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Saints Sinners and the Gates of Hell
Matthew 16:13-20
November 9, 1969
John M. Buchanan

Robert McAfee Brown, one of the more articulate prighyterian theologians,
offers his readers a small quiz in his book The Bible Speaks to You. The
quiz is a series of six statments (p. 190) to which the respondent answers
"yes" or "no".

.1. There is a Godeesess

2. God is concerned about mManeseres

3. God ig creator, judge and redeemereeeee

4. God is revealed in Jesus Christ seceess

5. God demands obediencesseess

6. One who believes these things must be aotive in the Churchs.+e.

Brown suggests that most people vould respond with an unqualified "yes"
to the first five statements, but at item #6 the protests would begin.

In another book, Beliefs That Matter, Ganse Little, past moderator of the

General Assembly and pastor of a large California congregation, notes that
every year he asks the members of his Junior High Damaneisaniies Class whether
it is necessary for a follower of Jesus Christ to be ‘ member of a chureh, and
every year a great number of them answer "no". [p. 91]

Nothing in my experience puts me in the same league with Robert MoAfee
Brown and Ganse Little - except that I have personally encountered the truth of
their assertions time and time again. Im the popular mind being a Christian
and belonging to the Church are just not related. That popular mind exists
outside the church, but not exclusively, for I discover an astonishing number
of church members who vehemently defend a Christians right to belong or not to
belong, depending on his own whimsy. The Churdh, that is to say, is altogether
op tional ° }

And yet, Sunday after Sunday, you and I stand up and confess our faith; and
one of the things we confess is our belief in the Church. We believe in God

the Father Almight, and.in Jesus Christ, his Son, our Lord, we believe in the

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Holy Ghost, the forgiveness of sin, the life everlasting and we believe in the

holy catholic Church.

Now, there is a slight discrepency here. On the one hand people enanhtse
to affirm their belief in the Church as an article of faith, as an integral
part of the Gospel! ~ ga'on “tis” Sher hand the Church popularly relegated to
the status of an optional stweniaation, like the P.T.A. or service club, to
which a man may belong or not belong depending on how he prefers to spend his
Sunday mornings. a

It hag been said that herein is the fundamental heresy of our age, and I
would suggest that that statement is true. The person who can answer “yes" to
Brown's first five questions and "no" to number six, hasn't the vaguest notion
of what he has said "yes" to - or else he isn't being honest. Belief in the
Church is as fundamental to the Christian as belief in the existence of God.

Let's look at the record. One day Jesus asked his disciples who men were
saying he was. They reported that some people were confusing him with John
the Baptist: others thought he was Elijah or one of the prophets returned from
the dead. But then he turned the question to them - which seems odd to us
becruse we assume they must have known before they became a part of his entourage —
"Who do you say that I am?" It dea Peter, often brash, often the spokesman, who
volunteered —- "You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God". It was not
common knowledge: in fact, Jesus attributed Peter's sudden flash of insight to
God's revelation - "Flesh and blood hasn't revealed that to you, Peter."

And then a series of statements that are both terribly important and terribly
misunderstood. "You are Peter - and on this rock I will build my Church and

the powers of death (gates of Hell) will not prevail against it." For centuries
the Church has debated the meaning of that. The Roman Catholic position has
been that here is the scriptural establishment of the Papacy. The Chureh is
built on St. Peter ~- and all authority is granted to him and his successors -—~

even though Jesus said absolutely nothing about a series of successors. The

Protestant position is that Jesus really meant that the Church would be built

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on the rock of faith like Peter's - even though he said nothing that resembles
that either. I would suggest that we allow the text to stand, as it is. Peter,
in fact, was the leading light in the early Church before Paul. He was the
spokesman: he was a rock. The important thing about the sequence is, in my
mind, the fact that a confession of faith in Jesus Christ is tied directly to
the existence of and membership in the Church =— and the related fact of what
Riibiasd immediately afterward.

Peter was a momentary saint. But he was also a sinner. Jesus went on to
“tell how he must suffer and die. And Peter, the one who had seen the identity
of Jesus, the one who had the courage to voice his conviction, the one on whom
the Church would be built, proceeded to demonstrate that he really hadn't
Sekine koa what it was all about. "You are the Christ, the Son of the Living
God." But suffering and death? “God forbid, Lord. This shall never happen to
you." This time around Jesus' response to Peter was a little different: "Get
behind me Satan! You are a hindrance to me. For you are not on the side of
God but of man." It's quite a demotion. One minute blessed, strong, a rock
of faith: the next minute Satan, bungling, insensitive, shallow. Yet it is
still Peter upon whom Jesus will build a Church: a saint — and a sinner — but
the gates of hell will not prevail against that Church.

Much has been made of the suggestion that Jesus didn't intend to establish
a Church at all. And one line of New Testament Scholarship attributes this
entire portion of the book of Matthew to a later insert. In fact, the Greek
word for church, Ekklesia, appears only three times in the Gospel narrative,
all three in Matthew and two times in this text. It is true, with this one
exception, there is very little in the words of Jesus specifically talking
about a church. But that statement must be understood in the context of our
Lord's Jewishness — and in the context of the fact that he had gathered around
him a small community of people clearly assigned to carry on the work of
teaching, preaching, healing and worshipping. That is to say, Jesus didn't

spend much time talking about a community that already existed.”

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Jesus was a Jew: and to be a Jew means to be one of a people: a people
chosen and elected by God for a certain responsibility in the world. A Jew
received his identity from the Covenant between God and his people; with its
beginnings in Abraham's pilgrimage and Moses' deliverence of the law. A Jew
was one of those people — God's people - the holy nation. Jesus was one of
them. The people with whom he lived and worked were part of it. And the group
of followers he gathered about him was an extension of that people. Nothing is
more certain than that.

