21st Sunday in Ordinary Time – 23 August 2026
“What’s in a name?” we sometimes say, as though names do not finally matter very much. Shakespeare gave us the familiar line: “A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.” Yet names do matter. They locate us in a family, a history, a culture. Increasingly, we are conscious, too, of the importance of addressing people as they wish to be known. A name is never simply a label. It says something about identity, belonging and relationship.
This was even more evident in the ancient world. A name was understood to disclose something of the person themselves: their character, their place in the community, sometimes even their destiny. And so, when someone received a new name, something very significant was being declared. Abram becomes Abraham; Jacob becomes Israel. A new name signifies a new vocation, a new future, a new way of being in the world. Usually, we might expect such a name to recognise something already evident in the person. A warrior might receive a name celebrating courage after a great victory. A leader might be given a title recognising wisdom or achievement. The name confirms what everyone can already see.
It is this that makes what Jesus does in the Gospel curious. Simon is given the name Peter – Petros, the rock. “You are Peter, and on this rock I will build my Church.” The first Christians who knew the stories about Peter may well have smiled. There is not very much about Peter that seems particularly rock-like. He is impulsive. He speaks before he thinks. He misunderstands Jesus repeatedly. One moment he is full of confidence; the next he is sinking beneath the waves. At the Transfiguration he hardly knows what to say. In Gethsemane he cannot stay awake. And when the moment of crisis finally comes, this supposedly solid rock crumbles completely. Three times he denies that he even knows Jesus. If we were choosing someone on whom to build an institution, Peter would probably not present as the preferred candidate
This is because, we live in a world that places enormous importance on choosing the strongest candidate. We look for competence, resilience, confidence, achievement. We construct profiles, measure performance, assess risk, identify strengths and weaknesses. Increasingly, algorithms themselves rank us: our creditworthiness; our employability; our productivity; our influence. We are quietly taught that our value lies in being successful, capable, attractive, secure and in control. This pressure can enter our faith as well. We can begin to imagine that the future of the Church depends upon having the right strategy, the right structures, the right leaders, the right communications, the right resources. All of these things have their importance. But the Gospel continually unsettles the assumption that the Kingdom of God is built simply upon human strength. Indeed, it struck me personally with great clarity a few years ago that God only gives the Church sufficient number of people with competence to keep things going precisely so that we do not fall into the illusion that the entire operation is our own doing.
Jesus looks at this wonderfully imperfect man and says, “You are the rock.” Perhaps there is humour in this. There is also something profoundly theological. Jesus names Peter not simply according to who Peter is at that moment, but according to who Peter can become through grace. Jesus sees possibility where others might see inadequacy.
This is one of the most beautiful things about the way God looks at each of us. God does not simply name us according to our past. God does not imprison us within our failures. God does not reduce us to the worst thing we have done, the mistake we most regret, the weakness we cannot overcome, or the uncertainty with which we continue to struggle. God addresses us from the future. God calls forth something in us that may not yet be fully visible. Peter does eventually become a rock, but not because his personality suddenly changes and he becomes invulnerable. He becomes a rock because he learns, painfully, that he cannot rely upon himself. Faith, then, is not built upon the illusion that we are strong. Faith begins when we discover that we are not.
Our instinct in all our circumstances can be to look for something solid. We want certainty. We want strong answers. We want someone who can tell us exactly what will happen next. Yet the Gospel gives us Peter. Perhaps that is precisely the point. The rock upon which Jesus builds his Church is not human self-sufficiency. The rock is the discovery that beneath all our uncertainty there is One upon whom we can depend. Peter can become the rock only when he discovers that he himself is not the foundation. Jesus is. And so, Jesus does not say to Peter, “Become stronger, and then I will use you.” He says, in effect, “Give me your weakness, your enthusiasm, your mistakes, your doubts, your love, your failures and I will make of these something you cannot yet imagine.” The real miracle of today’s Gospel, therefore, is not that Jesus chooses a rock. It is that Jesus makes a rock out of someone who knows he is not one.
For us, it means that our vulnerability need not be the enemy of faith. Our doubts need not disqualify us from discipleship. Our uncertainty need not mean that God has abandoned us. Sometimes it is precisely where our confidence in ourselves begins to fracture that a deeper confidence in God can begin. The French writer, Charles Péguy wrote beautifully of hope as the small and apparently insignificant sister walking between faith and charity yet somehow drawing them forward. Hope is often like that. Sometimes it is simply the quiet conviction that, despite everything, God has not finished his work with us.
Therefore, we do not need to pretend that we are stronger than we are; to disguise our doubts or anxieties; to imagine that the future of the Church depends entirely upon our ingenuity or competence. Rather, we bring all that we are – our gifts and limitations, our confidence and uncertainty, our fidelity and failure – and place them in the hands of Jesus. For when our vulnerability meets our dependence upon God, something extraordinary can happen: fear can become trust; uncertainty can become openness; failure can become compassion; fragility can become faith; and faith can become hope.
This is the strange rock upon which Christ continues to build his Church.
