ABSTRACT

There is a tendency in much writing about the office of Peter, if not also in describing the particular one who occupies this seat, to look up, to speak of the office in elevated terms using language that suggests height, or to imagine in the mind’s eye a place of superiority from which ordinary things are directed and overseen. So too the person who is called to this responsibility is presumed to be lifted up to a high place at the head of the table in the very best seat of all, a lofty figure with great power. I should say at the outset that this is not at all the way by which I as a theologian have come to find this place or its significance for the life of the church. For in reflecting upon it, I have been taken deeper and deeper into the depths, right down to the very bottom of things where the root of faith lies. It is here that I have come to know Peter in the grounding of faith itself, where his own life was turned around by the Lord. And if this rock of Peter has proved to be altogether more fragile and entirely at risk of itself than I would prefer it to be, this teaches me something of the very essence of faith which I would not otherwise have known. It is only from this seat that he continues to lead the church.