Sermon based upon Romans 12:1-8 and Matthew 16:13-20
Simon “Rocky to his friends” Johnson, the hot-headed fisherman of Capernaum. Peter to us, but I kind of like the nickname Rocky. It fits. He’s hot-headed and punchy, not really one for thinking before he speaks or acts.
We know more about Peter than any other of the 12, which means that we, as they must have done, can wonder “him?!!” when Jesus declares Simon to be Peter, his rock, and promises him the keys to the kingdom.
A better nickname might have been “Sandy” because he shifts about so much; unstable, tactless and impetuous. We might think this is evidence of Jesus’ sense of humour, his eyes giving a playful twinkle as he says it, the other 11 smirking.
Yet Peter, for all his blundering, has said something that no one else up to this point has said or recognised; Peter in his complexity and paradoxical simplicity just comes out with it: “You are the Messiah”.
Because of Peter’s knack of saying, unfiltered, whatever comes into his head he’s actually the 1 disciple not only to recognise the activity of God when he sees it, but to blurt it out, not thinking of the implications. Peter acts on instinct, rightly or wrongly, a lot of the time, and that includes here.
Jesus then basically names Peter first amongst equals, and we recognise the importance of that in the early church. Jesus gives him permission to bind or loose- forbid or permit.
He was the first to be called, the first named in lists of apostles and the one from whom Paul, even though they have disagreements, seeks approval from as he sets out on his own mission.
For all his paradoxes and contradictions Peter becomes a unifying figure, at the centre of the vision of a community of faith, central to Paul’s vision of the one body, the perfect example of how it takes people of every kind to build that community.
The body image is the illustration of the perfect inclusive church where no one is ex-cluded, we all fit in somewhere. Both the person of Peter and the vision of Paul serve to give us hope that no matter what our faults or differences, God has a place for us.
I get so disheartened by reports of faith communities which are built up on a premise of exclusion rather than inclusion, a reading of scripture which I whole-heartedly disagree with.
The idea that you must have a particular view of scripture, faith, gender roles, politics, sexuality or style of worship to be acceptable to God I believe goes against the vision of the body of Christ and both the teachings and ministry of Jesus. To hear of faith communities rejecting and excluding those who don’t fit their own view of Christianity is heart-breaking.
We’re all guilty at times of making God too small, trying to make him fit our own world view, me included.
Paul is reminding us that God is so big as to be able to accommodate each and every one of us. If Jesus excluded his disciples each time they tried to make God small, or acted in a way which didn’t fit Jesus’ own teachings, He would have been very alone very quickly.
This past fortnight, to see people marching in God’s name, in the churches name, with an ideology of white supremacy, has been something which I think our little community here might have found difficult to believe or imagine. Those of you who use Social Media may have seen or even used the phrases “not all Christians” or “not in my name”, as we try and distance ourselves from those who share our faith bur not our ideologies.
We can condemn violence and acts of hatred done in Christ’s name, for there is no excusing it, yet it’s a reminder of a past we also want to distance ourselves from, the role of our church in Empire Christianity, of conquer and conquest, a past of believing God gave us a mission and a right to overthrow, oppress and white-wash other cultures and faiths.
Peter’s life, as the first, unifying head of the church, is a good metaphor for the history of the church and of Christianity. We’ve got things wrong, we’ve rejected Christ for our own interests; we’ve got things right and recognised the activity of God when we’ve seen it. The church has at times been unstable, tactless and impetuous, at times been faithful and filled with love and life-giving.
Peter’s life also gives me hope for the church- and for myself.
It took many years and many mistakes for him to become who he became. We share his faults and failings, so we can also share in his successes and ability to see Jesus for exactly who he is.
The way Jesus never rejects him despite his actions gives me a template on how I should respond to my brothers and sisters who may share my religion but not me beliefs or world view; a way of confronting racist rhetoric dressed up as Christianity, because if I believe in Paul’s vision of the Body of Christ and full inclusion of each and every person, I must find a way to accept that those with views of ex-clusion, views we may find detestable, those who take part in marches to promote a white supremacist world view, are still somehow part of the Body of Christ.
Now this is uncomfortable stuff, how is this even possible? How can we be part of the same community of faith as those whose views seem to come from a place of such hate? I should imagine the majority of us would feel about these groups the same way our Muslim Brothers and sisters do when they’re thought to belong to the same group of people who commit atrocities in the name of their faith.
But the only way I know to drive out hate is with love, to fight exclusion with inclusion, to keep our hearts, our minds and our doors open.
Only by showing the love of Christ can we open up the hearts and minds of others to what’s possible when we stop trying to divide and separate our communities, when we stop excluding and punishing in Jesus’ name, and when we become the living embodiment of loving in Jesus’ name. We show them with our every action that intolerance is not welcome in our church.
When we model what it can look like to truly live out the love which pours from God there’s a chance we can effect change in others, to include them even if we disagree with them.
To go back to where we started, with Peter, our rock, some of his views could now be considered racist. He discriminated against the gentiles and Paul called him out for it. We can all get things wrong, and we can all be redeemed. No one, not one single person is beyond that love which flows unending from God, to us, and is intended to be shared out in all places, to all people, at all times.
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