It is a well-established practice in protest movements that when you want to make an impact and get attention, you go to the seat of power. So when Rio Tinto recently destroyed priceless ancient artworks at Juukan Gorge, an Aboriginal-led protest took place out the front of Rio Tinto’s Perth office. In resisting the bizarre changes to the US Postal Service in the lead-up to the federal election later this year, last week protesters gathered outside the home of Postmaster General Louis DeJoy. And last year at the Diocese of Perth Synod, for the first time in history, as the clergy lined up in robes to process into the Cathedral, we could see hundreds of people from Save Perth Hills lined up across the road to protest the North Stoneville development. It had the desired effect. It got everyone talking, and made lots of powerful people feel uncomfortable.
If you want to make an impact, go to the seat of power.
Historically, there has been much focus on Jesus’ statement to Peter. Firstly because it’s a pun, and who doesn’t love a pun? Sy ei Petros, kai epi taute te petra… ‘You are Rocky and on this Rock I will build my church’. Jesus (sort of) awards Simon Peter a new name which is a play on the word rock. Jesus is basically making a Dad joke, and I love it.
But of course much of the focus has been on this declaration by Jesus to Peter because it forms part of the theological basis for the office of the Pope. In the Roman Catholic understanding, the Bishop of Rome is the successor of Peter and therefore the head of the whole church. As Anglicans, we protest this claim, along with the Eastern Orthodox and all the other protestants, and because this single line of scripture has been a source of conflict, it gets all the focus.
But I really want us to focus on the second part of Jesus’ statement. ‘You are Rocky, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it’.
The gates of Hades will not prevail against it.
To get a handle on this statement about the gates of Hades, we need to to the Golan Heights. Golan today is an annexed territory – it was seized by Israel in the six day war in 1967, and there is a UN operated buffer zone between where the Israeli annexed territory ends and the Syrian controlled territory begins.
Today, this annexed region has a ski resort and a multiple Israeli settlements. But the true value of the place is in its water – Mt Hermon has a large snowmelt which once created a strongly flowing river each Spring, but which is now diverted into the general Israeli water supply.
For centuries, this was a Druze area. The Druze (not to be confused with Jews) are an offshoot of Islam, but they are not muslims. There is still a sizable Druze population in this area, recognisable by their puffy pants, living in small villages in Golan. But one village is gone – the village of Banias. It was almost completely destroyed in the six day war, and now stands in ruins. The reason it was not rebuilt was to create a nature reserve – what we might call a national park – around the ancient Temple of Pan. You can see the link between the name of the village ‘Banias’ and the Latin name ‘Paneas’.
During the time of Jesus, the Temple of Pan was surrounded by the small village of Caesarea Philippi, and it was focused on worship of the Greek god Pan, as well as Echo and Hermes. There is a cave system there, and inside the cave system is a spring, and worship of one kind or another had taken place there since the Canaanite era. There was a particular cave that was so deep that, according to Josephus, it could not be measured. This cave was called the gate of Hades, and the Romans had built a Temple to Augustus in front of it.
The gates of Hades! Inside the gates of Hades, human sacrifices were offered, by chucking living people down into the underworld, and they could be carried away by the gushing torrent.
So you see, when Jesus says ‘the gates of Hades will not prevail’ against my church, Jesus is literally standing in front of the gates of Hades. He is standing in front of the place where human sacrifices were offered as part of the Roman political/religious worldview.
And the Jesus of Matthew’s gospel was not there by accident. He wasn’t just passing through. To get to Caesarea Philippi, Jesus had to go high up into the mountains. It was a long trek to a small village with a significant shrine, in the middle of nowhere. He literally would have trekked for days to get to Caesarea Philippi. He made a special trip, to make a point.
Another important thing is the backdrop of the scene, which you don’t really get until you’ve been there. The temple of Pan, the gate of Hades, and the Temple of Augustus in front of it, were built out of solid rock. The steps up to them, which are still there today, are carved out of solid rock. So when Matthew’s Jesus says ‘you are Rocky and on this Rock I will build my church’ he was literally standing on solid rock.
This story is often called ‘the confession of Peter’ because Peter is perceived as correctly identifying Jesus. ‘You are Christos the son of the living God’. Now, Christos translates messiah and we know that term, and hopefully have a sense of the messianic expectation of first century Jews. There was a widespread belief that an anointed king was going to arise who would inaugurate and lead a new Jewish nation. But ‘son of the living god’ is not a Jewish thing to say. It is a deeply un-Jewish thing to say. Jews don’t even say the name of God, and certainly would never designate a human being as the son of the living god. But you know who did? The Romans. The Emperor was portrayed and worshipped as a god, and Jesus is standing directly in front of the Temple of Augustus, a temple dedicated to worship of the Roman Emperor.
If you want to make an impact, go to the seat of power.
In this narrative, Jesus stands in front of the place of worship of the Emperor, where human sacrifices take place directly behind him, and has a kind of coronation. With the leaders of the movement gathered around, Peter declares Jesus to be the Jewish saviour, the anointed one, and he declares Jesus to be son of the living God, in direct opposition to the Emperor. Jesus declares his manifesto, appoints his lieutenant, and declares that he will give to Peter (and presumably the rest of his team) the keys to the kingdom of the heavens. They will have power of binding and loosing, royal power to rival the power of the Roman Empire.
I feel like I labour this point a lot, but Jesus was not executed for being nice and encouraging other people to be nice.
What an extraordinary thing he is described as doing in Matthew’s gospel! This trek into the mountains, accompanied by his inner circle, strikes me as a kind of bonding ritual, like a sort of outward-bound trek where you discover your true self and start to trust your team. And this declaration on the steps of the Temple, comes across to me as a kind of ritual of commencement, a declaration of nonviolent war.
And what does it mean for us? As challenging as it is, it means that in our communities and workplaces, in our families and networks, we do not cosy up to the seat of power. We do not curry favour in return for an easy life, we do not acquiesce to human sacrifice and human suffering in order to protect our own hide, and we do not endorse power which is wielded for personal gain. If we are to be followers of Jesus, we stand on the steps of the temple and declare an alternative source of power. This is the seditious nature of the gospel, and a dangerous path indeed.
The Lord Be With You