Look to the Rock

“Look to the rock from which you were hewn,” the prophet Isaiah says. “Look to Abraham your father and to Sarah who bore you.”

Isaiah is speaking to a people who have begun to wonder whether they still are a people. Jerusalem lies in ruins. The covenant seems to have failed. Israel’s future has become difficult to imagine.

So the prophet tells them to remember where they came from. Look to Abraham and Sarah, from whom God made a nation. Remember that you did not create yourselves. You exist because God called you into being.

And if God could make a people from Abraham and Sarah, God can bring life out of Jerusalem’s ruins. God can make the wilderness bloom like Eden. God can fill the desert with joy and gladness, thanksgiving and the sound of singing.

“Look to the rock from which you were hewn.”

Then, in the Gospel, Jesus speaks of another rock.

He asks his disciples, “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?”

They report what they have heard. Some say John the Baptist. Some Elijah. Some Jeremiah or one of the prophets.

But then Jesus makes the question personal: “Who do you say that I am?”

And Peter answers, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.”

Jesus replies, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah! Flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father in heaven. And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it.”

Notice what Jesus says: “I will build my church.”

Jesus does not say, “Organize a society to preserve my teachings.” He does not say, “Gather a group of people who share similar spiritual interests.” He says, “I will build my church.”

I will build it. I will build it. I will build my Church.

The Church exists because Christ calls it into being. Before it is anything we do, it is something God is doing. Before it is our organization, it is Christ’s new creation. Before we choose it, Christ chooses us and gives us to one another.

We may imagine that we choose a church because its liturgy, music, preaching, or convictions correspond to our own preference. Those choices are real, and discernment matters.

But the Church is more than a voluntary association of religious individuals. We do not simply choose one another. In Christ, we are given to one another.

That is what Paul means when he writes, “We, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually we are members one of another.”

Not merely members of the same organization. Members of one another.

My life in Christ is bound to yours, and yours is bound to mine. Your gifts have been given partly for my sake. My gifts carry the same responsibility to you. We belong to Christ, and because we belong to Christ, we belong to one another.

This is the pattern throughout Scripture. God makes from Abraham and Sarah a people through whom all the families of the earth will be blessed. God liberates Israel from slavery and forms them into a covenant community meant to make God’s justice and mercy visible among the nations.

Jesus does not simply announce a message and wait for individuals to accept it. He gathers disciples, shares a common meal, and sends them out together. At Pentecost, the Spirit creates a community across languages and nations.

The biblical story is not simply the story of God rescuing souls one at a time. God’s answer to human estrangement is a reconciled people.

That is why the Church matters.

The Church is not an end in itself. It does not exist merely to keep itself alive, preserve its buildings, maintain its customs, or recruit more members. God gathers the Church because God loves the world.

The Church is meant to be a visible sign of what God intends for humanity: enemies reconciled, strangers welcomed, burdens carried, sins forgiven, and all kinds of people gathered around one table. As we prayed in this morning’s collect, may the Church, “gathered together in unity by your Holy Spirit,” show forth God’s power among all peoples.

We do not always look like that. The Church has often mirrored the divisions of the world instead of healing them. It has blessed violence, protected privilege, excluded the vulnerable, and confused the preservation of its institutions with the purposes of God.

Jesus knew the frailty of the people to whom he entrusted his Church.

Jesus calls Peter the rock. Almost immediately afterward, Peter misunderstands Jesus so profoundly that Jesus says to him, “Get behind me, Satan.” Later, Peter will deny three times that he even knows Jesus.

This human reality does not excuse the Church’s failures. It means that the Church’s hope rests not upon the perfection of its members, but upon the faithfulness of Christ.

This is part of the wisdom of belonging to a Church larger than our local congregation. We have received a faith we did not invent, Scriptures we did not write, sacraments we did not institute, and prayers shaped by generations before us. Our bishop reminds us that this congregation does not exist by itself or for itself. Our common prayer is something we receive and share. At this table, we are fed with a gift none of us owns.

Even the word parish suggests that our responsibility extends beyond those who choose to become members. We are here for this place: for our neighbors, for those who hunger or doubt, and even for those who may never enter this building. This community has been entrusted to us so that God’s reconciling love may become visible here.

And “[t]he gates of Hades will not prevail against it,” Jesus says.

Hades here is not a place where God condemns people to eternal torment. It is the realm and power of death: everything that diminishes and destroys life. We encounter it wherever people are treated as disposable; wherever violence consumes the innocent; wherever hunger, fear, or despair starves human flourishing rather than nourishing it.

These are the powers of Hades. They divide what God would reconcile. They imprison what God would set free. They reduce the living abundance of creation to scarcity, isolation, and death.

And Jesus says those gates will not prevail.

That is not a promise that every congregation, denomination, or building will last forever. Churches can close. Institutions can fail. There will be times when the Church looks more like the ruins of Jerusalem than the holy city of God, when its future is difficult to imagine.

In those moments, the prophet says, “Look to the rock from which you were hewn.”

Remember Abraham and Sarah, from whom God called forth a people when no future seemed possible. Remember Peter -- the disciple who confessed Christ, misunderstood Christ, denied Christ, and was still called by Christ. Remember all those who received this faith before us and handed it on, sometimes faithfully and sometimes imperfectly, so that it might reach us here.

Above all, remember Jesus Christ, the Son of the living God.

The Church does not live by its own strength. It lives from the life of the risen Christ. And Christ has not withdrawn his call. Christ is not finished with us.

Christ is still gathering a people. Christ is still loosening the bonds of death. Christ is still bringing joy and gladness out of ruined places, until the wilderness becomes like Eden and thanksgiving and the sound of singing fill the city once again.

“Look to the rock from which you were hewn.”

“Upon this rock I will build my Church.”

“And the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it.”

Amen.