Reflection on the 21st Sunday in Ordinary Time

I have to make a confession to you; I’ve thought about this Gospel for years!  I wondered why Jesus chose Peter for this job of leading His Church. Only lately have I realized, as you might expect, It’s my issue, not His.

In today’s Gospel, Jesus tells Simon that he will be “Peter,” the “rock” upon which He will build His Church. I’ve always wondered what might have been going on in Peter’s mind as Jesus said those words. Maybe he was thinking of the time Jesus took him and some other disciples up the mountain and was transfigured before them. He was so frightened that, out of the blue, he suggested he build three tents, one for Him, Jesus, one for Moses and one for Elijah. In his telling of the story, Luke says Peter was so petrified, he didn’t even know what he was saying. Or we might remember the time when Peter asks Jesus to command him to come to Him across the water. Peter actually steps out of the boat and starts to come to Him on the water, until again he feels the wind in his face and the water crashing around him. He gets frightened and sinks like a rock. And knowing how the story goes, who among us can forget Peter’s three denials of Jesus in the Garden the night before He was crucified. Peter was so afraid to be identified as a friend of Jesus, so petrified, he ran away and hid. 

So, here’s Peter, commissioned by Jesus to be the rock!  He was facing a real dilemma.  Excuse the pun, but he was caught between a rock and a hard place. How could he be a rock, when he was always petrified? 

Unfortunately, this relationship of the word “petrified” and fear is our sort of fall back understanding of the word.  At least it has been for me. 

I’d like you to consider another way of looking at “being petrified.” In my classroom, I always had some interesting things just laying around for the kids to investigate on their own. There might be a magnet or a magnifying glass handy to test or take a closer look. One such item looked every bit like a piece of wood. It was a wedge-shaped sample on which you could clearly see the ring of bark on the curved outer edge and the long fibers of interior heartwood toward the center. But if you picked it up, you could tell immediately, by the heft of it, that it was a rock, not a piece of wood. 

Excuse me if I sound like I’m teaching. There is a geological process called “petrification” that has nothing to do with fear.  It occurs when some object, like a tree or a dinosaur, dies, falls to the ground and is buried rather quickly by some catastrophic event like an earthquake or a flood. Sediments pile up and the once-living thing is buried under greater and greater pressure by the accumulating material. Meanwhile, groundwater, full of delicious dissolved minerals like iron, magnesium, calcium, copper or other goodies, flows through those sediments. Time passes — geologic time, measured in millennia! molecule by molecule, the materials in the wood or bone are replaced by those minerals which solidify in perfect order, an order that precisely reflects the original material:  Molecule by molecule! If you were to take a slice through it and put that slice under a microscope, you could actually identify the genus and species, the reproduction would be that accurate. I believe that’s what happened to Peter. Molecule by molecule, he was transformed into the “rock” that would become the leader of the Church. In the first reading, God says of his servant Eliakim, “I will place the key of the house of David on his shoulder. … I will fix him like a peg in a sure spot.” Jesus believes Peter is the “peg in the sure spot” to lead his Church. In spite of his weaknesses, Jesus knows that Peter is the one. 

In the epilogue to John’s Gospel, after the Resurrection, when the disciples were gathered and Jesus was among them, He asks Peter, “Do you love me?” Each time Peter responds that he does, and Jesus says, “feed my lambs.” The third time Jesus asks him if he loves Him, Peter says, in desperation, “Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you!”— You have seen me at my very worst; and you still know that I love you. Jesus replies, [be my rock], Feed my sheep.” 

This is the beginning of the new Peter. If you read the first three chapters of the Acts of the Apostles, you will see a different Peter. He performs miracles, he is imprisoned and walks out unscathed, he confidently leads the young Church. He has been taken over molecule by molecule with the love of God’s promise. He is a rock, no longer petrified!

As we continue this celebration, let us remember the opening prayer for this 21^st Sunday in Ordinary Time:

O God, who causes the minds of the faithful to unite in a single purpose, grant your people to love what you command, and to desire what you promise, that amid the uncertainties of this world, our hearts may be fixed on that place where true gladness is found.