Readings (Year A):
Jeremiah 20:7–9
Psalm 63:2, 3–4, 5–6, 8–9
Romans 12:1–2
Matthew 16:21–27
Reflection: The hope that belongs to our call
Creator, Christ, enlighten the eyes of our heart so that we might know what is the hope that belongs to our call.
Fifteen years ago this week, I stood in the kitchen watching Nanny Robyn leave. She cared well for us and our little girls, and it was time for her to follow her call. It was time for us to let her go. Hugely pregnant, I wept giant tears, my hand resting on my rock-hard stomach. The tears were for her, and me. My last child lay buried in earth under rock, his soul born straight into heaven, and I now felt scared to walk the journey of this wild hope of pregnancy without help.
And then, as if body needed to weep too, my water broke across the kitchen floor. Rock of stomach softened. My body was ready to birth a baby already named Samuel into this new time, this new place. Here I am. Here we are too, over and over, called, somehow, to miraculously birth what is unseen with hope.
Jesus was called: called to speak out, to suffer, to die, to be raised. There was hope in the last call, but Peter heard only suffering and death. Peter, who jumps from the boat to walk and then sinks like rock. Peter, who cries for help and takes Jesus’ hand. Peter is a human whose heart easily fires. Enkindled by fire of love, Peter speaks a rebuke of a “no,” with hope that the journey with Jesus will not end.
Jesus turns to him: “Get behind me, Satan. Get behind me, skandalon—stumbling stone, trap, hurdle in the road. You are not thinking as God does but as human beings do.”
Peter, called rock, becomes rock in the wrong place. He stands in front of Jesus’ call instead of behind. And Jesus does not cast him away. Jesus moves him: get behind me. Stay, but here. Close. Follow. Pray. I may need to lean on you.
Being asked to move is hard. Peter could have left. I might have. What would you have done? But Peter stays. Staying, too, can be a call. Staying can be as hard as rock.
In Scripture,
Rocks from which we are cut remind prophets of Abraham and Sarah.
Rocks receive sacrifice: meat, bread, blood, Isaac.
Rocks pillow dreams into heaven’s stairway and
Rocks bruise flesh, hip, bone while we wrestle angels.
Rocks shield Moses from God’s face and glory.
Rocks when struck, gush forth water for the thirsty.
Rocks receive commandments.
Rocks Babel. Rocks build.
David in exile while curled in crag of rock craves God and sings, “My soul is thirsting for you, O Lord, my God!”
In Deuteronomy,
Rocks father.
Rocks birth.
The psalms call God “rock of my heart.”
And human hearts, we know, can become stone.
Duped, mocked, in our first reading, Jeremiah laments the pain of speaking out. “All the day, I am an object of laughter; everyone mocks me.” Jeremiah says he will not speak God’s name, just as Peter, in the terror of it, will deny Christ. But for Jeremiah it becomes “like a fire burning in my heart, imprisoned in my bones.” He cannot hold it in. Like Peter, Jeremiah’s heart is re-kindled. He must answer the call, and it brings both hope and lament, a rock and a hard place.
Peter was both: the one who trusted enough to walk on water and the one who doubted enough to sink; the one who answered the call and the one who tried to block it. Peter was doubt and Peter was hope. Like us, Peter was called forth and called back. And we are too. Hearts burning within us, hearts hardened into stone. We follow, and we resist. We hope, and we are afraid of what hope asks.
Then Jesus in the gospel speaks further, asking us to dive deeper into our own call, our own loving hope to continue the journey with Christ. “Whoever wishes to come after me must deny the self, take up the cross, and follow me.” And Christ asks, “What profit would there be for one to gain the whole world and forfeit life? What can one give in exchange for life?”
What would I give up to keep this one beautiful life? Home? Job? Pride? Could I give up control? Could I give up being in front and move behind Christ?
And what would I not give up? My child. My spouse. My hope. I pray not. But would I deny Christ, like Peter, with lips and voice? I probably would. Three times I would. I probably have. “Oh hope!” I call out. “Where are you hope?”
In the New Testament,
Rocks wait in hands ready to stone.
Rocks drop in mercy.
Rocks cornerstone, anchor, trip.
Rocks foundation.
Rocks stumble. Rocks support.
Rocks witness murder.
Rocks witness mercy.
Life and death.
Death and life.
Rocks deny, deny, deny.
Rocks cry out in praise, testimony.
Rocks roll.
Rocks roll.
Rocks roll open.
Rock birth hope.
Lazarus emerges. Jesus too. Women see. In the garden, she sees Raboni. He says her name. “Go.” Jesus asks her to go before him and “tell.” She runs to Simon Peter and says, “I have seen the Lord.”
When the eyes and ears of your heart are enlightened, do you see Christ? Where? And what are you told to tell? To whom? In hope, you are made miraculously and beautifully in the image of God. You are also called: called to move behind, to run and tell, to carry the cross, not alone, but with others, with hope.
Creator, Christ, enlighten the eyes of our heart so that we might know what is the hope that belongs to our call.
When we knew Nanny Robyn was called away, and we were called to stay behind, we prayed with the smooth rocks of a rosary for help to carry what we were called to bear forth. And when Nanny Jodi arrived with buttons, cloth, and scissors for my two girls to be creative together, we saw hope. I asked her: Would you walk with us? Would you help us carry it all?
This week fifteen years ago, after the rock of my stomach softened and water splashed on the kitchen floor, Samuel was born alive. Nanny Jodi arrived to help, a rock to lean on.
Together we carried. When he thirsted, she would bring Samuel to me so he could nurse. After a long meeting, breasts full like rocks, I would call out in hope and need. Nanny Jodi would answer my call and bring Samuel to me, place him in my arms. Then she would step behind, so he could drink abundantly. She stepped behind so another life could be nourished, so what was part of me, hard as rock, could miraculously become flesh again.
Amen and Alleluia. Alleluia and Amen.
