Ask a group of people to keep a secret, and you’re looking for trouble. More than likely, somebody will let it out. Especially if the secret is astonishing. Simon Peter is the first disciple to recognize that Jesus is the Messiah. He’s the first to discover that this man he knows so well is the…

It is not that God’s Church has a Mission, but that God’s Mission has a Church. It is Peter’s day – the day he is renamed by Jesus. No longer Simon, but Peter. Which in the New Testament Greek makes for a kind of pun – for the word for “rock” is petra, while Peter is Petros. Petros is petra –…

At various points in our lives we need to “step up to the plate.” As scary as some of these times have been, they usually have been moments that have initiated some transitions in our lives and offered us the opportunity to draw upon the memories of our early years. The lessons for today lead…

Simon Peter replied, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the Living God.” And Jesus answered him, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father, in heaven. And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church,…

Think of South Dakota and one thinks of Mount Rushmore. Carved into the mountainside are the heads of some of the great leaders of the United States. It’s ironic that this monument is in the heart of an area sacred to the Lakota and Dakota people whose ancestors possessed the land centuries before George Washington’s…

This text ends with a puzzle. Peter has named Jesus as God’s own anointed one. The language used here is “Messiah.” It means the anointed one. But then Jesus tells his disciples not to tell anyone that he is the Messiah. Why? There are several theories. One is that it was not time for this…

When the story from the Hebrew Scriptures opens, the Hebrew people have been living in Egypt for about as long as Europeans and Africans have been here in North America. A new pharaoh — or king — begins to rule Egypt. Because slave labor is important to the well – being and economy of his…