Nothing Succeeds Like Failure
“... you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the powers of death shall Got prevail against it.”
November 28, 1982
Peter. What can be said about the disciple called Simon Peter? In a few verses, Matthew capsules a character who shows us a lot about all of us human characters.
The controversy about Jesus is growing. People are amazed and confused by his words and actions. He treats the street people like royalty. He isn't afraid of the rich and powerful. He speaks with confidence about a God not out to zap people but a God out to love people. Who is this guy? That's what everyone wanted to know.
Who do you say I am, he asks his disciples after they tell him what others are saying. Peter, in a flash of realization, responds, "Why, you're the Christ, you're the Messiah, you're the one we've been waiting for!" Right, Peter.
Jesus goes on to warn that things will get tough. He will more than likely get hurt, killed. This is not a world in which it is easy to love. Peter fires back, "No way, you're the Messiah, you can kick those folks in the seat of the pants. Jesus, with a fierceness which probably shocked the disciples, rebukes Peter: "You don't know what you're talking about Peter. The way of violence is Satan's way, not my way. Wrong, Peter."
Peter got it right. Peter got it wrong. And it was not the last time for either. Things did get worse. Jesus and his disciples came to their last meal together. Peter said, “You can count on me, Jesus. I'm with you all the way." Later, Jesus was arrested. The crowd turned into a mob. The people wanted blood. Pilate gave them what they wanted. A servant girl saw Peter: "You're one of Jesus' men, aren't you?" Before the rooster could go cockle-doodle-do, Peter blurted, "Oh, no, you're confusing me with someone else. I’m in the seafood business. Jesus, who? How do you spell that?" Peter got it right, got it wrong.
Peter hightailed it with the other disciples. But then something happened. Good sense said Jesus was dead and gone. Yet something happened and they knew in a way that defies explanation that he was with them, empowering them more than ever before. Peter came back and became one of the leaders of the early church spreading and being the good news about God's death-defying love, life-reconstructing love, shown in Jesus, the Christ. Peter got it right.
There have been disagreements in the church from the beginning. One of the first was over the matter of eligibility for being a Christian. Some of the early church leaders, significant among them, Peter, wanted to limit Jesus to just Jews who recognized him as messiah. They would admit Gentiles, non-Jews, only if they first became Jews with circumcision, dietary laws, and the rest. Others proclaimed Jesus for all people, even Gentiles. In this controversy, Peter led the our-kind-of-folks only faction; Paul led the Christ for all faction. Wrong again, Peter.
But then one day on the flat top of a house in Joppa, Peter had a vision. He saw this giant sheet coming down from the sky. Inside the sheet were all kinds of animals, especially those the Jews considered unclean. The voice told Peter he should not reject any living being or creature of God. Attribute it to a wild imagination, a dip in blood sugar, or whatever, but Peter got the message. God acted in Jesus for all the world, not just some of it. Peter changed. Peter got it right.
Rumor has it that Peter like most of the other disciples eventually was executed because of his religious activities in the Roman empire. It is said that he would not let them crucify him upright, that he was crucified upside down, feeling it a presumption to die exactly as his Lord. Peter got it right. Peter got it wrong. Peter got it right. "And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church. "Peter, you're the kind of person I can use to make things better on earth!"
What are we to make out of Peter for our own lives? Some suggestions:
1. GETTING IT RIGHT... GETTING IT WRONG... BUT GOING ON, Peter shows, is what life is about with ourselves, each other, and God.
There is a corny story about a young guy who answered a help wanted ad from a circus travel- ing through his town. In the ringmaster's office, he was told the job was that of assistant to the lion tamer. To his question of what that involved, the ringmaster answered it would be easier to show him than tell him. So they went into the big tent and watched the beautiful, blond, woman lion tamer practice her performance in the cage. They came in as she finished the run through of the act. Each of the 6 or 7 big lions came one by one and put one giant paw on her left shoulder and the other on her right shoulder. In that position, they extended their tongues through their dagger pointed teeth and licked her gently on the left cheek, then the right cheek. The ringmaster looked over at the young man, "Think you can do that?" The fellow responded, "Sure, just get the lions out of the cage and I'll show you!"
