The Chair of Peter

[Tomster]

No complete view of Christ our Lord is possible without considering his relationship to the Church. There is a sense in which the Church is actually included in the “whole Christ” - the Christus totus of St. Augustine. My thoughts will be centered upon Christ’s work of establishing the Church and the role he assigned to it. We know that he gathered about him a group of disciples, men who acknowledged him as the “Master,” (Matthew 8:19; Luke 9:57) and were willing to taught by him how best they might serve God. They were of mixed quality: some, like Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea, could not bring themselves to amke a public profession of their loyalty; others seem only to have been occasional followers (Matthew 15:32; Mark 8:2); others again were half-hearted and proved to be deserters (John 6:66). Only a few were prepared to give unqualified allegiance, so embracing a way of life which involved the severing of family ties (Matthew 8:22), together with the acceptance of the hardships and privations endured by the Lord himself (Matthew 8: 19-20). It was from such men as these last that he chose the select company of twelve who were to be the foundations of his Church.

It will be remembered how this inner circle of disciples were the favored audience for the Sermon on the Mount. Likewise it was they who could be relied on to discern the inner meaning of the parables. St. Mark makes clear how deliberate the choice had been; Jesus “called to him those whom it pleased him to call.” (Mark 3:13) The twelve were not self appointed volunteers; they had been the object of a special election on the part of the Master himself, as he was later to remind them. “It was not you that chose me, it was I that chose you. The task I have appointed you is to go out and bear fruit, fruit which will endure.” (John 15:16,19) To St. Luke we owe the details that the momentous choice had been preceded by a night spent in prayer, and that it was our Lord himself who gave to the selected twelve the official title of “apostles.” (Luke 6:12-13) The frequent use of the phrase “the twelve” shows that this group was quite distinct from the rest of disciples; they formed a “college” united to one another by the common bond of their calling and the work committed to their charge. In closest contact with the Master, they were especially trained by him; they heard his discourses, received from him private instructions, witnessed his miracles; in a word, they were repositories of “the mystery of the kingdom of God.” (Mark 4:11) As Christ himself was God’s Ambassador - not a servant but the Son (Matthew 21:33 ff); not one of the prophets but the Messianic Son of God (Matthew 16:13 ff; Hebrews 1:1-3) and in this sense the “apostle” par excellence (Hebrews 3:1) - so in his turn he appointed these disciples his own ambassadors. During his lifetime they enjoyed but a limited commission (Mark 6:7-13; Luke 9:1-6), as shepherds of the lost sheep and workers in the Lord’s vineyard. (Matthew 9:35-38) After his death they would enter with full rights upon their ministry, as authorized representatives of Christ.

continued

 

[Tomster]

As the Lord had received his mission from the Father, so did he hand on the same to his apostles. “He that receiveth you receiveth me: and he that receiveth me receiveth him who sent me.” (Matthew 10:40; Luke 10:16) It is interesting to note that, after speaking words which show his decision to pass on to others his own intimate knowledge of the Father (Matthew 11:27), Christ then adds the invitation: “Come to me, all you who labor and are heavy burdened, and I will give you rest.” (Matthew 11:28) His “easy yoke and light burden” (Matthew 11:30) denote the obligations of the members of his kingdom to which he summoning all men even as he calls them to himself. This gathering in of mankind, a harvesting, was committed to the apostles: “I have sent you to reap that in which you did not labor.” (John 4:38) The theme is repeated at the Last Supper: “Thou [Father] have sent me into the world on your errand, and I have sent them [the twelve] into the world on your errand.” (John 17:18) All of which was ratified after the Resurrection, when Jesus passed on his own mission to the faithful eleven - “I came upon an errand from my Father, and now I am sending you out in my turn” (John 20:21) - thus making them apostles in the fullest sense of the term.

Here we must note that to one of the twelve, Simon son of Jonah, had been given the headship of the apostolic college. So it was promised, on a memorable occassion near Caesarea Philippi, when he had brought joy to the heart of his Master with his great confession of faith - “Thou art the Christ *, the Son of the God” (Matthew 16:16; Mark 8:29; Luke 9:20; John 68-69)

continued*

 

[Tomster]

Let us recall the words of this most significant text:

And Jesus answere him, blessed art thou, Simon son of Jona; it is not flesh and blood, it is my Father in heaven that has revealed this to thee. And I tell thee this in my turn, that thou art Peter, and it is upon this rock that I will build my Church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it; and I will give to thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven; and whatever tho shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever that shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. (Matthew 16:17-19; cf Galatians 1:18, Galatians 2:9, 1 Corinthians 9:5) This is the only instance in the New Testament where Christ’s own lips pronounce an individual “blessed.” It is his answering felicitation to Simon.

Because thou hast said to me, "Thou art the Christ . . . " I in turn say to thee, not in words vain and ineffectual, but I say to thee, because for me to have said a thing is to have made it so. - St. Jerome

In this passage Jesus makes known his will in a series of three metaphors, whose meaning, clear enough to us, would be still clearer to listeners familiar both with the Old Testament writings and the teaching methods of the Rabbis. He first compares his Church to a building of which Peter is to be the foundation; he next employs the comparison suggested by “the keys,” which will be handed to Peter as a sign of his power over Christ’s house; finally comes the reference to 'binding and loosing," a symbol of the moral nature of the office, which is futhermore backed by divine sanction.