Rocky start

Today is the feast of St Peter and St Paul – the day when the Christian church remembers its two main founders: Peter, the apostle to the Jews, and Paul, the apostle to the Gentiles. The thing is that we have almost no writings by Peter and yet most of the New Testament was written by Paul. Peter was the disciple of Jesus – he spent three years alongside Jesus during His ministry – and yet, to all appearances, Paul is more important to the church and Christianity than Peter. However, in today’s reading for Morning Prayer, we heard the story of Peter’s declaration that Jesus is the Messiah, followed by Jesus’ statement: “You are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church” (Mt 16:18).

“Peter” is the Greek for “rock”, so this is essentially a pun – “You are Rocky, and on this rock I will build my church”. Yet even this isn’t obvious. What does “church” mean here? The Greek word used meant either the congregation of the nation of Israel (in the Greek Septuagint version of the Old Testament) or the free, voting citizens of a city (in secular usage). So, have something like “You are Rocky, and on this rock I will build my holy nation”, conjuring ideas of some sort of new Israel; although Jesus soon knocks any conventional ideas of a “new nation” out of Peter’s head!

However, it struck me that this issue of Peter being the “rock” on which the church was founded is an odd one. Is this really how we see Peter? For Roman Catholics, of course, it is fairly easy. Peter was the first bishop of the church in Rome, the forerunner of the Patriarch of Rome and then of the Popes. So, the rock on which the church is founded is seen in direct descent to the Pope. However, for everyone else (Orthodox, Protestant, Coptic and so on), we don’t have that option, so we must look deeper. We don’t believe that the authority of Peter to rule over the church is somehow passed down through the papacy in Rome.

What, though, do we expect when we see a foundation stone? Do we expect something showy, something obvious, something grand? Or is the foundation stone hidden, covered over, its role essential but invisible, supporting all the other stones by its presence but concealed by those other stones? Perhaps this is how we should see Peter, the foundation stone of the Church, as the first to declare Jesus as the Messiah, the one upon which everything later was built. The first leader of the Church, and one wise enough to know his own limitations and to let go and not try to control all that came later. Humble enough to admit his errors when the influx of Gentiles into the Church became (thanks to Paul) great enough to cause friction.

Is this, perhaps, the model of Christian leadership – not flashy, public showiness but secret, buried, sturdy. Does Peter perhaps show us that to be truly great in the Kingdom of God means that many will even forget who you are, save perhaps for once a year?

pax et bonum

Article posted at 1:58pm on 29 June 2005
Category: Faith, Musing