Christ Lutheran Church: Welcome

Rocks - August 24, 2008

Rocks

Isaiah 51:1, 1Peter 2, Matthew 16:13-20

August 24, 2008

Rev. Dave R. Garwick

So, Jesus says, "Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, ...I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church...I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven." And all I can say to that is, "You have GOT to be kidding! Him?!" What in the world was He thinking? What, he gets one question right, so Jesus picks him as His running mate?

For Pete's sake (pun intended), this is the apostle who got the last question wrong when he told Jesus that he, Simon, would not allow Jesus to fulfill His mission and die on the cross. And THAT was such a big goof that Jesus wheeled on him and said, "Get behind Me Satan, for your thoughts are not on the side of God...! That was the last thing that had just happened.

And the NEXT thing that Peter did was to get the next three questions wrong while Jesus was being interrogated on the way to His execution. What were those three questions? "Do YOU know this man?" "Excuse me, sir, DO you know this man?" "I say, old chap, do you know THIS man?" And what were Peter's answers? "Nope." "No way." "Positively not."

And THIS is the guy that Jesus chose as His running mate? As far as competence is concerned, Jesus might just as well have chosen a helpless baby.

Oh, that's right - He did. About twenty minutes ago. Right before our eyes. At this baptismal font.

And that name Jesus gave him - Peter: what was THAT all about? We have known him by that name ever since. But that was not his real name. His real name was Simon. Peter was a name that Jesus just made up for him - Peter means 'rock'. Why the name Rock? When you look at Simon's record up to that point, I don't think he got that name because he was solid like a rock.

Think about it. Jesus did not give him a new name - he gave him a NICKNAME. As a nickname it might have been more like 'Rocky'. And that DOES fit Simon: if anything, he was rocky. So if the church was to be built on Simon, it would, in a sense, be built on a rocky foundation. And if you know anything about the history of the Christian church, it has been a rocky one.

So what has Simon got to do with rocks? The same thing we ALL have to do with rocks. The answer is on the front of the bulletin. This is what we all have to do with rocks. It was no less than God himself who said, "Look to the rock from which you were cut - the quarry from which you were hewn."

What Simon had to do with rock is that God cut him from rock, the rock that was Abraham and Sarah. That is where Simon traces his ancestry from. And that is where we ourselves trace our ancestry from. You know, I say that I am Russian-Jewish, and German, and Celtic. But if you go and have your DNA tested, you will probably find out that you got part of your body from just about every area of the world. Probably most of us are black and oriental and who knows what else.

But my soul? God tells me to look to the rock from which I was cut. That is traced back to the rock of Abraham and Sarah. Now you may not think it is very flattering to be a chip off the old rock, since rocks are not thought of as that special. But have you ever seen what is called a geode? It looks like and old rusty canon ball. But split it open, you are dazzled by the beauty hidden within. Where do you think gems come from?

So if Simon could be called Rocky, then maybe you could be called Rock II or Rocky III, or Rocky 4 MILLION AND TWO.

Except that Jesus looked at SIMON and said that He would build His church on THAT rock. He didn't say that He would build His church on the rock that is you, did He?

Oh, didn't He? Weren't you listening to the Epistle Lesson that the Rock himself wrote?

"As you come to Him, the living Stone...you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ...you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy."

YOU are LIVING stones. And I say that it is upon YOU that God IS building His church. The day He baptized you, He chose you...and now has chosen you to be the rock on which to build the Church out of little children where you work, where you volunteer, where you live; He has chosen you to be the rock on which to build the Church out of the colleagues and the customers and the clients where he has placed you, among the friends He surrounds you with.

Amen. May it be so.