Matthew 16:13-20
Proper 16 (21) - Year A
It wasn't too long ago that Peter was sinking like a rock.
The cry from his lips was, "Save me!"
Do you remember that it was without hesitation that Jesus reached out to grab Peter's hand?
It is on this rock that the church is built. The rock of knowing the need for assistance beyond one's abilities. The rock of knowing that with a quick and loving hand even rocks can skip across the water (this even when the water and the rock are not smooth).
Oh yes, the tradition of firm rules and locking people out and selectively letting them in is still functioning.
None-the-less, the dynamism that goes into rescuing rocks is far preferable to the stasis of locked doors.
So, in what part of life are you raising a hand for assistance and in what part of life are you raising a hand with assistance? This is a much better key to life than measuring people by their facility with creeds. Raise away!
http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2002/august2002.html
Caesarea Philippi was a place of diverse political and religious authority. When asked how Jesus was seen, we hear reports of diverse ways of putting Jesus into other schemes. When asked how Jesus was seen by the disciples, they report from their point of view -- Messiah.
Nothing new here -- he is who he is and we see whom we see.
What is new is a locus of authority that is shared. The community has authority (where two or three pray, etc.) to bind and loose. These are the same qualities Jesus claimed on his own -- "not a jot or tittle will be lost," "... but I say to you ...," "Spirit will lead you into more than was knowable earlier." The past, the present, and the future are connected to lead us beyond them, to GOD.
With the keys we have the Jesus equivalent of the tree of knowledge of good and evil in our midst. Now how are we going to use them? Our heritage seems to be -- Mostly to bind with a little loosening when absolutely forced by generations of a larger truth. With Eve and Adam we have tasted choice and decided to hide behind the leaves of doctrine. As we needed to get beyond Eden, so we need to get beyond Church, State, and the Economics of the day.
No wonder Jesus didn't want the disciples to say anything about this. What follows is a recognition that to appropriately use the keys is to put one so at odds with the cultures of the day that the mystery of death and resurrection need to be directly faced. Much easier to use the keys to teach us to hate those our relatives hate.
The disciples weren't ready to be built into the anarchy of Jesus' way to GOD. But the hope is present that we will really bind evil and really release love. May this way of living continue breaking the bounds of Hades and other ignorances.
http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2005/august2005.html
Blessed are those who can see beyond the common sense of their day and past their own experiences. This is a gift of grace. This goes further than the gift to see ourselves as others see us or even to come as close as we can to seeing ourselves.
While the church is built on this sort of visioning that goes past what is politically feasible (see the minutes of every church council) it still seems to build crookedly on that foundation by overemphasizing systems and methodologies that rely on majority votes (whether those are accumulated by persuasion of memes or muscle). This is part of the reason renewal movements of prophets so often fall on deaf ears. There is no willingness to have revelation again shift the ground from the lowest common denominator or our own proclivities.
Even if we built well on a revelational foundation we find ourselves behind the eight-ball when a next revelation comes to teach us what was too difficult for us in the past. It reminds us that even, and even especially, foundations do shift.
Renewal is always in order as the foundations shift again. As difficult as they are, such shifts bring new breathing room. So take a deep breath and shift into the next, yet unclear, foundation.
http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2005/august2005.html
There are many gifts. In the Moses story there are folks who have the gifts of disobedience, secrecy, complicity, adventure, subversion from within, etc.
In the Jesus story there are gifts of Baptist John, Elijah, Jeremiah, and other prophets that help to define who Jesus is and isn't.
Likewise there are gifts in each of our lives as we interact with those closest to us, those we yet name enemy, those whose challenge and/or support feed us to become more than we currently are.
There is no one else's story to tell but our own. So the disciples were told not to tell the gift of Jesus, for that was for him to reveal. So no one else will tell the secret of who you are, it is yours to reveal and this is a good time to reveal it.
Are you someone whose gift of compassion will not allow you to go along with the dicta of society? Are you a gift willing to give birth to something new even in the face of overwhelming evidence that such is not desired? Are you willing to be practical enough to let go of your child and gift it another space where it might yet grow, knowing your own space is too risky for it? Are you gifted to reach out to the forbidden and make it your own? Are you willing to participate in the irony of life that flourishes within your own unironic life?
