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.
Jesus did not promise a Church that would always look good or be held in honor from an earthly perspective. He did not suggest that it would not contain the bad along with the good. In fact, in the parable of the wheat and the tares he promised precisely the opposite. He didn't promise a Church with a perfect defense, that would always be insulated and safe from the contagion of the world. But he did promise a Church that would always be capable of its divine mission, that being laying siege to hell and setting free people held captive by the powers of darkness. But this promise implied real guarantees of things that were necessary to ensure it. For instance, it was by knowing the truth that people could be set free (see John 8:32). Thus there was the implicit promise that the Church would always have sufficient access to those truths necessary for our salvation. She wasn't guaranteed all knowledge or that she would always act in accord with the truth she did possess. But the essential truth would always be present and, to one degree or another, mobilized for the sake of the Kingdom. There may have been periods with more or less confusion about practical matters. But the core sacramental realities of the Church and the fundamental matters of the creed and of the Gospel could never be lost. They were the basis by which the world could by which the gates of the netherworld could be broken wide open and humanity could be saved.
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.
In order to meaningfully possess the truth it was necessary that it be identified and distinguished from falsehoods, many of which often sounded intuitive enough to be true and similar enough to be plausible. Although Jesus gave the Spirit as teacher and guide to every Christian he did not insist that each of us by our own final arbiter of truth. It is not the job of most sheep to be experts, but rather, to be docile to the voice of the shepherd. But in order to exercise proper docility we must know where to listen. Thus Jesus singled out Peter as the source and focal point of unity in the Church. He and those in union with him could and did proclaim the Gospel faithfully and without error. His successor, the bishop of Rome, and those bishops in union with him do the same in our own day. They continue to make the voice of the shepherd clear and distinct through the power of the keys to bind and loose. Sheep that try to reconstruct theology solely by their own resources and abilities do stay in agreement with other sheep for very long. The statements of faith are constantly being modified and branching off into various distinct paths, all often emphasizing some important truth. But that emphasis always come at a cost. It may have been said that each man has a pope in his belly. But this is not a productive impulse to let govern our life as followers of Jesus. We should prefer to be one flock under the voice of the one shepherd, Jesus, made know through his appointed steward.
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.
The Church may possess the truth and provide the invitation. But she cannot have the encounter with Jesus that we are called to have for us without our involvement. And the main point of the Church is not just that people can know the truth abstractly and academically. It is rather so that people can encounter the Truth who is a Person and be transformed by him. The whole Church is shaped to make the revelation experienced by Simon Peter available to the entire world. When it seems that the forces of the netherworld are ascendant and the Church herself seems to be struggling it is often because we forget that which matters most, that which is most distinctive: the centrality of the person of Christ that should be her deepest priority and identity.
When we encounter Jesus in the way that both Peter and Paul encountered him we become capable of living, and even, if necessary, dying for him. Then we will truly believe that there is nothing more important for us to be able to say at the end of our days than, "I have kept the faith", nothing better to look forward to than the "crown of righteousness". It is not primarily our own righteousness that is crowned. It is rather that we become the righteousness of Christ (see Second Corinthians 5:21) and he crowns his own merits in us. At the end we hope to see that we didn't resist him too much, choke off the grace he offered, or stubbornly prevent him from having his way in us. And this will be true of us as well as Paul, provided that we come to know Jesus and to rely on him throughout the challenges that are part and parcel of life in a fallen world.
The Lord stood by me and gave me strength,
so that through me the proclamation might be completed
and all the Gentiles might hear it.
When we know Jesus, we know it is all about him. That means that even more than our weaknesses and failures we can trust in him for strength until we can say with Paul:
And I was rescued from the lion’s mouth.
The Lord will rescue me from every evil threat
and will bring me safe to his heavenly Kingdom.
To him be glory forever and ever. Amen.
Shane And Shane - Psalm 34 (Taste And See)
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