12th Sunday after Trinity, 2026. Year A.
Matthew 16:13-20
May I speak in the name of God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
Amen.
Caesarea Philippi is the turning point of the synoptic gospels, mentioned by name in both Mark and Matthew’s accounts.
This is both the point at which Jesus turns away from Galilee, the very furthest point of Galilee, right under the slopes of Mount Hermon, and sets his face towards Jerusalem, and also the point at which we get Peter’s acknowledgement of his identity.
Until now, Jesus has been acclaimed as a prophet and miracle worker, like John the Baptist or Elijah, or Jeremiah. Now Peter openly declares that he is the Messiah, the Son of the living God.
This is something that is profoundly different about the Jewish God, our God, compared to the gods of pagan idolatry. Something that Paul frequently contrasted.
The pagans worshipped gods of wood and stone, gods who were dead in their physical manifestations and limited in their spiritual descriptions, constrained in what they could be and do.
The Jews worshipped a God who could not be constrained by idols of wood or stone. A God who had both created the world and everything in it, and who imbued that world with life and love, second by second, breath by breath – a living God; an infinite and uncontainable God.
Up to this point, Jesus has been going under the radar, as much as it was possible for someone like Jesus to go under the radar. And it is hard for him to do so. As the Messiah, as God the Son, he is the creator and sustainer of the world that he is now incarnate in. The world was made through him, and without him, not one thing was made that was made.
Like all prophets, he speaks with actions as much as or more than with words. When he talks of the Kingdom of God, he is also acting out the Kingdom of God. But in his case, his actions are the actions of the Living God.
Where he goes, there is the Kingdom of God. The Kingdom surrounds him, and overwhelms the ordinary world. Where he goes, the sick are healed, the enslaved are freed, the marginalised and dispossessed are brough back into the community.
It has to be like this because he is the living God, the creator and sustainer of the world – not creating and sustaining it as it has become, but re-creating it, and re-sustaining it as it was originally created, as it was always meant to be, and as it will be when the kingdom comes.
The creativity of God cannot help but to flow from him, and it is so much more powerful than the world he is in. We cannot help but be changed by God every time we encounter him. Our reality is always going to be a poor reflection of God’s reality.
But what we also see is that Jesus is not just there for the moment. He knows that the time for the full coming of the Kingdom is not now. Where he goes, there the Kingdom will be, but he knows that he is fated to die, and be raised, and to ascent to the right hand of his Father.
He knows that he needs to take action to sustain this coming Kingdom, even after he has departed. He has created the world, and now he needs to create the church within it.
This is why he has chosen the twelve. Not because they are the twelve most powerful, or faithful, or intelligent, or honest, or courageous people that are out there. It is very obvious from what we read that they are none of these.
And that is OK. He is not calling them to carry forward the message and the mission of the kingdom in their own strength.
He knows that the Spirit will come to comfort them, to empower them, to direct them, and to sustain them.
Peter is the rock on which he builds his church, but Peter is hardly a rock as we encounter him in the Gospels. It is God the Holy Spirit, empowering him, who allows him to speak as he does on the day of Pentecost. Jesus points this out in our passage – Peter witnessing Jesus as the Messiah is not earthly knowledge, but knowledge that comes from God in heaven. Peter is changed, not by his own efforts, but by God working within him, guiding and directing him.
This is not a perfect work. Peter is still Peter. He is still the weak, vacillating, compromising person that he always is. We see this at Jesus’ trial, and later, in his arguments with James and Paul over gentile converts.
Peter stands for all of us. We are not perfect, as he is not perfect. We are filled with the Holy Spirit, like Peter was, but that does not perfect us. We are still ourselves, with all our weaknesses, failings and foibles. But, with God within us, sustaining us breath by breath, we are able to reach above our human failings, and occasionally be the people that God wants us to be.
It takes work. It is hard. But God has created us to be his beloved children, and has created the church to bring us together to support one another on the journey of life, and sustains us all though his Holy Spirit. Peter may be the foundation-stone on which the church is built, but each of us is another stone that helps build the Kingdom, in the power of the Holy Spirit.
Amen