Now Simon Peter was standing and warming himself. They asked him, “You are not also one of his disciples, are you?” He denied it and said, “I am not.”
Like the ending of “To Kill a Mockingbird”, I read this part of scripture and hope things will go differently, every time. It has to. No, Peter, not again. Like the ending of “To Kill a Mockingbird”, the terrible next steps are taken.
The accompanying commentary this morning is from Walter Wangerin, Jr. He picks this particular denial as the focus of his thoughts, and I’m grateful for his analysis because I’d never stopped at this point. This denial of Peter’s, is his second. He’s denied Jesus once, and Jesus had told Peter he’d do it three times, so here Peter sits between his first and final.
Wangerin posits that Peter is torn; “a tremendous selfless love for Jesus keeps him there, while a consuming self-interest keeps him lying.” Peter, and me. We’re all torn by this as Christ-followers. By acts and omissions, by things we do and things done in our name, we are consumed by self-interests that result in our denial of Jesus. And yet, we continue day after day to stick by Jesus’ side, doing our best to love and follow.
This reminds me of diets. Bear with me here. I’ve tried a multitude of diets, some for health and some for perceived self-image. I start strong, but my strength fades, and I cheat or modify. I live in this half-committed world until finally, I realize I’m not really dieting, or that it’s not really working, and I walk away. I give up, acknowledging that I cannot do it. I, like Peter am stuck between wanting to do right, and consistently doing wrong.
But unlike Peter, I walk away once I figure out it’s not a winning proposition. Like Peter, I have not walked away from Christ. It’s not that I am any more ‘successful’ in my Christ-following than I am in my ill-fated body-altering diets. Jesus’ words to Peter about the cock’s crow serve as a outward and visible sign that Jesus is with Peter even in that torment, even as he’s denying Jesus again. Jesus never leaves Peter. And Jesus never leaves me. Weekly, I can participate in Jesus’ gathered feast. Daily, I see Jesus in people I know, as well as strangers. Second by second, I sense God’s spirit in me.
Like a moth drawn to a flame, I am utterly compelled by something about Jesus. If this were not so, I’d have walked away like the high school grapefruit diet.
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