August 24, 2008

I heard a story this week and it’s a true story and it’s about a seminary professor who every year gives an award.  It’s called the “Rock of Ages” award and it’s given to the seminarian who gets through three years of seminological training without any transformation, without any change of heart, without any change of mind.  He doesn’t give out too many of these awards, thank goodness, but occasionally one does slip in there.  Peter in today’s Gospel I don’t think would have gotten the “Rock of Ages” award.  Jesus says, “Peter, you are a rock.”  But when we look at Peter’s life and hear all those stories about Peter, Peter seems like a person who was transformed, he was engaged.  Peter’s name means “rock,” in Aramaic and in Greek.  It does truly mean rock.  So Jesus wasn’t just telling him the definition of his name, Jesus was telling him something very clear about himself and about his faith.  The Jewish people would have known in that time that telling someone that they are a rock is really high praise.  Because the Jewish people referred to Abraham as a rock.  Rock of their faith, rock of their foundation.  Abraham was the one who God said, get up and move.  I am going to take you all over the wilderness and you are going to found a nation.  You are going to help me covenant and found a nation who are going to be my people.  And Abraham did that, he is the father of the faith, father of the Hebrew people.   

There are a lot of images in scripture about God as rock.  God is our fortress our deliverer, our strong salvation, our rock, God is the crag in the rock that we hide in.  So to call Peter “rock” is really giving him some pretty high praise, not equating him with God but certainly a person of deep faith.  And the Jewish people would have picked up on that and Peter would have picked up on that and possibly wondered, “Wow, what are you telling me?  You must be telling me something pretty important here.” 

We could use that image of rock in the Gospel and explore it in all kinds of ways.  We could use the image as Peter’s faith was as solid as a rock and this is why Jesus said this to him because he was some sort of example of what faith should look like.  We could interpret that Peter recognized that Jesus was the rock.  We talk about him as the cornerstone upon which everything was built and Peter got this.  We could talk about Peter’s faith again being so solid and so firm or we could talk about Peter being one human being or the first human being in New Testament times who got what Jesus was about, who had a little glimpse and really understood that Jesus was the Messiah and that Jesus’ work needed to be carried on.  And all of those things would be very valid interpretations of this Gospel and how we could explore meaning and our faith life and what we are called to do.  To be people of transformation and love and all those sorts of things.

But, I decided not to go in that direction. What I decided to do was to look at what are the images of rocks that we use and how might Jesus talk about that today.  So I did one of my favorite things and Google: rock and phrases, and song words, rock and poetry.  And I came up with a lot more than I realize of ways that we use rock.  Some of the song titles are, “like a rock,” by Bob Seeger.  “Loves me like a rock” by Paul Simon.  Some of the phrases are, “Steady like a rock,”  “Slept like a rock,”  “between a rock and a hard place,” “Slept like a rock,” and one of my favorites, which is “Dumb as a box of rocks.”  I really like that one.

Other ways we use the word in phrases is, “The hand that rocks the cradle.”  “Rock around the clock”  “You rock” or “Rock on.” And when I looked at all those different phrases I thought there is really two different categories here.  When we talk about rock solid or slept like a rock or between a rock and a hard place or dumb as a box of rocks.  There’s sort of an understanding of rock as a solitary, stationary immovable lifeless, dull.  But when we talk about “rocking the cradle,” “ rock around the clock,”  “rock on” or “you rock,” there’s a quality of energy or a quality of excitement, some transformation something is going on.  So clearly two different ways we use the image of rock. 

 And as I was thinking about it, I thought maybe Jesus was talking more about the second image of rock the one that is more generative the one that is more transformative the one that has a little more life to it rather than the one we generally talk about as Peter is “rock solid” faith of the church.  Maybe Jesus would be telling Peter to “rock on.”  And I was thinking about rocks and what we know now about rocks and what science tells us about rocks anything solid whether it’s the floor or the pew or the jewelry we’re wearing, the pens in our pocket, anything like that is these rocks, these things that are tangible are not solid.  They are not solid; there is actually a tremendous amount of space here.  There is a tremendous amount of space in anything we perceive as solid.  There are lots of molecules bumping around at zillions of miles an hour.  Bumping into each other, creating energy, generating life.  All that kind of thing. 

All of this that we see as solid is really transitional.  It’s all changing and it’s all life giving if we let that happen and if we recognize it.  And it’s hard for us to recognize all of the energy that’s around us because in the way our world works we count on things.  I can count on the fact that if you sit on this pew you will not fall through.  If I shake someone’s hand I count on the fact that I am going to have a hand there to shake.  So it’s hard for us to understand this kind of energy that perhaps Peter and Jesus were talking about.  Peter and Jesus were exchanging the spiritual energy. But we do know what that is. 

Many people and as a parish we know what that is.  We often talk about the energy that’s at St. Christopher’s, the life that’s here.  What we experience in the exchange between each other.  Our worship is so energizing, our kids are energizing, our caring ministry and outreach, that’s the life giving energy that I think Jesus is talking about in this Gospel.  Not the solid, stay as we are concrete, the energy that is in everything that seems so concrete.  And I think as we are going to transition it would be easy for us to look for the concrete.  Look for that which is going to be stable, look for that which is going to be rock and hold us through.  And the way we would do that is by looking for exact outcomes, having an answer to all questions, being afraid to with each other.  Not being able to trust that God is taking us somewhere.  But the way we would engage in energy, in the creative energy of the Spirit the creative energy of love that Jesus came to show us is by doing the very opposite of those things. It is jumping in like Peter did for better, for worse all throughout his life.  Sometimes making colossal mistakes and sometimes having moments like today of crystal clarity about who Jesus was and trusting this process.  Trusting that in the tiny little spaces that are in each of us and in this parish we acknowledge that and acknowledge that transformed this place.  God will use us as a building stone for the kingdom of God in this place.  Not only in this place but in the world.  That is a really neat image of a rock as something constantly changing.  So what I wonder is that during transition time our motto should be “Rock on, St. Christopher’s.”

         

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