Change

[Earlier this month, our rector at St. Christopher's, Father Bill Anderson, announced his retirement at the end of the month. Our lessons were Exodus 1:8-20, Psalm 124, Romans 12:1-8, and Matthew 16:13-20.]

I’ve always liked St. Peter. He could come up with the most incredible revelation one moment and follow it up with the most off-the-wall comment in the next. A couple of weeks ago, we read how he impetuously got out of the boat to follow Jesus across the water. I remember cartoons from my childhood, like the Roadrunner, where the Coyote can walk off a cliff and stay up until he realizes he’s not on solid ground and down he falls. Peter was like that; when he saw that he was on the water, his fears overcame him and he started to sink. It was Peter who impulsively wished to build three tabernacles on the mountain of the Transfiguration; it was Peter who, just before the crucifixion, three times denied knowing Jesus.

But it was also Peter who, after Pentecost, risked his life to do the Lord’s work, speaking boldly of his belief in Jesus. It was also Peter, the Rock, whose strength and courage helped the young Church in its questioning about the mission beyond the Jewish community. He was first opposed to the baptism of Gentiles. But he had the grace to change, and to baptize the Roman centurion Cornelius and his household. Finally, tradition holds that Peter fled from Rome during Nero’s persecution. On the Appian Way, he is supposed to have met Christ who was heading toward Rome. Jesus told Peter, “I am coming to be crucified again.” Peter thereupon returned to Rome, and was shortly thereafter crucified, head downwards at his insistence. He said, “I am not worthy to be crucified as my Lord was.”

With his stumbling and his failures, Peter reminds us that even the chief of the Apostles was just as human, just as fallible as you and I. Jesus did not come among us to save the strong and godly, but the weak and the sinful—us.

This statement of Peter: “You are the Messiah, the Son of the Living God!” is called the Confession of Peter. It even has its own date on our calendar—January 18. He is the first person to name Jesus as the hope of Israel. Before this, other than God, only demons had known who Jesus was.

Jesus’ response is famous: “I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.”

This raises all sorts of questions of authority and our Roman cousins cite this as the basis for the authority of Peter’s successor as the Bishop of Rome—the Pope. I remember in 1978 finding it a curious coincidence that the day after Cardinal Albino Luciani was elected Pope John Paul I, I went to my Episcopal church and heard this passage read.

Of course, as Anglicans, we don’t accept the Roman interpretation that this reading gives a universal authority to the Pope. But it is important to us even so.

First, Peter—Simon up to now—is given a new name. Until this point, there is no record of the word for “rock”—“Cephas” in Aramaic or etros” in Greek—being used as a person’s name. Throughout Scripture, the changing of a person’s name is significant—Abram to Abraham, Jacob to Israel, Saul to Paul—because in that culture, when your name changed, you were changed.

Peter is the rock upon which the Church is built by the Lord. The other Apostles, the Fathers of the Church (and the Mothers), and all the saints of God have built and are still building up the Church in love and faith. One commentator said that Peter is “Rocky I” and so, you are “Rocky 5 Billion” with the same director, the same plot and a larger cast. Even as Peter was called, so are we. Through us, Christ continues to be present to his world.

This Church is more than buildings, more than organizational structures like Dioceses and Provinces. It is more than a group of people sitting and worshipping with us today. It is a divine mystery greater than we can imagine reaching throughout space and time joining us all together—a Jewish fisherman in the First Century in Palestine and a lay preacher in Georgia in the 21st Century—in a continuity of faith, tradition, of doctrine, and of people.

That continuity is what we will refer to momentarily in the Creed when we say we belong to “one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church”. We claim a connection to the Apostles, most notably through our bishops, whose consecrations are traceable back in a nearly unbroken line to the Apostles. With each baptism, each new birth into the Church, Jesus makes us a new “Peter”, a new rock upon which the Church is built.

Fr. Herbert O’Driscoll uses a wonderful image for this. His idea is to look at all of the last 20 centuries as concentric circles of time. We are in the very outermost circle, farthest away from the center—and at the center is the Cross. We are brought into the circle, into the faith, in large part because somewhere, somehow, someone in the circle just before ours took us by the hand and said, “come,” and so drew us in. That is one very important reason why we are here. That person was able to do this for us because someone had taken him or her by the hand and had drawn that person in. And so on, through all the centuries, hands are held through all of those circles. Until we reach the place where a very few of those hands were held by hands touched by the mark of nails. So we hold hands touched by nails. In this way, Christ builds his church; such is the gift we have been given.

Remember what else Jesus says about His Church: “The Gates of Hades shall not prevail against it.” No matter what happens, for good or for evil, God’s Church will prevail; we have that promise. This doesn’t necessarily mean that a particular parish or denomination will survive and prevail, but that at its most fundamental level, the Church will never fail. I find that very comforting when I think of all the things we men and women do and have done on a daily basis to destroy it.

I spoke a few minutes ago about a change; a change in Simon’s name to Peter, a change of great importance in that culture. We at St. Christopher’s are about to begin a process of change ourselves. Next week, we will say goodbye to Bill and Jane Anderson as they end their ministries among us—but not as our friends—and begin the exciting and terrifying process of examining ourselves and finding the right man or woman to join us as we move this parish into its second 50 years. This is Change with a capital C!

We generally don’t like change. We have our comfort zones—our boats, as it were. Father Bill is a known commodity to us. I can assure you, from the position of someone who serves at the Altar, it’s a lot easier to serve a familiar friend. We don’t like change.

On a summer day in 1995, I listened to the radio in my office in San Antonio, Texas, as the Base Closure Commission voted to close the Air Force base I worked at. The place where I worked was going away! Change with a capital C! I could have moaned about how I hated change and what would we do and felt sorry for myself. I didn’t do that. Instead, I accepted that change would come and opened myself up to new possibilities, including a move to middle Georgia. My family and I have found a home that we love far more than our home in Texas; a community of which we feel so much more a part of than we did in San Antonio; a parish which has over the last nine years opened itself to us in good times and hard times, and which has given me opportunities to grow in new directions in ways I could never have imagined! All this because, when change was inevitable (and, by the way, it always is), I was open to the opportunities to grow that change presents.

Change is coming to St. Christopher’s. It always is, to be honest, but it’s more obvious today. It is critical that we look for ways to make that change positive. We will then find new opportunities to grow in faith that we cannot imagine today. And you know what? So will Bill and Jane Anderson!

On the wall of one of the classrooms in my Illinois high school so many years ago was a quote from the former UN Secretary General, Dag Hammarskjöld,

For all that has been — Thanks. For all that shall be — Yes.

Always say “Yes” to that which will come. For our Christian faith is a faith of change, not a conservative one. When we pray, “Your kingdom come,” we are praying for incredible, monumental change, so that we will be in a place where God’s redistributive justice is always done, the poor are raised up, the hungry are fed, and the captives are freed. The Resurrection is change, change to the previous finality of death. As Christians, we should welcome change; we should embrace change; we must work to bring change about.

Let us pray:

Almighty Father, who inspired Simon Peter, first among the apostles, to confess Jesus as Messiah and Son of the living God: Keep your Church steadfast upon the rock of this faith, so that in unity and peace we may proclaim the one truth and follow the one Lord, our Savior Jesus Christ; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.