Upon 'this' rock....?!? (Matthew 16:13-20)

Upon this rock….?

                  Back in university, the 40 member student choir had the opportunity to travel and sing around the United States.  Before you got on the plane or more likely, the trusty old tour bus, to perform in churches and other venues around the nation, the choir had to prepare a program of music.  One year the choir program included a very brief piece of music.  Composed by 20^th-century French composer Maurice Durufle, the text is taken from the Latin translation of Matthew 16, the words of Jesus to Peter:  “Tu Es Petrus….” The choir director noted that the piece was optimally performed when done so in under a minute.

                  Many of us thought it would be an easy piece to learn.  After all, it took less than a minute to perform.  As life tends to work out, the piece was anything but easy.  The piece works as a veritable mass of sound, a capella voices singing Durufle’s arrangement of this gospel text. Instead, we stumbled over the Latin words and got lost in the music. Every time the director tried to bring us up to tempo, we slowed down.  One time, as we finished the piece, it became quite obvious that the altos were still catching up. What took less than a minute began to drag down.   Listening this past week to choral recordings and performances of Tu Es Petrus posted on YouTube, I reveled in how the piece was supposed to sound (including a choir from Prague that just nailed it in under 45 seconds….) and wondered why such a brief piece held such frustrating memories.

                  The text “You are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church” appears to be such a simple little text, yet when you consider the history of the Church (pick a tradition, any tradition--Catholic, Protestant, or Orthodox), even the most ardent of believer will admit the Church has lived through times of challenge and sometimes not been the better for it all.   This text alone has been part of the historic division of the Christian tradition, read by some to claim Peter was given unique authority.  The Catholic tradition traces in part its claim to papal authority citing this text, claiming the Bishop of Rome, aka “the Pope”, as the successor of this humble fisherman turned apostle.  Some interpreters beg to differ, claiming this text lifts up Peter no more than any other disciple who evidences great faith with no special privilege presumed.

                  Ironically, the text as given by the gospel of Matthew celebrates what it means to be a follower of Jesus has become a text of sometimes bitter contention among the faithful.  A word of authority and unity for some becomes to others a text of dispute and disunity.  What appears to be a straightforward matter becomes convoluted by those trying to read and live out the text. 

Over the centuries, Christians have fought more about “who” can follow Jesus than just sticking to the script and following Jesus.  You need not go back to the Reformation era when the Protestant traditions emerged or five hundred years before that when the Orthodox and the Catholic traditions parted ways.  Just take a look at the headlines of any newspaper and you’ll find the great divides between Christian fundamentalists and progressives often capture the headline far more than a word about believers gone good!  More often than not, the teachings of Jesus get eclipsed by the search for dogma and orthodoxy, being right and ensuring what is deemed right is well regulated. 

What takes the gospel just about a minute to communicate becomes centuries of convolutions and rifts, schisms and battles.  Some have suggested the Church was the worst thing to happen to the teachings of Jesus, becoming an institution rather than keeping it simple.  You look around and think, “Really? Upon this (you mean ‘this’….) rock?  Oh dear….”

More usual, the gospel is far clever than the stories the Church sometimes hopes that are told about itself.  Instead of splitting hairs over theological matters, Jesus offers a way of discipleship that asks us to open up to the possibilities of what the Kingdom/Reign of Heaven is all about.  Read the gospel as told by Matthew and discover a discipleship that considers the Sermon on the Mount a way of life or the parables of Jesus far more subversive than many a Sunday morning sermon is able to recount.  Jesus is near parabolic in his affirmation of Simon, the one he calls “Rock”.   This disciple may be saying words of glowing faith and affirmation right now, but read on as Jesus has to rebuke Simon just a few verses later for good cause.  Simon Peter is a disciple not meant for fine marble statuary.  He’s just as rough around the edges, hewn from the same world we live in.  Here, he gleams as if polished fine stone.  In a few verses, he’s back to meandering around.  “Upon this rock” works well on some days.  Other times, Simon Peter’s just as much a blockhead as the rest of us.

Jesus has high hopes (and indeed a good deal of trust) that his followers will follow after he has left the scene.  The church has been “on its own” now for two millennia, sometimes “stumbling in the light” (cf. Robert Kysar, Chalice Press, 1999).  While he is calling a mere mortal capable of being a mighty foundation, Jesus is calling his gathered disciples, women and men just like you and me, this curious word translated as “church” in English.  He calls the gathered the “ekklesia”.

The word was already common in the Roman world, with the term used commonly for a gathering of people who are called to keep the standards of the community, primarily those of governance and order.  Rather than keeping the Roman status quo, Jesus is calling out his followers to live the way of the gospel.  He has hope that his teachings will shape a different type of people, ones not caught up in the ways of the world.  

This particular story in Matthew is quite seditious to overhear, if you are a faithful citizen of Rome.  Jesus and Peter have this conversation in Caesarea Phillipi, a city that embodies everything valued by Rome.  Built and rebuilt by successive rulers, it is a showcase for the Roman Empire in the backwater climes of Galilee.  Named for one of the Emperors, or Caesars, the town is the last place that a good citizen of Rome would declare Jesus “the son of the living God”, as the Roman rulers themselves lay claim to the title.  Here, the story of discipleship is also a story of living against the grain of the powers that be.  Simon “the Rock” is claiming Jesus as the only true Ruler of all.

Thus, the gospels are better understood as stories of faith that will wind up getting you in trouble.  A people who are Jesus’ ekklesia are those who keep a witness to the Kingdom/Reign of Heaven, which as you read the gospel story is not about being that comfortable or cozy with how Empires treat “the least of these, my brothers and sisters”.  You may not look like a “rock” or a foundation to the world, which prefers a different sort of resolute hardness of its heroes.  Instead, those who are vulnerable, frail, less than letter perfect are the ones through whom God works in the world. 

A generation ago, the German theologian Jurgen Moltmann wisely observed the church needs help “to find its bearings”.  Though his observations were given in the mid-1970s, Moltmann’s thought continues to bear fruit.  He claims that when one believes you are living in times when most everything around us seems insecure, when “political, economic, ethical and religious systems are more vulnerable than people thought”, Christians need to look carefully at our roots.  The Church “will take its bearings more empathetically than before from Jesus, his history, his presence and his future.” (cf. The Church in the Power of the Spirit, 1975,, ET 1977, xiii-xiv) 

Followers of Jesus have a story called “gospel” and a vision to live into called “ekklesia”, so that as debt ceiling debates and market tumbles bedevil, social fabric seems to shrink or rip apart, the marginalized get caught in the partisan crossfire of 2012 aspirations, when we feel less secure with each passing year despite living in one of the more geo-politically stable parts of the world, when weekly attendance seems slim at best and “not what it used to be” at worst, there is a story of the type of disciple Jesus wants, and with Simon Peter as an example, with all his own issues and quirks, brashness and timidity, there’s  chance you too shall be part of that bedrock of good discipleship that upholds the Church.

And so, Anna, Tu es petrus…..

and Robert, tu es petrus….

and Sandy, tu es petrus…..

                                    and Greg, tu es petrus, and ……

                  AMEN.