I have with me a small pile of Ember cards. These are cards that people preparing for ordained ministry produce asking for the prayers of anyone who’ll take them. It’s a natural thing for most clergy that you acquire a small mountain of these cards over the years in all shapes and sizes. I have with me an Ember I accidentally inherited from the priest who trained me to preside at Holy Communion, who sadly died earlier this year. In one of his books that I inherited, I found this Ember Card from a priest ordained in 1982. Finding this card tucked away has been important because it’s a link to a past I’m not part of directly but has influenced me today. We are all formed by the work of those before us and we all work for the future of those who come after us.

Just as the Ember Cards are a physical sign of so many different people building up the Church, we see in St Peter a link between the history we inherit and how we carry that forward into the future. Peter’s life is a long and varied story from Galilean fisherman to follower of Jesus to martyr in Rome. Was there anything extra special about Peter? Not really unless you count his tendency to run headlong at problems. Peter is an everyman who is suddenly brought into this whirlwind of a charismatic rabbi and miracle worker.

But as Peter spends longer with Jesus and his other followers, Peter does change because he becomes more willing to listen, to realise his own limits and to acknowledge them. Peter’s confession of Jesus as the Messiah and the Son of God comes about by his living experience of Jesus, not something abstract created by Peter's superior intellect. And it is only by being challenged on his assumptions by Jesus that Peter grows. Jesus doesn’t demand that Peter rejects the faith he has been brought up in, but challenges him to be open to the different ways that God can work. This is what brings the headstrong Peter to realise the Kingdom of God is open to all people in all their diversity, not just a select uniform few.

Then Jesus states that Peter will be the rock on which the church will be built. For a second put yourself in Peter’s place. How would you feel to be the basis for this new community that Jesus is building? It could be scary, thinking that all the weight of other people’s expectations is on us. The other perspective is seeing the rock, the foundation of the community, as just the starting point which builds up others.

The readings from Acts and Peter’s letter are about encouraging others through the example of Peter. Peter isn’t the example because he’s better than others but as a sign that God works in everyone. This capacity for change doesn’t stop with this moment for Peter. He will deny Jesus and have to realise that he isn’t beyond God’s love. He will still have his beliefs challenged by Paul and the changing nature of the church from a mainly Jewish group to one that crosses boundaries. In all of this, Peter doesn’t reject where he has come from. Through his experiences with Jesus and with the diverse group of Jesus’ followers, Peter honours where he has come from but is willing to accept change and build others up in the knowledge that God loves all people. The Church built on Peter doesn’t reject but thinks of the new ways to work in a changing world. It is not the work of a few but something we each have a part in with our unique experiences of faith and our own particular gifts.

As well as this Ember Card from 1982 , I also have Iain’s Ember Card from 2025. There are forty-three years between these two cards, and it’s an understatement to say the world has changed a lot. In the face of change and an unknowable future, we can be tempted to retreat back to the comfort of the past. But this pile of Ember cards in all their shapes and sizes shows that we are part of an ancient community founded on Peter. There may be some who are held up as examples but this is to encourage all of us, rather than put some down. We all equally share in God’s love, in all our diversity we each have gifts to build up others. In the middle of change and challenge we, like Peter and the first followers, continue to be guided by Jesus, God present in our lives. We all bring something to this community, to remember God’s work that has supported us in the past, to look for our gifts in the present and how we can look to build up others in the future. In this we continue the faith in Jesus proclaimed by Peter.

Amen.

Revd. Alex Firman

Assistant Curate

Lowick, Ford & Etal, and Ancroft

Diocese of Newcastle