Rocks and Blocks, or, Jenn is a Labrador Retriever

Go to here first! Matthew 16:21-28

 Well, we’re here. We’ve come to it, finally. The point where Peter really…makes a really big mistake…to put it delicately. It’s that point in our story that we know is coming, but we still cringe when it happens. He was doing so well there for a second. He’d gotten it right. He’d raced to the head of the class. He’d earned the gold star, the pat on the back, the A+, he’s brought the apple for the teacher. But now, he’s failed the class. He’s gets the dunce hat. He’s sent to the corner. He’s scolded, rebuked, and sent to the end of the line. “Get behind me, Satan!” Jesus responds. And it’s as if I can feel Peter cowering before him, like a dog before a rolled up newspaper. 

I mean, how does Peter survive such a rebuke? 

I mean, the absolute worst thing that could be said to me, the most horrific experience I could ever have is for someone that I loved, someone I looked up to, someone I adored, to tell me, “I am so disappointed in you.” And Peter gets this? He’s called Satan?

I remember, once, in first grade, my teacher, Sister Bernadine, caught me talking to a neighbor during the afternoon announcements. She silently walked over to the chalkboard and wrote my name underneath Christopher and Jason, the class troublemakers, in her formal cursive script. She didn’t say a word. Tears welled up in my eyes. I tried to keep it together, I really did. But rarely, once I get started, am I able to get myself back under control. Someone removes a tiny pebble from the dam holding it all together, and that’s all it takes to tear down the entire structure, water gushing in every direction with all of its pent up force. I was in trouble. Sister Bernadine was disappointed in me. I’d made a poor choice. My perfect record was now marred. I was just like all the other trouble makers, all the other mistake makers. 

I’m a Labrador retriever. I’m loyal. I’m trustworthy. I want to please. I’ll do practically anything for a treat or a compliment. All I really want to do is curl up with my favorite person on the couch and get scratched behind the ears and be told that I’m a “good girl.” And if I’ve done something wrong, I rush to fix it. I’ll make it right. Whatever it takes. I’ll bring you a meal. I’ll do your laundry. I’ll apologize profusely and paw at your leg to make sure that you’ve accepted my apology. I’ll sit at your feet, big puppy dog eyes looking up, just waiting for the moment when you look down at me and ask, “who’s a good girl?” And then you grab the fetching stick and take me out to the backyard. 

I’ve lived most of my life like that. Terrified to make a mistake. Terrified to disappoint. Terrified to make a poor choice or say the wrong thing or hurt someone’s feelings. I became a “people pleaser.” I’d sit back, watch intently, feel all of the emotions in the room, and then choose to do whatever somebody else needed. 

I’d focus all of my energy into anticipating people’s needs, meeting them before they even knew they had them, soothing any uncomfortable feelings before they were even felt. Always sensitive to the slightest look of disapproval, I thought that if I could just avoid doing anything wrong, avoid making a mistake or choosing the wrong thing or being the first in line at the buffet, I’d avoid all uncomfortable confrontations. If I could avoid saying the wrong things, if I kept my head down and never dared to take a risk,  I’d be ok. I’d be accepted and loved. I’d avoid rejection and all the hard stuff that comes with it. 

I was desperate to get it right. To get it all right. Parenting and politics and social justice and money management and relationships and climate activism. Every moment, every choice, was balanced on the edge of a knife. One wrong move, one wrong step, and the whole thing would come crashing down. My life was a series of building blocks, one set precariously on top of the other, and I’d hardly breathe for fear that one wrong move would send the whole thing tumbling down. I wanted to do right. I wanted to be moral. I wanted to please and I wanted to be chosen. And most of all, I wanted to be included. So I filled my life with nevers and always and shoulds. I tiptoed across life. I walked on eggshells of my own making. Because, oh gosh, what would happen if I screwed up? What would I do if I made a mistake? Nothing would ever be right. Nothing would ever be the same again.

Sometimes, when Dan and I go for a walk together, I won’t watch where I’m going. I won’t pick up my feet high enough, and I’ll get caught on the seems of the sidewalk, or I’ll trip over the tiniest pebble in my path. “Trip spots” I’d call them. And then I’d laugh at myself for my own clumsiness, my unique ability to let even the smallest things catch me up, scuff up my shoes, have me reaching out, hands first, to catch my fall. 

Those same blocks, those same bricks, those same cornerstones are also the same things that trip us up, have us going tail over teakettle, scraping our knees, scuffing our elbows, kissing the pavement. All the good intentions, all of my desire to avoid hurting feelings, to serve others, to please God, to avoid mistakes, became a stumbling block for me. Just like Peter, the rock upon whom Jesus will build his church becomes the rock that trips Jesus up. These “trip spots” come out of nowhere, when we least expect them, even when we think we are so sure footed, so confident that we know where we’re going and what to expect. 

But some things are unforgivable. Or they feel that way. Like there’s no coming back from what we’ve just done. Even when they come from our best intentions. Or what we think are our best intentions, but usually come from some form of wrong thinking. The depression hits hard, and we think everyone would be better off without us. Or we go the extra mile and end up spraining our ankles. Or we say yes to someone else’s need and find ourselves sinking in our own quicksand. Or we avoid the uncomfortable conversation and it builds up until we’re shouting and saying things that we don’t mean. Sometimes we do things that can’t be repaired with a hopeful wagging of our tails. 

Sometimes we do things that can’t be fixed with a time out or a wooden spoon to the rear.  Sometimes, like Peter, we say or do things in the name of avoiding suffering, only to cause more suffering. 

