Rocky Foundations

Sermon preached by the Rev. Lowell E. Grisham, Rector
St. Paul's Episcopal Church, Fayetteville, Arkansas
August 24, 2008; 15th Sunday after Pentecost, Proper 16, Year A
Episcopal Revised Common Lectionary

(Matthew 16:13-20) -- When Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, "Who do people say that the Son of Man is?" And they said, "Some say John the Baptist, but others Elijah, and still others Jeremiah or one of the prophets." He said to them, "But who do you say that I am?" Simon Peter answered, "You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God." 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 the gates of Hades will not prevail against it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven." Then he sternly ordered the disciples not to tell anyone that he was the Messiah.
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In my grandfather's little town a lot of people went by their nicknames. There were my two cousins, "Kiss-em" Grisham (with the English pronunciation, a silent "h"), and his younger brother "Hug-em." One year they were the starting guards for the Iuka Chieftain basketball team. "Kiss-em" passes to "Hug-em." My roommate "Bubba" was from Iuka. I tell some Bubba stories from time to time. His real name is David Olen Jourdan, III. And there was guy who was about 6-foot-seven -- the tallest person in Iuka. Everybody just knew him as "Shorty." Great fun.

Maybe Jesus was having some fun with his friend Simon when he nicknamed him "Rocky." "Peter" is a masculine form of the Greek word "petra," meaning "rock." Elsewhere in the New Testament we hear him called "Cephas," Aramaic for "rock."

The picture of Peter -- the Rock -- that we get in the New Testament is of someone who is hot-headed, quick, impulsive, fiery, bursting with energy, but not sure sometimes where to send that energy. The opposite of Rock-like. More "Sparky" than "Rocky."

Two weeks ago we saw Peter in a boat calling out impulsively to Jesus who was walking across the pommeling waves, "Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water." "Come on," says Jesus. Peter hops right in and starts walking toward Jesus, until he sees the waves; he wavers and starts to sink, crying almost clownishly, "Lord, save me!"

Peter was the one who spoiled the wonder of the moment in the afterglow of the Transfiguration, when Jesus was simply glowing in the midst of an apparition with Moses and Elijah. It was like Peter clapped his hands and the mystery disappeared, as he said, "Let's get to work and do something, like build a shrine to what just happened." What a spoiler. That broke the mood.

In John's version of Jesus' arrest, it was Peter who grabbed a sword and attacked the high priest's slave, trying to defend his friend. "Put the sword away," Jesus had to tell him, and, according to Luke, Jesus repaired the damage, healing the man Peter had rashly injured.

But every once in a while, this mercurial, impetuous Peter gets it right. Maybe it was something about his uninhibited nature, but occasionally Peter intuits something and rushes into the possibilities with uncalulated zest.

"Who do they say I am?" Jesus asks. Like students carefully trying to fish for the answer they think the teacher wants, the disciples respond, "Some say this, and some say that." Jesus turns it on them. "But who do you say I am?" It is Peter who bursts toward the impossible possibility, "You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God."

I'll bet Jesus howled with laughter then. "God bless you, Peter. You are something else. Way to go Rocky. On this rock-hard, solid foundation I will build my church." I can see everybody getting in on the joke, with gleeful, high spirits. Jesus wraps his arms around the unrestrainable Peter and cheers, "The gates of hell cannot prevail against this!" The others respond with bouyant mirth. Jesus turns, and with an ambiguous solemnity, pronounces to Rocky, "I give you the keys to the kingdom. Whatever you bind on earth is bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth, is loosed in heaven." And the sheepish Peter doesn't quite know what to do with that, but he trusts Jesus. Then Jesus warns them against speaking any indiscreet word about Messiahs, and the scene ends.

I don't know if it happened just that way. But what I do know is that every time Peter intuited something that was bigger than he could handle and jumped right into it with reckless abandon, Jesus commended him, knowing all the while Peter could never live up to the wonders he embraced. That's a foundation you can build something wonderful on.

I'm a skeptic by nature, a doubter by temperament. But every once in a while something happens that tweaks my imagination, that teases my intuition with impossible possibility, and I can feel a tingle. "It all might be true. It all might be more wonderful than I can imagine." And when I jump in there and follow that energy, it seems that life opens up.

I remember wanting to experience God, to feel God, alive and real. Suddenly it seemed there was a presence in the room with me. I asked hopefully, sheepishly, "Is this it? Is this God?" And something like a cosmic laugh seemed to fill the universe, saying -- "Yes!"

Even though it seemed a little stupid to me, I tried contemplative prayer. Let go of thoughts, let go of feelings, let go of everything. It was maddening. I'm a borderline ADHD extrovert. Distraction, boredom, nothing. Until quiet broke through, and I descended somewhere below thought and feeling, where time stood still, and I didn't even exist, and All just was. I don't know what happened, but when something I call "me" separated again and emerged from the "All," there was peace.

I remember learning the physics of the wave/particle duality. Light simultaneously behaves like a wave and like a particle. It is both. And it teased me with all of the possibility of paradox that seems woven into the very fabric of creation -- human/divine, material/spiritual, immanent/transcendent. Maybe everything can be both/and rather than either/or.

I know that when I gave up the tribalism of insisting that my faith was the only fully true faith, a world of faithfulness opened up, and I could see God wonderfully manifest in new and marvelous ways.

Whenever I quit resenting the thousands of frustrations, tragedies and injustices, and imagine that God is universally present bringing life from death and healing to brokenness, I see signs of encouragement and places to put the energy of my hope.

Every once in a while the wonder of this simple act of Eucharist breaks upon me. A cup of wine, and bit of bread, a story about a dying man two thousand years ago, a community with open hands reaching out beyond ourselves to be fed by God. We become one with the All -- nutured, healed, fed. There is coherence, wonder, peace.

But then a hand claps, or a wave threatens, or I don't know how to deal with things, and the horizons collapse into such threatening ordinariness. So I have to live on memory. I remember the tingle. So I decide to act as if it all could be possible; the impossible possibility. God is good; God is here -- all is good, all is well, all is safe. And, like Peter, I look around for whatever the next thing might be that God wants me to throw my life into.

When you can sense yourself surrounded by the living energy of God, it's easier to forget yourself, lose your inhibitions, and live with a bit of rash, intuitive hope. Even when you fail.

You remember what happened to Peter when the chips were down. When Jesus warned them that trouble was brewing and that they would all desert him. "I will never desert you," boasted the impetuous Peter. Before the cock had crowed the next morning awake, he had denied even knowing Jesus, not once, but three times. Not much of a rock when the times got hard.

Peter was crushed. Such failure might break another, a person with some pride, with a bit of self-respect.

But sometime later, after the cross. After the first Eucharist when they knew Jesus in the breaking of the bread. Sometime later, on the shores of Lake Galilee, Jesus came to Peter. Three times Jesus asked him, "Peter, do you love me?" Three times Peter was able to speak his heart's deepest truth, "Yes, Lord, you know I love you." Three times Jesus commissioned him, "Feed my sheep; tend my lambs." And on this impetuous, fiery love, Jesus founded his church.

Love energized. And the gates of Hell cannot prevail against it. Love energized. That is the intuitive key that open the heavens to bind and loose wonders. Love energized. It is the rock and foundation of the Kingdom of God. Love energized.

It can be unpredictable and failing; it can be impetuous and mysterious: But love energized continually teases us with the impossible possibility -- it all may be more wonderful than we can imagine. Every time we jump into it with both feet, wonders happen. And rash, flighty clowns become Rocks.
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