Hewn from the rock

Audio version

Isaiah 51.1-6, Matthew 16.13-20

 A few weeks ago, archaeologists announced that they’d finally discovered where the huge upright sarsen stones of Stonehenge had been quarried 4000 years ago. Theories had abounded over the years about their origin, including that they’d been transported magically by Merlin from Ireland where they’d been hewn by giants. The reality turned out to be rather more prosaic. Analysis of an old rock sample revealed that they came from about 15 miles to the north on the Marlborough Downs.

The original builders of Stonehenge knew where to find the stone they needed, and it didn’t take magic. They did import some of the smaller stones, somehow, from Wales, but those huge uprights were local. They knew their land, and they passed on the knowledge of where to quarry the right kind of stone from one generation to another as the monument took shape. We’re more used to getting our building materials from Wickes or Homebase, shipped in from all around the world, but until very recent times, most people just used what they had nearby, stone from quarries on their own doorsteps which they returned to again and again.

“Look to the rock from which you were hewn” says God, through the prophet Isaiah in our Old Testament reading today. “Remember where you come from, who has given you life, where you belong” in other words.

He’s speaking to people in exile in Babylon, where they’d been taken many decades before when the Babylonians conquered and destroyed Jerusalem. Many had given up hope of ever going home, thinking that God had abandoned them, but Isaiah says that it isn’t so. “The Lord will comfort Zion” – that’s another name for Jerusalem – “he will make her wilderness like Eden, her desert like the garden of the Lord”. Again and again, Isaiah hammers it home. Babylon may look all powerful, all controlling, owning you, body and soul, but God sees it differently. It’s the little word “my” which gives it away.  “Listen to me, my people” says God.  “Give heed to me, my nation.” He goes on to talk about “my justice, my deliverance, my salvation , my arms that rule. These people don’t belong to Babylon, they belong to God. Who is the rock from which they were hewn, the one who has shaped them? It isn’t Babylon; it is God, who has faithfully loved and supported them from the days of Abraham and Sarah, long in their past.  Babylon’s power may look outwardly impressive, but it’s nothing compared to the eternal and indestructible love of God.  God is the one they should look to if they want to find their true sense of belonging.

In the Gospel, Jesus also talks about belonging and allegiance. He’s walking with his disciples towards Caesarea Philippi, a mainly Gentile town to the north of Galilee, in an area where many Roman troops were stationed. The name of the town tells us a lot about it. It’s called Caesarea after Caesar Augustus, the Roman Emperor – and Philippi, from Philip, one of the sons of Herod the Great – that’s the Herod who massacred the children of Bethlehem. Philip ruled this area after his father’s death. So Jesus and his disciples aren’t just heading for any old town. They’re heading straight into a vortex where two major powers swirl around each other – Rome and the Herodian dynasty.

So Jesus asks a question to make his disciples think about what they are heading into, and whose voices they should pay attention to in the power-ridden environment of Caesarea Philippi.  “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?” he asks. It’s an ambiguous question, in two ways. Firstly who are “people” he’s referring to? Is he talking about the people on the streets, his opponents, friends, strangers? – or is he talking about the disciples themselves?  And what does he mean by “Son of Man”? It was a phrase that could refer to the Messiah, the long-awaited deliverer, sent by God, but it was also a commonly- used, roundabout way of referring to any human being, especially yourself. It could just be used in place of “I”, like we say “muggins”.

The disciples flounder about, throwing out whatever names come to them first; John the Baptist, or one of the Old Testament prophets. They know this is an important question. They know there is something deeply significant and different about Jesus, but they don’t really want to nail their colours to the mast and say what it is.

So Jesus puts it more bluntly. Ok, so let’s be clear - who do you say that I am?  It’s Simon who comes straight back with the answer that’s in his heart. “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God! “ There. It’s out. He doesn’t explain exactly what he means by the word Messiah, or the words Son of God – later theologians would have to puzzle over that, and still do – but he recognises that God is at work in Jesus, that Jesus is, somehow, a chip off the old block, if we go back to Isaiah’s image, revealing the essence of the nature of God more perfectly than any of those illustrious names the other disciples have come up with. Simon decides to throw in his lot with Jesus, right there, right then. Jesus is going to be the authority, the influence, the power that will guide him.  

They’re about to enter a town which glorifies the powers of the age by its very name, but this disciple sees that the glory of God, the true source of his life and strength, shines from this carpenter from Nazareth, not from their mighty armies. He has none of the usual trappings of power, but his voice is the only voice Simon wants to listen to.

And Jesus responds by affirming that in saying this, Simon too is showing that he is hewn from the rock of God’s love, reflecting God in his own little way. Jesus nicknames  Petros, Peter in English, which means Rock. Jesus says that Peter will find himself holding the keys of the kingdom, the privilege and responsibility of helping others draw close to God, providing a firm foundation for Jesus’ followers as they deal with the power struggles around them, the pressures that distort and twist their common life.

We may not have to deal with Caesars and Herods, but we’re still surrounded by powerful and destructive forces, within and without, which pull us this way and that. It can often feel like they have the upper hand, the last word on our lives. Political pressure groups, persuasive leaders out for their own glory, social media “influencers” who tell us that we’re only really acceptable if we look a certain way or have certain possessions, friends and family who we go along with because we’re afraid of rejection or ridicule if we don’t. We hear these voices loud and clear, passing judgement on us, telling us who we are and who we should be, naming us as winners or losers in the game of life. It is easy to find ourselves trying to belong somewhere that isn’t our true home, trying to be people other than the true selves God meant us to be.

 But these readings call us to look to the rock from which we are truly hewn, to find our belonging in God, to discover that we’re his children, living stones in his Temple, the place where he dwells. We’re called to believe that truth, to trust it and to live by it, so that God can make our wildernesses like Eden, our deserts like the gardens of the Lord.

Amen