Canadian Mennonite
Volume 9, No. 21
Oct 31, 2005
Nurturing rocky relationships
This fall, I’m co-leading a young adult Sunday school class at my home congregation. We’re studying hard sayings of Jesus, things Jesus said that require extra head-scratching and Bible-searching to try to figure out.
Last week, we discussed the relationship between Jesus and Peter, that headstrong, outspoken disciple.
Matthew 16 describes two emotional encounters between the two men. There’s wild speculation going on about the real identity of this miracle-working preacher. Jesus asks his disciples who they think he really is. I imagine an awkward silence as they drop their eyes, shuffle their feet and look at each other, wondering what kind of riddle they are supposed to answer now. But Peter sticks up his hand and blurts out, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.” Peter gets some things with his gut that he doesn’t really understand until later.
Jesus blesses Peter for his words, at that moment renaming him from “Simon, son of Jonah,” to “Peter,” a rock of stability for the future church.
Yet, Peter and Jesus had times in their relationship that were as low as this was high. Later in that chapter, in another setting, Peter tells Jesus that Jesus’ upcoming suffering and death—which Jesus has just predicted—must never be allowed to happen. Jesus really lashes out at Peter, telling him, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; for you are setting your mind not on divine things, but on human things.”
I think this conversation shows us a very human moment between two friends: Peter’s right-hearted (but wrong-headed) desire to care for Jesus clashing with Jesus’ own mental anguish and stress at what was to come. In that moment, Jesus could not bear to have someone so close to him try to influence him away from a path he already feared.
Jesus does something during the Last Supper that is a model for all of us in our own relationships. Jesus says in Luke 22, “‘Simon, Simon, listen! Satan has demanded to sift all of you like wheat, but I have prayed for you that your own faith may not fail; and you, when once you have turned back, strengthen your brothers.’ And [Peter] said to him, ‘Lord, I am ready to go with you to prison and to death!’”
We know, as Jesus does, that Peter will soon do just the opposite of what he promised. In this moment, when personal betrayal is so close at hand, Jesus prays for his friend anyway, a prayer that will not be answered with a yes. Then he offers Peter personal encouragement to get him through the dark places ahead and gives him a ministry to focus on once he is able to do so.
Jesus and Peter related in the very human ways we all do. They treasured their friendship with all of its natural ups and downs. Both spoke openly of how they made each other feel. Lightening our own relationships with encouragement and hope, keeping them sturdy with accountability and honesty, and all the while blessing them and each other with prayer—these are things that get friendships through hard times. As it was for Jesus and Peter, so may it be with us.
To subscribers outside Canada: A note from one subscriber in the United States asked if we could avoid using plastic mailer bags around our issues. We were unaware our international mail was being packaged this way. To consume less material in our production process, we have asked that issues be mailed without wraps. Over the next few months, could those of you who live outside of Canada please let me know what shape your issues are in when they arrive? Depending on their condition, we’ll know if we can continue this way or if the extra protection is really needed.