Not So Solid: Rethinking the Rock of Faith

Readings:

Numbers 20.1–13 (NRSV Anglicised)

The Israelites, the whole congregation, came into the wilderness of Zin in the first month, and the people stayed in Kadesh. Miriam died there, and was buried there.

Now there was no water for the congregation; so they gathered together against Moses and against Aaron. The people quarrelled with Moses and said, ‘Would that we had died when our kindred died before the Lord! Why have you brought the assembly of the Lord into this wilderness for us and our livestock to die here? Why have you brought us up out of Egypt, to bring us to this wretched place? It is no place for grain, or figs, or vines, or pomegranates; and there is no water to drink.’

Then Moses and Aaron went away from the assembly to the entrance of the tent of meeting; they fell on their faces, and the glory of the Lord appeared to them. The Lord spoke to Moses, saying:

‘Take the staff, and assemble the congregation, you and your brother Aaron, and command the rock before their eyes to yield its water. Thus you shall bring water out of the rock for them; thus you shall provide drink for the congregation and their livestock.’

So Moses took the staff from before the Lord, as he had commanded him. Moses and Aaron gathered the assembly together before the rock, and he said to them, ‘Listen, you rebels, shall we bring water for you out of this rock?’ Then Moses lifted up his hand and struck the rock twice with his staff; water came out abundantly, and the congregation and their livestock drank.

But the Lord said to Moses and Aaron, ‘Because you did not trust in me, to show my holiness before the eyes of the Israelites, therefore you shall not bring this assembly into the land that I have given them.’

These are the waters of Meribah, where the people of Israel quarrelled with the Lord, and by which he showed his holiness.

Matthew 16.13–23 (NRSV Anglicised)

Now when Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, ‘Who do people say that the Son of Man is?’

And they said, ‘Some say John the Baptist, but others Elijah, and still others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.’

He said to them, ‘But who do you say that I am?’

Simon Peter answered, ‘You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.’

And Jesus answered him, ‘Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father in heaven. And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.’

Then he sternly ordered the disciples not to tell anyone that he was the Messiah.

From that time on, Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and undergo great suffering at the hands of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised.

And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him, saying, ‘God forbid it, Lord! This must never happen to you.’

But he turned and said to Peter, ‘Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling-block to me; for you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.’

Sermon:

Not So Solid: Rethinking the Rock of Faith

There’s something suspiciously ironic about calling someone “the Rock” when they’ve just had a moment of divine insight and are, five minutes later, going to be called “Satan.” That’s quite a swing. From granite to gravel in just a few verses.

“You are Peter,” says Jesus, “and on this rock I will build my church.” Peter—the fisherman, the foot-in-mouth specialist, the man who sinks while walking on water and chops off ears when diplomacy would do. Not exactly foundation material by most HR standards. But then again, God seems to have a taste for building with mismatched bricks.

Now, for centuries—especially in the Roman Catholic tradition—this moment has been read as Peter being given the keys to the kingdom, the badge of ultimate authority, and the ecclesiastical hard hat. The pope becomes the spiritual heir to Peter, and so the rock on which the Church is built becomes a particular person, a line of succession, an office.

But there’s another way to read it—slightly less institutional, and perhaps more personal. Just before Jesus calls Peter the rock, Peter makes a bold declaration: “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.” It’s the first time any disciple has said it out loud. Up until now, they’ve scratched their heads and murmured about prophets and Elijah and John the Baptist coming back in a toga. But Peter cuts through the fog. “You are the Christ.” And maybe, just maybe, that’s the rock Jesus wants to build on. Not the man himself, but the faith—the *trust*—expressed in that moment.

Which brings us to a question: what kind of rock is faith, anyway?

Some people treat it like granite—a solid block of certainty, unchanging and immovable. For them, faith is about holding tightly to a set of doctrinal truths: tick the boxes, recite the creeds, defend the castle walls. But for others—perhaps more of us than we care to admit—faith feels more like sandstone. There are contours and curves, it erodes a little with time, but it still holds its shape. It's a rock you can lean on, not one to smash others with.

Faith, in this gentler mode, is not so much about being certain of facts, but trusting in a person. In a relationship. In a way of living and loving that has captured your heart.

Which brings us, helpfully, to Moses and his bad day at the office. In the book of Numbers, the people are thirsty (again), and complaining (again), and Moses is tired (again). God tells him to speak to a rock, and water will come out. But Moses, fed up and perhaps a little performative, whacks the rock twice instead. Water still flows, but God is unimpressed. “Because you did not trust in me,” says the Lord, “you shall not bring this assembly into the land.”

Now, on first reading, this seems harsh. The man has been faithful for decades, dragging this reluctant rabble across the desert, and one wrong move and he’s grounded. But perhaps the issue is deeper than stage directions. Moses—like Peter—has let his trust wobble. He relies on force, not faith. He assumes the power is his to wield, not God’s to give. And in that moment, he ceases to lead in trust.

So what is faith? For a progressive Christian, perhaps faith is less about *knowing* and more about *leaning*. Less about asserting theological propositions, and more about following Jesus through the crowd, listening to his voice, watching how he treats the poor and the proud and the powerful. Faith is saying, “I trust this man. I trust the God he shows me. I trust that love wins.”

That doesn’t mean there’s no place for thinking, of course. The brain is a marvellous organ, and Jesus never asked us to leave it at the door. But when faith becomes a set of intellectual hoops to jump through—when it becomes a pass/fail exam in metaphysics—we lose something essential. We lose the heart of trust.

And perhaps that’s the real rock the church is built on. Not a person in Rome or Jerusalem or Havant, but the lived trust that God is love, that Jesus shows us who God is, and that following him leads to life.

Which is good news for us, because most of us are more Peter than Paul, more Moses than mystic. We wobble, we whack when we should speak, we make declarations and then immediately fall flat. But the church is not built on perfection. It’s built on trust. Trust in Jesus, trust in love, trust that somehow God can build something beautiful out of us rocky, crumbly, peculiar bits of stone.

So may we be faithful, not in the sense of being always certain, but in the sense of keeping close. Trusting. Listening. Following. And letting God draw water—even from our hardest places.

Amen.