Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost
“Like a Rock” — Reflection by Rev. Brent Gundlah
First Reading (Romans 12:1-8/NRSVUE)
Gospel Reading (Matthew 16:13-20/NRSVUE)
In New Jersey, where I grew up, you could get your learner’s permit at the age of sixteen once you’d passed the state’s written driver’s test, provided that you’d also completed six hours of behind-the-wheel instruction; otherwise you had to wait until you were seventeen. Because that extra year seemed like an eternity, many of us headed off to driving school as soon as we could.
I realize now that it was silly for us to be so eager about this because a permit only entitled us to spend a year cruising around with one of our parents in the passenger seat telling us what to do — or, in the case of my mother, telling me what to do while reaching out to grab the dashboard whenever I stepped on the gas, and sticking her left arm out in front of me anytime I hit the brakes.
I have to tell you, though, my first day of driver’s ed was pretty memorable. My instructor was all business and she had the most unemotional affect I’ve ever encountered in another human being — then again, if you spent your days teaching teenagers (who, of course, already know everything) how to maneuver two tons of metal down the road at fifty-five miles an hour without hitting stuff, an unemotional affect might not be the worst thing to have.
As soon as I arrived, she told me to get in the driver’s seat of the school’s 1982 Chevy Citation (a great vehicle in which to learn because it probably wasn’t capable of going more than sixty miles an hour) while she sat in the passenger seat explaining all of the car’s controls for what seemed like an eternity. And then the moment of truth arrived: she handed me the keys and told me start the vehicle.
I could feel the hair on the back of my neck stand up as the engine roared to life. This is, of course, an embellishment on my part because that hundred horsepower, four-cylinder engine emitted more of a “meh” than a roar. But I was still intimidated. Deep down inside, I didn’t feel like anyone should be giving me the keys to anything at that point in my life; I still feel that way a lot of the time.
She told me to put the car in drive and gave me very specific directions about where to go: the on-ramp for eastbound Route 4. Now, for those of you who don’t know this, New Jersey’s Route 4 is only about eleven miles long, but it’s an adventure-filled eleven miles. Its eastbound lanes end at the New Jersey side of the George Washington Bridge, which leads to New York City. The traffic there is as a bad it gets, and so are the drivers.
So let’s recap: I’m thirty seconds into my driving career and my teacher, for reasons unknown, decides that my very first act behind the wheel after giving me the keys should be to take us for a ride down one of the busiest and most dangerous highways in the entire country. What could go wrong?
Once my hands stopped shaking and my nausea abated, I did what she’d commanded me to do — and it ended up being perhaps the most terrifying hour of my entire life. We made it back unscathed — and she only had to step on that extra brake pedal that’s on the passenger side of a driver’s ed car about a dozen times. I breathed a sigh of relief, put the car in park and turned it off.
“See you next Wednesday,” she said.
“Sure,” I replied as I handed back the keys.
What I wanted to say as I relinquished that key was, “You can keep it. I don’t think I’m ready for it,” but I showed up the following week nonetheless.
Yeah, that was a day I will never forget.
Peter’s having a pretty memorable day too, don’t you think? And if Matthew’s right about what happened there in Caesarea Philippi, Jesus gave the apostle formerly known as Simon some keys too — albeit metaphorical ones. But these were the keys to the kingdom of heaven, which, in the grand scheme of things, are a much bigger deal than the keys to a late model Chevy.
Mark, Luke and John all agree with Matthew that Simon got a new name (though it’s interesting that Jesus brings that up again here because folks have been referring to him as Peter for about twelve chapters by this point). But Matthew is the only one of the four gospel writers who mentions the keys to the kingdom, so it’s tough to corroborate whether this really happened as he says it did. Nonetheless, it’s clear throughout the Gospels that Jesus thought Peter had potential — even if Peter didn’t necessarily believe that about himself.
The apostle formerly known as Simon was a simple fisherman and semi-observant Jew; he lived with his wife, his mother-in-law and his brother Andrew in a house near a little village on the Sea of Galilee known as Capernaum. Simon and Andrew shared a boat and a fishing business with a couple of partners, who also happened to be brothers, named James and John.
According to John’s Gospel, Simon’s brother Andrew had been hanging around with John the Baptist, who had taken Andrew to hear Jesus speak. Andrew probably skipped out on work to meet Jesus that day, leaving Peter to tend the nets all by himself. That was okay, though, because Simon was pretty dependable.
Andrew figured out pretty quickly that Jesus was special and was so convinced of this that he invited Simon to go see Jesus too. Andrew made it sound so promising. “We have found the Messiah,” he said to his brother; and if that wouldn’t make you drop your fishing gear and go have a look, then I don’t know what would.
When Simon arrived, it was like Jesus already knew he was coming (go figure). Jesus looked him right in the eye and said, “So you’re Simon, the son of John; I’m going to call you Cephas.” And Cephas is the Aramaic word for “Rock.” In the Greek of the New Testament, the word for “Rock” is Petrós, which is how we get to Peter.
