Sermon: You Shall Be Called "Rocky"

First Presbyterian Church, East Moline IL

January 18, 2026, Epiphany 2A

Psalm 40: 1-11; John 1:29-42

 

You Shall Be Called “Rocky”

 

“Dumb as a bag of rocks.”

I’m guessing you don’t need to be told that this is an insult. It’s a phrase that was popularized on the TV sitcom The Big Bang Theory, but that phrase is only one variant of a general theme that might also be expressed simply “dumb as a rock” or “dumb as a box of rocks.” And it’s probably some kind of rhetorical cousin to one I grew up with, “dumb as a sack of hammers” (and no, hammers and rocks aren’t the same thing, but they do share a certain quality of what we might call denseness). 

Mind you, it’s also true that rock can be thought of as solid (that’s the basis of an old favorite hymn, after all – the “solid rock”) the way a rock appears in the psalm reading today, as the basis for a firm foundation. In another pop culture reference, there was an insurance and financial services company that boasted of its solidity and security with the advertising slogan “get a piece of the rock,” paired with a logo depicting no less than the Rock of Gibraltar. 

To be sure, rocks (great or small) have their uses – great foundation material, nice decorations in a garden, skipping them across a river – but you can still see how they might fit into the insults noted above. You’re not going to look to a rock to solve complex mathematical equations or deep philosophical conundrums.

Yet our reading today ends with Jesus, no less, greeting Andrew’s brother Simon, not with “hello” or anything like that, but with the announcement “You are to be called Cephas” (which John the gospel author helpfully translates for us as Peter). The name “Cephas” comes from the Aramaic word for “rock”; “Peter” is the Greek equivalent.

So in other words, the first thing Jesus says to Simon, before Simon even has a chance to speak, is “I’m gonna call you Rock.” Or maybe even better, “Rocky.”

We come to this place as John, the witness in the wilderness, is directing his disciples towards Jesus as “the lamb of God.” Jesus passes by as John is with two of his own disciples and John repeats this proclamation, with the unspoken subtext being “follow him! Go, already!” It’s not impossible to imagine John practically shoving the two disciples off in the direction Jesus was walking. Finally they do follow Jesus, and his first words to them – the first words Jesus speaks in this gospel at all – are “what are you looking for?” The two disciples ask where Jesus is staying, he invites them to “come and see,” and it seems they end up spending the day with Jesus.

We are given no clue what they talked about or did, but it was apparently quite convincing for one of the two, named Andrew. Not only did he immediately go and find his brother Simon; see what he says to him: “We have found the Messiah.” Something between John the witness’s own testimony to Jesus and what Andrew heard from Jesus himself brought Andrew to this startling conclusion, a claim not to be taken lightly in that day and age. 

Now Andrew is mostly known otherwise for being the one to help set the feeding of the five thousand in motion in John 6, by bringing to Jesus’s attention the boy with the five loaves and two fish. In none of the gospels does he come off as one of the “big names”; normally you hear most of Peter, James, and John, and this fourth gospel sometimes makes a big deal of Thomas. But bringing people to meet Jesus, whether it’s the boy with the loaves and fish or it’s his own brother, that’s a pretty good legacy to leave behind in scripture.

But Andrew brings his brother Simon to Jesus and the first thing Jesus does is…change his name?

In John’s gospel, one of the most consistent characteristics of Jesus is that he sees, particularly that Jesus sees people at their deepest level. In the next verses of this chapter, Jesus will greet Nathanael, another disciple-to-be, with the proclamation “Here truly is an Israelite in whom there is no deceit!” (insterestingly, this comes just a few beats after Nathanael has made a derogatory remark about Jesus’s hometown). Think also of the clandestine nighttime visit Nicodemus made to Jesus in chapter 3, in which Jesus is answering Nicodemus’s questions before Nicodemus even has a chance to ask them. Or think of the midday encounter with a woman at a well in chapter 4, while Jesus and his disciples were in Samaria, in which Jesus seemed to know all about her, right down to her marital history. John is keenly interested in presenting Jesus as one who sees into the human condition, indeed into the human heart, from the very beginning. 

So what is it that Jesus sees in Simon that prompts him to bestow the somewhat two-sided name “Rock”? (Or maybe “Rocky”?)

After all, this isn’t exactly a common name for us. Oh, the name “Peter” is now, once it showed up all over the gospels and the book of Acts and a couple of small epistles towards the end of the New Testament. I doubt, though, that most parents who name their child “Peter” are really thinking about this Greek word’s original meaning. 

