The absolute worst words someone could say to me are the words “I am so disappointed in you.” Sure, lots of words come a close second like “I hate you,” “you are dumb,” “no getting up from this table until you finish your lima beans,” but the worst words are those that suggested that I was once in a good place, and now I’m in a bad. The words, “I’m so disappointed in you,” not only shrink me down to the size of a walnut, but also remind me that I’ve got the whole world duped into thinking that I’m somehow better or smarter or kinder than I actually am. “I’m so disappointed in you” means that people expected more from me, and I didn’t deliver. “I’m so disappointed in you” means that at one point, I’d gotten it right, I’d hit the mark, I’d set the bar even higher for who I could be. And then, I missed. Those six little words, “I am so disappointed in you,” are enough to crush me.
That’s the trouble with us perfectionists out there. There’s never a landing, never a rest, never a place to be done striving to be perfect. There’s always going to be more perfect than perfect. There’s always going to be an opportunity to do better, to get better, to never rest until you’ve reached the 4.0, the perfect 10, the fastest time. There’s always room to get faster, better, smarter. So you never get there, you keep striving, and folks begin to expect more.
Well, I guess you can tell what I spend most of my time talking about with my therapist.
So when I put myself in Peter’s shoes. I am devastated. Shrunk down. Cowering. Silenced.
Jesus has told Peter, “I am so disappointed in you.”
But where Peter and I part ways is where I run back home with my tail between my legs. It’s where I give up trying because I got an answer wrong. “Well, that’s it,” I think, “If I can’t be perfect then I don’t want to be anything at all.” But Peter, somehow, Peter sticks around. He’s just been called Satan, not just as an insult, but as the-thing-itself. Harkening back to his temptations in the wilderness, Jesus tells Peter, “Away from me Satan!” “Get behind me, Satan!” And if I were Peter, I’d be absolutely crushed. I got the answer wrong. I failed the test. Worst of all, I’d hurt my friend. Worst of worst of all, I’d lost the love of the one whom I longed for the most, the one who was not only the hope of the whole world, but the hope of my whole world as well. Lost. For good. There’s no un-ringing that bell.
There’s this jump in the narrative after this encounter. Six days. For six days, we don’t know what happened between Peter and Jesus.
Was there steely silence?
Did they talk it through?
Did Peter apologize?
Did they take it outside, or stand back to back and walk out their ten paces?
Did they duke it out?
Or did Jesus put Peter in time out? Make him sit at the opposite end of the table? Give him dish duty or make him clean out the latrines? Wear the dunce cap? Give back his gold star?
What were those six days like? What happened after this horrible rupture between Jesus and Peter?
Think back to those moments in your life when you were hurt, or when you’d hurt someone, and you thought the breech would never be repaired.
Did you need some time to cool down?
Did you need to talk it out right then?
Did you walk away? Did you give up?
Did you draw a line in the sand and say, “Unless you come to my side, we’re done, that’s it, no more”?
There are some folks who have hurt us so badly that we will never talk to them again. We have struck them out of our lives forever. And sometimes, that truly is what needs to happen, but that’s not what happened between Peter and Jesus. Somehow, some repair was made. Because six days later, Peter is back with Jesus, hiking up the mountain, watching him be transfigured right before his eyes. Six days after this horrible rupture in their relationship, Jesus reveals a deeper and more intimate part of himself to Peter than he’s ever seen before.
Whatever happened in those six days are absolutely crucial to the survival of absolutely every relationship we have. Whatever happened in those six days is enough to repair our broken relationships, enough to invite people back to the church, enough to stem this great exodus of folks who have had enough of this perfectionist faith.
Just last week, Peter had been given the keys to the kingdom. He’d received the royal blessing. He’d gotten the answer right, and was given all the goods and benefits entitled thereof. Maybe, after this difficult confrontation, Peter comes back on his hands and knees to return them all. “Here are your keys, Jesus.” “Here’s the authority.” “Here is the leadership of the church to come.” He puts it all in a cardboard box and leaves it at Jesus’s doorstep while he mopes off into the night. But if he does, it doesn’t work. Peter doesn’t return his keys. He doesn’t leave or quit or hide. Instead, Peter tears up his resignation letter. Something happens because six days later, Peter is back with Jesus, climbing mountains, witnessing miracles, seeing visions, and yes, still saying stupid things.
Now, I’m no expert. I don’t know what it’s going to take to repair all the ruptures we’ve made in the church as a whole. Maybe some things that have been broken can’t be put back together again. But I am heartened and encouraged by the fact that six days later, the founder and bedrock of our Church is back with Jesus, relationship repaired, maybe deepened even, and Peter is given more and more opportunities to try to get it right, but most importantly, to fail and try again. I have a hunch that this is the key - Peter’s key - to whatever is to come next for the Christian Church.
People have left the church, not because the music wasn’t traditional or modern, not because the Eucharist was celebrated by intinction or passed out in little squares and cups. People have left the church because somebody, somewhere, broke something. A rupture was made. And instead of those six days of repair, we walked away from each other, we gave up. We dug our heals in and insisted that we were right. We pushed forward pursuing perfection and left all the Peters behind. All the Peters who asked the questions and doubted the doubts. All the Peters who made mistakes and blundered their final exams. We’ve forgotten that we’re all Peters - getting it a little bit right sometimes, and then really messing it up all the other times.
We keep thinking that if we “build it, they will come.” If we just have the right programming, or the best music, or the perfect sermons, then people will come back to church. But Jesus tells us that the church isn’t built on Sunday Schools or smoke machines or laser light shows or even high worship; the church is built on rupture and repair. If we can do that well, people will come, not because we’ve figured it all out or gotten it right or our test scores are the highest, but because we’re people, people who’ve messed up and then done the work to repair. We’ve done whatever work Jesus and Peter did during those six days between the brokenness and the transfiguration.
The church is built on Peter, yes. And us. You are Peter. And I am Peter. The church is built on the whole of us. Our ruptures and our repairs.
Folks aren’t going to come back to the church until we do whatever work was done in those six days. Brokenness. Reconciliation. Screwing up. Making amends. Rupture. Repair. That is the work of the Church in the 21st century.
And this is hard, painful work. It’s work that requires us carrying our crosses, denying ourselves. It means getting into a little bit of trouble. Being vulnerable. Taking the risk.
I think that Peter, in those six days, learned something about how this isn’t all about him, or about his ideals, it’s not about what he wants. When we work to repair, we all lose a little bit of ourselves. In compromise. In humility. In the work of saying, “I’m so sorry.” But if we want to save our lives, we’ll lose them. We’ll take six days or six months or six years and we’ll do the work. We’ll do the work of repair. We won’t give up. We’ll keep showing up. With our full selves. And then we’ll set those selves aside so that we can truly see the other, we can feel their pain, see things from their perspective, and then their crosses will become our crosses. And we’ll carry them. And we will find life abundant. Life abundant in our churches. Life abundant in our relationships. Rupture and Repair are the stones upon which the church is Built. And if we let it, they can be the stones upon which our church will grow.
Can we listen to the cries of the folks out there who say, “Church, I am so disappointed in you.”? Can we bear to hear it? And to take the risk to try to repair it? And then to take even more risk in messing up again? This is what Peter does. This is the very foundation of our church.
What if the future of the church, somehow, depends upon the death of the church? What did those six days look like? All I know is that they looked like rupture and repair.
Thanks be to God.
