Twenty-first Sunday in Ordinary Time, August 27, 2023 – Isaiah 22:19-23; Romans 11:33-36; Matthew 16:13-20

Catholics are preconditioned to hear, in this reading, two truths. That the Pope is the successor of Peter and the head of the Church and that the Church has the power to forgive sins in the sacrament of Penance. Both of those things are true. And they emerge from a different context of this reading as the Church grows. When, finally, there were so many Christians that some sort of order, some sort of structure, was needed for their own benefit. It became obvious that the person in the See of Rome was carrying forward the traditions of Peter. When there were so many Christians who were baptized at birth instead of as consenting adults, the problem of sin after baptism became a very powerful reality in the Church. And so, the Church had to look at what Jesus had said about forgiveness to understand what it could do to reconcile those people. But that’s not what this passage was all about when Matthew wrote it. It was about something entirely different.

Remember last week? Jesus went to the region of Tyre, in Sidon, and met that Canaanite woman and very reluctantly cured her daughter after saying, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” You have to know the geography. All of our Gospel writers create a theological geography to tell their story, using real places that people knew about back in those days that we don’t know anything about. Tyre and Sidon were two cities on the Mediterranean seacoast and for Jewish people they were vacation destinations. They were about 30 or 40 miles outside of the actual end of Jewish territory but, because so many people of Jewish ancestry lived there and worked there, it was a comfortable enough place to go, where Jews and Pagans mingled in a friendly manner. 

So, Jesus goes off, presumably for some R&R, to Tyre and Sidon and He says, “I’ve come out here seeking out the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” That is to say, “Those expatriate Jews who didn’t come back after the exile, I want to go talk to them too.” That’s why he is so abrupt. 

Now, in today’s Gospel, which follows right afterwards, Jesus goes to the region of Caesarea Phillipi. Caesarea Phillipi is about 30 miles in from the coast, in a direct line. So, Jesus and His followers are still on vacation. Okay? So where is He going?  He’s going to the foothills of Mount Hermon. Mount Hermon, an ancient, ancient destination of peoples throughout that area, named for the Greek God Hermes. And, at the bottom of that mountain, there is a big cliff, like a great big table platform, that descends rapidly down to the valley. On the top of that cliff there has always been a city, since ancient times. It used to be called Mount Panar, named after the God Pan, who is the son of Hermes. 

One reason why it was so important is because there was a spring there that was actually the headwaters of the Jordan River. And all caravans knew they would find fresh water there. But the thing about the spring is that it was so deep that no one lowering a bucket could find the bottom. And so, it became a matter of folklore that the entrance to Hades, the entrance to the underworld, was at the bottom of that spring. Because why? Because Pan was the guardian of the gate to the underworld.

So, how come it’s called Caesarea Phillipi now? Well thereby hangs an ugly tale. The Greeks had conquered the Persians. And the Greeks tried to force their culture onto the Jews. The Maccabees revolted and gained temporary freedom, until the Romans conquered the Greeks and took over the territory. In order to hondle the Romans, the family of Herod made a deal with Rome to protect the religious freedom of the Jews under certain conditions. And Herod, although he was called Herod the Great, was not great at all. He was a miserable, miserly, cruel person and he was not a good Jew. So, although he saved the Jews, the Jews hated him.

He built a fortress on the top of that cliff. When he died, he willed it to his son, Phillip. And Phillip named it after the Roman emperor, Caeser Augustus, because Caeser was a God. And so, the region became known as Caesarea Phillipi - the place of Caeser built by Phillip. And there was a temple there, right at the base of the cliff, to the God Augustus. On one side of that temple there was a temple to Pan. On the other side there was a temple to something else. And, because it was a destination for all peoples, over the course of the centuries, people had dug out niches in the wall of the cliff and stuck their household idols there. So, people came there because it was a resort. The springs were lovely. They could bathe in the headwaters of the Jordan. They could worship their gods. Pay homage to the Roman Emperor. Worship Hermes, the father of Pan. They could worship Pan. All sorts of things. 

So, Jesus goes there with His followers, and they’re standing at the base of the cliff with all these little niches of idols behind them, and the three big shrines. And that’s why He says to Peter, “Who do people around here say the Son of Man is?” He wants to know how faithful the Jews have been to the expectation of someone who is going to come and be the Messiah. And Peter answers that, “Some of the Jews think that Jesus is Elijah come back, and so on, and so forth. And that’s why Jesus changes the question. Peter’s answer is very significant. He says two things that are opposed to each other. “You are the Christos, the Anointed One, the military savior who will get us out of this predicament, and You are the Son of the living God. We are standing in front of the temple of the son of some other God.  But You are the Son of the living God. Something the Pagans can’t hear.” Peter has basically denounced the secular culture and the Jewish culture of his day. Them’s fightin’ words, is what they are. And Jesus says to him, “Ah, see this rock behind us here, on which the symbol of Roman power is built? You are a rock, and on this rock, I will build my ecclesia. Not the Church as we know it, but my “assembly of those called out.” Called out from present day Judaism. Called out from the Pagan world around us. To follow me. You are the rock on which I will build My Church. 

It’s fascinating when you hear that because the next story will be the Transfiguration, which we had as a feast day a couple of weeks ago. And the Transfiguration takes place on the top of Mount Hermon.

But what lingers from today’s Gospel is why it was told the way it was told. Matthew was dealing with a church of Christians who has seen their dear, beloved Jerusalem burnt to the ground. He was dealing with a church of Pagans, whose relatives and friends were constantly calling them back to the worship of many gods and to Caeser worship. And Matthew had to do something to focus them on the future of the church, those who were called out. And so, he told the story this way. 

What lingers for us, in the 21^st century, is a story that, for every generation of Christians - Catholic and non-Catholic - have had to ask themselves. “Who do you say that I am?” Who is Jesus to me? The answer turns out to be pretty much the same, generation after generation. But each generation has to answer the question for themselves.