Readings (Track 1)

With today’s Gospel this is a good Sunday to be at St Peter’s. Sometimes when Peter opens his mouth we wince—next Sunday’s reading comes to mind. This week we can pull out the confetti. Nevertheless, I’ll use the beginning of the Romans reading to shape the sermon. First we’ll notice the role Rom 12:1-2 plays in our Eucharistic prayers. We’ll notice the ways the other readings suggest what Rom 12:2 might look like in practice. Third, we’ll notice the unfinished business all this sets before us.

“I appeal to you therefore, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God– what is good and acceptable and perfect.”

“Present your bodies as a living sacrifice.” With words and actions the Holy Eucharist unites two actions: the making present of Jesus’ self-offering and the self-offering of the congregation. The bread and the wine that come up during the offertory, all products of our labor, are stand-ins for ourselves. As Augustine used to say: look at the altar: that’s you up there. The same phrase “the Body of Christ” is used for the Sacrament and for those who partake. And the first BCP (16^th century) took up Paul’s words pretty much verbatim “And here we offer and present unto thee, O Lord, our selves, our souls and bodies, to be a reasonable, holy, and living sacrifice unto thee…” (from the Rite I prayer [BCP 336]). Rite II abbreviates, so Prayer B: “Unite us to your Son in his sacrifice, that we may be acceptable through him, being sanctified by the Holy Spirit” (BCP 369). Jesus’ self-offering; our self-offering. We could describe Christian discipleship as together seeking to shape a life between Masses that more closely reflects what we celebrate in the Mass.

If the actions and the language of every Mass remind us of Paul’s exhortation, what might responding to that exhortation look like? For that, the other two readings.

When we left the children of Israel last week they were literally that: the children (sons) of the patriarch Israel, a.k.a. Jacob. As the book of Exodus opens, ‘children of Israel’ now points to a nation. In a pattern that is entirely too familiar, they’re a minority in a foreign land, and that land’s ruler decides that they’re a threat to national security.

And it’s in that context that we get to watch how “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds” plays out. It turns out, for starters, to be a call to be creative and to be uppity.

Scene 1: Pharaoh tells the Hebrew midwives to notice the gender of the newborn: the female babies may live; the male babies are to be killed. Undoubtedly the midwives gave every indication that they would comply—and then ignored the command. Hauled before Pharaoh to explain themselves, they come up with this lovely song and dance: “Because the Hebrew women are not like the Egyptian women; for they are vigorous and give birth before the midwife comes to them.” That’s not being conformed to this world.

Scene 2: Pharaoh commands that the newborn sons of the Hebrews be cast into the Nile, and Moses’ mother does exactly that—with slight modifications. There’s a little basket between Moses and the Nile itself, she times Moses’ entry into the water with the Pharaoh’s daughter’s customary bath, and sends out her own daughter to improvise. Pharaoh’s daughter finds Moses in the basket, pities him—and Moses’ sister is right there at her elbow offering to find a suitable wet-nurse. So Moses is saved, on a trajectory to be raised in the royal household, and his mother is being paid to nurse him. That’s not being conformed to this world.

I’m lingering over these two scenes also because in a couple of weeks in our second reading we’ll be hearing Paul’s “Let every person be subject to the governing authorities.” It’s much easier to deal responsibly with that text if we remember that it was written by a Jew who had undoubtedly broken into a broad grin listening to the stories we’ve just heard.

Scene 3—if you will—is provided by the Gospel reading. Jesus asks his disciples “who do you say that I am?” Peter—our Peter—replies “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.”

That confession, that Jesus is the Messiah, is the hinge of Matthew’s Gospel, because from here on out the disciples know who Jesus is, and the question is what being/acting as the Messiah will mean. That confession—heard in the context of the rest of Holy Scripture—points to the hinge of human history: Jesus, the unique Son of God, anointed by God to restore all things, now acknowledged as the Messiah, the Christ.

“Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father in heaven.” So Peter’s confession is the result of his having been transformed by the renewing of his mind. That didn’t happen all at once—it was a process that included everything that prepared Peter to take John the Baptist seriously and to say “yes” to Jesus’ call. The process was by no means complete—as Peter’s words in next week’s lesson will make clear

“And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it.” It’s worth pausing to notice that the first person not conformed to the world is Jesus, for he doesn’t respond to Peter’s confession with “Right, so you all need better swords.” Or, “I’m going to call on a few angelic legions to clean up this place.” Jesus hasn’t let the dominant ideas about the messiah’s role color his understanding. No, “I will build my church.” Jesus’ non-conformity is the backstory; Peter’s non-conformity/transformation is spelled out.

“You are Peter.” It looks like this is when Jesus gives Simon his new name, why we’re at St Peter’s rather than St Simon’s. Pulling back the camera, it looks like a replay of God renaming Abram “Abraham.” In both cases a new people are being created, and the point person gets a new name.

Why “Peter”? It’s a play on words in Greek (and in the probable Aramaic original). “You are Peter (Petros), and on this rock (petra) I will build my church. (Think ‘petrify’, ‘petroglyph’, or ‘petroleum’.) We might recall that Abraham had been described as a rock (Isa 51:1-2) and recall that closing parable in the Sermon on the Mount: the house built on sand vs. the house built on rock. This church has a firm foundation and—despite the gates of Hades—it will endure.

Sadly, Jesus’ followers have been unable to agree on just what these words mean, and their different interpretations are at the heart of the divisions between the Eastern Orthodox, Protestant, and Roman churches. At one of the last Anglican-Roman Catholic dialogues the participants were able to agree that Peter among the apostles enjoyed a certain primacy which was in a certain sense passed to the subsequent bishops of Rome, but acknowledged that they didn’t agree on what either of the occurrences of the word ‘certain’ meant.

What of “I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.” As elsewhere in today’s Gospel, I like what Davies and Allison do with the verse. Recalling Jesus’ words later in the Gospel (“But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you lock people out of the kingdom of heaven. For you do not go in yourselves, and when others are going in, you stop them.” [23:13]), Davies and Allison suggest that the New Testament sees Peter’s use of the keys primarily in his evangelistic activity. He preaches at Pentecost; he and John lay hands on the new Samaritan believers so that they receive the Spirit, he preaches to the gentiles gathered at Cornelius’ home. In passing, that the keys do not entail the authority sometimes claimed by Rome is suggested by Paul’s rebuke of Peter over table fellowship with Gentiles, recorded in his letter to the Galatians (2:11ff).

But back to Paul in Romans, and the promised “unfinished business” part of the sermon. Paul moves directly from that don’t-be-conformed-but-be-transformed exhortation into a description of what life in community looks like. We are, says Paul, like a body, with different members having different gifts and all needing each other. Elsewhere: “I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth.” God hasn’t given any of us individually the gifts we need to stop conforming, to be transformed—but He’s given them to us as a group. As good Americans, this takes some getting used to. There’s tremendous cultural pressure to make decisions about being in church or not based on our perceptions of our own needs rather than the needs of the Body. Our participation is as much about the gifts God’s given us being available to others as it is about our needs getting met.

“And here we offer and present unto thee, O Lord, our selves, our souls and bodies, to be a reasonable, holy, and living sacrifice unto thee…” This self-offering sets us on a trajectory toward a particular sort of life, a life more closely interknit with the folk next to us in the pews, with the brothers and sisters praying the same prayer in countless other languages in other parts of the globe. Does my participation in the Eucharist nudge me towards greater concern for or involvement with other parishioners, other Christians? That’s a pretty good indicator of what my Eucharistic doctrine is. In the twenty-first century there are a fresh crop of Pharaohs breathing down our necks; inspired by the Hebrew midwives and in the power of the Spirit we have the opportunity together to discover how to give them a run for their money.