Faithfulness

Twelfth Sunday after Pentecost, Year A

Lectionary Reading: Matthew 16:13-20 (NRSV)

Sometimes we hear of great loyalty by our pets.  Specifically, I remember the story of Tommy, a 7 year old German Shepherd dog who accompanied his owner, Maria Margherita Lochi to mass in Italy and was allowed to sit at her feet.  After she died, he apparently showed up for mass every day for two months.  The priest said that he didn't ever cause any trouble and he couldn't bring himself to evict the dog.

We admire this kind of devotion and often speak of it as great faithfulness.  When someone honors their marriage vows in chastity, we speak of them as being faithful to their spouse.  So we may often think of faithfulness as follow-through as if we were staying true to what we said we would do or to a task at hand.  

In today's reading, we see Peter being placed at the head of the church.  Was he being rewarded for his faithfulness?  He is certainly enthusiastic.  He tries hard.  But he goofs up quite a bit in the gospels.  I think that this shows us that faithfulness may also be about good intentions.  We often hear the saying, "The road to Hell is paved with good intentions."  I think this adage may be telling us that follow-through may be more important than intention.  But from a Christian perspective, I think Peter shows us that intention and action don't always align as we would like.  And so, we remember that mercy is also a part of the Christian walk.  We are forgiven and allowed to start anew.

As we see Peter placed at the head of the church, it comes after his correctly naming Jesus as the Messiah.  Maybe faithfulness is also about spiritual insight - knowing what Jesus would want from us.  This requires faithfulness to studying the things Jesus said and did.  It is only as we deepen our relationship with Christ that we discover the things that Jesus would ask of us.  Otherwise, we may only pretend to follow Jesus as we actually disguise what we wanted to do all along.

This Sunday, we'll continue to explore the theme of faithfulness as it relates to the Gospel reading.  Over the next nine weeks, we'll remain in Matthew's Gospel and look at one of the Fruits of the Spirit.  For review they are: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control but we won't necessarily explore them in that order.

These are the higher characteristics that we need to display to the world right now.  It won't hurt for us to think on them for a while!  I hope you'll join us on the journey!

In Christ,

Sam

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