He recognizes who Jesus is (Elyse Raby)

   [Peter] has a unique insight, and proclaims that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God. On the basis of this faith, his act of correctly naming Jesus, Jesus makes him the rock and foundation of his church, and invests him with authority and power in the kingdom of heaven—symbolized by the keys and by binding and loosing. Peter is a flawed human being, but he grasps who Jesus really is—the one sent by the living God. And for Jesus, that is a good-enough foundation for the church. 

   I want to be clear about this point—Peter is declared the rock and foundation of the church not because of who he is, or because of any particular skills he has, or degrees he’s earned, and certainly not because he is a male. He is made the rock because he recognizes who Jesus truly is. That is the foundation of his authority. 

   This gospel, therefore, gives us room to recognize and celebrate other disciples, past and present, who are authorities in faith for us. They may not be in positions of authority—they may not be ordained, or employed as parish leaders—but they are individuals whose lives accurately attest to Jesus as the Christ, son of the living God. 

   This is the kind of lived authority, the kind of witness and testimony, that opens the doors to the kingdom of heaven. This is the authority that makes Christianity credible. It is the kind of authority that we so desperately need from our church leaders who are in positions of authority. But it is also the authority that we all can claim if we shape our lives and hearts like Jesus’ life and heart. It is an authority not based on our status as ordained or lay, our academic degrees, or our gender. It is an authority, in line with Peter’s, that is based on intimate, lived familiarity with the Gospel. 

   But like Peter, we all can doubt our faith and begin to sink. We can misunderstand Jesus. If we think only as humans do, and not as God does, we can also become stumbling blocks to Jesus’ transformation of the world. 

   Any exercise of human authority requires humble and constant attention to the Authority —God’s own self—the one who invites us to walk on water, to know Jesus as the Christ, to take up his cross, and to live lives that testify to our faith. 

--Elyse Raby 

Image source: The Commission to Peter, from the Pericopes of Henry II (11th c.), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthew_16:19#/media/File:Meister_des_Perikopenbuches_Heinrichs_II._001.jpg
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