Matthew 16:13-20
800-Pound Gorilla? Or the First Pope?
There’s a phrase that’s popular in modern discussions of any number of topics, and that phrase is this: “an 800 pound gorilla in the room.” An example would be this line which I plucked from a blog entry on the international economy as it relates to crude oil. One sentence in that essay said this: “China’s need for oil is the proverbial 800-pound gorilla in the room, and no one seems willing to confront it or even acknowledge it.”
For fun, I googled the phrase “800 pound gorilla in the room” and got 4,300 hits. When I googled just the words “800 pound gorilla” I got over 80,000 hits. Of course Google doesn’t index EVERY LAST WORD that’s been printed or spoken, so I expect that their count for the phrase “800 pound gorilla” is very much a low-ball estimate on the popularity of the phrase in common discourse.
There’s an 800 pound gorilla in today’s gospel lesson. Perhaps even two of them. Actually, there is an 800 pound gorilla for Protestant Christians, not for Roman Catholics. For Romans, what we have in this passage is not an 800 pound gorilla, but an 8 million ton Pope. The first Pope, in fact; declared to be so by no one less than Jesus Himself. And, because this Sunday is the first time that this passage has appeared in the lectionary we are using for the Sunday readings from Scripture, I can NOT do what those people I mentioned earlier are doing about 800 pound gorillas. In short, I cannot ignore it, or to pretend it isn’t even there.
So, let me begin today by identifying each of the 800 pound gorillas in this section of Matthew’s gospel.
The first gorilla is found in verse 17: “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but My Father who is in heaven. 18 And I also say to you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build My church, …” The Roman reading of this statement by our Lord is that the Church is built upon Peter, the first Bishop of Rome, the first Pope.
The second gorilla is found in verse 19: “And I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.” Romans who read this latter statement find in it the endowment of magisterial authority to the first Pope, and to his 264 successors, down to the present Pope Benedict XVI.
I honestly think there is neither a gorilla, nor a Pope (in the current Roman sense of that term) in this passage. But to dispel the impression of either gorilla or Pope, we’re going to have to look at each of these in turn.
Let’s begin with verse 18: 18 And I also say to you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build My church, …”
When Jesus says these words, they are a play on words. The word “Peter” in our translation is the Greek work “petros.” When it refers to some THING, rather than a person, it means “stone.” It also is used as a name, as we can verify by others throughout the rest of the New Testament referring to Peter with the word “Petros.” It would be roughly equivalent to a contemporary man having the name “Rocky.” There’s a television news celebrity named Stone Philips. So the use of a word that literally refers to the material we call stone, or to a piece of stone which we call a rock – well this isn’t exactly an original idea. It’s already customary in the First Century.
I should note here that Paul refers to Simon bar Jonah with both names – Petros and also Cephas, which is the Aramaic word for stone. This is, in fact, the name which Jesus bestows on Simon bar Jonah when he first calls him to be a disciple, as we read in the first chapter of John’s gospel. So, when Jesus refers to him here in Matthew 16 with the name Petros, or Peter, this is nothing novel.
What’s novel is the next words which Jesus speaks: “And upon this rock I will build my church.” The question arises immediately – what does “this rock” refer to? If it refers to Peter, then Christ is saying that he will build his church on the Apostle Peter. And, this is exactly how the Romans read Jesus’ words here.
But, there are several problems with this reading. The first problem comes from the very words Jesus uses here. When he says “upon this rock” he uses a slightly different word – not “petros” but “petra.” The Romans say – “No biggie! The words are synonyms; yes, indeed, it’s Peter the Apostle upon which Jesus will build his church.” But, Protestants (and, I’d include Orthodox teachers here too), respond this way – If Jesus meant what you say he means, he would NOT have changed the word from petros to petra. By our Lord’s very choice of vocabulary, he deliberately meant to point to something else as the foundation of the church.
So far, so good, except that we must next identify WHAT IT IS on which Jesus will build his Church – if it’s not Peter himself, then what is it? Well, the answer is right here – in Peter’s answer to Christ’s question: Who do you say I am?
