Christ Church Cathedral

Matthew 16:14   But you, he said, who do you say that I am

There is a sense in which we can truthfully say that the history of Christianity can be best understood as the story of the attempts made to answer this question. It is first recorded by Mark (8:27-33) in the so-called confession at Caesarea Philippi. Most likely this is the kind of event that was first captured by the so-called oral tradition which grew up around the life of Jesus upon the which Gospels were heavily dependent.  Even here we suspect the tradition has been added to  (possibly by Mark's Q source) by the introduction of the term Messiah or Christ as the title for Jesus. Jesus favorite term for himself was Son of Man a more likely source of which was oral tradition. Another conclusion which seems safe is that obviously Peter played a major leadership role among the Disciples up to the time of Jesus Death and Resurrection.

If we turn our attention to this event as depicted by Matthew - all that really remains is Jesus question.  How do we explain Peter's reply which is regarded by the majority of commentators as a fabrication by the Gospel author or authors.  Is it possible to reconstruct the approximate half century which separates the Marcan oral tradition from the Matthean account. For one, every one of the Gospel writers were able to see Jesus life in terms of its outcome in death and resurrection.  But, His ministry must be seen from its beginning to have a dual character - the preaching which centers upon the Kingdom of God as a reign of justice - the prophetic messianic tradition and the transformation of Jesus life into an ongoing presence through the lives of those who call Him Lord  - the one who is master over death itself.

Remember also, that between Jesus death and resurrection and the actual writing of the Gospels a lot was going on within the communities that Jesus followers established. We get a glimpse of this action in the Events mentioned (but recorded much later) of Acts 15 - the Council of Jerusalem which happened around 50C.E.. Paul's account is found in Galatians 2. By this time, the chief players have changed,  the Disciples are missing to be replaced by Jesus brother, particularly James, and the Apostle Paul.  The role of women seems to have been maintained from Jesus time and Peter emerges as the great reactionary who seemed to have opposed the ministry to the Gentiles and the concessions made to their life style in terms of dietary restriction and male circumcision. It seems likely that it was sometime following the Council of Jerusalem that the word church was introduced as the description of the communities of Christ's followers.  The term which is found only in Matthew as the reply of Peter and again in 18:17 is highly suspect and generally regard as a creation of the Gospel writer which dates it not before 80 C.E. at the earliest. There is every reason to believe that by the time the Gospel of Matthew was compiled the communities of Christ's followers were called churches and began to assume a more formal  structure which we know as ecclesiastical.  Most authorities associate Matthew with the Syrian church and apparently it was concerned to make sure that the role of Peter within the emerging Christian structure was assured.  It appears that Peter is associated by this Gospel with the movement which creates the formal ecclesiastical structure which transforms the communities of Christians into churches and that part of this development included a more formal organization. The tradition of Peter's leadership role among Jesus early  disciples made him a logical candidate to symbolize this transformation. It is somewhat ironic that the origins of the papacy are found in one who was conservative in his approach to the gentile  mission and was married to boot. But the history of imperialism shows that one of its abilities is to create its own view of reality as the imperial presidency of the Bush administration clearly illustrates.

Far from producing a final answer to Jesus question Peter's reply demonstrates the impossibility of achieving this goal - save through the route of an imperial take on the nature of Christ's presence in the world. In our own time Thomas Merton has characterized this quest as fired by a kind of holy restlessness, as if each time the traveler as ends a peak he sees nothing but larger peaks that now confront him⁽¹⁾. This drive is a rejection of any imperial claim to contain by fiat all possible experience and knowledge which has yet to unfold. The conflict which Jesus question has produced was particularly heated in the three or four centuries following the writing of what became as one response  to  this crisis the four canonical Gospels. It had many facets but most of them eventually were consolidated by the adoption of Greek philosophical categories which defined reality in such a way that words were regarded as able to capture permanently both experience and meaning. Thus it was possible to speak of belief in a specific set of words as the essential mark of your being Christian.

It is also very obvious that the words used by Jesus in his preaching are not very easily amenable to a  belief of this kind.  Social justice was at the center of his criticism of Jewish and Roman power structures of the time and the social and economic implications of his message demanded that those who heard it go beyond  words to specific action. But what we make of Jesus preaching is closely tied or possibly even determines the way in which we understand and portray his death and resurrection. Is the kingdom a vision of this world transformed   realized only here and now. Or, is it a vision of another time and place. Specifically what do the words heaven and hell mean in the Nicene Creed.. Have these words exhausted (pun intended) all that needs to be said on the subject.  Or as Isaac Bashevis Singer put it,  involve  at the time they are used  - Knowledge that is a little island in a great ocean of non knowledge. ⁽²⁾ We can imagine therefore that there are those who feel that Jesus question has been satisfactorily answered by Peter and that nothing further needs to be added to it OR  that it is the question that the Church as the body of Christ is always asking both to itself and to anyone else who may care to reply. In both instances the answer involves some way of expressing what we know and this today is more than a mute question..
Thus as we regard the words of the past we need to be reminded that they reflect very clearly two crucial conditions - they state what is known and also what is not known at the time. We are in a very important discussion at the present moment to parse exactly whether our religious faith is to be understand as being exempt from this inescapable condition. If it isn't , then are there any limits to the application of this knowledge.

In the recent discussion and polemic which has occupied the attention of the Anglican communion over the past few years, I have along with many others been distracted by the specific points of the conflict to the extent that we have ignored the larger issues of social justice that surely need to occupy the energy of the church. In a sense we have become so problem oriented that we not noticed that we need a more focused  voice if we are to return to the message that got Jesus in trouble in the first place. The issue then and now is the  massive income disparity that is affecting almost every country in the world and is particularly endemic in the west. This knowledge require(d)s  challenging  the power elite  that all to readily make the poor of the world a target for aid because they know that this will excuse the greed and indifference which drives their accumulation of wealth and make no change to their power to control  We will have to offer an alternative to the sin which drives our  society without pretending that the solution will lie in a heaven which is yet to come.. Tough talk, it will require resurrected   bodies   which to the best of our knowledge cannot be distinguished by words slave, free, gay, male or female, For they are  one in Christ.

⁽¹⁾ Fico Iyer, HOLY RESTLESSNESS, New York Review of Books, July 26, 2008, p.37

⁽²⁾ NY Review, July 2008, p.37

The Rev. Roger A. Balk, Ph.d.