We need to talk about Peter

‘And he went out and wept bitterly …..’ (Matthew 26:75)

                                         Basilica of Saint Apollinare

Matthew 26:14-27:66 (Year A: Palm Sunday Sunday 9^rd April 2017)

To experience betrayal is a gutting experience. This is all the more when the one who betrayed us was, perhaps, the closest and most loved of persons.  To experience betrayal as one who has perpetrated betrayal is also a gutting experience. This is all the more when the one who does the betraying does it to the closest and most loved of persons. 

Jesus was the one person who never betrayed anyone’s trust. 

The history of church is built on betrayal and redemption from betrayal. We might need to rid ourselves of any notions of a pure church apart from Christ or, indeed, a pure life based on certainty of our own merit and superiority. Put another way, church is a refuge for sinners and persons who once betrayed our Lord and have found refuge and healing in a shaky field hospital known as ‘church’. (In a postscript to this blog I underline the need for discretion when dealing with betrayal).

There is a lot to chew on in this extra long Sunday Gospel reading taken, this year, from Matthew.  For me, one episode stands out in particular in my reading of the text this year. It is the well known story of the betrayal of Jesus by the leading apostle, Peter. Peter was a reckless, passionate and unstable sort of person at times.  He was given into jumping into water (literally) and making rash promises (such as the declaration by Peter, ‘even though I must die with you, I will not deny you’ in Matthew 26:35).  Poor Peter; even his soft Galilean brogue gave him away that night when Jesus was on trial!

Here was the ideal disciple who would be remade and redeemed by Grace and Grace alone!  Not given to half measures, he had a fatal tendency to walk himself into trouble, over-promise and under-deliver. Worst still, at the most crucial of times when Jesus was arrested and put on trial with an inevitable outcome Peter runs away and when confronted denies any association with Jesus. Mind you, he was not the only disciple who ran away when they were last with Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane. Only the women disciples courageously stood firm and stayed with Jesus throughout. The perils of openly confessing our Christian faith and witness are known in some parts of the globe where a Sunday gathering can be the occasion of a terrorist bomb.  If presented with such risks or even captured and tortured to deny Christ which one among us would stand firm?  We should be gentle on Peter.

Caught like a rabbit in the glare of the light, Peter denies, three times, the Lord Jesus. He fulfils what Jesus had predicted the night before (Matthew 26:34):

 ‘Truly I tell you, this very night, before the cock crows, you will deny me three times.’

But, just as Peter denies Jesus three times he would go on to affirm him three times after the resurrection according to the Gospel of John (John 21:15-17):

When they had finished breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter, ‘Simon son of John, do you love me more than these?’ He said to him, ‘Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.’ Jesus said to him, ‘Feed my lambs.’ A second time he said to him, ‘Simon son of John, do you love me?’ He said to him, ‘Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.’ Jesus said to him, ‘Tend my sheep.’ He said to him the third time, ‘Simon son of John, do you love me?’ Peter felt hurt because he said to him the third time, ‘Do you love me?’ And he said to him, ‘Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you.’ Jesus said to him, ‘Feed my sheep.

But that is not where it ended for Peter.  Jesus goes on to declare (John 21:18-19)

Very truly, I tell you, when you were younger, you used to fasten your own belt and to go wherever you wished. But when you grow old, you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will fasten a belt around you and take you where you do not wish to go.’ (He said this to indicate the kind of death by which he would glorify God.) After this he said to him, ‘Follow me.’

Here is the man who betrayed Jesus multiple times. However, unlike Judas who despaired of God’s mercy, Peter turned and continued to recklessly, but not presumptively, throw himself into the merciful arms of God.  At the charcoal fire that night in the temple court he went out and wept bitterly. He was cut to the heart by his own betrayal. However, betrayal did not prevent him rising above this experience of utter failure and shame.  Peter would meet the Risen Lord again on the shore of a lake and once again beside a charcoal fire in the early morning. Peter had passed from the night of shame, terror and despair to the morning of a new beginning and commission that would take him, literally, to Rome.

This time Peter would find a supernatural strength which can find fertile ground in utter failure and utter incapacity. Grace alone wins but not without cooperation.  And the weakest of men found grace again. For his pains he would – according to tradition at least – be crucified upside down. Whether this is literally true is open to question. However, what is sure from various ancient sources is that Peter went to Rome where, along with other leading disciples, met martyrdom and death probably during the terror of Nero around the year 64.  The Church we know today was built on the rock of Peter’s faith, betrayal and redemption. It was sanctified by the blood of martyrs. So it was then and so it is today and so it shall be before all is brought to completion. Every step to what it is that we are, each, called to be starts with a simple step of recognition that we are nothing without God’s help and grace and mercy.

Postscript

It has been common place for some, including Christian ministers, to take advantage of Christian mercy and to continue betraying trust known or unknown. In any situation of life the ‘serial betrayer’ especially one who abuses trust at the expense of another needs to be mercifully cut off.  In some cases – such as betrayal of child safety it may very well be a case of ‘first strike and you are out’. 

In other cases such as in a marital situation it may be a case of a second or a third chance after betrayal comes to light. However, each case needs to be assessed by those directly involved guided by human compassion, common sense and prudence. Many the person or group of persons that were taken advantage of by the wily ways of the treacherous. We also need to be open to the possibility that we may have facilitated a situation of betrayal through lapse of trust in some way or another.