Sunday: 15th Sunday after Pentecost A
Reading: Matthew 16:13-20
Preacher: S. James Steen

Here we are again with Peter impulsively blurting out what comes into his mind, and this time, perhaps, saying both what he thinks Jesus wants to hear and what his experience with Jesus is telling him is true. As one preacher put it, "Peter was right...and he was wrong."¹ He affirms Jesus as God's Holy One: "You are the Messiah, the Son of the Living God." Jesus even praises Peter for his correct answer. But Jesus' praise is not without qualification. He quickly adds, "For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father in heaven." In other words, "This didn't come from you, Peter. It came from God." In describing a person like Peter, who is so eager to impress and so insecure, one might say, "There's actually less to him than meets the eye."

Peter consistently proves that he doesn't quite get it. Two weeks ago we talked about his jumping out of the boat, attempting to imitate Jesus' walking on water. Of course, it wasn't long before he sank. Next week Jesus will scold Peter for refusing to believe that Jesus will have to suffer and die. And, later on, when Jesus is arrested, Peter, with the other Disciples, deserts Jesus and runs away. Worse yet, when he is questioned in the high priest's courtyard the next day, this coward swears that he isn't even associated with Jesus.

I keep thinking, "Can you imagine choosing such a person to play a leadership role in any community that's important to you?" This is not exactly the person any of us would offer a major leadership role in our church, or our school, or in any of the other institutions we value. What if such a leader suffered a failure of nerve when the going got tough? Could he stand up under pressure? Whenever I hire a new associate, unless I already know the person well, I make sure to have a conversation about the importance of our being able to trust one another. I know I would worry about Peter not being able to live up to that standard. Wouldn't you?

Yet, according to Matthew, as soon as Jesus gives God - rather than Peter - the credit for Peter's identifying Jesus as the Messiah, Jesus continues: "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." Now that's ironic. Matthew tells us that Jesus affirms perhaps the most wishy-washy, indecisive, and vacillating of all the Disciples as the "Rock." And, of course, in both the Greek and the Latin the words for Peter mean "Rock."

The biblical exegetes among us might object that Jesus probably didn't actually give Peter this sweeping vote of confidence. Peter names Jesus as the Messiah not only in Matthew, but also in Mark and Luke; yet only in Matthew does Jesus then confer a special role on Peter. But what really matters here is that Matthew, writing in the context of his community and in the light of his experience, believes that to view Peter this way is to proclaim the mind of Jesus. And I believe that Matthew is correct.

I like the word "radical," and I don't mean so much its describing something extreme, but rather as referring to that which is fundamental to or of the very essence of the thing described. There is no way that Jesus viewed the Peter who stood before him as a rock. Only a fool could do that. There is no way that Jesus saw Peter as qualified to head the Church that would become the successor to his earthly ministry. In describing Jesus response to Peter, Matthew tells us more about Jesus than he tells us about Peter. And he is describing Jesus as a person of radical hope, radical forgiveness, and radical hospitality.

There is no way that Jesus could have had total trust in the Peter he was addressing. Elsewhere he even tells Peter that he knows he will betray him. What we learn about Jesus from Matthew is that, because of who he was, he was able to see in Peter qualities and potential that others could not see. The message in this unlikely encounter between Jesus and Peter is not that we should go out and find unreliable, weak people to be our leaders. Examples abound which point out the folly of that approach.

Rather, through Matthew, God is calling us to welcome and nurture others, with open hearts and minds, to welcome all kinds of others - flaws and all - in order that we might help one another grow into the wholeness that God already sees deep within each of us. The other message here is that no matter how we, personally, view ourselves, the one we worship views us as rocks: forgivable, loveable, redeemable rocks, and as people with the wherewithal to grow in ways that make those qualities more than potential.

If I am honest, I identify very closely with Peter. Especially when I was younger, I was often his very embodiment. And, over the years, I have been remarkably fortunate to have mentors, friends, parishioners, bosses, therapists, and a partner who have all been foolish enough to embrace me as the rock they have believed is within me. As a model, Peter isn't very good at showing us the way to perfection. But being perfect is such a burden: as a goal it's so bound to disappoint, as a mindset it's so somber. But where Peter shines is in serving as a model for discovering what James Alison has termed "the joy of being wrong."² For therein lies an opening to grace.

Amen.

^{1 Paul J. Nuechterlein, http://girardianlectionary.net/year_a/proper16a_1996_ser}

^{2 James Alison, The Joy of Being Wrong: Original Sin through Easter Eyes}