He got it right. He got it wrong. And I for one relate to that. Think about the crucial areas of life such as marriage or parenthood. Whoever once and for all gets being-married or being-a-parent right? You just don't read a couple of books on how to be a husband or wife, mother or father, and then just go do it. Some days, I am a pretty good husband, not a bad daddy. But some days, I just blow it. I lose my temper, talk when I should listen, miss the signals, and screw up the chances. Sometimes the getting-it-right or getting-it-wrong in our relationships is a matter of extended groups of days. For various reasons things work together. Then for reasons sometimes known, usually not, our relationships with our spouses, children, or parents are like a size 10 foot in a size 7 shoe.
I think it applies in our own inner journeys with ourselves: how I feel about me, where I'm going and growing as a human being. It happens with our jobs and professions. Some days I am a pretty good minister. Other days I should stay in bed. On most days it is a mixture of both. Or show me the person who once-and-for-all gets God right, gets the God-business figured out and pigeon holed so he/she can be off to the next new challenge. Faith is an on again, off again matter. Sometimes it makes sense, sometimes it doesn't. But, as the engineers around our church say, we keep working on the problem.
Getting it right, getting it wrong, but going on. It was that way with Peter. It is that way with you and me. It is called growth. Indeed, it is the way God grows us into the people he wants us to be.
2. NOTHING SUCCEEDS LIKE FAILURE in helping humans learn how to live with themselves, each other, and God.
In her novel An Indecent Obsession, Colleen McCullough tells the story of some soldiers and their nurse in a mental ward toward the end of World War II. Nurse Langtry runs the ward with confidence and efficiency, like a strong mother over her children-men. Neil is a young officer who had an emotional breakdown following an honest but wrong decision which resulted in the deaths of a number of men in his former unit. During the first part of the story, Neil comes across as insecure and unsure. Then, some problems occur in Nurse Lantry' life, problems which shake her sense of being totally in control of things. And as she shows some of her weaknesses, Neil begins to grow in his confidence in himself. Neil is speaking:
"When I first met you,' he said slowly, 'I thought you were made of solid iron. Everything I didn't have, you had. Lose a few men in a fight? You'd grieve for that, yes, but it wouldn't put you in a place like (ward) X. Nothing in the whole wide world could put you in a place like (ward) X. And I suppose at the time, you were what I needed...and you did help....I don't want you to crack now. I'll do everything in my power to stop you cracking. But it's so nice to feel the balance tip a little bit my way for a change!"
As Neil witnessed Nurse Langtry's stumbling over some problems in her life, he was encouraged to go on with his life. Her problems caused by her feelings for two patients made her realize that she was keeping her life under such tight control that she was not permitting herself to really love and be loved. Her failure, her problems, helped them both.
Think about it. How much help would Peter be to us if he had gotten it right every time? What if he had followed Jesus without flinching, never blew his cool, or never missed a cue? All he would have done for me is to make me feel worse because I miss quite a few cues in life. The Gospels are painfully honest about the bumblings and stumblings of the disciples. And as we witness Peter, Paul, and the others bombing out on occasion but going on with their lives, we receive strength and encouragement to keep going on in our lives when we mess up. Not only did they keep on going and growing in spite of their failures, indeed it looks like much of the greatness of their lives came as a result of their response to their failures, because of the failures. I don't think Peter would have known half of the miracle of forgiveness had he not done those tragic deeds which required massive forgiveness.
Not long ago, Dianne and I had one of those bickery Saturday mornings. Nothing was wrong in particular but we were just sort of n-yahing with each other. The kids were in and out. Later that day, we got to talking. Soon we were hugging. About that time one of the children entered the room, stopped short, and went out saying to the other: "Don't go in there now. They're making up. Dianne said: "Maybe it doesn't hurt them to see us fussing if they see us make up." And, you know, she was right. The experience of children seeing their parents have problems but working through them prepares them for the relational problems which ultimately come with adulthood. Children witnessing adults making it even when their relationships do not also teaches them later in life to take the untakeable. I have known couples who could not understand what was wrong with them because they argued because they never saw their own parents fuss. Parents do not do their children favors by giving them false ideas about life.
