Location, location, location.

Sermon at Parish Mass Saints Peter & Paul 2020

 Banias (Caesarea Philippi), with niches for statues of deities: G. Eric and Edith Matson Photograph Collection (Source: Wikimedia Commons)

Zechariah 4.1-6a,10b-14

Acts 12:1-11

Matthew 16:13-19

“When Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, ‘Who do people say that the Son of Man is?’”

Location, location, location. Why ask that question, there?

Jesus travelled around quite a lot in the gospels, but most of the time he was either in Jerusalem in the south, or Galilee, in the north. Caesarea Philippi was further north than that. Jesus has taken his disciples deep into Gentile territory, and not just to any old Gentile town. Caesarea Philippi was an in-your-face celebration of pagan gods and the Roman Empire. Built around an ancient sanctuary of Pan, the horned god of nature and wildness, by the time of Jesus it was full of temples and shrines, cults and priesthoods serving the gods and offering sacrifices to their images.

It was also a place for the rich, full of luxury villas, in a cool valley watered by a mountain river, the perfect summer retreat. Philip the Tetrarch, the local ruler, had named it “Caesarea Philippi” in honour of Caesar Augustus and himself, and had put up the biggest and newest temple of all, in gleaming white marble, dedicated to Caesar. The Emperor, a mortal man who lived in Rome, was worshipped at Caesarea as a god.

To devout Jews, Caesarea was alien and shocking. But it was here that Jesus brought his disciples to ask them the crucial question: ‘Who do people say that I am?’ By asking that question there Jesus shows what is at stake. The disciples are faced by a choice, a decision. What is it that is ultimately true about the world? What are the highest values that we can embrace?

On the one hand, there was everything that Caesarea stood for: the worship of riches and power. In the Roman Empire might was right, and anything that you could achieve by power and force was permissible. There was no higher authority. The weak and the poor didn’t count.

But if Jesus is the Messiah, that is, God’s anointed leader, then the Roman Emperor is not. If Jesus is the Messiah, then the one he called “Father” is the one true God, the creator of all things, and him alone must we serve. If Jesus is the Messiah then his law is the highest authority: the law of love and compassion, especially for the poorest, the weakest, the most marginalized.

In this choice there is no middle ground. It is one or the other. So when Peter says to Jesus, “you are the Messiah”, he is making a bold and risky statement of faith. He is rejecting Caesar’s claim on the world, and choosing to follow Jesus as God’s true anointed leader. And he was doing that right there where Caesar was worshipped as a god.

Even so, Peter’s faith has not yet led him to full understanding. He sees that Jesus is the alternative to Caesar. But as the gospel goes on we will see that he does not yet see how very different those alternatives are. So when Jesus goes on to tell the disciples that he must – must – “undergo great sufferings… and be killed”, this to Peter seems to be nonsense, and he rejects it.

Peter imagines that if Jesus is to oust Caesar from his place of authority, then he has to operate in the same way as Caesar, only more powerfully. He has to be a stronger “strong man”, and conquer by force.

But Jesus is the love of God in person, come into the world, not to condemn the world, but so that the world might be saved. And the world needs saving, because the world is deeply resistant to love. The world, in the words of Saint Paul, is in slavery to sin and death.

Love, come into the world, can only win the victory and remain love by freely suffering what the world inflicts. Love has come to suffer the consequences of sin, so that the world might be freed from sin. And this means that Love, in the world as it is, must follow the way of the cross.

And so, too, must his disciples. Those who make the choice to follow Jesus, and not the powers of the world, are choosing to follow in his path of rejection and suffering and death. But we do so in faith that by sharing in Christ’s sufferings we will share in his resurrection. The way of the cross is none other than the way of life and peace.

This is the pattern that is marked on every Christian life, in one way or another, the truth that every person lives who has made the choice to follow Jesus. The choice for Christ. The choice for who will be Lord. The way of love, not the way of might.

This time next week we will be beginning to emerge from three months of isolation, beginning to re-engage with the world around us once again. We have lived through a time of great challenge and anxiety, but also a time of reflection on what our values are, on how we are going to live. A time to re-evaluate how we cherish both one another and this good earth that God has given us.

The way of Jesus, the way of love and self-giving, is something, then, that should permeate our daily lives and decisions as we take them up again. A conscious choice that we make as we go out into the world once again.

For example, in how we notice and care for the poor and marginalized. In being kind to others, especially when that’s an effort. In what we do with the power that money gives us. In our personal relationships, in how we seek the other’s good and deny ourselves. If we have authority because of our role at work or in our family, let us remember that authority in Christ means to serve, and never to exalt ourselves over against someone else.

As we resume daily life, every day will be full of choices, small but significant, little forks in the road. We can go one way and seek power and self-exaltation and our own satisfaction whatever the cost to others. Or we can go the way of Jesus, the way of love and compassion and self-giving. That is the way of the cross, even in little things, because it always costs us something, always involves self-emptying. But that is to choose what is ultimately true about the world. And that is to embrace the world, as we return to it, for the sake of Jesus, in faith, and hope, and love.