St.
Martin in the Fields Church, Atlanta
“You don’t know in advance whether God
is going to set you to do something difficult or painful, or something that you
will quite like, and some people of heroic mold are disappointed when the job
doled out to them turns out to be something quite nice.”
O God be in my mouth as I speak for you and fill this
place with your great grace, that we may leave this place less of what we use
to be and more of what we ought to be, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen
And Jesus answered him, “Blessed are you Simon, son of
Jonah! For 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 gates of Hades will not prevail against it.”
The well-known gospel story we heard this morning was
always a particular favorite of Fr. John Cuddy, the catholic priest who taught
my eighth grade religion classes at St. Joseph’s Elementary School in Macon,
Georgia.
As one of only five Protestants in the class, I often
wondered why Fr. Cuddy spent so much time reminding us Peter was the rock and
that he had been given the keys to the kingdom.
When I got a little older and read a little more church
history, I began to realize why this passage was so controversial to
Protestants and Catholics. And more importantly, why Fr. Cuddy went to such
lengths to assure us that St. Peter was indeed the man in charge.
Some folks who read this lesson have no trouble saying
that in a few sentences Jesus sets up the entire ecclesiastical structure of
the Vatican with Peter’s descendants, the present day popes, claiming
leadership for the entire Church.
For others who are not as papally-inclined, it appears
from the story that Jesus is just pleased that Peter got the right answer to
the first Christian pop quiz.
Of course, whenever I think about this passage, I find
myself focusing more on what happens a few verses later.
Following the confession it says that Jesus “began to show
his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the
elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed and on the third day rise
again”.
Peter, the blessed Rock, and the future foundation of the
church attempts to talk Jesus out of making that trip to Jerusalem. Scripture
reports, “Peter took him and began to rebuke him, saying God forbid Lord! This
shall never happen to you”.
What follows are familiar words from Jesus who says, “get
behind me Satan you are not on the side of God but of men”.
Stung by this remark, St. Peter must have wondered how he
went so quickly from being the foundation of the church to giving Satan a
helping hand.
This dichotomy between the Confession of St. Peter and
what I will call the condemnation of Peter suggests that Matthew wanted his
readers to be cautious about how they viewed this popular apostle.
Perhaps it is not so farfetched to think that Matthew knew
a passage like this might one day be used by others who wanted to prove a
certain historic or theological point or view.
As a former tax collector and collaborator with the
Romans, Matthew probably took a broader view of human nature.
He knew from personal experience that even the most
saintly people have flaws. Saintliness does not exempt people from the sins and
temptations of this world.
They still can hurt the ones they love and at times when
hard pressed they might even like Peter deny ever having known them. They do
things they shouldn’t have done and leave undone the things they ought to have
done.
People that are like Peter, people like you and me, might
worship Jesus after he walks on water but at the first sign of trouble in
Gethsemane, we are like the disciples, off and running for the hills.
So if Peter is not much of a rock in Matthew’s story, the
question still remains why is Peter’s confession still important, and why does
the Christian church recognize this event as a major feast day?
In order to answer this question, I want to suggest three
different ways for understanding this pivotal event that will hopefully avoid
the trap of present day historical prejudices.
First, Peter is pronounced by Jesus to be blessed after he
makes his confession. Peter is special not by virtue of super strength or
intelligence. He is blessed and set apart for the courage he has to make the
confession of who Jesus is. “You are the Messiah, the son of the Living God.”
You will recall, the other disciples only tell Jesus what
everyone else is saying and there is no courage in that kind of confession.
St. Peter on the other hand doesn’t seem to care what
other folks think or say.
This is Peter’s gift to us. He says words that are
revolutionary “you are the Messiah the son of the living God”.
His words even today challenge the power of every
political and social ideology that has attempted to replace God with something
better, and more efficient.
A totalitarian regime cannot and will not tolerate a
confession like Peter’s.
We honor Peter today because even when he messes up, he
still has the courage to state his convictions and confess that Jesus is Lord.
Secondly, I think another way of looking at the story is
to say that Peter’s confession shows Christians what it means to die to our old
lives and ways of doing things.
Following the confession, Jesus tells him your name used
to be Simon but from now on you are going to be someone different.
You are going to be Peter, Jesus says, a rock. Your life
will be a foundation for others that come to know and confess who I am and to
pick up their cross to follow me.
It is of course, the same Peter who denies knowing Jesus
that preaches so boldly on the first Pentecost, the birthday of the Christian
Church.
It is the same Peter who was once on the side of Satan
that finishes the course of his life in Rome crucified upside down during the
persecution of Nero.
That we see in the Gospels that Peter is not immediately
successful at his new life should not be a surprise. Real change takes time.
And as I have mentioned to you previously Christianity is
not so much about keeping rules, as it is about a way of life that is shaped by
the stories that we tell.
Sometimes stories like we heard today take time to sink
into our human soil, to take root and to grow into the new lives that God wants
us to have.
Third and finally let me say that Peter’s pre and post
confession life reminds us that the new blessed life we are given by Christ
does not mean that life is suddenly going to be easy.
Jesus says to Peter that the Gates of Hell or Hades at
times are going to seem close but ultimately in the end against the church they
will not prevail.
This type of Christian truth is a good antidote to people
who think religious faith is only a matter of seeking a more comfortable middle
class life.
In an interview C. S. Lewis was once asked the following
question. Is it true that Christians must be prepared to live a life of
personal discomfort and self-sacrifice in order to qualify for “pie in the
sky”?
Lewis’ response was both practical and insightful for us even
today. “All people,” he said, “whether Christian or not, must be prepared to
live a life of discomfort. It is impossible to accept Christianity for the sake
of finding comfort; but the Christian tries to lay himself open to the will of
God, to do what God wants him to do. You don’t know in advance whether God is
going to set you to do something difficult or painful, or something that you
will quite like, and some people of heroic mold are disappointed when the job
doled out to them turns out to be something quite nice.”
In making his confession, Peter was a person who opened
himself to God’s will. Although it did admittedly take some time for him to
grow into the task he was given.
As his successors today, as those same rocks, who follow
in his footsteps, we should not be afraid to open ourselves to God’s will.
For I believe that to appreciate the story today, we must
be see it as something more than just an explanation for why certain church
structures might exist.
To reduce the story in this way would be doing a
disservice to Matthew, to Peter, and those who bravely followed in their
footsteps.
For it does not really matter, that Peter was blessed and
condemned, that he denied and he wept, what matters is where and how he chose
to end that life he had been given.
And that my brothers and sisters is the only example that
any of us ever needs.
You are the Messiah, the son of the Living God. Amen