In the Old Testament there is no such thing as a solitary Jew. Faith in
God, meant belonging to the Covenant people. So the New Testament deals with
the new Covenant: the new people of God. To believe in Jesus Christ was to
belong to this commnity. The early Christians could not have separated believing
and belonging - for they were one and the same. Faith in Christ ~- made one 4
member of the Church.

That, very briefly, is the scriptural foundation of the Church - and, as
you can see, it is a long way from the current attitude. :

Exnest Campbell, minister of preaching at New York's Riverside Church, says
that the position of a growing number of people is "Jesus - yes: the Church -
no." The test with which we began and statistical studies prove him correct.
Everybody is for Jesus - with about the same degree of intensity they would be
in veppert of motherhood. But very few individuals see that being "for Jesus" =
means absolutely’ nothing until it moves a man into the company of followers.
Probing a little deeper, a growing number of committed Christians ~ people who
believe that Jesus was the Christ - are dropping out of the Church because they
have trouble seeing the connection between what goes on inside an average
congregation - and the words of the one who founded it. There are those who
have given up on the institutional Church and who either join an "underground
church" meeting in homes, or else decide to go it alone. Their ranks are
growing: and becuase they do what they do out of a deep Commd tinent to Jesus

Christ, they deserve our ear and our response.

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The Church has ite faults. Ady apelopla tor inattational Chelatiale wee
didn't acknowledge that fact would be guilty of gross error. The history of
Christianity is not always pretty. The Church has been involved in the Crusades -
the Spanish Inquisition: the Church in our century nodded in approval at Hitler
and Mussolini: the Church in our nation blessed slavery and war. And today
the Church sometimes seems like the last bastion of total unconcern with the
issues of human dignity and social justice. But, let us remember that Peter
was both saint and sinner: so — we are all. Let us remember too - in response
to the anti-—institution movement ~ that ideas need forms; that no idea exists
for long without a structure. To be gute - the institution may be slow and -

cumbersome — it may be 20 years behind the pace of cultural change. But — and

' again I use the words of Erni Campbell: "A motorcycle may- execute a U turn

quicker than a trailer truck, but in the long mm it's the truck that delivers
the goods". [The Pictes tent Hour, Plain Words for Troubled Times p. 33ff |

Of course the ledger has eo sides, and I think in our anxiety to be honest
about the Chirk ” forget that fact. The Church in the Middle Ages may have
been hopelessly corrupt, but it was also soley responsible for keeping alive
the arts and letters that would finally bring an end to the Dark Ages. The
Chutch may have blessed slavery: but it was also the Church which first called
slavery for what it is — and it is still the institutional church that is
literally giving its life and blood for the restitution of that historical
iniquity. The Church may Sides bloaneh its head while Hitler came to power:
but it was also the Church that went underground in Germany ~ and today in
China - rather than submit to totalitarianism of any kind. The Church may
spend inordinate amounts of dcliaen on its own self-enhancement: but a UNESCO
survey serveral years ago pointed out that well over 80% of the health and
education services in the idiot continent of: Africa were either carried out or ©
started by the Christian Church. The Church may be insensitive to human need but
it has been said that the British Labor movmment owes far more to John Wesley

than it does to Karl Marx; and it is a fact that the momement in England

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which honors those who organized the first labor union in the world bears the
names of four men, three of whom were Methodist preachers. [See Robert Goadrich -
"Qn Being the Church" - The Protestant Hour, 5/6/69]

The debate about the ¢ffectiveness of the emureh in the past, and the role
of the Church in the present can go on endlessly. And it should. The important
point is that for the Christian s the Church is an article of faith. It is one
of the "givens" for the Christian.

We ge $a remember that -— and to remind each other of that. Today. is
Stewardship Sunday, a most important annual event in the life of this congre-
gation. But I've always felt that if the Church people really meant what they
affirm in the Apostles' Creed, all the trauma would be gone from Stewardship.

To believe in Jesus Christ is to belong to his people: and his people — for
better and for worse; saints and sinners simultaeneously, are here in his
Church. Let's not ever be apologetic about that.

Jesus promised that his church ~ his people with one foot in the Biblical
tradition and the other foot squarely in the world he loved - would not fail.
"The gates of hell will not prevail against it." That's an important promise
because it tells us this thing in which we believe, and to which we belong, is
bigger than any of us individually - bigger than our congregation and our
cesodinations It forces us to take the overview and to see a long line of saints
and sinners walking through history - trying in very human ways - to be faithful
to their Lord. It forces us to take the broad view and see a committed company
of saints and sinners throughout the world today — struggling with the particular
agonies of being faithful in 1969.

I believe in the Church. I believe the Church is coming alive today in a
way that is new and unique. I see the Church struggling with its essential
unity: I see the Church trying desparately to listen to the cacophony of sounds
coming from a tired and torn world: I see a Church putting its very life on
the line in areas where its Lord would want it to be involved.

I despair at times about the Church -: I despair at what it is in light

of what it ought to be: at what it does in light of what Ch

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rist calls it to do.

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the Presbyterians' nor Methodists’ ~ but Jesus Christ's. It is his-andit = =
will not fail. And because of that it is worth our belief - our devotion PS

our very lives. ; :
Amen. : ee.

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Our Fathey, we don't often think in these terms — but we are grateful for }
your Church through the ages. We are grateful to be a part of your holy es
people. And although we stumble and fall ~ we would serve you with complete .
devotion. Be with your Church - be with us = as we seek to be your faithful f

and obedient people: through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen