Can you repeat that?

Matthew 16 & 17

I believe in evolution.  In order for a thing to be complete, it has to change.   But before that happens, repetition does its good work.  It builds a steadiness, a pattern we can follow and gain confidence in.  This is true in art, music, poetry, in all things "created."

Anyone with kids can tell you that repetition is vital to their development.  Bedtime routines, repeating words  and rules, reading the same book over and over again.  The best example of this is the notorious toddler habit (generally with a large bucket of toys) of dump, retrieve, repeat.  Early childhood specialists will tell you all kinds of great skills they are learning in this process, but if they did this forever, it would be weird.  At some point they learn the principle and then move on to a new set of repetitions.  Right now, we're stuck on some and, thankfully, past others.  I think we've been telling Cael (7) not to suck on his fingers while he reads for at least 4 years now.  That's his thinking position: not the muscular, stoic pose of a man resting his chin on his fist, but a first grader engrossed in "Percy Jackson" and drooling all over the pointer finger jammed to his back molars. But he finally makes his bed without us asking every morning (check!).  I've coached Beck (4) numerous times on avoiding the combination of black dress socks and shorts or stripes and camouflage.  The days he dresses himself and we're not going anywhere, he's quite a sight.  But he finally learned not to bring his toy weapons to the dinner table (something that kind of makes me sad). And baby Cooper, after hearing us ask, "What's this?" hundreds of times, now says, "this"  (which is actually kind of brilliant because this is this - he's light years ahead of us.)  For me, I'm stuck in a negative set of repetitions.  Every week I commit to stop my daily intake of chocolate and start running more.  And every week I sneak chocolate chips, revel in dessert, and sleep in too much. (What can I say?  My kids are smarter than I am.)

Even Jesus's ministry and the telling of it is steeped in repetition.  Every page there's a healing.  The same phrases find their way into nearly every teaching: "the kingdom of heaven is like...,"  "blessed are...," "thy faith hath made thee whole."   The stories themselves are retold several times between the four gospels.  It couldn't be that they didn't have anything else to write about, since John himself says that what we don't know about Jesus could fill so many books the world wouldn't have room for them.  In other words, a lot.  So why the same stories over and over?

>>>>>

The first time we are introduced to Peter, he's fishing.  There is a real routine to fishing - throwing out the nets, retrieving, sorting, then starting the process all over again.  I imagine the weather gets repetitive, the seasons, the same pull and drag of the net.  But Peter has obviously learned something beyond just expert fishing, some basic principles that make him ripe for discipleship because, when Jesus bursts on the scene, he is ready to start a new life.  He just didn't bargain on everything that new life would bring.

In these chapters, Peter has figured things out.  He's read the signs and has added up what they mean.  At least, to some degree.  They mean that Jesus - this man he's broken bread with, slept near, walked with mile after mile -  is the one all the prophecies have been about.  And when Peter confesses this to Jesus, Jesus tells him he'll build his church on this kind of rock, meaning Peter (petros, "a small rock" in Greek), meaning he trusts Peter, enough to do the work when he's gone.  Later, Peter himself calls his own followers "lively stones."  They, like him, help build up the kingdom of God.  All of this sounds so comforting, so sure.

And then Peter goes on displaying some of the grossest errors of any of the disciples.  Sometimes in the reading, I see him as that well-intended guy who is (almost) always saying the wrong thing (because he's talking more than anyone), who's living with his heart out on his sleeve but who is awkward and unsure, the one who knows a lot and is quick to understand but who falters at those critical moments.  He seems to constantly leap out and then retreat.  When he contradicts Jesus about his imminent death (right after the exchange about being a rock), Jesus calls him Satan and says he is an offense to him.  When he can't keep walking on that water, Jesus says his faith is too weak.  And when they're on the Mount of Transfiguration, Peter lapses into what I can't help but read as a nervous babbling.  Is he really all that interested in building tabernacles or is he just trying desperately to find something to say?  (I'd be scared too if I were on a mountain top with the Son of God and two dead prophets.  The air itself must have been electrifying.)  And if that isn't embarrassing enough, in the middle of his babbling, he gets interrupted.  Suddenly a bright cloud overshadows them and God speaks.  Talk about awkward timing.

What I love most about Peter is how real he is.  At this point, things are in constant motion for him.  Just as soon as he gets his bearings in one thing, it changes.  And his flaws are on full display every time someone opens this book.  And yet, he was the right man for the job.  With all of his awkwardness, his "lack of faith" (who are we kidding? he left everything behind, he had loads of faith), his instinct to save his own skin when Jesus was arrested, he was still the stone Jesus said he'd build on.  He could be right for it while still being (glaringly) imperfect.  He was still evolving.

>>>>

I've always known I have a bit of a temper, but it hadn't shown itself much since that one time in my late teens when I got mad at my friends while we were all working in Yellowstone for the summer.  I don't remember what the issue was, but I do remember stomping into my bedroom in our cabin and throwing all of my shoes against the door as hard as I could, leaving little dents in the original wood that had been there since 1905.   Since then I'd congratulated myself on growing up and out of my anger.  And I was sure it was all behind me.
 
But, years later, there I was, sitting on my bed and sobbing (again) because I'd lost my temper (again) and yelled at my son (again).   No doubt it was for something totally normal in Kid Land (tracking in mud or spilling orange juice on the rug... or playing with his poop, then wiping it all over the side of the bathroom vanity... that's normal, right?), but I'd had it, and this awful rage just burst right out of me and scared both of us.  And as many times as I committed to stay patient, it never seemed to happen.  No wonder the cell phone lay in pieces on the floor.

Later that day I calmly entered the cell phone store and had an exchange with the single, childless, couldn't-be-older-than-20, male employee.  I had to explain that, knowing my old phone was on the fritz anyway and in a moment of frustration in the never-ending saga known as Potty Training, I had taken out my anger on the most helpless and feeble item in the room: my phone.  In fact, I'd thrown it against the wall, and it was now a pile of sad-looking debris in my hand.  After a look of horror (and fear) crossed his face, he tried to laugh a little (I wasn't joking, I said seriously), and showed me the display of other phones, keeping his distance until his co-worker came back from lunch break, and she took over.

I am deeply flawed in the parenting department.  While I don't have that kind of anger anymore (thankfully), I still lose it sometimes.  And the windows are open.  And I'm sure some of the neighbors hear.  (Lucky for us our neighbors on one side are elderly and can't hear very well.)  But that doesn't mean that I wasn't meant to be a parent.

We can be the right person for the job and still be clueless about how to do it.  We can screw up and embarrass ourselves over and over again and still be getting somewhere so long as we're learning.

It's not a coincidence that my anger happened mainly with my first son.  I was new at being a mother.  I'd never done this before.  Since then, I've learned, through the patterns of daily life as a mother (where everything is repetition), how to juggle things a little better, and how to lower the bar of my expectations until it practically touches the floor.

Maybe we can be kinder, more merciful to leaders and disciples and parents and even kids who've never been those before.  It's all pretty new.  Give them some time to get more of it down because most of the time, they do.  How many times do I have to read the story of Peter until I believe that?