Like a Rock

The Kingdom of Heaven is like the foundation of a great building – there are many stones, side by side, that hold it all together, and the building, in spite of many assaults, many earthquakes, many storms, remains standing because of the foundation. A foundation built on faith.
The first of those stones was Jesus and the next was Peter.
Of all the disciples, Peter is, perhaps the one that each of us can find something in which to identify. He’s less than perfect, he struggles to understand Jesus, has great ‘aha!’ moments where he finally gets it; he has moments of weakness and stupidity, he’s not afraid to speak up – remember when he sniped at Jesus, “Look, we’ve given up everything to follow you!” - and yet, when the final accounting is made, he is strong and sure, his love is evident. He’s a corner stone.
As Christians, we can add ourselves to this foundation – and why not? Don’t we possess similar qualities and strengths, weaknesses, as Peter? Who among us, if Jesus showed up at six o’clock some Tuesday night and asked, ‘But who do you say I am?’ would not echo Peter’s response, his confession of faith?
What makes us Christians? Our belief that Jesus is the Messiah. Our faith.
This morning’s Gospel is called “Peter’s Confession of Faith,” and it follows the miracles of the loaves and fishes, and Jesus’ walk on the Sea of Galilee. The author of Matthew tells us that after the walk, the disciples worshipped Jesus and proclaimed him Son of God. Simon Peter takes it up a notch. He says that Jesus is indeed the Messiah. This is the first time that a disciple has used this title. This confession leads to a blessing, a charge, and a new identity.
It begins when Peter becomes the first person to make what the first Christian Confession of Faith. Something new is happening, something new is being built—a foundation of love that will become the body of Christ, the church, by the will of God, and by the power of God, led first by Christ, and then his apostles, and now us.
Jesus gives Peter something more than new responsibility. A new name. To give a name is to bestow an identity. A name tells people who and what you are, your ancestry. To change a person’s name, as God changed Abram’s name to Abraham, and Jacob’s name to Israel, and now Simon Peter, was to alter that person’s identity, relationships, and mission.
Simon bar Jonah becomes Cephas, or Petros – the rock. Upon this rock Jesus gives responsibility and mission – to lead the disciples after his death and resurrection. He has a new purpose, a new identity.
Scripture refers to God as a rock (Genesis 49:24; Deuteronomy 32; 1 Samuel 2:2; 22; Psalm 18, 28, 31, 42, 62, 71, 78, 89, 92, etc.) Isaiah also refers to Abraham and Sarah as a rock: "Look to the Rock from which you were hewn, and to the quarry from which you were dug. Look to Abraham your father, and to Sarah who bore you" (Isaiah 51:1-2). Given these associations, Jesus does great honor to Peter when he calls him the rock. I’ll throw this into the mix to get you thinking: is the “rock” actually the faith that Peter exhibits when he makes this confession, or Peter? Or both?
We become stones in the foundation all in time and it comes when we are baptized, and when we pronounce the Creed. If you look at the Baptismal Covenant on pages 304 and 305 of the Prayer Book, you will see that the charges made to those being baptized are exhortations to obey, serve and lead in Christ’s name and with God’s help. Similar, perhaps, to the charges Jesus gave Peter. When we answer, “I will” to the questions presented to us, and act upon them, building blocks are added to that set down by Jesus, Peter, the apostles, of all the faithful, and it makes the church stronger. As Paul states in his letter to the Romans, each of us has a gift that differs according to the grace bestowed on us – ministry, teaching, giving, loving, to name a few – and they are the stones, too, that build the body of Christ.
Like Peter, we are rock solid, and there are times when we are stumbling blocks; but the building remains intact. With the strength of our faith, our love of God in Christ, the walls are solid, stable; the church still stands and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it.