When Christ asked that question, Peter answered: “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” This, I submit, is THAT THING on which Jesus will build his Church – this confession concerning the identity of Jesus of Nazareth, that he is not merely a man (for everyone can see that much!). Rather, he is a man and more – he is the promised Messiah, the Son of the Living God.”
Said another way, “the rock” upon which Christ will build his church is the truth of who Christ is. Christ Himself is the Rock upon which the church is built. This understanding is confirmed by other statements by both Jesus, Peter himself, and Paul.
Lying behind Jesus’ play on the words for “rock” is an allusion to a prophecy of the Messiah found in Psalm 118:22-23: “The stone which the builders rejected Has become the chief cornerstone.” Another prophecy Jesus is alluding to is found in Isaiah 28:16 and it reads this way: 16 Therefore thus says the Lord GOD: “ Behold, I lay in Zion a stone for a foundation, A tried stone, a precious cornerstone, a sure foundation; whoever believes will not be ashamed.”
Jesus applies this the passage from Pslam 118 to himself when speaking to the Pharisees in Matthew 21: 42 Jesus said to them, “Have you never read in the Scriptures: ‘ The stone which the builders rejected Has become the chief cornerstone.This was the Lord’s doing, And it is marvelous in our eyes’?
Peter applies the Isaiah prophecy to Jesus in 1 Peter 2:6 when he writes: “Therefore it is also contained in the Scripture, Behold, I lay in Zion A chief cornerstone, elect, precious, And he who believes on Him will by no means be put to shame.” Paul also refers to Christ alluding to both Old Testament passages in Ephesians 2:20. Speaking about the Church, Paul says that it is “built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief cornerstone, 21 in whom the whole building, being fitted together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord.”
So, I would say that there is neither a gorilla, nor a pope to be found in Matthew 16:18. Rather we find Jesus saying that he will build his church upon the truth contained in Peter’s confession, a truth about who Jesus Christ really is. In practical terms, this will mean that those who are built into the church will have the same confession about the identity of Christ that Peter has – and, to his credit, it appears that Peter was the first to understand who Christ is. In that sense, you can properly say that Peter was the first living stone, aligned with that corner stone, and he was followed by the other Apostles, and the prophets, and all other true Christians ever since, down to the present day.
The second gorilla is found in Jesus’ statement to Peter in verse 19 And I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.”
I must say that on the modern, highly individualistic Christian scene in America, at the beginning of the 21st Century, this is a hard saying. And, for those who find it a hard saying, they will often dismiss this verse – even though it comes from the Mouth of the Lord Himself – as yet another dispensable Pope-supporting snippet in our Lord’s teaching.
This is truly ironic. For one thing, there is no Pope in view in our Lord’s words in verse 18. And, so verse 19 cannot be granting magisterial powers to a Pope. There isn’t one in view to grant such powers to!
It is doubly ironic in the way that American Protestantism has typically functioned as far as its ecclesiology is concerned. On one hand, many Protestant congregations reject the Catholics’ belief that the teaching authority is vested in a single Pope. But, the Protestant alternative is NOT the absence of a Pope, but rather the PROLIFIERATION of popes. Protestants don’t have a single Pope. They have thousands of them. “Every Pastor a Pope!” seems to be the practical agenda for many Protestants. “Whatever Pastor Pope says is good enough for me!”
But, of course, whatever Pastor Pope says is – many times – no good at all, and so Protestants have a luxury which those impoverished Catholics never have – dead Popes, whose books they can read, and whose views on Bible and Theology they can follow.
Last night as supper, I was discussing with my children some of the distinctives of a branch of Protestants whose name for themselves is “The Truly Reformed.” One daughter notes that they all seem to follow John Calvin’s Institutes of the Christian Religion far more closely than anything written down in the Bible. For them, he is Pope John Calvin – practically so, that is, though they would get pretty snippy if you pointed this out to them.
But, back to Jesus words here: they are spoken to Peter: the word “you” is singular. Jesus says he will give him the keys to the kingdom of heaven; that what he binds on earth will be bound in heaven, and what he looses on earth will be loosed in heaven.
