Moses made a pretty serious error in the first reading today. He fell from God’s grace. God performed a miracle for the Israelite people by bringing forth water out of the rocks when Moses struck the rock with his staff. The problem does not lie with Moses’ actions, but his words: “Listen, you rebels, shall we bring water for you out of this rock?” The miracle was not credited to God. Moses led the people to think that it was through his own power and Aaron’s, that the miracle was performed for them. That is such a fine line to cross even for us. Sometimes we have special gifts, abilities or talents that we use to serve others with but we think that we acquired those gifts all by ourselves. It feels good to receive attention from others for being able to do something that they do not have the ability to do for themselves. It feels kind of nice to have others look up to you and respect you but as Moses demonstrated today, it can be a very dangerous position to be in as well. Pride is one of the seven deadly sins and anyone is susceptible to it’s snares, even the holiest among us. God alone is holy and worthy of all praise and to fail to recognize Him and acknowledge Him as the giver of the gift is inexcusable. As the Lord giveth, the Lord can also take away and He did so with Moses. Moses was not allowed to lead the people to the promised land because of his failure to acknowledge God as the source of the miracle he performed.
By contrast, Peter demonstrated a different kind of leadership in today’s gospel. When Jesus asked his disciples “But who do you say that I am?” Peter acknowledged Jesus in front of the rest of the disciples without hesitation “You are the Messiah, the son of the living God”. Peter didn’t just say that Jesus “was the son of God” or that he was “the Messiah”. He spoke from his whole heart without any hesitation or regard for what others thought.
The words Jesus spoke after that established the Catholic church. 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 and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.”
Peter was given a position of leadership within the church but he also took a little stumble from grace after Jesus explained that he would suffer, die and be raised from the dead on the third day. Peter said “God forbid it, Lord! This must never happen to you.” Christ admonished him for it by saying, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; for you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.”
Peter is a shining example of Christian leadership though in part, because he wasn’t perfect. Christ didn’t expect him to be. Jesus knew he would deny him three times too, but he still founded his church on earth on Peter. He gave him the keys to the kingdom of heaven too, maybe in part because he wasn’t a perfect person but he had a heart of gold. It was Peter’s heart, his love for Christ and his faith in him as the son of God that mattered to Jesus, not these momentary, impulsive slip ups that Peter kept doing.
Spiritual perfection is something we all need to work on because we are all leaders in some way, even if it is just within our own families. We shouldn’t be so hard on ourselves though, because Moses and Peter both had their faults. They were not perfect people, but God trusted Moses with caring for His people and Jesus trusted Peter to establish his church. Moses and Peter stumbled on occasion, but they picked themselves up, corrected their behavior and went on down the road. We remember Moses and Peter as being great leaders and we don’t remember them for their faults first. We do not want to be remembered for our worst days or when we did something out of character either. That’s not who we really are. We are not our momentary lapses in judgement. However, we should also try to remember that other people are not their momentary lapses in judgement either. That’s not who they really are and we are called to trust them again after they have corrected a sinful behavior. Christ let it go and we should do the same for others too.
