Let’s be perfectly clear here. When Jesus lifts his finger and points to the disciples who are there with him in Caesarea Philippi and says “Who do you say that I am?” the question is pointed at you and me as well. Peter and his colleagues are Matthew’s symbol for the church, it’s people individually and together from that moment sometime in the third or fourth decade of the first century in the Middle Eastern city of Caesarea Philippi forward through Matthew’s own time in the seventh or eighth decade of the first century and through every moment in history and every place in history to this moment and this place in the 21st century.

 

“Who do you say that I am, Bernie …and Alice…and Laureen, Jack, and all of us? “Who do you say that I am?” 

           

The people the first disciples encountered had various answers: “Elijah!” Good guess. The one standing in front of them that afternoon in Caesarea Philippi quite likely looked like the prophet we heard Laureen (or Jack) read about – someone able to call on powers that were beyond them to sustain life (The jar of meal in the widow’s home remained full, remember) and to keep the last enemy – death -- at bay.  (Life returned to the widow’s son, remember.) This one who stood before Simon Peter (and stands before us) asking who we say that he is looks like the prophets of history. Some have said Jeremiah. Some have said that John the Baptist, whom we’re sure is dead, gone, and behind us, has returned. Good guesses.

 

But they’re other peoples’ answers, not ours!  All of us who have said at our baptism or our confirmation, “Jesus Christ is my Lord and Savior,” we say, with Peter, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.” We say it.  Be clear about that. It’s not some distant and ancient third party whose ancient confession of faith we read about in the cold pages of a book.  Peter’s words are ours!

 

And likewise, the response to Peter’s confession of faith that Jesus gives is also given to us: “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah!  For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father in heaven,” spoken to Simon...also to Bernie…and Alice and Laureen, Jack, and …to all of us. When we have said to the one and about the one who points to our hearts like they were a target, “You are not John the Baptist or Elijah or Jeremiah (or one of the other prophets), you are the Messiah, Son of the Living God,” we also haven’t figured that out on our own.  Rather, the God who created us and insists on saving us from ourselves time and time and time again, it’s that one who has provided the information.

 

Be very clear about this man standing before us pointing in our direction. Be clear about just who it is that he’s addressing. Be clear about the question he asks. Be clear about the answer. It’s us…in every instance. And when he says to Peter, you are a rock, Petras, upon which I build my church; it is we who also receive the commission -- quite directly. It is we who are commissioned as the foundation of the community of faith; it is we who are insulated by the promises that are made against the ravages of Hades, and even against death; and it is we who together with Simon Peter are given the keys to the kingdom of Heaven.

 

Did you hear that? We are also given the keys to the Kingdom of Heaven. Let’s be clear what that Kingdom looks like. Matthew’s been telling us, chapter after chapter, as week after week this summer we’ve followed the story he tells. The kingdom for which we have keys is a place where people who are poor in spirit are blessed, where the mournful are comforted, where the meek inherit the earth, where the merciful receive mercy, where even those ridiculed for their righteous indignation and intolerance for injustice...where even they...are blessed.

 

This Kingdom for which we have the keys is a place where the customs and habits of our hearts and lives are flip-flopped upside down from what we know about day to day. We have the keys. It’s a place where the rules for human relationships are quite different from our day-to-day experience. We have the keys. It’s a place where men and women born or sentenced to lives without hope somehow begin to have hope for their futures:  lepers, the lame, the blind, slaves, prostitutes, socially unacceptable folks, begin to have hope...in that place for which we have the keys. They’re in our hands. We’ve got the power and the competency and the authority to unlock that gate. We’ve got the keys: “I 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.”

  

This Kingdom for which we have the keys is a place where the one who points at our hearts and asks the questions and provides the authority also remains with us to quell the storms that one would think would do us in. Even if where we happen to be is in the city, surrounded by all of the political and economic and demographic forces which being in the city assumes, even there...here...the kingdom to which we are invited exists...and there is someone with us who quells even the wind and the sea.

 

This Kingdom for which we have the keys is a place where the forces of good are strong and sufficient to challenge old structures and old assumptions, even break through them when the structures are no longer sufficient and the assumptions are no longer correct, like fresh, new wine that cannot be contained anymore by old wineskins.

 

This Kingdom for which we have the keys is a place where the wheat and the tares are sown together in a common field and neither may say to the other “You are good” or “You are evil”, for the Kingdom to which we are invited and empowered to enter, this Kingdom, its people and its contents are diverse, and only the host who invites us to enter can distinguish the Kingdom’s guests one from another. We who are invited have no power or capacity to do that, but we are empowered to enter the Kingdom.

 

This Kingdom for which we have the keys is a place where the smallest and least significant has the greatest of value, where the powers that make such a place work -- love, respect, civility in human discourse -- are like yeast in the baking process -- largely invisible but necessary...and effective. This Kingdom is as elusive as treasure hidden in a vast field, as valuable as a pearl so precious that all else can be sacrificed, and as fascinating as the marvelous world hidden beneath the sea.

 

You have the keys to that Kingdom. Will you enter it and be a participant? The one who stands before us as he stood before Peter and his friends and also points at us and asks, as he asked them, “Who do you say that I am?” the one to whom we and Simon Peter have given the right answer (“Messiah, Son of the living God”), the one from whom we have received the keys to a very special place...and the capacity and the knowledge and the authority to enter...that one now says, “It’s your turn!” It’s not sufficient anymore to stand outside the Kingdom and talk about what’s in there, like a circus sideshow barker stands outside the tent cajoling others to pay the price and enter in. In fact, I think we’re absolutely commanded not to just talk about it.