Parents don’t name their child “Rock,” at least not very often. The famous actor was born Roy Harold Scherer, Jr., long before any Hollywood mogul slapped the name “Rock Hudson” on him. And the former University of Miami football player turned pro wrestler (and now turned actor) Dwayne Johnson made sure to avoid any confusion about its meaning by choosing the stage name “The Rock” for his professional career – no confusion about not being so bright there. For that matter, to be fair, our perception might also be shaded by the movie character Rocky Balboa, as played by Sylvester Stallone in all those movies, who for all his boxing triumph doesn’t really come off as the sharpest knife in the drawer.

So what is Jesus getting at with this new name for Simon? Is it all about firmness and stability? But unlike in Matthew’s version of this story, Jesus doesn’t add on the bit about “upon this rock I will build my church,” so can we be absolutely sure that’s what’s up here? Is there something about, maybe, being just a bit of a bonehead at times?

Why not both?

In this season of Epiphany, the Sundays after the revealing of the Christ first to those eastern Magi, one of the ongoing characteristics of the gospel readings is that in some way each of those scriptures point to something about Jesus being revealed. In last week’s reading the baptism of Jesus was the occasion for that opening up of heaven and the Spirit descending like a dove, pointing to Jesus as God’s beloved son. 

In John’s gospel, especially in the earliest chapters, Jesus is presented, as noted before, as one who sees. What is revealed here is a Jesus who knows us before we know him. Again, later in the chapter when Nathanael is caught off guard by Jesus’s unexpected greeting to him, Jesus responds that he “saw you under the fig tree before Philip called you.” Nor is this particularly new to John’s gospel. One can go as far back as Genesis and its account of Hagar, the slave girl of Sarah who had been given to Abraham in an ill-considered attempt to hasten the birth of the son God had promised them. When Hagar fled into the wilderness from her Sarah’s mistreatment, the angel of the Lord found her and spoke to her, leading Hagar to name God as “the God who sees,” even someone as lowly as her.

So Jesus sees Simon. The tricky part is, though, that Jesus really sees Simon. He sees in Simon both the good and the…less good.

He sees in Simon the rock. He sees the faithfulness that will endure. He sees in Simon the dogged determination to remain with Jesus that will provoke him to say, later in this gospel when many followers have deserted Jesus, “to whom can we go? You have the words of eternal life.” He sees the disciple who will be determined to follow him to the very last, no matter the threat.

But Jesus also sees in Simon the rock-headed one. He sees the one who, in Mark’s and Matthew’s gospels, will be the one who catches on to the “Who do you say that I am?” question with the right answer – “You are the Messiah” – only to turn around and blow it by reprimanding Jesus for talking about his upcoming suffering and death, the act that gets him blasted with “Get behind me, Satan!” And Jesus sees the one who, in all his determination to follow Jesus all the way through, still ends up denying Jesus three times.

And, seeing in Simon both “the Rock” and, well, the bag of rocks, Jesus calls him anyway. There’s no thought of casting Simon aside because he was going to be such a pain to deal with sometimes. Simon is called, flaws and all. 

And of course, flaws and all, Simon, or Peter, does hold on for dear life, even despite his own failing and fumbling. Jesus pulls him back from his awful betrayal, and by the time we get into the history of the early church in the book of Acts who is out there in front, speaking boldly for the fledgling clutch of believers in the face of an indifferent world? It is none other than this same Simon. Or Peter, or Rock, or Rocky. 

Same thing happens with us, you know. Jesus sees us, all the way through, flaws and all, and still calls us. Not necessarily to anything quite so lofty as ol’ Rocky’s calling, but we are still called to follow. In a few moments we will be ordaining new elders and deacons, and installing continuing officers, and God sees them and has seen them. Maybe Jesus doesn’t hang a new name on us, except for his own – our mark of being his. But still, in all our weakness and stumbling and flat-out getting it plain wrong and even sometimes being as dumb as a bag of rocks or a sack of hammers, Jesus sees the good parts too, and calls us, and guides us and pushes us and sometimes cajoles us into serving with our whole selves, never leaving us without what we need to serve in the way we are called.

Your good news for today: Jesus sees us, knows us, and calls us anyway, even when we’re more rock-headed than rock.

Thanks be to God. Amen.

