And other signs of the grace of God
Proper 16A | Matthew 16:13-20
The teacher isn’t making it easy on his students. The questions sound simple. At first. But they are sneaky, deep, and require our actually paying attention.
The first,
“Who do people say that the Son of Man is?”
should be simple enough, I suppose. What have we heard along the way? They might not talk in front of Jesus, but his followers? Sure. And besides, they’ve gone out without him. Healing. Proclaiming the Good News. No doubt they’ve said some things themselves about him.
What did they say, I wonder? When they bring him up. It can’t just be other people talking. Calling him a prophet. Maybe Elijah’s come back. No, they’ve had to say something themselves. But what? That he’s special? Not just a healer or a prophet, probably.
“But who do you say that I am?”
Now that should be easy, too. But it requires admitting something. Not other people’s ideas, but their own.
The Messiah
There really isn’t a container for Jesus to just slot into. He keeps defying their expectations. Healing, feeding, walking on water, stilling storms. What actually is that?
They don’t have words for that. Closest is Son of God, probably. But the emperor calls himself that and he can’t do any of that.
Telling the truth of what they say would make them vulnerable. A test of not just what they’ve picked up along the way, but what they believe. Put the clues together and you get halfway there. You’re still going to have to make a leap. Trust. Hope.
Who is he? Peter says it: Messiah.
Here’s how it fits.
There isn’t a perfect container, of course. But this one reveals the hope and the scope of the project. The Kin-dom of Heaven. He’s the one to lead them. Save them. Bring salvation. The evidence doesn’t say this exactly. But Peter’s faith does. Jesus’s leading them does. He just has to…leap to get there.
Here’s how it doesn’t fit.
The Messiah is a general. The one who would lead a military revolution. He would liberate, not just the people of Israel, but the kingdom itself from the Roman Empire. Healing people and walking on water isn’t that. A metaphysical freedom of thought—well, let’s be honest—that doesn’t fit either.
Freedom, true freedom, means spiritual and physical freedom. The messiah is supposed to bring independence to the people. Is that really on the table here?
Peter is taking a risk.
This isn’t an easy response. That we dub it as the right one is significant. And our tradition treats it like the big deal it is.
Jesus isn’t just a healer, he is the Messiah. The liberator and savior of humanity.
How did Peter know this? He didn’t. Not for sure. Completely. He had to take a leap. A genuine educated guess. Emphasis on the educated.
A Bigger Picture
There’s a gap between our reading last week and this one: the end of one chapter and the beginning of the next.
And last week, we saw Jesus expand the scope of his work. The messiah was to be a Hebrew come to save the Hebrew people. A family thing. Just us. Our people. And Jesus seems to have seen himself that way.
Until the Canaanite woman opens his eyes to the borderlands. To the multiplicity that comprises humanity. And his mission grew. It evolved. Not just his team. Or more importantly, people like her are his team. This messiah would be different. Not like David in that way. Not just for the Hebrews, but for humanity itself.
He heals more people. Feeds more people. People of his expanded sense of “our team”. And this is when the religious leaders confront him again. They want a sign.
Seeing the Signs
Jesus schools the Pharisees again. Because they aren’t counting the signs he’s actually doing. Healing. Feeding. Saving. They’re refusing to hear him. It’s almost like they want him to prove his divinity. As if such a proof would ever lead them to follow him. It wouldn’t. They don’t really want a Messiah. They seem alright without one.
The problem for them is that they won’t count the signs they’ve seen. And Jesus warns his followers about these leaders. Because they aren’t being honest. True. They’re gaming the system for themselves.
But the disciples don’t see the whole picture, either. Jesus’s metaphor makes them think of other things. Not random things. But the signs. The very signs the Pharisees ignored. Refused to count. The disciples couldn’t hear Jesus’s teaching because they were fixed on the other teaching.
The teaching, the signs, that’s what holds their attention. That’s what leads them to the answers. Healer. Prophet. Elijah. Messiah.
Peter isn’t special.
He’s just the one who said it. Who took the signs, put it together, and took the leap.
The signs point to Jesus’s specialness. A messiah, though? Not the one they’re expecting anyway. Not the one they were taught to hope for.
This is the leap, then. Right there.
That the concept of the Messiah could change. Evolve. Expand. Grow.
Like Jesus does.
And maybe this mission, all that it entails, is something bigger, broader, more significant than they thought. Than they were told. Something that means more.
Maybe we need to change.
Expand our thinking. Our hopes. Expectations.
That the signs of our times don’t reveal the need for spiritual enlightenment only. For coming to church, believing the right things, and being a decent enough person. Maybe this isn’t the point.
When Jesus keeps teaching more than that. Showing more than that. The signs—in our world and our life of faith—point to much more than this. To liberation… from economic pressures…from hunger…from sickness and depression…from all of the poverties of the modern world.
And that we are partners in this liberation. Apostles empowered with the very stuff of creating new life. Grace. Hope.
The signs are everywhere. And the power is within us. This is all here and accounted for.
What we have is to take the leap. In faith. Hope. Grace.
And what we fear is not that we won’t make it across, of course. But that we will. And what we’ll find there is different from what we want. But this isn’t about our wants. It’s about grace-filled change.
Our purpose is to change. To bring change. And take the risk of being changed by the grace of God. For the grace of God. With the grace of God. That this very grace, a sign of God’s goodness is here, present, and making all things better. All things. Including us. And everything we love.
Changed. Loved. Renewed. Healed. Whole. Full of grace and true hope for tomorrow.