Sermon on Peter the Enthusiast – Lena UMC, October 4, 2015

As you may know, my wife Christin is the youth ministry director at Lena United Methodist Church, in Lena, Illinois. While Pastor Brian was on vacation, I had the privilege and joy of leading worship for two weeks, on October 4 and October 11.

This congregation doesn’t regularly follow the lectionary, so having the opportunity to preach on whatever I wanted, I chose to focus on the apostle Peter for both weeks. The sermon texts for October 4 were Luke 5:1-11 and Matthew 16:13-23.

Grace and peace be with you, from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

I want you to think about someone you know who’s an overachiever. Can you think of someone who always has an answer, even if they’re not sure what the question was? Just in case it’s someone who’s in this room, don’t point to them or anything, just think of someone who’s a little over-enthusiastic.

Today, I want to focus on one of my favorite characters from the Bible, someone who I picture as just a little too enthusiastic, kind of wanting to be a bit of an overachiever. In case you missed it from the two readings Jackie just read, today we’re going to focus on the story of Peter.

Peter’s one of my favorite Bible characters because when you read through all the stories about him, it seems like he’s so excited to be involved in this great adventure with Jesus, but he doesn’t always quite know what’s going on.

The first thing we find out about Peter is that he’s a professional fisherman. Oh, and his name’s not Peter. It’s Simon. As the story starts, Jesus is by the shore of the lake surrounded by a crowd of people, and he borrows Simon’s boat to use as a platform to address the crowd. Then when Jesus finishes preaching, he’s ready to do some fishing, maybe as a way of saying thanks to Simon for the use of the boat. Jesus tells Simon to go out in the deep water and put out the nets.

Simon, who’s cleaning his nets after finishing up his work shift, says, “No. It won’t work. The fish just aren’t biting today.” But then Simon illustrates his best quality. He says to Jesus, “Yet if you say so, I will let down the nets.”

And then he does it. He doesn’t know what’s going on, he doesn’t see how this will work, but he’s willing to give it a shot. And it works. They get so many fish their boat starts to sink, which is a great problem for fishermen.

And Simon falls down at Jesus’ knees, saying “Go away from me, Lord; I am a sinful man.” He’s overwhelmed. He realizes that Jesus has come to him, and he’s not worthy. I don’t know if he understands yet that Jesus is God, but he knows something special is going on, and he’s not worthy to be part of it. Maybe you’ve had moments where you’ve felt unworthy of what God’s done for you, or like you aren’t good enough to get involved with what God’s up to.

But Jesus comforts him, telling him not to be afraid. Simon and his partners see what happened, and they abandon their boats right there on shore, leave everything and follow him.

He abandons everything in his life, quits his job right there, and follows this guy he’s never met before, this miracle-worker, Jesus. So we know from the first time we meet him that Simon’s a bit impulsive. Faithful, but impulsive.

In the second story we heard, from Matthew 16, Jesus and his disciples are having a conversation and Jesus asks them what people are saying about him on the street. What hashtags is he trending for?

They tell him others are comparing him to John the Baptist, or Elijah, or a prophet, and he says ok, what about you? Who do you say I am?

Simon, of course, jumps in right away to share his opinion. I can picture him eagerly raising his hand and Jesus saying, “Yes, Simon?”

As I was getting ready for this morning, I thought as a Lutheran preaching to Methodists I might need all the help I could get, so I looked up what John Wesley says in his commentary on this verse. He diplomatically describes Peter as “generally the most forward to speak.” But here, Peter gets it absolutely right. He says to Jesus, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.”

Two chapters earlier, in Matthew 14, there’s this story where the disciples are in a boat and Jesus miraculously walks out on the water. Simon sees Jesus, gets excited, climbs out of the boat and starts to walk on the water.

He has all this faith in Jesus, trusting that when he gets out of the boat he’ll be able to walk. But when he steps out in faith, he notices this strong wind, panics, and starts to sink. Jesus catches him, and says, “You of little faith, why did you doubt?” His faith isn’t as great as he thought it was. He doesn’t grasp what’s going on.

But here, when Jesus asks who people say he is, Simon gets it 100% correct, and he makes this great statement of faith. “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.” Jesus is thrilled someone finally gets it, and he tells Simon, ok, from now on you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church.

The Greek word for Peter means rock, so he’s saying Peter’s solid, he’s going to be the foundation for Christ’s church. Actually, at the time, Peter wasn’t really a person’s name. It’s like me saying to someone, “From now on, you shall be called ‘Concrete.’” But it’s a compliment.