If Jesus had said to me what he’d said to Peter, I don’t know what I’d do. I’d skulk back into the shadows, my tail between my legs, tears streaming down my face. If I’d reached too close to the stove, and my mom swatted my hand back in fear of me getting hurt, I’d be so ashamed at my actions that I couldn’t hear or feel the love behind her terror. I’d be scolded in the name of my protection, but I wouldn’t hear the protection, only the absolute, total and complete condemnation of my very self. I didn’t just do something wrong. I was wrong. 

But no. Not Peter. Somehow he preserves himself, he hears the love behind Jesus’ reprimand, he goes off, licks his wounds and then comes back for another round. 

How does Peter keep going? How does he keep showing up? How does he keep trying over, again and again and again? Even after he’s royally screwed up? I mean, what keeps him from cowering into the corner, from packing his bags and going back home to his fishing and his net mending and his quiet life by the sea? How does he hold on to himself, hold on to Jesus’s love for him, even while he’s being scolded, even while his hand is swatted back because he got too close to the fire? 

Well. I think, he’s stubborn for one thing. 

And he knows his stories. He knows that all of the major characters in the Hebrew Scriptures, from Abraham, to Jacob, from Moses and David, are all screw ups in their own right. And yet. And still. God uses them, God’s stubborn love sticks with them through all of the cycles of failure, repentance, forgiveness, and reconciliation. Peter has heard the stories. He’s learned from their mistakes. And he’s paid attention as God comes back, again and again, to adjust, to reform, to revive and set these guys on the right path again.

And Peter’s malleable. He’s changeable. 

He’s open to being molded and formed, and like a pile of clay that hasn’t been centered just right, he’s open to being smooshed down again, thrown back on the wheel, ready to be spun and formed and soaked and smoothed back up again. 

And somehow, he is absolutely sure of Jesus’s love for him, so much so, that he has the audacity to keep coming back, to keep trying again, to keep showing up, as he is.  

Jesus scolds Peter, using the harshest of terms. And somehow, Peter hangs in there. Somehow he hears the love behind the rebuke. Somehow he shows up again, ready to hike up the mountain, ready to build three temples at the top in honor of Jesus, Moses and Elijah. Ready to see Jesus shining like the sun and ready to fall flat on his face when he hears the voice of God. Ready to follow Jesus to the cross, where he’ll screw up yet again and deny him three times. Ready to jump out of his boat half naked at the sight of him, swimming to shore, ready to share a meal and confess his love for him. Ready to bear his own cross. Ready to give up his life for the sake of his church, for the sake of his Jesus.

Somehow a repair is made. A brokenness that has shattered the relationship is sealed together again. Peter is cut to the quick, cut to the core, and he still finds a way to get back up again. 

The Gospel of Matthew doesn’t tell us how, but somehow, in the space between the rebuke and the reality of Jesus’ suffering and death, Peter holds on. He doesn’t let the rebuke disqualify what is at his very heart - that Jesus loves him, will always love him, no matter how many times things fall apart and are sewn back together again. What would happen if we were to do that for each other? 

What if when things break apart, we stuck with it long enough for the repair to be made, long enough for us to keep practicing rupture and repair, long enough for us to keep screwing up and hurting each other, but then coming back together, mending the seams, welding the joints, gluing us back together again? 

The thing that tears us from each other can be the thing that brings us back together. The thing that breaks our heart can be the thing that binds it back together again. The pain, or the mistake, or the brokenness is where the light shines through. The stumbling block can become the rock upon which everything else is built.

That’s what happens to Peter. That’s what happens on the cross.

Once in my relatively conservative Christian college, I was taking a World Religions class. The professor was small in stature, but his presence took up the whole room when he taught. He’d challenge us and convict us and try to teach us an entirely new way of looking at things. I was terrified of him. But there was something about him, a lightness, an enthusiasm, a joy, that came from somewhere other than the praise and worship bands and the chapel talks and the other chaplains and professors who were there to give us all the right answers. He tugged us out of our evangelistic stupors and got us to ask the hard questions. I wanted to impress him. I wanted him to like me. Well, one day, he returned an exam to me with barely a flick of the wrist, without a hint of eye contact. 

And written at the top of the exam, in his scrawling, messy, red ink, were the words, “I am afraid that you are hopelessly lost in my class.” 

The tears welled up in my eyes. I ran back to my dorm room full of rage and self righteous anger. I vented to my roommate and excoriated this professor for his faulty pedagogy and his heretical attitude and his haughty, judgmental pride. Then after I wore myself out with lashing out at him, I proceeded to beat myself up. Maybe I wasn’t smart enough for his class. Maybe I was a failure. Maybe he was right. Maybe I was hopelessly lost. I was all wrong. I was broken. 

I don’t know what it was. But something, something made me get up the next morning, pull on my torn jeans, tuck my hair behind my ears, and walk over to the professor’s office hours. His door was open, his back to me. He was hunched over a book, and his office was cluttered and full of Krishnas and Buddhas, brass Shivas and tiny clay cups. I knocked lightly on his door. “Hello?” I said tentatively, my heart somewhere up near my throat. He turned around. He looked a little surprised. “I don’t want to be hopelessly lost,” I said. “I care about this course and I want to do better. Tell, me, how can I do better?” He smiled. “Pull up a seat” he said. 

Later, I’d call him “guru.” I’d call him “Chacha,” which means Uncle. He’d bring home the ring from India that Dan would give me that summer. He’d take me to India and show me how things are made sacred just by the touching. I’d ask more dumb questions. I’d get off track. I’d make assumptions and come to my own conclusions and he’d show me the folly of my ways. We’d drink beer and I’d visit his house, and he’d tell me stories and he’d say how glad he was that I came back, that I came to his office, that I tried again.

Thanks be to God.