Second Sunday after Trinity / Feast of Peter and Paul 2025

On the feast of the two great apostles, James explores what Peter and Paul — so different in temperament and background — share: a transforming encounter with the risen Christ and a life given wholly to the Gospel.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:02

Heavenly Father, as you come now to reflect on your words together, would you speak to our community words of comfort and hope? Lord, in your mercy, hear our prayer. Please do take a seat. Friends, there's a lot to talk about today, isn't there? There's a lot for us to discuss. We've received painful news. It will leave our community rocked. I'm sure for many of us it's a complete surprise, and for others, you'll be feeling hurt and confused, and you're going to want to talk about all that's been going on and what you've heard and its implications. And we will get a chance to talk. Let me direct you to the final page at the bottom of your orders of service. There'll be a congregational meeting happening at 12:30 on the 13th of July. So that's not next Sunday, but the Sunday after. I'll give us time to reflect and to uh talk with one another. And that won't be the last congregational meeting. There's more that we have to talk about. But I think in times of crisis, it's a really helpful discipline to resist the temptation to jump into, well, I think this, and that's what happened, and I've got this idea, and this is what's going on. I would like us, if you're willing, to take a breath, to allow the liturgy to do its work in leading our prayers, to allow the scriptures to do their work as we reflect on them together, that God would speak to us and through them. So I'd like us to turn to Matthew, Matthew's gospel, and to reflect on what it means for today and for our time together. And I believe we'll find that there are ways in which the scriptures speak to us. The New Testament raises some very important questions, questions that have resonated through human history that may be familiar to you. Uh the Philippian jailer asks uh Paul after he's after Paul is miraculously freed from jail, the Philippian jailer kneels down at Paul's feet and says, What must I do to be saved? A question that has echoed through human history ever since. Or in uh Holy Week, we often reflect on Pilate's question to Jesus. What is truth? Today we have another question, a question from Jesus that is directed at Peter and his disciples and is directed to each one of us this morning. Who do you say that I am? Who do you say that Jesus is? So one of those questions that you need to answer at some point in your life, and the way you answer it will change the trajectory of your life forever. And each of us receives that question in a different context and at a different point in our lives. The context that was originally asked it in, there was a growing political movement of the need for a Messiah or the need for an Elijah figure and the need for a Moses figure, someone who would come again and lead the people of Israel. When, if you notice in the scriptures it says, some say Elijah, some say Moses, it's a little bit like in today's political context, we'll say, Oh, he's not quite Churchill, is he? Or he's not quite Blair, or we need a new Thatcher, if that's the way in which you lean politically one way or the other. Or you might say of someone who's really caring, they're like another Mother Teresa. We have these categories in our minds that have been formed by uh strong leaders who have had particular um characteristics, and so we use those as categories to describe people in the present day or to hope for people to come. It's exactly the same in the scriptures when they say, Are you going to be the next Moses? Are you going to be the next Elijah? They have these categories, and so Jesus meets us where we are, and he both fulfills those categories and importantly undermines our expectations of him. That's what's happening in those conversations between the disciples and Jesus. Who do people say that I am? Some say you might be the new Moses. Eventually, Jesus turns to Peter and asks our question for this morning. Who do you say that I am? And Jesus uh Peter responds like this You are the Messiah, the Son of the Living God. Now, what does Peter mean by that? We're not entirely sure, but we can imagine, given what we know about the first century and the hopes for the Messiah in Judah, Peter was probably hoping for someone who would come and leave a lead a resol uh a revolution by force and take out the Romans and push them back so that they were no longer taxing them and subjecting the people who lived in Judah in the first century. And so Peter had in mind a particular kind of person, and he says, Jesus, you're the Messiah, the Son of the Living God. And clearly the text wants us to see that Peter has seen something about Jesus that's extremely important. The whole text hinges on this moment. Matthew's gospel goes on to say, from then on, Jesus started to teach the disciples about what he was going to suffer. Something has shifted in Jesus' teaching and his relationship towards the disciples. They have seen clearly who he is. He is the Messiah, the Son of the living God. And now he's able to go on to the next stage of his teaching with them. That he's going to have to suffer and die, that he's a particular kind of Messiah. Not the Messiah who comes in revolutionary war, but the Messiah who comes to die and to be killed for those whom he loves. And so we see Peter has this truth and this half-truth. He knows exactly who Jesus is, and he still has so much to