A ROCK AND A HARD PLACE
On the 18th
of April, 1506, Pope Julius II laid the foundation stone for the present St
Peter’s Basilica in Rome: it would take 150 years to complete. Round the inside
of the dome above the high altar are the words, in six-foot high letters: You
are Peter and, on this rock, I will build my Church and I will give you the
keys of the kingdom of heaven. These
words, which we read in today’s gospel, echo those of Isaiah in the first
reading where they amount to a job description for the new administrator,
Eliakim, of king Hezekiah’s palace.
There had
been much squabbling about who Jesus was; a new prophet like Elijah? John the
Baptist risen from the dead? The leaders of the people were no help. Jesus
wanted his closest followers to know and drew from Peter the emphatic
revelation: ‘You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.’ Jesus immediately
gives Peter his task: ‘You are Peter and, on this rock, …’ But then, Jesus
tells them on no account are they to tell anyone he is the Christ, the Messiah.
So there
are two questions:
Who are you, Jesus?
What do you want?
We have our
answer to the first: he is the Christ, the Son of the living God. But did they
understand what this meant? From our own experience, we often find ourselves
saying of someone we have met but never spent time with, ‘I am delighted to
have this chance to get to know you better.’ The disciples ‘knew’ Jesus as some
kind of special prophet and charismatic leader. That is all. They did not know
him ‘better’. He knows this and tells them not to talk about him for now. He is
not the kind of Christ the people – or the disciples – think he should be. And
we know this scene in the gospel is followed by a sharp rebuke: ‘Get behind me,
Satan, your thoughts are not the thoughts of God, but of man.’ So, even Peter
hadn’t a clue what kind of Christ Jesus was.
Are we much
better? This leads us into the second question.
We are so
inclined to ‘tame’ Jesus and fit him into our own frame of reference. He is
kind, forgiving, patient and the rest. He is all these but he is also demanding.
Like a parent or a school teacher, he wants us to grow up. He wants us to
stretch ourselves beyond the ‘comfortable’ and the ‘manageable’. He talks about
the cross. This is the only identity and description of Jesus that counts. But
they don’t get it. Though they will later. Where are we in this?
While Peter
may be ‘the rock’, early commentators did not see him as the only founder of
the Church in Rome. Irenaeus, writing around 100 years after Peter’s death,
tells us the Church in Rome – ‘the most illustrious church to which every
church must resort’ – was founded by ‘Peter and Paul’. So it was not a
one-man show and these two giants of the early church did not always agree.
They had quite a sharp exchange on the conditions for gentile admission to the
Church.
We can
carry away two thoughts from this Sunday’s readings. Jesus left his Church in
the hands of one person who was to be the anchor of unity. But that did not
mean the one person had all the answers. The Church was to be in the hands of
shepherds who might often differ. That is OK as long as they travel together
(synodically) and hold to their unity with the rock.
And second,
they will find a deeper unity in ‘losing their life’, that is, in listening to
one another and being prepared to shift their position as they open themselves,
step by step, to what is greater than any one of them. This can be hard.
27 August 2023 Sunday
21 A
Is 22:19-23 Rom 11:33-36
Mt 16:13-20
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