The Church’s Confession – 27 August 2023

Matthew 16:13–20

Peter made the confession, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” It is what comes next that piques our interest. “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jona! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father in heaven.”

. . . It is not just Peter, nor even his confession, but the authority of the church is established by how the reality of his confession is revealed to him, not by flesh and blood, but by the action of God the Father. It seems that the rock on which the church is built is limited neither to Peter nor his confession, but points to the divine activity that reveals truth to Peter and moves him to confess it.

Add to this the further assertion that “the powers of death shall not prevail against it,” and we see clear reference to the resurrection of Jesus and to his church as the resurrection community. On this apostolic witness and such preaching of Peter rests the church as the end-time community. This amounts to one of the strongest statements of the role of the church, as God's present activity to save, given in the New Testament. –– John E. Smith

Romans 12:1–8

Baptism is one way we present our bodies as a living sacrifice. It's no accident that this sacrament of initiation, this doorway into a lifelong response to the mercies of God, is an act that claims the whole body. I saw a baptism this week that illustrates the point. It was what many pastors would consider an infant baptism gone horribly awry. The child began to squirm the moment his mother handed him to the pastor, and then began to howl the moment the water was poured over his head. As I watched the pastor struggling—both to keep from dropping the child on his head and to keep his pastoral composure—it occurred to me that here was a vision of a body being offered to God, and not just a body but also a whole life. These parents were turning this child over to God for a lifelong transformation by the renewing of his mind. But it all began, rightly, when the church received that body as a living sacrifice. –– Brent Laytham

Isaiah 51:1–6

How important it is to remember that Isaiah's promise of hope and joy comes to an oppressed people who have been living in exile hundreds of miles from their home for two generations. . .

It takes courage to proclaim God's truth to his people in a time when that truth is not yet readily apparent. It also takes a people with enough track record and knowledge of God's previous action in their story, that there exists the possibility of understanding his words of promise and judgment. If people already know this God, they can relate their knowledge of him to new events and preaching. We see Second Isaiah calling upon such knowledge. He asks the people to remember the “rock from which you were hewn,” “the quarry,” “Abraham your father and…Sarah who bore you.” God makes the claim to people who know him in scripture and tradition: his credibility is intact. There is reason to trust him once again. –– John E. Smith

D. Brent Laytham, a United Methodist elder, is the Dean of The Ecumenical Institute of Theology of St. Mary’s Seminary & University in Baltimore, Maryland.

John E. Smith has served as a Methodist pastor for many years.

Homily Service 41, no. 3 (2008): 155–166.