Matthew 16:13-17:9
Lord of All and Head of the Church
James Sledge February
8, 2015
“Do
you trust in Jesus Christ your Savior, acknowledge him Lord of all and Head of
the Church, and through him believe in one God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit?”
That is the first question asked to those who are ordained in the Presbyterian
Church. It is the first question because it is the most important. The
questions that follow build on it, saying how ordained leaders are to guide
congregations with Christ as our Lord and Head.
In
today’s gospel reading, Jesus asks his followers a question. “Who
do people say that the Son of Man is?” and the disciples provide a
number of answers. No doubt we could do the same. Who is Jesus? A great
teacher, a prophet, a healer, the founder of one of the world’s great
religions, a spiritual sugar daddy, and the list goes on and on.
“But who do you say that I am? Jesus asks, and
Peter answers for the group. Today, those being ordained as ruling elders and
deacons will affirm their answer. He is Savior, Lord of all, Head of the
Church, and the way that we come to know the Triune God.
We
ask our ordination questions in a worship service, walled away from the world.
Jesus does things differently. He asks his questions in Caesarea Philippi. I
have to admit that I’d never really thought much about the locale until I read
Brian McLaren’s book, but I suspect that the first readers of Matthew’s gospel
did take notice. They knew that this place was named for Caesar and a son of
Herod the Great, that it featured prominent Roman temples. They likely knew it
was a favorite getaway of Roman generals who besieged and finally destroyed
Jerusalem in 70 A.D. Considering that Matthew is written to Jewish Christians shortly
after this destruction, this surely made for some jarring contrasts.
Caesar
was lord and a “son of the gods.” Proclaiming that Jesus is the
Messiah, the Son of the living God,” had real political implications. It’s
the same for deacons and elders who affirm that Jesus is “Lord of all.” He is
Lord over our political loyalties, vocational choices, finances, daily lives,
and even over human history. But declaring Jesus “Lord” is not the same as
understanding what it means to live with him as Lord of all and Head of the
Church. If you don’t believe me, just ask Peter.
I’m
not sure there is any other place in the Bible where a person of faith goes so
quickly from star pupil to abject failure. One moment Peter is the rock on
which the Church will be built; the next he is the leader of darkness. I can
scarcely imagine how Simon Peter must have felt when Jesus said , “Get
behind me Satan!”
During the
Sermon on the Mount, Jesus had taught his followers, “Not everyone who says to me,
‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the
will of my Father in heaven.” Now Peter gets reminded of that in brutal
fashion. Peter’s notions of what a Messiah and Lord is supposed to do turn out
to be way off the mark. The Lord of all does not come wielding power in the
manner of Caesars or the powerful of our day. God’s ways, Jesus’ ways, are nothing
like the world’s or ours. They are odd and strange to us, not at all what we
would do if we were God.
And so we’re likely to have some of the
same struggles Peter did. We will think we know what it means to be Christian, to
be the Church, how the Church should act, and whom it should serve in much the
same way that Peter “knew” how a Messiah was to act.