If this were the only verse like this, I acknowledge that it would be difficult to understand it as anything other than a divine grant of authority to a single man – Peter – and, by extension, to those who follow him. However, a couple of chapters later in Matthew, we find Jesus using the same terms when speaking to YOU (plural), meaning all the Apostles together. Jesus says to them all these words: “18 “Assuredly, I say to you [all], whatever you [all] bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you [all] loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.”
But, this only relieves part of what makes modern American Protestants anxious when pondering this passage. What is this ”loosing and binding” all about?
The terminology was very common in Jesus’ day to describe the effects of the teaching authority of the Jewish Rabbis. They were always binding things and loosing things. Jesus referred to this practice in Matthew 23:4 when he said this about the Pharisees: For they bind heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on men’s shoulders; but they themselves will not move them with one of their fingers.”
The terms “binding and loosing,” therefore, refer to the authority which a teacher had to permit something to be done, to require something to be done, to forbid something to be done by his disciples. This is the authority which Jesus confers not only on Peter, but on all the Apostles. As Christ’s Apostles – those whom he sends into the World to accomplish his mission – Jesus says that you have authority from me to bind and to loose: to require things to be done, to permit things to be done, to forbid things to be done.
How do we see this in operation? I suggest we see it in the following ways:
First of all, we see it in the appearance of the New Testament, particularly the letters which the Apostles write to the churches they are founding. In one place, Paul – in a very significant turn of phrase – says this in 1 Corinthians 7:25: “25 Now concerning virgins: I have no commandment from the Lord; yet I give judgment as one whom the Lord in His mercy has made trustworthy.” In 1 Corinthians 14:37 Paul writes this: If anyone thinks himself to be a prophet or spiritual, let him acknowledge that the things which I write to you are the commandments of the Lord.” What you see here in the Corinthian epistle is Paul binding and loosing, just as Jesus gave his Apostles authority to do. You see this in every epistle – Paul’s, Peter’s, and John’s. As Apostolic teaching authorities, they are laying down what is required for Christians to believe and to do, they are laying down what is permissible for Christians to do, and what is forbidden for Christians to do.
You also see this binding and loosing in the joint councils of the Apostles. Acts Chapter 15, which records the issues and outcomes of the First Ecumenical Council at Jerusalem, shows us how that council bound and loosed as regards eating things sacrificed to idols. There was no teaching from the Lord in this matter, or they would simply have quoted it. The originally Jewish Church was beginning to get a lot of Gentile converts, and their habits were scandalizing the Jewish Christians. The council bound and loosed concerning these issues.
And, you see this in the other ecumenical councils of the Church, when the heirs of the Apostles met to consider issues in belief and practice.
What Jesus is telling his Apostles here ensures that he will back them up as they are carrying out his work. Whatever they decide, heaven will back them up. It is very much a situation similar to the time when God told Adam to name the animals, and the Scripture tells us that whatever it was that Adam named any animal, that was its name. Adam had true authority in this matter. And, Jesus is giving Peter, and later the rest of the Apostles, the same authority.
Perhaps the next time this passage appears in our lectionary, I can develop some other themes found in Jesus words. For now, let me simply say this:
The overarching import of Jesus words to Peter relate to the Church and our relationship to it. Specifically, Jesus’ words here put him squarely behind the work and the words of the Apostles as they are founding the Church and providing it guidance in the New Testament until the Lord returns. The words of the Apostles in the New Testament bind and loose US, and Jesus will back them up today just as he promised to.
Beyond that, Jesus words here put him squarely behind the word and the words of the heirs of the Apostles as they sat in Council before the Church was divided. This is why Anglicans have always received the teaching of the first five ecumenical councils of the Church as binding.
And, finally, in a day when Christians are ready to own as many popes as they have churches, let us take care to ourselves to fasten our allegiance on those whom Jesus says he will back up with the authority of heaven itself. Let us tend every more seriously to what we find in the pages of the New Testament, and in the teaching of the Fathers of the Church before it was divided. Jesus is the same today, yesterday, and forever. And, in this matter, he has not yet returned to take to himself the keys of the kingdom.
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.
