The Gates of Hell

Matthew 16: 13-20
English Standard Version (ESV)

Peter Confesses Jesus as the Christ
13 Now when Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, "Who do people say that the Son of Man is?" 14And they said, "Some say John the Baptist, others say Elijah, and others Jeremiah or one of the prophets." 15He said to them, "But who do you say that I am?" 16Simon Peter replied, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God." 17And Jesus answered him, "Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven. 18And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. 19I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed[c] in heaven." 20 Then he strictly charged the disciples to tell no one that he was the Christ.

Hear It Here

It’s a dangerous business, going out your front door. So starts the Children’s book, The Hobbit. I’ve been rereading a lot of those recently, in anticipation of the arrival of our little one... It’s well documented that stepping out your front door is dangerous business. A lot can happen out there. In many ways, it’s the hardest part. It’s how Jesus begins his ministry, calling the disciples out of their homes, out of their lives, out of the boat. It’s no accident that Jesus does this. Once he’s got them out the door, they can do almost anything.

I was among the group from Wellshire this summer that visited the Holy Land. We had the privilege of visiting the house of Peter where Jesus very likely said these words. Beside the house is a little beach on the Sea of Galilee, a beach covered in small pebbles. A reminder of the words he spoke. “You are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church.” Does this choice seem odd to any of you? At first glance, it should. This is the guy who couldn’t sit still. We don’t have one instance of Peter in scripture twiddling his thumbs or sitting on his hands, meditating or reading the paper. Peter would not have made a good Presbyterian. Peter is the hyperactive disciple of the twelve. Jesus is transfigured… Peter has a hammer and nails out, ready to build mountain cabins for the group. Jesus is taking a stroll on the water… Peter is jumping out of the boat to go skipping across the waves. Jesus is being arrested… Peter has a sword out, ready to defend his Lord and teacher.

So why on EARTH, does Jesus turn to this wiggle worm, busy body, robe-full-of-springs bouncy fidgeter and say, “you’re a rock and I’m gonna build my church on you?” Could it be that Jesus is building a church that will never sit still?

What the heck kind of rock is that? If Peter, whose name is Greek for ROCK, was an ordinary rock, he wouldn’t have made it two steps out of the boat when Jesus called him. He would’ve sunken immediately. In fact, the moment we begin looking at rocks in scripture, we start seeing that they don’t sit still much longer than Peter does. A very small rock takes down the Philistine giant in the hands of a young shepherd boy who would become king. Rocks are the backup singers that are ready to shout if the people who welcome Jesus fall silent. And a rock rolls away as our savior rises from the dead.

All three of the verses from Psalms this morning speak about rocks on the move, rocks that save and protect…

The LORD lives, and blessed be my rock, and exalted be the God of my salvation!

To you, O LORD, I call; my rock, be not deaf to me, lest, if you be silent to me, I become like those who go down to the pit.

Incline your ear to me; rescue me speedily! Be a rock of refuge for me, a strong fortress to save me!

Our Lord is a rock that lives. Our Lord is a rock that can hear our cries for help. Our Lord is a rock that goes out to save. This is the kind of Rock that God sets his church upon. Jesus doesn’t say Peter is his immovable steady rock upon which the church will stay, unmoving, still, motionless, invulnerable to and unconcerned with the outside world. This rock is not a sinking stone, but a Holy Rolling Stone!

A favorite classic movie of mine is Sister Act. Whoopi Goldberg’s Reno lounge singer character witnesses a violent murder and is hidden in a convent till she can testify. As you can imagine, she turns the place upside down, and the convent has an effect on her as well. She becomes Sister Mary Clarence and tries to fit in… in her own way. Everything about the convent is designed to protect the sisters from the outside world, and so is a perfect place to hide Sister Mary Clarence. However, she cannot abandon the outside world so quickly, and finds that many of the sisters share that passion, desiring to help those outside the walls.

When Sister Mary Clarence succeeds in bringing people in off the streets with her music, the Monseigneur is delighted. Mary Clarence takes the opportunity to speak for the mother superior, the very protective head of the convent, purposely undermining her, and says, “She wants us to go out into the neighborhood and meet the people.” As the mother superior begins to protest adamantly out of fear for herself and her nuns, the other nuns plead with her… “Oh, sister, that’s why many of us became nuns.” And an older nun says, “There’s a lot more that we could for these people than pray for ‘em.”

