“He said to them, ‘But who do you say that I am?’

Simon Peter said in reply,

‘You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.’

Jesus said to him in reply,

‘Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah. 

For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my heavenly Father. 

And so I say to you, you are Peter,

and upon this rock I will build my church,

and the gates of the netherworld shall not prevail against it. 

I will give you the keys to the kingdom of heaven. 

Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven;

and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.’”

There are two components of today’s proclamation by Jesus. The first is that Peter is the rock upon which Jesus will build his church. The second is that the gates of hell, or of the netherworld, will not prevail against it. While scriptural evidence abounds about the significance of Peter as the leader of the disciples and of the early church, the church, herself, has pointed to this passage to establish the primacy of Peter and his successors for the unity of the church guided by the papacy. Likewise, this passage has been used to point to the endurance or durability, even triumph, of the church through history. Peter, from a human perspective, and the church, herself, seem like unlikely candidates for primacy or endurance. 

In just a few verses, Jesus will call Peter and obstacle to himself for thinking as human beings do and not as God does. Peter is at times brash, fearful, misunderstanding, and, at his worst, a denier. Yet, he is also repentant, docile, submissive, and true. In the midst of all his weaknesses, Peter clings to Jesus who has seen the very best that Peter can be. Out of Simon, the fisherman, Jesus pulls Peter, the fisher of men. God is the initiator and, despite his stumbles, Peter clings to God. He allows God to do his work, to transform him, to be his savior. 

The church, too, has often been on the verge of self inflicted collapse or external annihilation. The temptations of heresies, the scandal of schism, the threat of worldly power and military might, religious wars, immoral popes, dark ages, persecutions and martyrdom, unfaithful monasteries, the selling of grace, the inheritance of bishoprics, the abuse of power, clericalism, and so much more have plagued the church through history. She has stumbled and fallen to the edge of disaster time and time again.

Like Peter, however, despite her stumbles, failures, and betrayals, the church has clung to Jesus. From the slums of Calcutta, the cells of the bastille, the colosseum of Rome, the desert of Ethiopia, the shores of a new world, the concentration camps of a world war, to our own time and place, the church has always, though imperfectly, carried within herself the grace of God in the person of Jesus. In the Word of God and the sacraments, the Eucharist especially, she has been renewed. Through her, Jesus’s question has been posed to each of us, “But who do you say that I am?” 

In small communities, convents, hermitages, prisons, palaces, universities, and each time and place, from hearts touched by Gods grace, Peter’s confession has been repeated. The answer that transformed him from a crass fisherman into a saint and the church from fearfully hiding in an upper room to Christ’s body now on earth was the same. It is the faith that changes us, as well, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”