 

I’m fascinated by the last verse of this gospel lesson: “He sternly ordered his disciples not to tell anyone that he was the Messiah.” Commentators I’ve read have a wondrous variety of opinions about that one. Some of them suggest that Matthew, like Luke, got the story from Mark’s gospel, which if written earlier, might well have been available to them, and that Mark was simply reporting what happened. Jesus was buying time, now that the truth was out, for him to complete the work that God had given him. Other commentators, on the other hand, dare to suggest that the warning against telling anyone the news about Jesus is mostly the imagination of the gospel writer, either Mark, whom Matthew and Luke copied, or some gospel writer now unknown to us, whom they all copied, and that the warning had mainly literary purpose in permitting the writer to finish telling his story.

 

We’ll never know, I guess - but I’ve got to think that among the purposes that God intends for Scripture is that it will serve from time to time as a corrective or balance to the experience the church or God’s people are having in their present moment of history. And I also think that  this moment we 21^st century Christians are in is one of those times…a time when there are far too many words being spoken and far too few loving actions being taken, and we need Scripture to gently caution -- maybe not so gently -- against an evangelism that is just so much hot air.

 

Words are numerous and cheap in these days of high-tech communication and massive amounts of accessible data. Even words about Jesus are cheap and numerous. Yet all the while, human activity of the kind to which the one who stands before us pointing and asking, “Who do you say that I am?” activities of the kingdom to which he invites us, and for which we have the key, those kinds of activities may be diminishing phenomena in our lifetimes, while words, words, words are increasing.

 

I think we need to hear the admonishment of Scripture that we’re not just to tell people that Jesus is the Messiah. Rather, our task is to demonstrate it: to take the keys that are in our possession, unlock the door, go into the Kingdom and get involved with it, messy and scary as it seems from outside the door, all the while singing praises to the best of our abilities to the Lord God who is our host.

 

All of which is to say, in a final word, you need to get on and stay on the right track, St. Philip Presbyterian Church. Individually, you demonstrate great strength and considerable compassion for the world out there. But I’m not quite sure your really want to take the keys to its gate and enter into it.

 

The bulletin this morning reports that you raised more than $4,000 in response to a very quiet appeal for relief for the famine occurring in east central Africa. You consistently respond well, individually, to that sort of thing. But corporately, as a faith community, how well you respond to Jesus’ question of who do you say that I am, well, I’m just not so sure. Sometimes I hear you saying corporately, as a community, that other things have lordship for you, or at least have a greater value from time to time.

 

Security, for example, or not being controversial, or having all the questions answered beforehand before offering your partnership occasionally to other institutions that would seem to have similar interests, or excusing hurt and unkindness toward sisters and brothers in the congregation by saying some of our children don’t like them. In instances such as these I’m just not sure that, as the church, the community of faith, you’re saying “You’re the Messiah, Lord, the Son of the living God, and other things are not lord for us.”

 

Same can be asked of what you believe the mission is that you are called to serve as St. Philip Presbyterian Church in this location at this time. You do engage in certain kinds of benevolent activity through the social agencies supported by the Mission Commission of the Session and the grants they make locally and to the Presbytery each year. But the grants made to the Presbytery have been staying at the level of the Presbytery, and the money has not been passed on to the wider councils of the church to support mission they serve, practically none of it. Did you know that? So…global mission, Presbyterian mission activity worldwide is not being supported by St. Philip Church.

 

Nor are you engaging much at the moment with the world that is around you, rich and poor, right here in west-central Houston. The population of young adults that is all around you is not yet being engaged with much. Their children desperately need day-care in a multi-cultural, multi-economic context. And the young parents and young singles both need a church that doesn’t just give them easy answers or a prosperity gospel but a church that is willing to journey and engage with them in the questions and passions that they have.

           

Will you care and will you act in response to the Lord Jesus’ question is the question. Is the one who directs you to go into the world, all of it, with your compassion…and your hands…and your money being responded to by saying he is Lord and Messiah? It’s not too late, and there’s no better time than now. Last spring Central Presbyterian Church on Richmond Ave. and St. Philip Church merged. This morning, you are nearly $10 Million richer than you were two weeks ago because the sale of the Central Church property has now closed. (The money has not yet been invested; so you still have it, or most of it. The mortgage on this building has been paid off.) Your Session has acted wisely to be careful and thoughtful, and is taking care to see that St. Philip is being faithful to God’s call as much as possible.

 

The Session has directed me to appoint a task group of thoughtful people who will consider and recommend what the definition of the word “mission” will be, as in the term Central Presbyterian Church of Houston Mission Fund. Will it be defined narrowly, or broadly? It will make a lot of difference. But the people I have in mind for the Task Group are thoughtful and faithful folks, far as I can tell. I’m pretty sure they’ll work hard and do a good job. So St. Philip has a good chance at a very vibrant future, it seems to me, a future in which it is saying, in all times and places (or at least in most times and places; no church is ever going to be perfect; don’t kid yourself) “you, Lord Jesus, you are the Messiah, the son of the living God. You are our Lord, and other things won’t be.”

 

All of which is to say, St. Philip has a good chance of taking the keys to the kingdom, which like the other disciples it too has been given, unlocking the door, and entering the kingdom to which it is called. It’s your turn now to decide about that.

 

Amen.