 

Hymns (from Glory to God: The Presbyterian Hymnal): #263, All Hail the Power of Jesus’ Name; #279, Come, Holy Spirit, Heavenly Dove; #688, Spirit of God, Descend Upon My Heart

Sermon: With Authority

First Presbyterian Church

January 28, 2024, Epiphany 4B

Mark 1:21-28

 

With Authority

 

In academic circles there is a humor piece that makes the rounds on occasion, with a title like “Why God would never get tenure” or something similar.  What follows is a list of reasons that, while humorously slanted, could be seen through squinted eyes as more or less academically correct descriptions of events in the history of the church or the Bible.  For example, in publication-crazed academia, everyone would recognize the failure reflected in the first reason on the list: “He only had one publication.”  Even I had more than that.

Other reasons on the list include (in reference to that “one publication”) “it was in Hebrew,” “it wasn’t published in a refereed journal,” and “some even doubt he wrote it himself.”  Other more general jokes on the list include “the scientific community has had a hard time duplicating his results,” “some say he had his son teach the class,” and “although there were only 10 requirements, most students failed the tests.”  You get the idea.

One of those jokes, though, actually resonates with today’s gospel reading, just a little bit.  Of the “one publication” the critique observes that it “had no references,” or more clearly, “no footnotes.”  

If you remember your own degree-seeking days, or if you’ve lived the academic life to any degree, you understand about things like footnotes and a bibliography, or a “works cited” or “works consulted” list – a means by which someone writing an academic paper acknowledges the sources that fed his or her research, those scholars whose previous work made the current work possible.  That kind of acknowledgment isn’t completely different from the kind of teaching that was typical of rabbinical scholars or teachers in Jesus’s time.  The scholar, addressing a particular text, would carefully develop an argument from the studies done by scholars before him, carefully balancing the work of one scholar against the commentary of another, weighing distinct views against one another, and carefully acknowledging and crediting those scholars whose work he uses.  A modern scholar uses those footnotes and bibliographies to perform much the same function.

Keep this in mind when approaching the story in Mark’s gospel for today.  In this case Jesus has the opportunity to speak in the local synagogue in Capernaeum.  This was not unusual.  A teacher did not necessarily have to be a synagogue official to be invited to speak in the service.  What Jesus did with that opportunity, though, aroused plenty of attention.  

We are not privy to the specifics of what Jesus was teaching here.  Mark is not interested in our knowing this, for whatever reason.  What he wants us to know is that Jesus’s listeners were quick to know that his teaching was different, and dramatically, surprisingly so.  Jesus wasn’t using the verbal footnotes common to the scribal tradition; his teaching was, as the text puts it, “with authority!”

Somehow Jesus was teaching in a way that didn’t involve all those meticulous cross-references.  He taught “with authority.”  He taught as the One – the only One – who did not need to cite and cross-reference and footnote.  He taught not just as one “with authority,” but indeed as authority himself.  

What happens next in the story often steals the thunder here, distracting attention from what Mark presents first.  One thing to watch in this gospel is how often Mark uses the word “immediately," or some equivalent.  He's used it already several times in this chapter, and he uses it more than we see here.  In the NIV verse 23 is translated as beginning “just then,” but in the Greek it’s the same word – εὐθύς – that elsewhere is translated “immediately.”  “Immediately” there was in the synagogue a man with an unclean spirit, and he cried out… .  This isn’t a crazed uncontrollable person, as will show up in chapter five, wandering about the tombs and ranting and raving. This is a man sitting in the synagogue listening to Jesus teaching, with the “unclean spirit” within unable to bear the presence of Jesus.  The most striking thing about this scene is that while the many in the synagogue might have marveled at the authority of Jesus’s teaching, only this unclean spirit truly grasped just what that teaching, and that authority, meant.

It meant that “the usual” was no longer enough.  It meant that “the way things are” was no longer acceptable.  It meant that those things that destroy from within, those things that hold us prisoner or keep us in thrall to what corrodes and corrupts us, those things are no longer in charge.  

In fact, this miracle – the best thing to call it, even as uncomfortable as it makes us – actually takes us back a few verses, to the proclamation found in verse 15: 

The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.

 

This miracle – but more so, this authority, this teaching that is like no other teaching that anyone has heard – is indeed a sign of the kingdom of God come near.  That demons (or unclean spirits, or any of those things that would enslave and break human beings) cannot stand in the presence of Jesus, is indeed a sign of the kingdom of God come near.  

But notice something else about this scripture.  Aside from the man with the unclean spirit, how do the people in the synagogue react to what happens?  What is their reaction to Jesus’s teaching, or to the silencing and casting out of the unclean spirit?  Let’s go looking for adjectives and verbs here to see just what Mark is saying.

