Preached by the Very Rev. Mike Kinman at Christ Church Cathedral at 8 am on Sunday, August 24, 2014
“And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church.”+
Religion.
Politics.
Race
Money.
Sex.
Are you a little nervous yet?
Probably nobody ever told us to avoid those topics, we just know. We know by how we feel in those situations when someone brings them up. We know by how nervous we can get when we try to talk about them ourselves with people whom we don’t know well enough to know how they will react.
Religion.
Politics.
Race.
Money.
Sex.
What is it about those topics that makes them so risky, so scary? I’ll tell you what it is: It’s because they’re all about identity.
Each of these topics – what we believe about them, what our experiences of them are -- reveal something about ourselves, what is most precious to us. They intersect pieces of our stories that are deeply personal, pieces of our stories that define who we are.
We avoid these topics because they are places of deep vulnerability. And we know this from experience. We know how easy it is to wound one another and to be wounded when we stray into these areas.
Even with people we have known and shared life with, these topics can be risky. But for people whom we don’t know well, whom we don’t have that foundation with, they can be absolutely terrifying – both on the speaking and listening end.
And yet these are the conversations we must have. And so we’re met with the reality that the most important conversations we can have, the conversations that have the chance truly to bring us together as a people are these conversations that we most vigorously avoid, because we know they hold in their hands the possibility of tearing us further apart as well.
Religion.
Politics.
Race.
Money.
Sex.
These topics are the third rail of relationship. They have the power to kill, but they are also where all the energy is.
And I believe they are the conversations we as the church are called not only to embrace but to lead. And this morning’s Gospel shows us how.
This morning’s Gospel is all about identity.
Jesus asks the disciples “Who do you say that I am?” and Simon Peter answers, “you are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.”
You are everything, he says. You are the one who saves. You are the love of God given for the life of the world.
Simon Peter gets the answer right. And Jesus tells him he is blessed. And his blessing is that Jesus will now tell him who he is.
And so Jesus looks at Simon Peter and says, “You have said who I am, and I will now tell you who you are.”
“You are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church.”
This is an amazing statement by Jesus … every bit as amazing as Peter’s confession of who Jesus is. And what makes it amazing is what is behind it.
Intimate knowledge.
Deep love.
Jesus’ words to Peter were based on deep relationship. Of Jesus knowing Peter and Peter allowing himself to be known by Jesus. Jesus looked at Peter and Jesus knew Peter in every possible way. Jesus knew him past, present and future. He knew what he had done and he knew what he was capable of doing. He knew his highest potential. He knew his greatest possibility.
He knew him because he looked deep inside his soul and listened deeply to the songs of his heart. And because of that, he was able to say, “Peter, this is who you are. You are the rock that will be the foundation of my church.”
Jesus could have this deepest and riskiest of conversations about identity because he looked, listened and loved. Peter and Jesus relationship was never easy. At one point, Jesus called Peter, “Satan” … and Peter for his part denied he ever knew Jesus not just once but three times. They disagreed and they fought, and yet Peter called Jesus the Messiah and Jesus called Peter his rock.
And in the end, as much as they fought, they each died for the sake of the other.
Jesus and Peter could have this deepest and riskiest of conversations about identity because they had a relationship of the deepest love and trust. There was nothing – not even deepest shame and cruelest death – that could destroy their relationship, such was their commitment to one another.
I can’t imagine Jesus and Peter shying away from any of those five topics, can you? They didn’t need to. They proved with their lives together that their relationship could handle anything.
“You are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church.”
The very foundation of our church, the rock on which we are built is the relationship between Peter and Jesus. A relationship that can withstand any conversation, any misstep, any offense because we are so deeply committed to one another.
Not a relationship without tumult and argument. Not a relationship without hurt and betrayal. But a relationship where the love that undergirds it is more powerful than anything people in other relationships might fear would tear it apart.
So what does that mean for us as the church?
It means that these risky, terrifying conversations about identity. These difficult and scary conversations about Religion. Politics. Race. Money. Sex. These are the conversations we as the church are called not only to embrace but to lead. Not because God has gifted us as great facilitators but because the foundation of our communion in Christ is such a deep commitment to relationship with one another, such a deep commitment to loving one another as Christ loves us, that we are perhaps the only container strong enough to hold the tempest these conversations will create.
“You are Peter,” Jesus said. “And on this rock I will build my church.”
That means when things happen like the past two weeks in Ferguson, we must not avoid the conversation but embrace it and even lead it. But we lead it not mirroring the contentious factionalism of the world but the tenacious, grappling love of Jesus our savior and Peter our rock.
We embrace and lead these conversations by putting before anything else our knowledge and love of one another. By remembering that love and embracing one another more tightly when we hear something come from the other that challenges or even offends us. With God’s help having the grace, in the words of the marriage ceremony, when we hurt one another to ask each other’s forgiveness and God’s.
We are entering into an extended moment of opportunity here in St. Louis. An opportunity not only to embrace but to lead a national conversation on race and class, on power and privilege and on the vast gaps of economic, educational and employment opportunity that exist in our nation.
And if we are to grasp this opportunity, it has to start right here. Right here in this room. We have to commit to one another to be the church with Jesus as our savior and Peter as our rock. We have to commit to holding onto one another, and listening deeply to one another, and being vulnerable to one another, and holding one another with the utmost grace, because there are going to be times when we have this conversation really, really badly and we will need to ask one another’s forgiveness and God’s.
If we are to grasp this once in a generation opportunity, we as Christ Church Cathedral will have to take the risk of first having this conversation ourselves. We will have to stand face to face and look deeply into each other’s eyes and listen deeply to each other’s stories. We will have to, in those words of St. Francis, seek not so much to be understood as to understand. We will have to remember that conversation and conversion come from the same root.
“You are Peter,” Jesus said. “And on this rock I will build my church.”
If we are truly the church that calls Jesus our savior and Peter our Rock, then there truly is no conversation we cannot handle. Because our strength is in our God and our strength is in each other. And even the gates of hell will never prevail against us.
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