Now it might seem kind of strange to just give someone a new name, but Jesus sensed something unique about Simon (he was pretty good at that kind of thing); and he must have concluded that Simon was someone pretty special too.
While it had to be kind of nice for Simon to get a nickname, I’m not sure how thrilled would have been to be tagged with that nickname because being compared to a rock is kind of a mixed blessing.
On the plus side, rocks are sturdy, durable and tough; once they end up somewhere, they tend to stay put. For these reasons, rocks make good foundations. So when someone’s character is described as being “solid as a rock,” we see this a compliment.
On the minus side, though, rocks aren’t known for being terribly bright. I mean if someone says you’re “solid as a rock,” this is great, but if someone says that you’re “smart as a box of rocks,” well, that’s a different story.
But this nickname really fits in this case because Peter is a bit of a mixed blessing too. Once he’s signed-on to follow Jesus, which happens soon after meeting him, he becomes one of his most trusted disciples. Yet, we soon learn that these disciples are arguing about who the greatest among is, which, of course, misses the whole point of discipleship.
Peter is the first to declare out-loud that Jesus is the Messiah, though he never seems completely clear about what this means. When Jesus foretells the inevitability of his own death, Peter is the first to object — and is put in his place by Jesus for his lack of understanding. And even though Jesus often tries to put his mind at ease, Peter seems to be afraid a lot of the time.
Overcoming his fear, if only for a little while, Peter soon follows Jesus up the mountain of the Transfiguration with James and John, but once he sees how glorious it is up there — with Moses and Elijah, and a brightly glowing Jesus, and the booming voice of God — he suggests that they should just stay up there, which isn’t a great plan.
Then, in a great of act of faith, Peter decides to follow Jesus back down the mountain again; it’s as though he’s beginning to come to terms with what awaits Jesus and his disciples back in Jerusalem, as much as he doesn’t really want to come to terms with it.
And then, just when things seem to be going okay with respect to Peter’s evolution as a disciple, it happens. Right after the very first communion meal (and yet another dispute as to who the greatest disciple is), it all falls apart. Knowing that Peter will soon deny him and walk away, Jesus prays that Peter’s that faith will not fail in the long run, and that, once he returns, he will strengthen the faith of others. But Peter, who’s always quick to speak before he’s really thought things through, boldly tells Jesus, “Lord, I am ready to go with you to prison and to death!”
No, you’re not Peter, says Jesus. No you’re not.
Near the end of Luke’s Gospel, Peter denies Jesus three times — just like Jesus said that he would. Jesus overhears Peter’s final denial and, right in the middle of it, looks at Peter — looks right through him (because Jesus was pretty good at that too). And then Peter walks away; or, as Luke tells it, “Peter went out and wept bitterly.”
All of the capacity for understanding that we expect from a rock without a rock’s strength when it’s needed. Some rock this Peter proved to be. Maybe he wasn’t ready for the keys he got either.
I don’t know — maybe I’m being too tough on Peter. Some might argue that, by this point, he couldn’t really have done anything to help Jesus anyway, and I suppose there’s something to that. But, at some level, Peter’s betrayal and his remorse do make him seem an awful lot like Judas.
And yet we don’t build to cathedrals to Judas; there’s no Saint Judas; there is no inscription in giant letters anywhere saying, “You are Judas and on this rock I will build my church” like the one Peter got at the Vatican. But maybe the fact that these honors are reserved for Peter makes sense.
Right after Peter tells Jesus that he’s ready to go to jail with him and to die with him, and shortly before Peter’s three denials, Jesus says to him: “I have prayed for you that your own faith may not fail; and you, when once you have turned back, strengthen your brothers.” And therein lies the difference.
Despite all of his sorrow and guilt, Peter actually came back. He returned to the lead the disciples, even though he probably didn’t feel ready to do that; he worked really hard to be Christ’s hands and heart in the world, knowing that he could never undo what he’d done, knowing that he didn’t deserve the second chance that he’d been given. But he tried. And he tried because he truly loved Jesus, and because he knew that Jesus loved him (though we shouldn’t ever forget that Jesus loved Judas too).
I don’t know what Jesus saw in Simon, what it was that made him proclaim “You are Peter” and all that other stuff on that fateful day way back when. And I’m not sure that Peter ever really knew either. I also can’t imagine that he ever shook the burden he carried around from having denied and deserted Jesus. And I wonder if he was ever completely comfortable with the confidence that Jesus had in him.
Then again, maybe it’s just that the responsibility that came along with those keys Jesus gave Peter was stronger than all that other stuff he felt; and maybe Peter ended up understanding Jesus’s faith in him for what it truly was — a testament to the strange and mysterious ability of God to work miracles in and through all sorts of folks, a celebration of God’s willingness to engage with people like us in order to create heaven right here on earth.
Because a world in which someone like Simon gets the keys to the kingdom and ends up being the rock upon which a church can be built,
because a world in which God actually needs people like us as disciples and as partners in caring for creation,
because a world in which someone like Jesus is the Messiah,
because a world in which I can learn how to drive in New Jersey traffic,
is possible with a God for whom all things are possible.
Thanks be to God.