learn. He's in relationship with Jesus in a way that utterly transforms him, and yet that relationship is still still superficial, still full of misunderstandings and miscomprehensions. Peter is on a journey and he's got still so much to learn. I was seven years old when my parents bought the house that then became the family home. I'm imagine many of us here, when I say your family home, you have in mind a particular place. I was seven years old when my parents bought that house for us that we lived in until I was 18. And uh so I'm old enough to remember walking around this house and opening all the doors to the different guest rooms and finding places that I'd never seen before. And I still remember trying to work out the layout of the house in my mind so I knew where the different places were. What we have recorded in the gospel this morning is, if you were to imagine this, it's as if Peter has opened a door in the house in which he lives and discovered a whole new wing to the house, and he's having to reorient himself in the place where he lives. He has discovered, he has been given revelation that Jesus is the Messiah, and from then on, everything he sees is completely different. There's this whole other section to the building that I thought I understood, that I've just discovered. And now my understanding of the house is completely changed, and I need to think again about where I live. And so he has opened that door, and at the same time, he still has so much to learn as he explores the various rooms and discovers exactly how the room is different. It's been my joy over many years to see people go through this experience of meeting Jesus for the first time, discovering who he is, maybe on an alpha course or in a conversation or uh in some sort of uh experience that they go, now I know who Jesus is, and yet we all still have so much to learn. They know enough to be transformed, but they still have so much to learn. So, how does Jesus respond to Peter in this moment? He says, This on this rock I will build my church. And the question I'd like to ask is, what is the rock? Or who is the rock? For a lot of human, uh for a lot of church history, people have said, well, Peter is the rock. And there's a kind of nice wordplay going on here that Peter, Petros, and Rock, Petra, they're actually the same words, just one is the uh they're different genders of actually the same word, and so Jesus is saying, You are named Rocky, and on this rock I will build my church. But we've already said, have we not, that Peter, the man, is not a particularly firm foundation. We know from the gospels that he will go on to deny Jesus, that he will make mistakes, that he will get things backwards and get things wrong. And yet something in this moment is a solid, firm foundation upon which the church is built and upon which our lives can be built. But let me suggest this morning that it's not necessarily Peter the man, but the thing he discovers and the thing he articulates in this moment. And so it points us back to Jesus and Peter's knowledge of who Jesus is. That is the firm foundation. It's the moment of revelation when the door is opened, when the house has to be reoriented, that Jesus says, That's your firm foundation. Now you've got something stable upon which you can build your house. Just a few chapters earlier in Matthew chapter seven, Jesus tells this parable. Everyone then, Jesus says, who hears these words of mine, the teaching that I'm giving you, and does them, if you hear and do the words of Jesus, you'll be like a wise person who has built his house on the rock. The rain falls and the floods come and the winds blow and beat on that house. And it didn't fall because it was built on a firm foundation on the rock. And everyone who hears these words of Jesus and doesn't do them will be like the foolish person who builds their house on sand. The rain falls and the floods come and the winds blow and beat against the house, and it falls because it has no firm foundation, because it hasn't been built on the rock. Let me encourage each of us this morning to build our house on the identity of Jesus, on the knowledge of who he is. There are things coming in your life. There may already be things in your life that feel like a storm that wants to knock down the place that you live. A diagnosis, the love, the loss of a loved one, a change in personal or work circumstances that leaves you completely bereft. The storm is coming and it's trying to hit and knock things over. You feel overwhelmed by the storms of life. And of course, this congregation is entering into its own storm, and there are going to be more winds and more rains to come, I'm sure. What do we do? We build our life on the firm foundation, which is the knowledge of who Jesus is and what he has done for us. That can be our only hope this morning, that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of the living God, and that we must build our life on him. And the good news, folks, is you don't need to know a lot to know enough. Peter in that moment of revelation still had so much to learn, and yet he knew enough. He had opened the door, he had discovered the new wing of his house, he was ready for it to reorient his experience of everything. He didn't know a lot, but he knew enough. That's our hope this morning as well. You might sit here going, I'm not a great theologian, I don't have all the answers to all the questions. Really doesn't matter. Do you know that Jesus is the Messiah? Do you know that he's the Son of God? That's enough to build our house on that firm foundation to weather the storms of life. Amen.