"ON THIS ROCK": Mat. 16:13-23

In a culture that admires independent thinking, we pride ourselves on thinking for ourselves. The truth is, however, that it is quite difficult to think solely for ourselves. We are strongly affected by prevailing opinions that surround us. If there is a plurality of opinions, then there is more of a choice, but we usually end up thinking like one group or the other, or we make an eclectic mix of several opinions and call that original thinking. Even if we think we like a particular piece of music or a particular book, it is very difficult to like something that it isn't liked by some people whose opinion we respect. It is also difficult to dislike something that is liked by the people we respect. No matter how deeply we dig into ourselves, no matter how sure we are that we are in touch with something that is really our own self, we cannot isolate ourselves from the desires of other people.

Jesus seems to presuppose this truth by asking the question that he does. By asking first, whoother people think Jesus is, and then asking who they think he is, Jesus challenges the disciples to become conscious of the role of other people's thinking in their own thinking. After the disciples say that other people think Jesus is Elijah or Jeremiah or John the Baptist, Jesus asks the disciples who they think he is and Peter makes his famous declaration: "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God."

Peter seems to be speaking for the disciples as a group more than he is speaking out as in independent individual. The Gospels refer often to the disciples asking each other who this man Jesus really is. Surely the idea that Jesus is the Christ, i.e. the Messiah, is an idea that emerged out of the group of disciples. In this regard, it is worth noting that in the first chapter of John's Gospel, right at the beginning of Jesus' public ministry, Nathaniel exclaims that Jesus is "the Son of God, the King of Israel." (Jn. 1:49) Jesus' response at the time is not all that enthusiastic. We will see that, in general, Jesus is cautious about being considered the Messiah. Perhaps there are limits to Jesus' enthusiasm over Peter's pronouncement.

It is worth noting that in the parallels in both Luke and Mark, Jesus' fulsome praise of Peter's insight is completely omitted. In both of these versions, Jesus immediately tells them not to tell anybody that he is the Messiah. This does not sound like a ringing endorsement of the idea. There is an oblique parallel in John 6:67-71. Jesus words that it is "the spirit that gives life, the flesh has nothing to offer" are enough to cause a mimetic chain reaction where almost all of Jesus' followers leave him. Only the Twelve are left and Jesus asks if they, too, will leave him. Peter says: "Lord, who shall we go to?....We know that you are the Holy One of God." This could easily come across as faint allegiance to a leader. Jesus responds by warning the Twelve that even one of them will betray him. As with the synoptic parallels, Peter and the disciples are resistant to the greater crowd only up to a point. They do not seem strong enough to stand up against pressure, and that turns out to be the case. Moreover, what Peter says right after his declaration that Jesus is the Christ suggests that neither Peter nor the other disciples understand the Messiahship of Jesus rightly. Jesus could easily have renamed Peter "Rock" because he represented the other disciples in being the stony soil referred to in the parable of the sower.

The extension in Matthew's narrative, however, both shows a positive side to Peter's words, and looks ahead to the community that Jesus wishes to gather. Although Peter is affirmed for his words, he is not declared blessed for his own individual insight. It is not "flesh and blood" that have revealed the truth of Jesus to him but Jesus' Father in Heaven. This is to say, we do not arrive at the truth by thinking for ourselves, but by thinking in the way that God thinks. The choice, and our own responsibility, is between copying one human crowd or another, or copying God. One can be one rock among many in the rocky soil that is hardened against the Word of God, or one can be a rock whose solidity derives from the Word of God.

The keys to the kingdom of heaven are a dubious gift, both for Peter and for each one of us. It is a great honor to have the keys for the purpose of doing God's work of gathering the community of believers and opening the gates of the Kingdom by acting with the mind of Christ. Unfortunately, we easily fall into the notion that it is a great honor to have the power to lock the gates of Heaven against those people we don't quite like. We think that it is our job to devise a test in faith and morals for everybody else and then turn away everybody who scores 59% or lower. Jesus' words to Peter that those he loosens on earth are loosened in Heaven and those bound on earth are bound in Heaven, could very easily be a warning rather than a conferral of authority. That is, Peter could bear responsibility for either the success or the failure of others to enter Heaven.

Jesus' first prophecy of his Passion and Peter's reaction to it offer an immediate illustration of Peter's dubious power to bind on earth and in Heaven. Jesus stresses the importance of understanding rightly what it means for Him to be the Messiah by telling the disciples that he was going to "suffer grievously at the hands of the elders and chief priests and scribes," that he would be put to death and then raised from the dead. When Peter remonstrates with Jesus for accepting such a fate, Jesus calls him "Satan," a scandal. That is, Peter has becoming a stumbling block to Jesus and to the whole community Jesus wishes to gather around him. Peter is no longer thinking in the way that God thinks, but is thinking in a human way. Peter has lapsed back into the mimetic thinking of other people. As a stumbling block, Peter has locked the gate of Heaven.

It is a stumbling block to the world that mimetic rivalry has motivated many to take a position on this text in order to defend one's church. Although I do not see this passage in Matthew as conclusively positing one ecclesiology over another in our fragmented Christendom, there is no question that it points to some fundamental aspects of our communal lives as Christians. 1) We are to gather together for the purpose of reinforcing one another in thinking what St. Paul called "the Mind of Christ," so that we can resist the collective thinking of humanity that is cut off from Christ. 2) Since the collective thinking of humanity cut of from Christ is based on binding people together through exclusion and the creation of victims, the Mind of Christ is based on the welcoming of all humanity. Insofar as we succeed in living out the embrace of Christ, we are opening the gates of the Kingdom to other people. 3) Insofar as we fail to live out the embrace of Christ, we lock the gates so that the people bound on earth remain bound to the collective thinking of humanity.

The stirring promise that the gates of death will not prevail against the Church built on the rock which is the Mind of Christ is easily diverted into a siege-mentality image where we staunch Christians slam shut the gates of Heaven to ward off a violent attack from the underworld that is attempting to break down the gates and invade Heaven. No, the Underworld does not attack Heaven. The Underworld merely opens its gates so that all who choose the Way of Death can freely enter in. The gate to the mind of humanity which persecutes the just ones is wide open to us. If we resist the mind of humanity, there is the chance of suffering the fate of Jesus Himself. In other words, choosing the Mind of Christ, the Way of Life, may seem to be tantamount to choosing the way of death. But the promise Jesus makes is that if we choose the Way of Life and live by the Mind of Christ, then no death inflicted on us can eradicate the life given us by God. If we open the gates of Heaven, the gates of death cannot prevail.