Written by Bishop Andrew Gentry   

Beloved Friends,

This Wednesday God willing we at All Saints and Sorts will celebrate the Feast of the Confession of St. Peter. So many times in the liturgical year and the liturgical churches feastdays as well as fastdays may at first glance appear to be celebrations of events that are ancient and largely irrelevant to modern life. But the vast majority of these holy days are anything but an anachronism. This particular one is very important not only to the life of the Church wherever and however she is duly constituted but in the lives of those of us who belong to her.

It is in the passage of Holy Writ appointed for the feastday that a question is posed by Jesus to his friends who were his disciples that was so essential to their understanding as it is to ours as well as to whom this rabbi really was and more importantly for us who this rabbi IS. The question rings loud and clear today and like the days and setting in which the question was first posed the answer well defines our faith and pilgrimage. Jesus says to those dear to him "who do people say I am?" and they quite honestly tell him that people have a variety of answers to that question. "The philosophers either praise or denounce you, the cynics explain the cultural, historical, and psychological milieu that you were born into, the religious leadership is pretty much afraid of you and generally say that you are an uneducated, untrained and mostly unorthodox leader who has the audacity to call yourself a rabbi!" "Well then Jesus presses on who or what do YOU say I am?"

It is now when Peter called Simon steps us to the plate and says in clear and concise language that anyone can understand the first credal statement ever made in regards to Jesus. "You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God!" I have often imagined what the scene would be if held today. Today there would be those who would say "I may be a disciple of yours but don't expect me to go that far after all I am a graduate of one of the finest seminaries in the country and have written many books already on who you are!" and there would be others who would say "now don't go cozy with these Romans and other untouchables" and still others who would probably fall somewhere in between. But not Simon the Rock no this man whom Jesus calls a "rock' states simply and without all kinds of theological mumbo jumbo the faith upon which the Church is built. Jesus is the Christ the Son of the Living God! We need no more clarity of whom God is or what God is all we have to do is look to the face of Jesus the Christ.

Someone once said to me that he could not define in sophisticated terminology nor in academic or scientific methodology who this Person is, this Jesus of Nazareth, but he knew that He was a Person with whom the man had and would have a very interesting relationship to and with. Peter's confession not Peter himself is the foundation of the beginning of the wisdom of faith. Jesus is not one among many teachers nor is he just a good ole boy saviour he is God with us and for us and near us and one of us! It is this we celebrate every day we journey in pilgrimage.

Peace
Bishop Andrew Gentry
The Church of All Saints and Sorts,
A Congregational Catholic Church
Asheville N C