This weekend, we will celebrate the Confession of Peter, which, in the wider church calendar, tends to fall at the beginning of the third week in January to commence the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity. But, for this upcoming Saturday and Sunday at Divinity, the focus will be Matthew 16:13-19, particularly Peter’s proclamation: “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.”
Those verses and the day of recognition as a whole usually bring me back to my seminary graduation. The choir sang an arrangement of the above Biblical passage called, “Upon this Rock,” including a portion of the lyrics:
And we say,
“You are the Christ, You are the Song of the living God.
You are the Christ, You are the first begotten Son,
born from the love, the love of heaven.
And we are the church, and we will serve and glorify.
We are the church to be a living sacrifice,
offered to You through all we are.”
And so our love,
our love for Christ
will be the cause,
the reason why
we live our days
to walk in faith
faith in this rock,
the solid rock.
It’s still rather surreal to think back to that auditorium that spring day that feels like a lifetime ago (although I’m fully aware numerous clergy have me beat in the duration of that “lifetime” feel). We realized we were being called to serve in a church that wasn’t going to be the church we were used to, even from some of our respective younger lifetime. We were shaped and molded in “adaptive leadership,” to be somewhat prepared for an ever-changing landscape in…well seemingly everything. We knew the outlook wasn’t exactly brimming with bursting at the seams sanctuaries and Sunday school rooms and fellowship halls. And yet…we had absolutely no idea what we were about to enter into for the near fifteen years since. Things…have changed…to put it mildly.
And yet, the words seem to be just as powerful now as they were for all of us in our graduation garbs, brimming with hope and expectation and fear and naiveté and accomplishment and curiosity and a whole lot of thoughts and feelings that couldn’t be put into words. Through all the ever changing religious and social and worldly landscapes, we are still convinced that Peter had it right long ago. We still join in with the confessor that, “You are the Christ…born from the love, the love of heaven.” But we will also join in with that same one who had his fair share of doubts and fears and naivetés and flat-out denying that same Son/”Song of the living God,” because we know we have our fair share of all the above and then some.
Nevertheless, for some grace-filled reason beyond comprehension, God still calls us bold-confessing and shame-denying Peters to be “the church, [to] serve and glorify…offered to [Christ] through all we are.” In the end, in the last near fifteen years, many faith communities have further dove into mission and purpose statements, trying to discern their reason for being in their respective place and during this portion of humanity and God’s story, whether they’ve been around for centuries or decades before. Perhaps the song has it down well enough:
And so our love,
our love for Christ
will be the cause,
the reason why
we live our days
to walk in faith
faith in this rock,
the solid rock.
Amen (so let it be)!
In Christ,
Pastor Brad
To hear/view the song:
Upon This Rock - Pepper Choplin – Covenant Christian School (Grand Rapids Michigan)