Matthew 16:13-20
August 22, 1999
James R. Gorman
About a year ago I was at a conference at which the speaker--a local church pastor--in order to instill in us church people a sense
of urgency, said, "The Church is always one generation from extinction." He was bent over the podium in an earnest sort of
posture. He was telling us of our responsibility of spreading the good news. And he wanted us to know that if we don't spread the
Gospel, it will be just one generation away from disappearing from the face of the earth.
It's a compelling idea, isn't it? It enhances our sense of Christian responsibility. We need to get out there and work for the Gospel or it could disappear.
This idea is contained in the old story about Jesus appearing before his Father after his resurrection. Jesus is giving a progress report of all that has happened leading up to his death and resurrection. And the Father asks him, "Well Jesus, did you leave things in capable hands?"
Jesus responds, "I did. I have left behind Mary and Martha and Peter and the other disciples."
The Father says, "What if they fail?"
Jesus says, "Well, I have established the Church and filled it with the Holy Spirit and they will carry on."
And the Father says, "What if they fail?"
And Jesus says, "I have no other plan."
There is a tension here between the work of God and the work of humanity regarding the great work that Jesus requires of us. As the prophet Micah puts it, we are "to do justice, to love mercy and to walk humbly with our God."
On the one hand, Jesus names Simon bar Jonah, Peter (Petros in Greek and so a marvelous play on words - "petros" is the word for "rock" in Greek; we get the words petrified and petroleum and from that word) and upon that Rock, Jesus says, "I will build my church."
What an enormous responsibility is given to Peter and to those who have the Keys of Peter. "I will 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."
And what if Peter fails? Will the Gospel disappear?
This is the tension.
But here is the other promise given to Peter, and through him to the whole Church, "The gates of Hades (hell) will not prevail against it." And this is the line that gives me hope. The very powers of hell itself will not prevail. This gives me hope because the Church has failed many times to do what it was supposed to do. Or worse, the Church embarked on programs that it thought was in the best interest of the Gospel, but in fact was a great hypocrisy that turned out to be an historical embarrassment.
One of the best examples of that was what happened to the Church at the turn of the last millennium.
In the darkest moments of the dark ages, as the calendar began to move from three digits to four, the Church as an institution was in big trouble.
Some history:
Historians generally mark the rise of Europe from about the year 1000 AD. Some extraordinary things happened in the decades just before and after that millennial marking point. The first real kings of Germany and France were elected. The Holy Roman Empire came into being in 962, beginning the long merging of Church and State that lasted well into the 1700's. Before the emergence of the Holy Roman Empire, the Church didn't look like much of a church. It was disorganized, corrupt, fragmented and localized. Though the clergy was supposed to be the only literate class, many of the clergy themselves could not read nor write. Christian belief was mixed with the old pagan superstitions. The monasteries were in decay. Priests often lived with concubines and were allowed to marry, so that they had children to whom they tried to pass on their churchly positions. The Bishop of Rome had no authority or influence in most of the Church and was treated in an unseemly fashion in his own city of Rome.
The popes of the 900's were appointed by unruly Roman nobles. They weren't very influential. There is the story of Marozia, daughter of a Roman "senator," who became the mistress of one pope, by whom she had a son who, in turn, became pope until Marozia imprisoned him so that another son, by another father, could claim the papacy from him.
The great Church founded by Jesus then split East and West--a split that had festered for three centuries was finalized in 1054 with the seat of the Greek-speaking Eastern Church in Constantinople (now the earthquake-devastated Istanbul) and the Latin speaking Western Church centered in Rome. And Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholic churches are still trying to repair that break.
If the Church's future ever depended on our ability to do God's will, it should have disappeared in the years just before the end of the first millennium and the beginning of this millenium. If there is a decade about which the Church should be ashamed, it would be the decade just preceding the end of the first millennium.
To make matters much worse, al-Hakam was made the Caliph over Jerusalem in 996. He was called the Mad Caliph and his persecution of the Christians in the Holy Land is well documented. In order to take the city of David away from the Muslim infidels (as the church called them), the first of the Great Crusades was initiated in 1096. It was a three-year disaster for the Christians, but Crusades against unbelievers and infidels (mostly Muslims and Jews) continued off and on for 270 years following the year 1000. It did not accomplish any of its objectives and, worse, has left a bad taste in the mouth of the Christian Church to this day. The Church's latent hatred of Jews and Muslims continue in embarrassing ways in part because of the frenzy of this troubling period that began at the turn of the last millennium.
In the great ambition of following and glorifying our Jesus, we have committed atrocity after atrocity against all those he loves. We have much about which to repent. For Jesus loves the little children, all the children of the world. Red, brown, yellow, black and white, all are precious in his sight. Jesus loves the little children of the world.
So, if the speaker at that year-ago conference was right that the Church is always just one generation away from extinction, then it should be now extinct. Instead, the promise is that the powers of hell, which are inside the church as well as outside of it, will never prevail against it. There will always be a Church, by the grace of a merciful God.
Our work is not to make sure that the Church exists into the next millennium. Rather, it should be to make sure that it is a Church that obeys Jesus' call to obedience to the Gospel of love and is not an historical embarrassment.
So, your work of evangelism ought not be so that the Church continues to exist for another generation. God will do that. Your work should be to invite your friends and family into this church because they will find here a place in which love prevails, justice is done and humility is our prevailing demeanor.
There is really no other reason to be here.