Go in peace and keep building the church,

Ellen+

So Much More than Loaves and Fishes

Do you remember the folk tale, Stone Soup? A stranger enters a village in the dead of winter with a pot slung over his back; he sets up a fire in the market square and drops a pebble into the pot, adds water, and . . . . nothing! An old woman watches him from her window, as do most of the villagers, I guess, and while he stirs the water, he wishes that he had a turnip to improve the flavor of the broth. The old woman she thinks she has a turnip past its expiration date somewhere in the vegetable bin, and there it is. She tosses it in the pot. He thanks her, adding that the perfect thing to compliment a stone and turnip would be a carrot, a few more vegetables. Miraculously, the old woman just happens to have a soft onion somewhere – the skin needed to be peeled back and the bad parts cut off, but it would do, wouldn’t it? And the carrots – well, her old pony won’t mind giving them up, there’d be more tomorrow. The onion is joined by a bit of meat, a potato, some chicken bones for flavor – the ones you save to make stock with. Neighbors come by when the good smell of broth simmering drifts through the village; they dig around in their kitchens and drop something they just happen to find in a cupboard or in a bag or barrel, until everyone gathers around to enjoy a wonderful, hearty, meal – all from a pebble and some water.
Somewhere in the story, did you hear Jesus whispering, “You give them something to eat?”
I used this folk tale because the characters and the plot reminded me of the Gospel this morning – it’s an example of how God works by faith and action. The Gospel acts out the parables in Chapter 13 – the loaves and fishes are like a mustard seed – a little goes a long way; they’re like leaven hidden in the loaf; the Disciples fail to recognize the food hiding almost secretly in the midst of the crowd.
The stranger gets people to act by invitation and necessity; Jesus acts out of compassion and asks the Disciples to do the same. The crowds need not go away, the Disciples have food; they will give the crowds their supper. When they opened up their lunch boxes and found five loaves of bread and two fish. They’d need more than that to feed over five thousand people. Maybe they scratched their heads and looked at each other – you know, that look when everyone but the person asking the question thinks he or she is right. One can only imagine what Peter was thinking – or saying. But let’s give a back story to this scripture. This event follows the death of John the Baptist at Herod’s birthday feast – a bit different than the feast described here in Chapter 14. Jesus has spent the day preaching – perhaps one of the longest sermons ever offered, and, he’s been healing all those people. When he learns of John the Baptist’s death, he goes off by himself – and the crowds follow; they just won’t go home. Matthew’s text doesn’t state that the crowd was hungry and wanted something to eat, but it does say that the disciples wanted the people to go away and find their supper elsewhere. Here we have one of those moments when being disciples of Christ, of being members of the Body, seems utterly impossible or hopeless, and we look to the pragmatic, the logical, what’s in front of our noses for answers.
So Jesus tells the disciples not only what they do not want to hear, but what they cannot fathom: “They need not go away; you give them something to eat.” Rather than argue the point further, the disciples give Jesus the loaves and fishes. Jesus looked to heaven and took the bread, blessed it, broke it, and gave it to his disciples, who in turn gave the bread to the crowds. There was plenty to eat, everyone was fed, and there were leftovers.
This miraculous feeding is repeated in all of the gospels and that very fact is evidence of the importance of this story to the early Christians as it should be to Christians now: it is the foretaste of the Last Supper and gives us elements of the Eucharist in the orderly arrangement of people, the prayer of blessing, the act of breaking bread and the distribution of the bread to all assembled. It is a call to community. The Table has become more than just an outward and visible sign of Christ’s compassion. Fed at this Table, we the faithful work and serve in a world where sharing our resources, our ministries is one way to express our willingness to believe, to take chances against the norm and live and proclaim the Gospel.
What we should note here is not only the miraculous feeding of the five thousand, but the call to action and mission.
Jesus sent The Twelve out with authority to teach, preach, heal, and we see it at work as they distribute the bread and the fish. They are models for us as they follow the instructions Jesus gives – no matter how impossible it may seem. Perhaps the miracle is that when we trust in the love of God through Christ, completely give ourselves over to that love, we can make things that seem impossible very real in our lives and the lives of those we touch.
A stranger comes to town and invites the people to share a soup they make together – from very little comes an abundance of food and love. The disciples’ five loaves and two fish seem to be lacking in quantity, yet over five thousand people had their fill. No one was turned away. There is enough of God’s love to go around.
And now, my friends, come to this table, and you will have something to eat. It is only a little bit of bread and wine, but it is so much more.