Jer 31:31-34, Ps 51:12-15, 18-19, Mt 16:13-23

There are two things that strike me about today’s readings. They tell us stories about intimate personal relationships and the freedom that results from that kind of liberating connection. If you are married you know when two people love each other the result is a freedom that can be exhilarating. When you’re secure with someone then you can be honest and open in ways you can’t be otherwise. There’s a freedom to take on the world because there is also a place of safety that is more secure and valuable than anything else you might experience.  That’s what our readings are about this morning, being so secure in our love that we are free to breakdown all our limits.

Let’s begin with Jeremiah who explains that God is going to make a new covenant with Israel. God is leaving the old covenant behind because Israel broke that one and now the new covenant with be one written on their hearts. No longer will people have to be taught about God because each individual will know God and importantly God will forgive them and not remember their sins. God is going to give Israel a clean slate.

These are quite amazing statements because it implies an intimacy that goes beyond what Israel has experienced. Remember that Moses who was the only person able to approach God on the mountain, brought the law, the Ten Commandments, written on stone. Here God is saying people will know God based on what is within them not what is external.

So now let’s switch to Matthew who is writing about Jesus asking his disciples what people are saying about him. After hearing about others say he then wants to know who they think he is. Peter, representing the disciples, boldly says that Jesus is “the Christ, Son of the living God.” Jesus says, “flesh and blood has not revealed this you, but my heavenly Father.” Here is Jeremiah’s statement about knowing God coming true. Jesus knows that no person could figure out who he was by evidence or signs or logic. Jesus knows that only when Jeremiah’s statements came true, when people know their God because of what is in their hearts would someone be able to identify who he was. Peter reveals, in his answer, that he knows God in the deepest part of who he is and so Jesus confirms this relationship as coming from his “heavenly father.”

It is because of this personal relationship which God has with Peter that Jesus can say that Peter has the power to bind and loose. Now we often talk about this power to bind and loose as Jesus appointing Peter are the head of the Church and how it leads to the sacrament of confession. But this exchange is bigger and more powerful than that. In this setting, Peter certainly represents the Church as a whole. Just as Jeremiah was talking about God’s covenant with the whole Jewish nation Matthew is talking about God’s relationship with the whole of the Church. This isn’t just a conversation between Jesus and Peter. All of us who are the Church are being given the freedom to take charge, to decide, to choose, to create lives that build a world of loving relationships, a community that is beautiful and fruitful for everyone. It is a statement that says people can create their own destiny. When Jesus says that evil will not prevail, he is mirroring Jeremiah’s statement that God will not remember our sins.

This is an amazing granting of freedom, almost a license to make mistakes and not worry about it. I think this, because of what happens next. Peter, representing not just the disciples but all of us, takes Jesus at his word about binding and loosing and decides Jesus needs some advice. He advises him that all this suffering and dying talk is nonsense and can’t be allowed to happen to him. Peter, as we do so often, then learns that just because he has the freedom to act and choose doesn’t mean he will always use it correctly. Jesus says he is acting not as God does but as human beings do. It demonstrates that there is no easy response to our relationship with God but it also suggests that we are called to be bold because God has given us the freedom to decide what needs to be done. Remember that the revelation of Scripture when it comes to the human relationship with God is that God is always loving and forgiving and the ones he loves, Israel, the disciples, and believers of all ages are always making mistakes, missing the point and need to be saved. We are loved and have the capacity to make all things new and we should feel free and encouraged to keep trying because whatever happens, God will be there.