Sunday Worship 23rd August
We follow all of the advice from the Government, the Church of England and Manchester Diocese to ensure your safety. The wearing of face coverings is mandatory unless you are exempt from this requirement. Please do bring your own if you can, but we do have a limited supply of disposable face masks if you need one - so don't let that stop you from joining us.
The latest local restrictions do not affect the numbers of people we are able to seat at our service, as we already have enough space to allow safe distancing. Please do remember though that socialising with people from outside your household before and after the service is not permitted at present.
Your own home is still the safest place to worship, particularly if you are shielding or in a vulnerable group, and you'll find everything you need here on this page.
This morning's first hymn is "Love Is His Word" -
Today's Gospel reading -
As we get older we usually come closer to understanding who we are, and what makes us tick. Finding what we can of who we are is an important part of self-understanding. Self-knowledge is an important part of maturity. Jesus, though, knew who he was.
Today’s gospel passage sees him involving the disciples in this knowledge, involving them in understanding what he was about, and where this would lead him. Jesus wants to know – what are people saying, who do they say he is – and so he does ask those closest to him. He took them to Caesarea Philippi - a long way north of Galilee, perhaps two days walk. He wanted privacy for this. The reply of the disciples, to his rather oblique question, is to report the general reaction of people – and this in itself is enlightening – not "gentle Jesus, meek and mild", not the friend of little children, but rather he was perceived as being rather like one of the wild prophets of ancient times, who stood up and spoke God’s word fearlessly against wicked and rebellious kings. They compare him with John the Baptist, with Elijah or Jeremiah.
Jesus was acting as a prophet – not simply one who foretells the future but one who was God’s mouthpiece against injustice and wickedness. And within that prophetic ministry there lay hidden another dimension, and it seems that Jesus thought his followers had grasped this or else he would not have asked the question. He thought they had realised what was still a secret – that Jesus was the Messiah. Messiah was the word for the anointed king, God’s anointed king. Jews of that day (and today) expected God to send an anointed king who would spearhead the movement that would free Israel from oppression and bring peace and justice to the world at last. Jesus wasn’t just speaking God’s word against wicked rulers of the time, like those prophets referred to by the disciples. He was God’s king who would supplant them. We could look at the layers of meaning associated with the phrase son of man, we could get bogged down in the theology, but we are not going to.
What Simon and the others were saying is – you are the true king, you are the one Israel is looking for, you are God’s adopted son – the one spoken of in the psalms and by the prophets. They knew this was risky. To begin with, it looked as if Jesus was simply endorsing their dreams. Simon declared Jesus to be the Messiah – and Jesus had a name for Simon too – he called him Peter. Peter means rock. Simon was prepared to say that Jesus was the Messiah, and Jesus’ response was to say that Peter would himself be the foundation for his new building. Recorded earlier in Matthew’s gospel is Jesus’ story of the wise man building his house on the rock and now he declares that he is going to do just that. Of course Jesus isn’t going to build an actual city, or even an actual temple, he is going to build a community, consisting of all those who give allegiance to him as God’s anointed king.
This movement, this community, starts then and there, at Caesarea Philippi, with Peter’s declaration.
Then that rather staggering command from Jesus as he told them they were not to tell anyone he was the Messiah. At this point it was to remain a deadly secret. Behind this is the fear that if the secret were to leak out it could be deadly indeed. But from this point on Peter and the others had the knowledge to inspire them. The promise is made – through allegiance with Jesus they will become the people through whom the living God will put the world to rights, bringing heaven and earth into their new state of justice and peace.
Peter, with his declaration of faith, will be the starting point of this community. Peter still had much to learn, and we know he made mistakes (perhaps most notably his denial of Christ before the crucifixion) but this was the start.
We don’t have to keep our knowledge secret, indeed we must witness to it – and we are the community of faith.
Peter is a good role model for us – he was flawed as we are flawed, but we must take heart from the fact that the community of faith consists not of perfect beings, but simply of forgiven sinners.
And our final hymn for today is "Great Is Thy Faithfulness" -