And so they go out to meet the people and their church gets moving. It gets outside itself, outside the walls, outside its own gates. “You are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.” So Jesus is not building a Church that is heavily fortified with gates that can withstand the attacks of hell and evil… he’s building a church that will attack the gates of hell! The Church can certainly be a sanctuary for those in need. The church in Sister Act began by extending hospitality to those who came in off the streets. But if that’s all they had done, they would have missed the whole point. Only the people within hearing range of the church came in for the music. There were many more people dwelling in poverty, in hunger and oppression and sickness and hopelessness than who lived within a block of the church building. How sad it would be… if the Church became confined to the buildings in which it resides and worships.

As the church in Sister Act begins to turn the tide in the neighborhood… feeding people, loving people and bringing music, joy, hope… the aging mother superior becomes incredibly nervous about their new direction, terrified of the real-life danger it invites into the lives of her nuns. Discouraged, she tells Mary Clarence, “Could I keep this going, even if I wanted to? No. I am a relic… and I have misplaced my tambourine.”

When a Sister Mary Clarence inspires us, we all desire to rise to the occasion, to help Hunger Task Force pack boxes, to travel to Haiti, to head to Galveston or Joplin or the local Denver schools and shelters. But how often do we misplace our tambourines? How often do we see the Church as our refuge, the safe base of operations from where we conduct our saintly chores? How often do we associate our church attendance, Sunday school, worship, Bible studies, youth groups, fellowship groups, circles, committees and sessions on tap… with actively storming the gates?

I don’t mean to say that any of those is bad. Holly would have my head. Those are recon, strategy sessions and battle plans. But imagine science teachers who could never hope for a student that would go on to cure cancer or invent a new sustainable energy source. The last thing any Sunday school teacher hopes for is to inspire their students merely to a life of good Sunday school attendance.

Jesus does not say, “Peter, you are the immovable object on which I will build my church and the gates of it will never be penetrated, scaled or obliterated by hell and evil.” The Church of Jesus has no gates. What then, are the gates of hell? What in this world is evil? What is so deeply entrenched that it cannot easily be removed? At one time, the gates of hell in America looked like the institution of slavery… and then Jim Crow laws. And not one of us should pretend that racism, bigotry of all kinds or indifference is not a part of daily life in this country and all over the globe. We cannot pretend that children all over the world, even in Denver, don’t go to bed hungry each night or that our economy isn’t contributing more and more intensely to our homeless population and putting a greater and greater strain on our food banks. Those are the gates of hell… the seemingly-impenetrable barrier that separates us from one another. And the Church is called to assail, to attack, to bring down those gates.

It would be foolish to believe we could put a real dent in any of these gates from within the walls of this building. A church full of people who are so well-educated, so aware and so passionate cannot be content to try. We cannot be stones on which holy moss grows. We must be a rock like Peter, fidgety and discontented. We have to get out there. For some of you, this will look like family vacations that look more like mission trips or field trips, so your children will learn your passion for God’s children everywhere. For some of you, this will look like volunteer hours at MetroCareRing or Denver Inner City Parish. For some of you, it will be going somewhere here in Denver or to Joplin or Haiti in October during our week of Work-ship. We cannot be content to see ourselves as relics who have lost our tambourines.

Mark Yaconelli, author and profound story teller, meets with small groups of adults and will ask them, “at what time in your life did you stop dancing?” The question gets at the heart of our transition from childlikeness to adultness… as opposed to our transition from childhood to adulthood. When in our lives does joy stop being a reason in and of itself to dance? When do we stop moving? When do we become settled? When does our church stop moving?

This morning, we celebrate in joy with many among us who have gotten out of bed and walked or run for a purpose, for a cure. They walk and they run and they stand with others to attack the gates, to fight for a cure. This is a church on the move, God’s people storming the gates, a rock that will not stay put. God built his Church on a moving rock, and upon that Rock, the Church should always be moving toward the gates of all that hurts and oppresses and stands against the good news of life and love. It was no accident that God built his church, our church on a rock that would never sit still. God never wants us to sit still.

In this passage, Jesus not only establishes his Church, but he makes a promise… that building this church on the rock he has chosen… the gates of Hell shall not prevail. We are a part of a church built on the rock God chose, the rock that God set in motion. When I was in Galveston, I saw a motivational poster in the hallway of the small church in which we stayed. It portrayed a beautiful beach sunset and in lovely script, it shared the wisdom of a wiser generation and the enthusiasm of a younger one… “May the Lord bless you and keep you… and rock your face off.” Go, be not the church that fortifies gates against the storm. Be the church that storms the gates. All glory be to God. Amen.