples this response was inspired by the Father who is guiding this action of Jesus in the world. Peter’s leadership credentials are displayed here again. He makes mistakes but not this time.
Jesus changes his name from Simon to Peter, the word for ‘rock’. A change of name in the scriptures denotes a change of nature as we read with ‘Abram’s ‘name being changed to ‘’Abraham’.
Then like a bell intoning grave tidings, Peter and the disciples are told that Jesus will build his Church on Peter the rock, he will give him the keys of the kingdom and the authority to bind and to loosen. There is also the promise that the Church will never fail, that hostility will not defeat it.
This is a point of departure still, today and in the past for Christian traditions who disagree about how these words are to be interpreted… For Catholics, it is a statement that Peter was given supreme authority over the Church, and was recognised as the first Pope. Others read a different interpretation of these words.
In St John’s gospel, Jesus prays that we might all be one. In recent times the ecumenical movement has made progress but is not moving forward with the confidence that could make all Christians one.
The question ‘who do you say that I am’? has always been asked and always demands a reply. The Body of Christ, the collection of baptised believers acknowledge that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God. It is a question that is ever-present. The response is fundamentally the same through the centuries - to love God and love our neighbour, but our responses change as the world changes. The Holy Spirit guides us, calling us to newness of life and to participate in making all things new.
Columban Fr Gary Walker is currently living at the Columban house in Sandgate, Brisbane.
