SPEAKER_00: Today the church celebrates two great apostles, Peter and Paul.
SPEAKER_00: One was a fisherman, the other was a Pharisee.
SPEAKER_00: One denied Jesus three times, the other persecuted Christians.
SPEAKER_00: If you had been choosing world leaders for this movement, you probably would not have selected either one of these two.
SPEAKER_00: Yet God did.
SPEAKER_00: That alone should give every one of us tremendous hope, because holiness has never depended upon where you begin.
SPEAKER_00: It depends upon whom you allow to transform you.
SPEAKER_00: We turn to the gospel, we're in Caesarea Philippi.
SPEAKER_00: It was a place filled with temples dedicated to false gods.
SPEAKER_00: It was a city where political power, pagan worship, and worldly influence all came together.
SPEAKER_00: It is there, not inside the temple in Jerusalem, that Jesus asks a very important question.
SPEAKER_00: Who do you say that I am?
SPEAKER_00: Notice that Christianity begins not with a rule, not with a commandment, not even with a miracle.
SPEAKER_00: It begins with a person.
SPEAKER_00: And everything depends on the answer to that one question.
SPEAKER_00: Peter answers, You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus immediately tells him that this truth did not come from human intelligence, it came from the Father.
SPEAKER_00: Then Jesus gives Simon a new name, Peter.
SPEAKER_00: In Scripture, whenever God gives someone a new name, he's giving that person a new mission.
SPEAKER_00: Abram becomes Abraham.
SPEAKER_00: Jacob becomes Israel.
SPEAKER_00: Simon becomes Peter.
SPEAKER_00: The name Peter means rock.
SPEAKER_00: Then Jesus says something extraordinary.
SPEAKER_00: Upon this rock I will build my church.
SPEAKER_00: Notice carefully, Jesus does not say build your church.
SPEAKER_00: No, he says build my church.
SPEAKER_00: The church belongs to Christ.
SPEAKER_00: He is the true foundation.
SPEAKER_00: Yet Christ freely chooses to govern his church through Peter and through Peter's successors.
SPEAKER_00: This is why Catholics believe that the Pope is not simply the bishop of a particularly important city.
SPEAKER_00: He is the successor of Peter, entrusted with preserving the unity of the entire church.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus then gives Peter the keys of the kingdom.
SPEAKER_00: And you have to remember that the Jewish people, for them, keys represented authority.
SPEAKER_00: In the Old Testament, the chief steward of the king's household received the keys as a sign that he exercised the king's authority in his absence.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus, the true king, now entrusts his authority to Peter, not because Peter is perfect, but because Christ is faithful.
SPEAKER_00: Then if we turn to the first reading gives us an incredible picture.
SPEAKER_00: Peter, the rock on whom Christ is building his church, is sitting in prison, chained, guarded by sixteen soldiers, facing execution.
SPEAKER_00: If anyone were watching from the outside, they would conclude that the church was finished, it was done.
SPEAKER_00: Its visible leader was about to die.
SPEAKER_00: The enemies of Christ appeared to have won.
SPEAKER_00: But Acts tells us something beautiful.
SPEAKER_00: The church was fervently praying to God for him.
SPEAKER_00: That sentence may be hidden in the first reading.
SPEAKER_00: Peter is rescued by an angel, the chains fall away, the prison doors open, not because Peter is powerful, but because God remains faithful to his promises.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus had already said the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.
SPEAKER_00: Herod discovered that prisons cannot imprison the church.
SPEAKER_00: Chains cannot stop the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: Kings cannot defeat Christ.
SPEAKER_00: For two thousand years empires have fallen and risen.
SPEAKER_00: Persecutions have come and gone.
SPEAKER_00: Dictators have tried to silence the church.
SPEAKER_00: Scandals have wounded her.
SPEAKER_00: Weak leaders have embarrassed her.
SPEAKER_00: Yet the church remains.
SPEAKER_00: Not because her members are always holy, not because her leaders are always wise, but because Jesus keeps his promises.
SPEAKER_00: That's why today ultimately it's not a feast about Peter or Paul.
SPEAKER_00: It's a feast about the faithfulness of Christ.
SPEAKER_00: And every one of us must sit and answer that same question Jesus asked at Caesarea Philippi.
SPEAKER_00: Not who your parents say he is, not who society says he is, not even who your pastor says he is, but who do you say that he is?
SPEAKER_00: Because the answer to that question will determine the entire direction of your life.
SPEAKER_00: Peter answered correctly.
SPEAKER_00: Then he spent the rest of his life learning what those words truly meant.
SPEAKER_00: May we always live in that same spirit, always searching to really know who God is.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.