Matthew 16:13-20
On the day of our wedding, I remember standing in the church with Kim and both our parents gathered around us in a tight little happy circle. I very clearly remember Kim’s mother saying to my mother how hopeful she was that I would get Kim’s life more organized. And I remember the doubtful expression on my mother’s face. “I wouldn’t count on that,” she said. Neither of our mothers had a high opinion of our organizational abilities. I guess, for both of them, prior experiences kept their expectations quite low.
Looking back, I have to assume they prayed for us. a lot.
But I also have to wonder if they were pleasantly surprised later, when we both managed to be pretty normal grownups, who do all kinds of stuff. Successful adults, you might even say. It turned out we both had the ability to respond to the challenges of life and do okay.
Even though neither of our mothers could see it at the time. Sometimes, I guess, the way it is gets in the way of our ability to see how it might be.
In reading the gospels, I often look at the disciples of Jesus and think: what a bunch of numbskulls they are. Hopeless. They can’t seem to learn from experience. Jesus tells them something again and again and they still don’t get it. They watch him feed thousands of people with a few loaves and a couple of fish. Then, the next time they are faced with a hungry crowd they shrug and say, “What? How can anything be done? There’s no way!”
I know, I should be more understanding of them. How were they to know any of these things? All their experiences with Jesus were unlike anything they had experienced before. All the things he taught them were unlike anything they had been taught before. They had no framework for any of this. But still, I think, couldn’t they do better? They were with him all the time. They saw what he was doing. Why would they deny what they saw with their own eyes?
Yet, every once in a while, one of them would blurt out something amazing. Like Peter in this passage: You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God. This is astounding knowledge, an amazing breakthrough.
But in the very next moment, in typical Peter fashion, he says something dumb. Jesus is trying to warn his disciples about the things that will happen to him. But Peter cuts him off and says, “Ah, go on. Are you kidding? That’ll never happen.”
To which Jesus tells Peter, “Get behind me Satan, for you are a stumbling block to me.” So much for the star pupil; so much for this budding leader of the pack. He still doesn’t get it.
The rock upon which Jesus will build his church…he’s not quite there – yet.
Peter is the kind of guy we all probably know. He is sort of impulsive. He says what he is thinking when he is thinking it. No censorship going on in his head, it’s “open mouth, insert foot.” Peter is the guy who jumps right out of the boat when Jesus invites him to walk on water with him, but then goes into a panic when he realizes he is walking on water. Peter is the guy who scoffs at the suggestion that he would ever in a million years deny Jesus. Then within hours, three times, he denies Jesus.
Is he really bedrock material? Has Peter got the stuff that foundations are made of? I’d be more than a little worried. I might be looking at him the way my mother looked at me when I was trying to learn how to burp my firstborn baby: This might not work.
But, in spite of all Peter’s frailties and shortcomings, Jesus sees something in him. Jesus sees potential in this guy called Simon, and he renames him: Peter, the rock. To me, the only rock Peter resembled at that point was the scree at the bottom of the mountain. To Jesus, however, he was the firm foundation. He was the keeper of the keys of the kingdom. In Peter, Jesus saw his church.
It takes some kind of vision to be able to see that. But, of course, he was right. In the book of Acts, we see Peter blossom fully. Peter grows into his full potential.
And it could have been so different. What if Jesus could only see Peter as the guy who makes bad decisions? The guy who says dumb things? The guy who betrays him?
But in spite of all that, Jesus sees that Peter has inside of him all that he will need to be a great apostle. He sees beyond what is and sees what could be. Jesus sees the possible.
This is important for us to realize because it is still just as important for us to practice this kind of vision: to see beyond what is, to see what could be – the possible.
It is important in our own lives. We all go through times when we really don’t know what’s next for us. We find ourselves at a crossroads trying to figure out which way to go. Or worse, we might feel we are at the edge of a cliff, with no way to go. In these moments it is helpful to be able to see the possibilities. To be able to step into the unknown and forge a new and previously unimagined trail for ourselves. To see the possible.
It is also important in our relationships. Perhaps there is someone in your life who feels stuck, unable to move forward. But perhaps you can see some possibility that they cannot yet see for themselves. Perhaps you can help someone begin to envision a future. To see the possible.
But even more, I want to suggest that this is very important for us as the church.
The church has gone through some tough times over the past decades. We have watched numbers of church members, numbers of people who call themselves believers, dwindle. We have watched the aging of our congregations, along with the shrinking. And we have watched the reputation of the church get dragged through the mud – not unjustly. There have been a lot of bad actions by church leaders and a failure to atone for them. It is not a mystery why people have drifted away from the church.
These things cause us to become discouraged. We begin to think like those first disciples when they said, “What? How can anything be done? There’s no way. It’s impossible.”
We believe we can do nothing. We will say we are too small, too old, too tired. When we can no longer do the things we used to do we feel we may as well give up. But what if we, instead of seeing only what is, opened our eyes to what is possible? To see what is not yet but could be?
Think of the butterfly. If we didn’t know anything about the life cycle, no one would ever look at a caterpillar wiggling on the ground and think, “that’s going to be a beautiful butterfly someday.” In fact, no one would even look at a wet, wrinkled newborn butterfly hanging from the remains of the chrysalis and say, “That’s going to open its beautiful wings and fly.” But, miraculously, the potential for all that is within the fuzzy, caterpillar we see wiggling on the dirt.
Don’t we believe that there is just as much miraculous potential in us?
Even back in the day of Isaiah, God was saying, “Look; I am about to do a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.”
Do you not perceive it? Do you not believe it?
It’s all in what we believe. The possibility will be realized when we expect it, prepare for it, claim it.
To see beyond what is and see the possibility of what could be is to live into the future God desires for us.
The church is at a crossroads – in many ways, big and small. On some days it kind of looks like it is at the edge of a cliff, with no way to go but down. But there might be another way. If we are willing, we might be able to spread our wings and fly.
Of course, we’ve never done it that way before, have we? And yet…
Do you believe in the possible? Can you imagine things you have not yet seen?
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Photo by Bankim Desai on Unsplash
