What's Her Profile?

CENTRAL TEXT: MATTHEW 16:13-20

Peter Confesses Jesus as the Christ

Matt. 16:13 Now when Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?” 14 And they said, “Some say John the Baptist, others say Elijah, and others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.” 15 He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?” 16 Simon Peter replied, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” 17 And 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. 18 And 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. 19 I 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 in heaven.” 20 Then he strictly charged the disciples to tell no one that he was the Christ. 

CALL TO WORSHIP: Psalm 87

NT READING: Galatians 4:19-26

LEADER: The entire bible is One story; all pointing to the beauty and finished work of Jesus. And so each week we have additional readings that connect to the central text and themes to illustrate this continuity. Our central text for today is found in Matthew 16, and so we offer a related text found in Galatians 4. my little children, for whom I am again in the anguish of childbirth until Christ is formed in you! 20 I wish I could be present with you now and change my tone, for I am perplexed about you. Tell me, you who desire to be under the law, do you not listen to the law? 22 For it is written that Abraham had two sons, one by a slave woman and one by a free woman. 23 But the son of the slave was born according to the flesh, while the son of the free woman was born through promise. 24 Now this may be interpreted allegorically: these women are two covenants. One is from Mount Sinai, bearing children for slavery; she is Hagar. 25 Now Hagar is Mount Sinai in Arabia; she corresponds to the present Jerusalem, for she is in slavery with her children. 26 But the Jerusalem above is free, and she is our mother. 

The Word of the Lord

ALL: Thanks be to God

Celebration of the Lord's Supper 

CONFESSION OF SIN:

LEADER: Let us confess our sin to God. 

ALL: Father of mercies, as your Son longed to gather an obstinate Jerusalem, as a hen gathers its brood under her wings, how often did You, even this week, find us wandering and unwilling to trust your Way, your Promise, your Love? And how quickly do we retreat into our own selves and our own way, rather than seek help from this people who, like a Mother, is here to nourish and offer care? Forgive us for forgetting we are forgiven in your Son. Help us to see one another as one of your many great gifts of generosity.

ASSURANCE OF PARDON: 1 John 2:12

LEADER: I am writing to you, little children,
because your sins are forgiven for his name’s sake.

ALL: Thanks be to God!

BENEDICTION: Ephesians 3:20-21

LEADER: Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever..  

ALL: Amen

RELATED SCRIPTURES:

 DISCUSSION QUESTIONS: 

 QUOTES:  

"No one can have God as a Father who does not have the Church as Mother." 
- Saint Cyprian

The church is a whore, but she is my mother.
- Augustine

For there is no other way to enter into life unless this mother conceive us in her womb, give us birth, nourish us at her breast, and lastly unless she keep us under her care and guidance until, putting off mortal flesh, we become like the angels. Our weakness does not allow us to be dismissed from her school until we have been pupils all our lives. ... Let us learn even from the simple title 'mother' how useful, indeed how necessary, it is that we should know her.
- John Calvin

The Church always seems to be behind the times, when it is really beyond the times.
- G.K. Chesterton

I experience a certain vague ‘spiritualness’ within the world’s chaos, an approximate understanding that God is implicit in some latent, metaphysical way, yet it is only really in church – that profoundly fallible human institution – that I become truly spiritually liberated. I am swept up in a poetic story that is both true and imaginative and fully participatory, where my spiritual imagination can be both contained and free. The church may appear to some as small, even stifling, its congregation herdlike, yet within its architecture, music, litanies, and stories, I find a place of immense spiritual recognition and liberation. Thinking about it now, the same can be applied to marriage – another audacious feat of the imagination – which, for some of us, like art, like faith, draws into focus what it is to love. It is order itself that is allows us to be free.
- Nick Cave

"Spiritual but not religious" is just another way of saying "I want the comfort of meaning without the discomfort of truth."
- Laura London

Peter was not called to “keep the peace,” but rather to insure that the church has the conflicts necessary for its holiness. Without the existence of such a church there will be no salvation.
- Stanley Hauerwas 

One of our great allies at present is the Church itself. Do not misunderstand me. I do not mean the Church as we see her spread but through all time and space and rooted in eternity, terrible as an army with banners. That, I confess, is a spectacle which makes our boldest tempters uneasy. But fortunately it is quite invisible to these humans. All your patient sees is the half-finished, sham Gothic erection on the new building estate. When he goes inside, he sees the local grocer with rather in oily expression on his face bustling up to offer him one shiny little book containing a liturgy which neither of them understands, and one shabby little book containing corrupt texts of a number of religious lyrics, mostly bad, and in very small print. When he gets to his pew and looks round him he sees just that selection of his neighbours whom he has hitherto avoided.
- “Wormwood” in Lewis’s The Screwtape Letters (HT: Tish Harrison Warren)

BOOKS / DOCS

 SERMONS / TALKS

 “What About Peter?” from an Eastern Orthodox perspective