- - -
how shrewd we are
as we look around
to the dangers
and opportunities
to enhance our powerour very shrewdness
turns all too readily
to ruthlessness
we only perceive
as extra shrewdbeing so shrewd
we fail to find
the irony in ruthlessness
that destroys
its beginning shrewdnesssomehow it is never our fault
that what we have set in motion
will come back to haunt us
through the very structures
of our elite electednesswe move from "us"
who are fearful
to restrictions
that fall apart
at the next "I"
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2007_08_01_archive.html
Caesarea Philippi – where honorifics are most prudently directed toward representatives of Roman rule. Here comes a question to peek behind the trappings of power.
The question begins innocently enough – what's the scuttlebutt at the watering hole? Where are folks looking for hope?
This is an easy one – they are looking for a prophet – one who is oriented toward justice and will speak and act on what they see and hear.
Then the question deepens. Am I among the prophets? Who am I? Or, to phrase it as a hint, I AM whom?
Here in Caesarea Philippi there is a question that must be responded to – what is the balance of justice and power between myself and Rome?
This question continues on and becomes our question in the context of our power broker.
Hooray for those who can see within us to an image of a just G*D. They hold for us the Presence of G*D, they unlock the justice that had been un-hoped in the face of powerful principalities.
Can you hear here Peter unlocking Jesus, not just responding to a mid-term test? [Note: This follows Jesus being unlocked by a Syro-Phoenician woman.] Have you honored those who have unlocked you? Have you passed that favor on by aiding in the unlocking of another?
Finally, the deal is not to set up an alternative power system with Jesus or yourself as top-dog. Simply be a rock bigger than the ancient Pan or pandering Caesarea Philippi rock formation, a rock big enough it doesn't have to prove itself through power – a rock that can skip over water, a rock that can learn faith, a rock of prophetic justice.
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2008_08_01_archive.html
Who do people say the Son of Man is? Who is the Great Pretender?
This questions brings us to the work of trying to figure out who "666" is or "The Son of God", according to the criteria set out. Can we squish or puff-up someone so they will fit the definition? That’s all that is available to us.
Once past accademic questions of role and definition, we can get to a better question, “Who am I, to you?”
When the response is, “I better see an expansive and expanding love when I am engaged with you”, we know we are in a place just right, a valley of love and delight.
It is not the giving of a right answer that brings Peter any keys of authority, it is his own engagement with G*D. And so it continues to this day.
Who do you say the people are that you are engaged with this day, this week? Does that bring you closer to participating in doing all the good you can? If so, start loosing and binding. If not, time to move on.
Oh, by the way, don’t keep this a secret. Start acting on it and promoting the appreciation of more and more levels to your various relationships.
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2011/08/matthew-1613-20.html
Interpretation of the data can be spun in any number of directions. And yet one way of looking at it begins to make more sense than other views. This is an everlasting issue seen these days in how data regarding weather changes is understood. Are you an affirmer of human effect on the environment or a denier?
How is it that the disciples sorted through eternal questions to settle on Jesus as a messiah? They would have known the measuring rod of ridding Israel of the Romans and establishing political/economic/military dominance as keys to such an affirmation and yet there is so little that could be used to document this as Jesus' self understanding.
We could go back to the set-up question about the "Son of Man". This title was quickly and easily connected with new and old heroes. When asked about their current hero, how could the disciples not give a title and "Messiah" would express their cultural desire.
How might we respond in this day to a question of how we identify our desire with Jesus? There will be a strong contingent wanting to do the Christian dominionist thing of conqueror. There will be some who want to keep Jesus very spiritual. Others will stake out a variety of other understandings.
For now we are back in a pre-Pentecost struggle of power against power, placing our bets, and investing our energies to be on the winning side. Rather than take this affirmation as a resting place or rocky foundation, we might better look at it as one stage of development that must be worked through in order to move on.
Eventually, stage by stage, we come to larger visions. If we hearken back to Pentecost at this point we might respond that Jesus is an opener of closed doors and a re-binder of people who have been divided by experiences expressed in different languages. These mercies will lead us toward a continued engagement with the world rather than an overcoming of it.
For the moment erase all this certainty of triumph and rocks and keys. Be a bit more lowly in your desire and simply say that Jesus is one teaching me to more clearly see G*D within my life and within the lives of others, including those so easily and temporarily called an enemy. For the moment consider the function of an alchemist who has found the transformational element of mercy, not condemnation. This cannot be captured in a title, but a movement.
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2014/08/pentecost-11-or-community-practice-11.html