God’s Patience
Don’t you love the apostle, Peter?
In the reading from Matthew’s gospel used in a recent Catholic liturgy, Peter witnesses – along with James and John – Jesus’ transfiguration.
In the story, Jesus leads the three up a mountain where he is transfigured before them. “His face shone like the sun,” writes Matthew, “and his clothes became as white as the light. Just then there appeared before them Moses and Elijah, talking with Jesus. Peter said to Jesus, ‘Lord, it is good for us to be here. If you wish, I will put up three shelters—one for you, one for Moses and one for Elijah.’
“While he was still speaking, a bright cloud covered them, and a voice from the cloud said, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased. Listen to him!”
Fools Rush In
The scene and Peter’s hasty proposal remind me of the old adage, ascribed to poet Alexander Pope: “Fools rush in where angels fear to tread.”
I’m not calling Peter a fool, exactly. It’s just that like many of us, he often speaks before he thinks, or acts. Impetuous, he is thoroughly human.
This is the guy, who in another gospel story, sees Jesus walking on water and immediately jumps from a boat into the water to go to him. Not surprisingly, he begins sinking and has to be rescued by Jesus. It’s also the guy who pledges at the Last Supper, just before Jesus’ arrest, never to deny Jesus, then does so three times, apparently out of fear of his own arrest.
Despite all this, Jesus names Peter head of his apostles, and for us Catholics, the first pope. And, by the way, the treatment of Peter in the gospels is far from critics’ suggestion that the gospels are propaganda by the early church to make its leaders look good.
The Lesson
What’s the lesson here for us who are searching for God?
God doesn’t expect us to be perfect, and obviously we’re not. Jesus’ life and words show that God accepts our weaknesses, our inconsistencies, our dishonesty, our lack of faith. And Peter shows that God is patient.
The history of believers also shows that many who eventually excel at loving God and neighbor have stories similar to Peter’s.
Among the most famous of these is St. Augustine, founder of the religious order that includes Pope Leo IX and the order to which Martin Luther belonged before the Reformation.
Here’s how Wikipedia describes St. Augustine, the bishop of Hippo in present-day Algeria during the fifth century: He was “a Christian theologian and philosopher (whose writings) deeply influenced the development of Western philosophy and Western Christianity, and … viewed as one of the most important Church Fathers of the Latin Church. …His many important works include The City of God, On Christian Doctrine, and Confessions. … He “is recognized as a saint in the Catholic Church, the Eastern Orthodox Church, the Lutheran churches, and the Anglican Communion.”
But in his youth, he seemed far from sainthood.
Against Mother’s Wishes
At about 17, Augustine began a relationship with a young woman in Carthage, a city in present-day Tunisia. Against his mother’s wishes, the woman became his lover and remained so for 15 years. She gave birth to a son.
But in 385, Augustine ended his relationship with his lover to marry a teenage heiress. Before he was able to marry her, however, he had converted to Christianity and decided to become a priest.
The rest is history, as they say, and the apostle Peter, and his rabbi, would understand, if not approve.