And I think from then on, Peter’s always trying to live up to that name. He has a new purpose. He wants to be who Jesus has called him to be. I almost wonder if it’s like Jesus taking the class troublemaker and giving him responsibility, trying to redirect his energy.

The fact that Jesus picks Peter should be a great encouragement to us today. Even though he’s impulsive and keeps misunderstanding, Jesus picks him to be the foundation of the church.

And even though he’s made this great confession of faith, Peter still doesn’t completely understand. That’s comforting when there are things in our faith that we believe, but don’t understand, like last week in children’s worship when Christin was talking about the Trinity. We don’t have to have all the answers.

Just a few verses later, Matthew records that Jesus began to explain to the disciples how he must go to Jerusalem, suffer, be killed and on the third day rise again. And Peter says, “Nope. Don’t do it!” Peter’s excited about following Jesus the hero, the one who does miracles, walks on water, and catches lots of fish. Jesus is the messiah, the one who’s going to save his people!

And all that’s true, of course. But Jesus isn’t going to save the people the way Peter expects, gloriously winning a battle and kicking out their Roman enemies. He’s going to save the people by dying for them on a cross.

In our world today, a world often full of tragedy and violence, where just a few days ago we heard about another senseless act of violence, that’s good news.

Jesus is ok with getting messy. Jesus comes to our broken world, comes to us as confused, broken people. It’s not always very glorious, but the message of the cross is that Jesus understands suffering. Jesus, the messiah, the savior, saves us in our suffering, not from it.

That’s good news, because life isn’t always easy and tragedies keep happening, but it’s not always easy to hear. And it can be confusing to think about God being present in suffering. Certainly it’s confusing to Peter, and he’s not ok with it. “Never, Lord. This shall never happen to you!”

And Jesus responds by calling him Satan, and accusing him of focusing on human concerns rather than on God’s concerns. When Peter wants to protect Jesus, to fit him into his own box, Jesus goes from calling him the rock on whom he will build the church, to calling him Satan. “Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; you do not have in mind the concerns of God, but merely human concerns.”

That’s not how I usually think of Jesus talking. I remember once when I was probably 8 years old or so having an argument with my little sister Lynn, and I told my mom that I wanted to quote Jesus and tell her to “Get behind me, Satan!” Mom said that was not ok for me to say, even if Jesus said it.

But this is a big deal for Jesus. Peter thought being the rock the church was built on would be glorious, that he was chosen for his great faith, his enthusiasm, for being able to name who Jesus is.

But God’s call isn’t about what you’ve done. You are focusing on human concerns, not on God’s concerns. Jesus chose Peter in spite of himself, not because he was so great.

We make that mistake as a church too. It’s really easy for us to start focusing on all the wrong things, to start thinking we’re doing so well that God has no choice but to bless us. Or we start thinking that if we do something wrong, if the budget has trouble, if things aren’t going well, that God will be done with us.

But the miracle of the church, the miracle of Peter, this overly enthusiastic, slightly confused fisherman, the miracle is that God chose him as the rock, the foundation of the church. The miracle is that God chooses to work through you and me.

One of the most important verses in the Bible is Romans 5:8, which says that “God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” While we were still sinners. God’s not looking at the church and thinking, I really messed up there! God’s not surprised that we’re a bunch of sinful people. God chooses us as we are, in spite of our mistakes, in spite of our lack of understanding, in spite of our lack of faith.

And Peter’s not the only example. The Bible’s full of real, flawed people who God chooses to work through. Pretty much any hero of faith, any hero of the Bible turns out to not be all that heroic, but God loves them and chooses them anyway. People like Moses, a stuttering murderer who lost faith. Rahab, a prostitute. Noah, an alcoholic. Samson, a lying, murdering womanizer. Jonah, who ran away from God. And of course, just to make the point, Lazarus, who was literally dead. [Credit for these examples goes to Peder Eide’s wonderful song As Is – if you haven’t heard it, there’s a lyric video here – buy it here.]

But God chose all of them to work through. And God has chosen each of you. And God has chosen a whole bunch of people we don’t know, people we disagree with, and a bunch of people we probably don’t even like, even overly enthusiastic people who think they have all the answers.

I invite you to take some time this week and pray about what it means that God is calling you. God’s not waiting for you to figure everything out. Whether you jump right into things like Peter or you’re more skeptical like Thomas, God’s calling you to live as part of the church, to let God work through you.

God has this habit of choosing lots of people, bringing them together, and calling them the church.

As we gather today as a church built on the rock, we gather to remind each other of our hope in God, who is calling each of you. We meet Jesus here, in each other, and as we gather at the LORD’s table today.
Amen.

Read my second sermon looking at Peter here.