Well, the NRSV translation gives us “amazed” in verse 22 to describe the people’s reaction to Jesus’s teaching “with authority.”  By verse 27, they are all “amazed,” and chattering to one another.  Finally in verse 28 we find out that Jesus’s fame begins to spread all through Galilee, which at least suggests that those who heard and saw went out and told others what they heard and saw.

These are certainly evocative words that make it clear people are impressed in some way. But it seems there is something missing in them.  

Where is the rejoicing?  Where are the “hosanna”s or the “alleluia”s?  People are amazed and astounded, but are they glad?

This points to something we might want to take with us from this passage.  Again reaching back to verse 15, Jesus comes proclaiming that “the time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near.  Repent, and believe in the good news.”  We say that the church is commissioned to proclaim the “gospel,” the “good news.”  Taken by itself that sounds good, but let’s be honest; there aren’t many people who like the sound of repentance.  It makes a demand on us.  It says things aren’t just perfectly fine and hunky-dory the way we are.  It says things have to change – no, it says things are going to change.  And that’s a little scary, for a church in a transitional time, or maybe even more so for a nice stable thriving church. And if it scares us, why should we think that those outside the church are going to be particularly comforted by it? This whole coming near of the kingdom of God upsets the established order of things, and that’s not something that everyone welcomes.

The second point has to do with that “authority,” and it might be a particularly appropriate lesson for this day in which our church installs deacons and also elders to the session.  Some scholars have observed of this story that readers through the ages have made a mistake in interpreting the reference to Jesus’s authority as a slight or criticism against the teaching of the scribes of the temple.  No.  That can’t be the point we take away from this story.  How could the scribes do otherwise?  They are but human beings.  Jesus’s authority was bound to be different because of who he was. The very first verse of this gospel tells it straightaway: “the beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.”  The scribes could not possibly teach or advise or govern with that kind of authority any more than a contemporary academic or student can get away without citing their sources in their next paper.

And neither can we.  This is a lesson to remember for me, in my own ordination and vocation, as well as for those who are installed as deacons or elders today, and for those who are already serving, and for those who may serve in the future.  The authority of the deacons or session – indeed the authority of the church itself - rests in Christ alone.  It doesn’t come in titles or rituals or majority votes.  To the degree we claim authority in anything outside the head of the church, which is Jesus Christ – certainly to the degree we claim authority to rest in our own position or title – we are not followers of Jesus Christ.

This is the kind of thing that ought to speak with particular force to this church in this time, seeking the path forward with new pastoral leadership. This is the kind of thing that hopefully prompts us to get involved in that process, remembering that we are not seeking a new "boss"; we seek someone who knows who the "boss" is and acts accordingly.

To the degree we immerse ourselves in seeking the guidance of the Holy Spirit, we involve ourselves in studying and meditating upon scripture, we open our eyes to see where Christ would lead us to minister and to reach out both within this church and outside these walls in the community and world around us, then the coming near of the kingdom of God is good news indeed.  When we are grounded in the authority of Jesus, the Son of God, we are ready to hear and to follow where Jesus leads, to live as Jesus has already shown us how to live.  And then we are ready to be witnesses to what really is good news indeed.

For authority that will never be ours, Thanks be to God.  Amen.

 

Hymns (from Glory to God: The Presbyterian Hymnal); #15, All Creatures of Our God and King; #755, Alleluia! Laud and Blessing; #12, Immortal, Invisible, God Only Wise

 

Sermon: Partners

Grace Presbyterian Church

January 15, 2017, Epiphany 2A (Elder Ordination)

1 Corinthians 1:1-9

Partners

On the surface it doesn’t seem much of a text from which to preach. It is the opening of a letter from Paul, directed at the church in the city of Corinth. It’s a fairly typical greeting at that, both in the context of Middle Eastern or Mediterranean formal practice of the time and among Paul’s letters. Nonetheless it speaks greatly to Paul’s way of working with and communicating with the churches in which he was involved, and might just be instructive to us as well on a day when we are commission some of our number for a particular role in the life of this church.

Even the very first verse of this greeting has something to tell us. If you’ve looked at all at the New Testament, or heard any sermons on it, you have some idea who Paul is. The great missionary, set apart by his experience on the Damascus Road, high-powered preacher and church planter and frequently persecuted Christian leader, author of a large chunk of the New Testament. Paul, we know.

But who is Sosthenes?

This does help make a worthwhile point about Paul: he doesn’t work alone. Of the letters we can confidently attribute to Paul, only Romans does not include some kind of co-author indicated in the greeting – and Romans is a rather different book in Paul’s output; but we’ll get to it later this year. Anyway, sometimes the co-correspondent is a more familiar name, like Timothy (in 2 Corinthians), or sometimes it’s a more collective general reference (as in Galatians, referring to “all the members of God’s family who are with me”.

