Church staff
 
 
The Church has triumphantly declared its control of the name Jesus & the power of salvation across the centuries. In his sermon, “Naming Our Own Savior,” from Matthew 16:13-20, Rev. David Diller, reminds us Jesus defines himself. Against the background of pagan religion & emperor worship at Caesarea Philippi, Jesus is acclaimed “the Messiah” by his disciple Simon. But neither the political agenda of his contemporaries nor our theologies today tell us who Jesus is. Another reading of the text brings some anomalous facts to light.
 
The difference between the nickname “Peter” (petros) & “rock” (petra) is the difference between a pebble (petros) & a rock fortress (petra). The Church is founded neither on the person of Peter nor his confession, but on Jesus’ confidence God’s reign is dawning in his proclamation of a new vision for living. Defying the worship of both nature & Roman power, Jesus declares these gates of Hades (all those forces opposed to God that destroy the fullness of human life) will not stand. Followers of Jesus are not an army bivouacking weekly in a sanctuary but one daily moving into the world to inaugurate Jesus’ peaceable Kingdom. Jesus himself is the key to God’s will on earth. Rather than the Church having heavenly power to bind & loose, to determine right & wrong, what’s permitted & forbidden, the very rare perfect passive tense in Greek means we are to respond to God’s own intentions & purposes for human life.