When I was growing up in Montana, like
every other sixteen year old I wanted a drivers license, I wanted to
pilot my own car. I drove around with my mother or father, and
thought I was getting pretty competent. One day I wheedled my mother
into giving me the car keys to drive by myself. I did not yet have
my license. So I jumped in the family car and drove off, picked up
my best friend, and went downtown to cruise the drag, as we put it.
I didn't have a problem until I started home and decided to show off
my parking skills. I did a fair amount of damage to our car and a
little less to the one I was trying to park behind. I came home
ashamed and afraid, vowing never to drive again. My mother took me
out into the car and made me drive around for a while with her.
Although they grounded me for a while, they did not, to their credit,
stop trying to teach me to drive.
We often look at this Gospel story and
see Peter's declaration of faith. And logically, we then turn to
each other and say, “Who do you say that Jesus is?” And most of
us agree with Peter and feel pretty good about ourselves because we
recognize that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the Living God. And
having learned our lesson, we go back to doing what we always do.
But there are two declarations of
faith here. Peter declares his faith, yes. And that's important.
But then Jesus gives Peter a nickname, which could translate “Rocky”
as well as Peter. And he says, “You are Rocky, and upon this rock
I will build my Church” Usually when we think of people named
Rocky we think of prize fighters or truck drivers or other down to
earth, loyal, get things done kind of people. Maybe Jesus was joking
around calling Peter “Rocky”. He had his good qualities, of
course; but he had some bad ones as well. He seemed to have trouble
grasping what Jesus was all about – remember when Jesus in
exasperation said, “Get behind me, Satan!”. When he was shown
Jesus' glory on the mountain, he figured he could capture that glory
in a tent. When he was given the opportunity to walk on water, his
faith wavered. And of course, he denied Jesus during his passion.
And even after the Resurrection, having seen Jesus, having witnessed
this pivotal moment in history, having been given the power to
forgive sins, after a few days went by, he decided to go back to his
old trade and told his fellow disciples, “I am going fishing”.
Peter was like you and I, he blew hot one day and blew cold the next.
Sometimes he really burned with love of God and other times he was
looking out for number one.
And that is where Jesus' act of faith
comes in. He brings the good news to us; he shows us how to bring
about the Kingdom of God for which he planted the seeds. He gives us
all the grace we need and sends the Holy Spirit into us. “You are
Donald,” he says, “and upon this Rock I will build my church.”
You are Julia, you are Joe, you are Jerry, you are Jane – and upon
this Rock I will build my church. That is a real act of faith, that
Jesus puts the building of his Church, the formation of his kingdom,
on me, on you, on everyone of us.
It's interesting to follow Peter after
the Resurrection. We can find his story in the Acts of the Apostles,
in some of Paul's letters, and in his own epistles. He still hasn't
gotten it. God goes to great lengths to show Peter that to build a
Church you can't do it all by yourself – Peter and the disciples
delegate some of their duties to deacons. God shows Peter that his
invitation is open to everyone – the dream about the blanket with
all kinds of living creatures on it, and Peter hears “Take and eat
this”. And Peter, being invited to eat pork and bacon and lobster
by God himself, replies, “Never, Lord! I will never eat anything
unclean!” And Peter, persuaded by Paul, decides that you don't
have to be circumcised to be a Christian. And even towards the end
of his life, Peter is still feeling around, still dealing with
conflict – I love the statement in the second epistle of Peter,
when he says “our brother Paul … writes this way in all his
letters … which contain things which are hard to understand … “
I can't disagree with Peter.
So it's obvious from Scripture that
Peter fails over and over again. But I think the real lesson is that
Peter keeps trying. He grows in humility. He starts out thinking
he's got it, and blows hot and blows cold. He learns to listen to
others. He recognizes that there are others who seem to know more
than he does, who may be more successful in evangelization that he
was, and he simply rejoices that God uses them as well. Peter spends
his whole life making mistakes, learning from them, and getting up
and going on. And because he keeps falling and getting up, he does
do what God wanted him to – he does build the Church, a little
here, a little there.
My mother and father had faith in me
after I damaged the family car. They insisted I continue to learn to
drive; they understood that progress involves making mistakes and
leaning from them. They recognized that my heart was in the right
place, and that I had learned something in that first auto accident I
had.
And Jesus is like that. He knows we
are human, he knows we are sinners, he knows we are going to fall,
sometimes because we are selfish, sometimes because we are lazy,
sometimes because we just don't understand. All he asks is that we
look at ourselves and let him show us what we've done wrong and what
we can do next time to do it right.
Peter never reached the point where he
felt that he had all the answers, where he thought there was no more
room for improvement. But he always remembered that Jesus had said,
“You are Rocky, and upon this rock I will build my church.” Let
us remember that he is still speaking to us with the same words,
still making an act of faith that we will finish what he began.
