Proper 16 A

It is interesting to consider the messianic language observed in the post 9/11 George Bush presidency in relation to Constantine, whom Eusebius called the thirteenth apostle and the one in whom the Logos expressed a new divine initiative. The messianic status assumed by Constantine was a pre-Christian messianism, uninformed by the crucifixion’s interpretation of that story and, indeed, embracing a vision Jesus himself rejected. Constantine’s motive in calling the ecumenical councils was to maintain imperial unity rather than the critical pursuit of truth. The distortions of Christianity brought by Constantine have in many ways been reborn with new vigour in the conflicts and aspirations of recent Western history.

In the Matthew story for this Sunday (Matthew 16.13-20), Peter confesses his understanding of Jesus as the Messiah. Some were saying the life of Jesus was interpreting the life of John the Baptist or that of Elijah or Jeremiah or one of the prophets in this contemporary moment. Peter says Jesus’ life interprets the story of the Messiah, or that he “is” the Messiah. Unlike Mark’s Jesus, Matthew’s Jesus does not immediately explain the Messiah’s necessary suffering, to which Peter famously objects. In Matthew, Jesus congratulates Peter on his inspiration, puns on his name to call him the rock on which he will build his church, and promises him that what he says will go. The addition is part of Matthew’s characteristic emphasis on the life of a church that embodies the presence of Christ (Emanuel) in its common life and acts as God’s presence in the world.

Matthew’s vision of the church does not merge the divine agenda with the agenda of the world, or the state, as under Constantine. While Jesus affirms Peter’s ministry in the world in the deepest possible sense, as a partnership with the transcendent God, what Peter has yet to understand is how such being-in-the-world is a matter of embracing the suffering of the world, identifying with the godforsaken and the abandoned in a way that shapes life in opposition to imperial Rome and the principles of the pax Romana.

What Jesus will say here about the Messiah is not so much something new, spoken against a Jewish understanding. Jesus interprets the faith of the people of exodus and exile ad the compassionate God who lived with his people through these experiences. The life of Jesus interprets his people’s Messiah story in one particular legitimate way that nevertheless sharpens oppsition to alternative interpretations—that Constantine would make, for instance, or George Bush or ancient Near Eastern religious culture in general, interpretations made from different social locations. This is the conflict of interpretation that will catch Peter as the story unfolds here.

What Peter must learn is what our reading from Romans teaches (Romans 12.1-8): to those who may be tempted by a faith that seeks accommodation and self-preservation in the world, a triumphalistic faith that is politically uncritical and therefore merely “spiritual”, to these Paul says the kind of spiritual worship he wants is one in which we put our bodies on the line. Being in the world is not accommodation to the world but transforming the world. Our “bodies” belong not just to God (and therefore to the future to which God calls us) but to the believing (and acting) community: we are “members together” (Romans 12.5). We are not our own. It is this kind of vision that animated Jesus on the cross and allowed the cross, a symbol of abandonment and death, to interpret the joyful solidarity of the kingdom. The cross, in a new understanding, becomes the new life of the resurrection. This is the new messianic vision, there at the very beginning in the OT heritage of transformation and liberation into new futures, but always new and unexpected. It is because of this necessary and painful engagement with the real world and the powers of history that we speak of the resurrection in terms of history, not because of the factuality of the appearance stories.

Connections to the Exodus 1.8 – 2.10 story ae obvious. The Hebrew midwives, unwilling to live subservient to the state, become midwives to a new future for their people. Bringing this story into our general theme, I am reminded of Matthew’s emphasis on engagement with an actual world as (often subversive and certainly suffering) agents of transformation. As “members together” the body of Christ shares in a messianic calling to transform our world to God’s future vision. Christ ‘r’ us. This is what is so scary for Peter. The messianic vision interpreted by the life of Jesus is not just about Jesus. It is about the Christian way of life. It is the pattern of our discipleship.