Those who go through painful times in life like deaths of loved ones, career upsets, divorces, illnesses, faith crises, and the like and have the courage to share the downs as well as the ups they experience help us when we face our own dilemmas along the painful-joyfull life road. Sometimes nothing succeeds like shared failures in helping people keep going and growing.
3. GETTING IT RIGHT...GETTING IT WRONG... BUT GOING ON AND GOING IN A NEW DIRECTION is the mark that makes Peter's life not only an example of the way we humans are but also a model of the way humans SHOULD be. Peter ran out on Jesus.mBut he had the guts to come back. Peter was prejudiced against people different from him. But he had the guts to change his attitude toward non-Jewish Christians.
We get ourselves into trouble when we try to make a right out of a wrong by overdoing the wrong. The frustrated parent just yells louder at the child. The nagging wife just nags more. The workaholic guy begins to feel empty about his work so he goes in even earlier. I have been guilty of trying to cheer myself up by going out and charging something to forget money problems. The point of facing our failures and getting it wrong in life is using the pain to motivate us to try another way. It is tragic when we don't let our failures teach us something.
This applies to people but also to nations. The famous historian Thucydides chronicled the ancient war between the Athenians and Spartans. A city named Mytilene first sided with Sparta. But when the Athenians came to attack them, the people of the city forced their leaders to surrender. They had wanted to be with Athens, as opposed to their leaders who sided with Sparta, all along. The people of Mytilene surrendered on the condition that the people of Athens would decide what to do about them. The Athenians were so angry that they dispatched ships of soldiers to go kill all the men of Mytilene and sell the women and children into slavery. The next day, the Athenians were so remorseful for their decision, they sent swift messengers to call their soldiers off their mission. Fortunately, the messengers made it in time. Isn't it amazing that an ancient powerful city-state could decide it was wrong and turn away from the direction it had headed in great fanfare?
Today, the names are not Athens and Sparta, but the United States and Russia. For a long time, many have felt we needed to amass more and more armaments to make ourselves safe. Now we are learning that the more nuclear weapons we have the less safe not more safe we are. Some say we have to add some more systems because the Russians have more land based missiles than we do. I, however, am convinced by others who agree we have the edge over the Russians because of our numbers of nuclear submarines which are more deadly accurate and unstoppable than land based missiles. Yet because we fear their missiles, we keep building. Because they fear our submarines and armaments they keep building. Oh, we will stop, but first we have to get a few more systems in place, we say.
Have you ever heard an alcoholic talk about quitting drinking? Just one more drink and I'll stop. I am going to quit..tomorrow. But tomorrow never comes until he or she decides to stop today, not after, but before, the next drink. This is the situation of our nations today. One more drink from the nuclear bar will never be enough. One more double will never make it easier to stop. Perhaps, there was a time when armament buildup was the right course of action. Now, for more reasons than you or I have time to go into at this point, it is wrong. It is time to go in another direction. And as the Athenians discovered, that is never easy, but it is possible.
In the sequel to his play "The Miracle Worker" entitled "Monday After the Miracle" William Gibson tells the story of the adulthood of Helen Keller and her beloved Annie Sullivan. After the climatic breakthrough at the well, Annie and Helen had a long life of accomplishments and heartaches ahead. Annie went through a divorce. Annie and Helen had their conflicts. Toward the end of Helen's life, Gibson has her say, "I have found that pain can be...useful."
Pain...failure...getting it wrong but going on, they are useful, seldom pleasant, but useful, growthful. Nothing succeeds like failure in getting us off our own backs and the backs of others. Nothing succeeds like failure in opening us to the love and forgiveness of God. Nothing succeeds like failure in pushing us as individuals and nations to go in new life saving directions before it is too late. Praise God from whom ALL blessings flow!