Rocking Around The Clock

He said to them, "But who do you say that I am?"
Simon Peter said in reply,
"You are the Christ, the Son of the living God."
Jesus said to him in reply, "Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah.
For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my heavenly Father.
And so I say to you, you are Peter,
and upon this rock I will build my Church,
and the gates of the netherworld shall not prevail against it.
I will give you the keys to the Kingdom of heaven. 
Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven;
and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven." 

Today the Church celebrates the feast of Saint Peter and Saint Paul.  I send my prayerful congratulations out to both of these important men and I know that Paul won't mind if I concentrate on Peter today.

You have to hand it to Jesus, He hired quite a crew when He chose those who would carry on for Him once His mission was completed and He returned to the Father.  What people, particularly Protestants seem to forget is that Jesus did not proclaim a democracy, He proclaimed a Kingdom.  A kingdom, of course, is ruled over by the king.  The king decides policy and he appoints ministers to enforce the policies that he makes up.  The king cannot be everywhere at once so he normally has a chief or prime minister to handle things for him.  This minister is given authority far above the other run of the mill ministers that help run the kingdom.  As a matter of fact, all other ministers report to the prime minister.  An ordinary minister has the power of his office.  For example, he can collect taxes.  But this ordinary minister does not decide how much and from whom the taxes will be collected.  This is done through the king and through his proxy, the prime minister. The prime minister, on the other hand, can make decisions that affect the other ministers the king has placed under him.  The prime minister has been given the keys to the kingdom.  Doors that he opens, others do not have the authority to close and ones that he closes, no other may open.  The prime minister's decisions have the effect of law.

In today's reading, we see that Peter has been appointed as the rock upon which Jesus will build His Church.  Notice that the Church is not Peter's church, it is the Church of Jesus.  Jesus is the King and Peter has been appointed as his prime minister being given the keys to the kingdom.  More than that, Jesus declares that the gates of the netherworld will not prevail against His Church and decisions made by Peter on earth will be honored in heaven.  Peter is given the authority of the prime minister, he can bind and loose. 

Peter is arguably a curious choice for this post of being the first in a long unbroken line of popes.  Yes, I know Jesus did not say the word "pope."  The word simply means father or better yet, papa. As we follow the story, not too far down the line Peter fails the first time and Jesus tells him, "Get thee behind me Satan."  Later on, Peter, the prime minister bravely denies his master while warming himself at the fire in the courtyard of the high priest.  But in the early Church, controversies came up and were discussed at length.  But when Peter spoke, the discussion ended and the matter was settled. 

So we salute Peter, the first Pope and see in him a human being who went back to fishing until  Jesus called him back. We see a man who made decisions that helped the young Church grow.  And he was a man that proved his love of Jesus in the end because he requested to be crucified upside down when the time for his martyrdom came because he felt unworthy to die as his Master did.  So, thank you Peter, the first Pope, the first servant of the servants of God.