So, according to our reading from Isaiah today (Is 22:19-23), Shebna is out of favor and Eliakim is on the up. But in the end it didn’t turn out so well for Eliakim either. In the subsequent conflict with the king of Assyria, Eliakim ended up on the wrong side and also lost favor. So the writer of Isaiah added a little postscript after the passage we read today, noting how that “firm” peg broke off the wall! It’s a tough job picking winners and losers in the geopolitics of ancient Israel, even if you are a prophet.
We might not know a lot about Eliakim, but Peter, that’s different. This is the guy who just made a fool of himself on the mountaintop during the Transfiguration, who couldn’t follow through on his bravado in walking across the water to Jesus. And the worst is yet to come. He will fall asleep in the garden of Gethsemene while Jesus is battling his fear of torture, and then run away completely once he thinks he’s going to be identified as a colleague of a man about to be executed.
And he gets the keys to the kingdom! (Mt 16:13-20)
As Paul points out to the Romans (Rom 11:33-36), it’s not a smart move trying to figure out how God thinks. Paul quotes Isaiah in making his point (who I guess came to learn humility from his prophetic failures) (Is 40:13.). We just have to assume that God knows what he’s about, and that building his church on Peter was for our good, despite the obvious failures (to our eyes) we see in Peter, and in many of his successors.
But I do wonder what might Peter himself have been thinking at this point? My suspicion is he was feeling pretty pleased with himself. He just aced Jesus’s little quiz and, despite Jesus pointing out that he shouldn’t be taking the credit for this, he does get the prize. But maybe he also realizes this prize is not quite as cool as it seems. Just as Eliakim could fall off his perch, nothing is guaranteed for Peter either. The church may survive despite evil, but the keys come with terrifying responsibility. And Jesus knew that neither Peter nor the rest of the disciples were yet ready to take on that responsibility. The time for standing behind Peter’s rather wobbly declaration of faith had not yet come. It would take the power of the Resurrection to get there. And even after that, the firm pegs in the wall could still come unstuck.
The mind of God doesn’t get revealed in a clearcut way that we can depend on with our human understanding. If we get to thinking we’ve figured it all out, we know the answers, we know how everyone should be behaving, then we’d do well to remember Peter. And follow him in his moments of humility, not of hubris.