Sosthenes, on the other hand, only seems to appear one other time in the New Testament, but the context in which he appears does seem to fit with his appearance here. In Acts 18:17, a synagogue official named Sosthenes was seized and beaten by a mob after a local tribunal had refused to hear their accusations against Paul. This occurred in the city of Corinth, while Paul was staying there. The idea that Sosthenes was a local Jewish official who converted and later became one of Paul’s co-workers isn’t hard to get to from there.

At any rate, such a greeting does make a useful point for us to remember, that even Paul didn’t “go it alone.” This constant presence of ministry partners, in Paul’s travels in Acts as well as Paul’s letters, should serve as a reminder to us that the church, this church or any church, is not a playground for superheroes. We need each other to help get things done around here. The fact that we’re going to have a fancy liturgy in a few minutes and lay hands on Annette McGee is not going to turn her into any kind of super-saint who is going to singlehandedly save Christianity (or even singlehandedly save Grace Presbyterian Church, for that matter). That’s not how it works. Whatever number of elders any church chooses are not that church’s “saviors” – only Jesus gets to be that. What they are, in Presbyterian practice, are the folks who are set aside to do, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, what it takes to keep the church going and working and ministering in the way that Christ calls us to do. And they need each other to do that, and they need all of the church to do that.

So Paul’s greeting goes on, and verse 2 makes another good point; no one church is in it alone. Paul addresses the church in Corinth, but also takes in “all those who in every place call on the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, both their Lord and ours.” Not only do we not go it alone in this individual congregation, we as a church are not cast off by ourselves in this world or even in this community. We work together, or at least we should be working together, with other congregations or communities of faith to accomplish what God calls us to do and to become the world God calls us to be.

Maybe the larger key is in verses 5-6.

For in every way you have been enriched in him, in speech and knowledge of every kind – just as the testimony of Christ has been strengthened among you – so that you are not lacking in any spiritual gift as you wait for the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Did you hear that? Not lacking in any gift.

Now the reasons Paul goes into this start to become clear in verse 10, after today’s reading, when Paul starts to work over the Corinthians about how they’ve used those gifts, and that’s a good reminder that when we get into behaviors of spiritual pride about our own gifts and abilities, or pride that dismisses the gifts and contributions of others, we are not in God’s will, pure and simple.

But here the point is made that God gives us what we need, both as individuals and as the church, to live into God’s will as we await being reunited with Christ. Every gift.

But that does mean all of us together, not just a select few who get ordained. What we do in a few minutes, ordaining Annette and installing her along with Karen and Lois, is by no means any kind of sign that you are off the hook for the next three years. We are a church that truly needs everybody’s gifts and abilities all pulling together if we’re to be anything like what we are called to be. Nobody gets to ride the bench.

I know what you’re already saying under your breath or in your head. I can’t do it anymore. I’m not physically up to it. I am on the road a lot. I have trouble getting here.  None of those things mean that you have nothing to contribute. It isn’t necessary to serve as an elder in order to serve. Do what you are able to do.

You haven’t been on a committee before? Find one and join. You haven’t been on one in a while? Same thing, find one and join. Find what God has given you that you can do and find the way to use it so that this church can be the witness it is called to be. And there is one thing that anybody can do. Anybody can pray.

Elders, this has a message for you, too; your role isn’t about going it alone, or being a hero, or anything like that. Find partners in the work. Delegate. Find what help others are able to give, and receive it gratefully.

If you are here, you have something to contribute. And there are plenty of people who aren’t here today who also have something to contribute. In whatever understated, mild-mannered way, you have something. Find that thing and do it.

That sounds like a goal, doesn’t it? Maybe even a New Year resolution.

In a few moments, as we are ordaining Annette and installing Karen and Lois, I invite you to hear the questions they are asked and the responsibilities with which they are charged, and take them to heart yourself. We all have a vocation in this congregation, whether we are ordained or not. And we are partners in that vocation, all of our gifts and abilities and talents and passions working together to be Christ’s church, Christ’s body, in God’s world. Let us all know and believe that we are, all of us, called today.

For partners in ministry, Thanks be to God. Amen.

Hymns (from Glory to God: The Presbyterian Hymnal):

#298            Lord, You Give the Great Commission

#651            I Waited Patiently For God (Psalm 40)

#417            How Clear Is Our Vocation, Lord

#837            What a Fellowship, What a Joy Divine