Nothing More—Nothing Less

Matthew 16: 13-20

Peter correctly answers the question Jesus poses. Jesus says you are correct, but you did not know it yourself, “flesh and blood” did not revel it to you rather the Living God had, The Father.  This is called the “Good Confession,” and it is essential.  As Disciples of Christ, we say, “No Creed but Christ,” we say we have no creed.  It is not that we reject creeds, but we reject creeds as a litmus test for fellowship.  As it is stated in the first principle of the identity statement of the CC(DOC):

We confess that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the Living God, and proclaim him Lord and Savior of the world, requiring nothing more - and nothing less - as a basis of our life together.

We start fellowship with a belief in Jesus the Christ, the Son of the Living God, we need nothing more or nothing less to bring us together as Church, which Jesus told Peter He would start with him, and this confession and handed him the keys.

Now Peter stated the correct answer, as Jesus made quite clear, the answer we depend on for our life together.  Yet Peter did not understand his confession completely.  First off a few verses later Matthew reports that Peter tries to rebuke Jesus’ passion prophesy, and Jesus said “get behind me Satan.”  Peter claims he would follow Jesus and yet he denies Him three times.  Peter was a first century Jewish man and thus his idea of the Messiah was influenced by that reality.  The idea of the Messiah  was to free the land from the Romans.  They believed the Messiah would provide a victory, a military, and social victory for for the Jewish people.  I find it quite evident that Peter must have had that hope with the sword on him, the sword he drew on the night of Jesus’ arrest, which Jesus rebukes and heals the victim.  This is why Jesus said, “Shhhhhh!!!” about Him being the Messiah, Jesus realized that Peter did not get it, Peter had the correct revelation, but the true revelation would come through the flesh and blood on the cross and the resurrected man who told us “Peace.”

Peter had to be open to being wrong.  Even after Jesus cooked him breakfast on the beach and asked him if he loved Him three times and told him to tend and feed His sheep, Peter still had to be open to being wrong.  He believed the keys were about keeping people out, not to open the gates, as Peter was concerned about believers following the laws of the Torah, until God send him visions that made him realize:

Then Peter began to speak to them: ‘I truly understand that God shows no partiality, but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him. You know the message he sent to the people of Israel, preaching peace by Jesus Christ—he is Lord of all. (Acts 10:34-36)

The key is that Peter was open to the joy of being wrong, a term I borrow from James Alison.  This is not a joy of being lost or a joy of hurting others.

The best example of the joy of being wrong I can think of was a time I was driving the three hour commute from my seminary during my first year.  I have many times I was wrong, but this one I believe can help you understand the joy of being wrong.  See I told my friend I thought I was interested in a woman, but I was convinced that I should not pursue her.  I was convinced she was not interested (later to learn she did not pick up on flirting well).  I was convinced I was right.  Half way home, I decided to ring her, I was open and hopeful.  She answered, “who is this"?” but by the end of the conversation we had a date planned and rest is history, as we have been married for six years.  That is the great joy of being wrong.

We do not expect young people who are just baptized to fully understand their good confession that Jesus is the Christ the Son of the Living God.  We expect them to continue their education to continue to disciple.  All of us need to be like Peter and be open to being wrong, even looking for the joy of being wrong.  For Peter it started with the Good Confession and ended up opening the Kingdom of Heaven to everyone. 

We simply need Christ, nothing more—nothing less, to begin our life together as Christians and we need to be open to learn and change what we think we know the Messiah is.  We could be wrong and that can be full of Joy.

Confession

Psalm 32

If Jesus died for our sins why do we or should we confess our sins?  Is the question before us today.

To begin with we should look at forgiveness and I believe the best story of Jesus’ forgiveness and His authority to forgive sins is contained in Mark 2:1-12.  I will share you the scripture with some commentary. 

When he returned to Capernaum after some days, it was reported that he was at home. So many gathered around that there was no longer room for them, not even in front of the door; and he was speaking the word to them. Then some people came, bringing to him a paralyzed man, carried by four of them. And when they could not bring him to Jesus because of the crowd, they removed the roof above him; and after having dug through it, they let down the mat on which the paralytic lay. (vv. 1-4)

Now this paralyzed man we assume wanted to be healed, and we are not sure if the man asked these four friends to bring him or if it was their idea.  I can even imagine that when they discovered the crowd, the paralyzed man was not the one to suggest trying the roof.  He probably asked to wait, but these four wanted to bring their friend to the great healer, and the surprise for them, When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, ‘Son, your sins are forgiven.’ Now some of the scribes were sitting there, questioning in their hearts, ‘Why does this fellow speak in this way? It is blasphemy! Who can forgive sins but God alone?’ At once Jesus perceived in his spirit that they were discussing these questions among themselves; and he said to them, ‘Why do you raise such questions in your hearts?was that Jesus forgave his sins

When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, ‘Son, your sins are forgiven.’ Now some of the scribes were sitting there, questioning in their hearts, ‘Why does this fellow speak in this way? It is blasphemy! Who can forgive sins but God alone?’ At once Jesus perceived in his spirit that they were discussing these questions among themselves; and he said to them, ‘Why do you raise such questions in your hearts? (vv. 5-8)

And this was especially shocking to the scribes, not because Jesus did not heal the man but because only God has the authority to forgive sins.  To be clear, Jesus does not relate the healing to his forgiveness of sins, for He separates the forgiveness from the healing.  Jesus even uses this separation to make His major point, He has the authority to forgive sins.  Which the scribes understood as an authority of God’s alone, but of course Jesus is of the Divine.

Which is easier, to say to the paralytic, “Your sins are forgiven”, or to say, “Stand up and take your mat and walk”? But so that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins’—he said to the paralytic— ‘I say to you, stand up, take your mat and go to your home.’ And he stood up, and immediately took the mat and went out before all of them; so that they were all amazed and glorified God, saying, ‘We have never seen anything like this!’ (vv 9-12)

Jesus asks a great rhetorical question of the scribes.  Can you heal someone or say someone’s sins are forgiven.  And He demonstrates the healing to acknowledge His authority to forgive.  Jesus does hint that we can also say to someone your sins are forgiven, for we know God does.  God had in the Jewish religion as a yearly act, and Jesus does with His death and resurrection.

So we have established that God forgives, and since we are as the church the Body of Christ, we are to say on behalf of God that others are forgiven, but we still have not explored why we need to confess if Jesus died for all our sins.  I will share with you a chaplaincy experience that I believe helped me to understand the need of confession.  I was visiting a man who was hospitalized for days, and on the second visit he was sharing more about himself and his family.  He told me he had three children and the youngest was a “surprise.”  This youngest also has Downs Syndrome and he shared with me that this child had taught him so much about life, love, and living.  He emphasized how great it is to have her as a daughter for him.  He could have have simply shared it this way as a positive and hinting at his change of heart.  However, he started by telling me how much he had sinned as a man, as a father, prior to this child.  He was confessing to this to me as a representative of the church and thus God.  It was clearly a confession.  He though was already closer to all his children and his wife, active in his church, he was living a righteous life.  The confession was not needed to change his life, it was to accept greater the grace of forgiveness he already knew.

Jesus saved us all from sin, and forgave us all from the cross as He states, “Forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing” (Luke 23:34).  We don’t confess to receive forgiving grace, we confess because it allows us to accept the grace as the Psalmist writes:

Then I acknowledged my sin to you,
   and I did not hide my iniquity;
I said, ‘I will confess my transgressions to the Lord’,
   and you forgave the guilt of my sin. (Psalm 32:5)