Sermon for Proper 16, August 22, 1999

Trinity Church, Rocky Hill, NJ

Reading: Isaiah 51: 1-6; Romans 11: 33-36; Matthew 16:13-20

I wonder if you remember
the first time
you were given responsibility for something.
Maybe
it was when your mother
gave you a few cents
and sent you into a shop alone
to buy some milk.
And suddenly
you grew three inches
and your eyes were brighter
and your face more serious
than it had ever been before.

Or a teacher at school
asked you to run an errand for her
to another classroom,
and you remember walking importantly across the playground,
knowing that everyone else was hard at work
while you got to skip class,
then overcome with the enormity of the responsibility
knocking hesitantly on the door,
stuttering out the message,
and running back to the safety of your classroom.

Or the neighbor
who asked you to feed and walk his dog for him
when he was out of town for the weekend,
and each morning you went in afraid
that something had happened to it overnight and you would be blamed,
and every afternoon
you strutted round the neighborhood, dog in hand,
making sure that all your friends saw you.
And on Monday at school
every sentence began,
""when I was taking the dog for his walk...""

There is nothing quite like the importance
of responsibility.

It can bring great joy, it can call forth things from within us
which we never knew we had,
and it can be the makings
of a complete
disaster.

Which is what sometimes makes me wonder
if Jesus knew what he was doing
when he said those famous words to Peter:
""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.""

Peter, the same Peter
who just fell in the lake
because he got scared.
Peter, the same Peter
who opened his mouth and blurted out
what perhaps others were thinking
but only he dared to say,
""you are the Christ"".

Peter, impetuous, faithful, enthusiastic, doubting,
a kind of great galumphing golden retriever.
Is he the one
you would trust
with the keys of heaven?

And maybe that''s why he told them to be quiet
Because an announcement like this
would be sure to go to their heads
and in a burst of enthusiasm
impetuous Peter and his friends
would be off
setting the world ablaze
binding and loosing,
forbidding and allowing,
as fast as their tongues could travel
all
in the name
of a Christ
who hadn''t yet
done
what he had come
to do.

To die.

*****
Now you may have heard
that Peter''s name
means rock.
But actually it means a stone, a pebble, a piece of gravel.
So what Jesus says, sound more like
""Peter, look at me.
You are a little stone,
but its on stone
that Im going to build.
Build
not a building made of bricks and wood,
but of people.
And I''m asking you
and you friends
to take responsibility
for this building.
I want you to be the new interpreters,
the people who think about
what should be forbidden
and what should be allowed,
what should be tied up in knots
and what should be set free.
It''s up to you.
Here is the key
to the front door.
Use it well.""

*****
And maybe the reason
he told them to keep quiet
about who he was,
was that he didn''t want word to get out.
He didn''t want them
getting caught up in discussions
over the best way to start a revolution.
He didn''t want fights
over who was the Messiah''s favorite.
He didn''t want them to get distracted
by the prospect of power.
What he did want,
was for them to follow him.
To learn what that building would look like
from the inside,
as they built it together.
To learn that they would be interpreters
not of a law, like the scribes,
but of a life.

It worked for a while.
But it wasn''t too long before
the power overtook the responsibility,
before we got more concerned
with guarding the door
than keeping the house in good repair.
So that it began to fall down,
and sometimes
we find ourselves
still locking and unlocking a heavy wooden door
while people wander in and out of the ruins behind us.

For 2000 years
we''ve been
fighting over
the keys of Peter,
fighting over
who gets to decide, using the key
to create binding laws
rather than freeing people.

But maybe, just maybe
there is hope.

Just this week
one branch of the Lutherans
voted on sharing full communion
with the Episcopal Church.
What that means
is that finally,
after almost 500 years
of each of us being
not quite sure
that the other
was a legitimate child
we''ve decided that yes,
as far as we''re concerned,
we both are.
As far as we''re concerned,
both of us are rightful heirs
of the keys of Peter.

There''s still a long way to go.
In our usual cautious way, we Episcopalians
have to vote again at next year''s General Convention
- we voted in favor last time round, but have to vote again, just to make sure
we haven''t changed our minds.

And even when we pass the vote, it doesn''t mean
that the people at the Lutheran church down the road
are going to climb into their cars every Sunday
and join us here
at Rocky Hill,
or that we are going to trade in our bishops with their lifetime consecration
for a few of theirs
who only serve a limited term....
Though sometimes we might like to!

No, what it means
is that when you go to visit your Lutheran cousin in Minnesota
even though the service is a bit different, you''ll be more at home
than you''ve ever been before, and when your cousin comes here,
we will accept her as one of us.

And when your nephew, who is a Lutheran pastor, comes to visit,
he might be invited to take a service here,
just the same as if he were an Episcopal priest.

In some small towns,
it might mean being able to have
a full time minister
to care for Episcopalian and Lutherans alike,
instead of the two flocks trying to cobble together stable ministry
from volunteers and visitors.

It might mean sharing Vacation Bible Schools, and mission trips,
and outreach programs.

And I think
more than all of that
it might mean
that our eyes are opened to a whole different way
of doing faith.
That we realize
that ours is not the only way:
it''s just our way.
And that faith in Jesus Christ
can look a whole lot different
depending on where you stand.
And that''s okay.
We all need to work together
to keep the building standing.
Some will repair and re-paint the outside walls,
others will fix the plumbing and re-finish the floorboards,
and still others will re-tile the roof.
It will take more
than one vote
at a church convention.
But it''s a beginning.
And we can''t just dump the responsibility
on our leaders,
for we are all inheritors, I believe,
of the keys of Peter.

Heads alone
can''t do the hard work of building. We need fingers and toes,
biceps and quads,
strong backs and keen eyes.
God needs all of us.

Which I guess is the irony of it all.
Because both our epistle and our Old Testament reading
remind us of just the reverse, how incredibly wise God is,
how we can never quite understand the mind of God.
And still
God trusts us
with the church.

Trusts us
to step outside out own preconceived ideas
of how things must be done
to make room for others, who might see things differently.
To make room
for children, skipping with confidence in Jesus who loves them,
and newcomers, just beginning to explore this thing called faith;
for old-timers, rejoicing in the familiar language of the faith
they have known from their childhood,
and teenagers, not sure what, and how, they believe.
For passers-by, who don''t yet know the riches of love and forgiveness that God has to offer them,
and passers-through, who wait on the call of God.

Having the keys of Peter
places a burden on us. It''s a burden
which is terrifying
and wonderful.
It can call forth things from within us
which we never knew we had,
and it can be the makings
of a complete
disaster.

And maybe that''s why
Jesus tells them to be silent.
For in the face of such terror
and such wonder
who can speak?

*****

Amen.

Raewynne J. Whiteley
22 August, 1999