This week's readings are Isaiah 51:1-6 and Matt 16:13-20.  We're taking a brief break this week from our march through the narrative of Abraham's family - but there's no escaping - they pop up in our passage from Isaiah!  In this passage the prophet uses their walk in righteousness as a spur to encourage us to model our lives the same way, and also as a reminder of the faithfulness of God to his people through the millennia.  That one reference can be used in both ways reveals, I think, something extraordinary about the nature and character of God.

As we remember the broad narrative of scripture, and God's faithfulness from one generation to the next, and his power over history to bring about his ends and his purposes, we cannot help but be reminded how much bigger than us he is, and how really he has no need of us.  Yet as we consider the stories of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph and watch the intimacy with which God interacts with them - the particular and personal he takes, the way he uses their actions - both those well intentioned and those less so - we also cannot help but be reminded that despite his lack of need for us, God seems to delight in involving us, in wrapping us up in his dream for the world, and encouraging and enabling us to join him in bringing it into being - even, amazingly, when doing so seems to slow that dream down. 

A similar theme emerges from the gospel this week - Peter's declaration 'You are the Messiah, the Son of the Living God' recognises the power, authority, and completeness of Jesus in and of himself.  What can Peter add?  What can Peter do, that Jesus can't?  And yet...  Jesus replies, 'Blessed are you, Simon ... 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.'

He didn't need to do that - Jesus could, as he was taunted to, call down legions of angels, or, as he was tempted to, make all the rulers of the earth bow down before him.  He could seized the power and dominion that was rightfully his, just take it.  Instead he chose to hand it over to Peter to take charge of.  Peter.  Peter the rash, Peter the foolish, Peter the one who would lie about ever knowing Jesus, and abandon him in his moment of greatest need.  Why?  Because he knew that trusting Peter in that way would be the making of the man - that this commission would be what gave him the strength to face his failings, pick himself up, and get on with getting on and building the kingdom of heaven.  That this trust would remind him that he would never be too far gone.

God has chosen to share a dream with us, flawed, petty, broken and wounded humans - and then he chose to entrust it to us, that we might join him in bringing it about - and so receive the gift of the Kingdom of Heaven not as something forced upon us, but as something we have walked into willingly, gratefully, and expectantly; and that we have been created to play a part in God's dream for the world, and discover who we are most fully as we step into that role of co-worker with the creator.  Not because he needs us, but because we need him.

What is God calling you to do to help bring his Kingdom in earth as it is in Heaven?