I want to start with a guy named Peter but not the Peter you are expecting me to talk about. Years ago, there was a psychologist and professor of education by the name of Laurence J. Peter who taught at the University of Southern California.   His tenure began in 1964. Several years after arriving, Dr. Peter did research on a number of corporations and came up with the title for our new sermon series, The Peter Principle. Actually, I’m sure that Laurence Peter didn’t know he was titling my sermon series and since he died in 1990, he doesn’t care that I’ve claimed it for the next seven weeks. To be fair to him, I’ve added an “S” to the title, my sermon series is “The Peter Principles.”

There was a time in popular culture where the business maxim known as the Peter Principle was readily understood.  Someone would say, “He Peter principled into that position” and everyone would nod and know exactly what you are talking about. Over the last couple of decades, the principle disappeared from common understanding. I learned this when half of my staff said they didn’t know what the Peter Principle was. I explained that the Peter Principle was about people getting promoted up the corporate ladder until they are in a position that they can’t handle.

Let me give you an example. Let’s say there is someone who is a very creative web designer who can come up with some really cool looks. Everyone is impressed with her work and her commitment to get the job done right. Recognizing her value, the company promotes her to director of internet technology, a position which connects with her web skills but also requires hiring and firing staff, motivating people and keeping a budget, things which she isn’t good at. Her skills are creative, not administrative. She was promoted to a position of incompetency. Eventually, says the Peter Principle, the higher levels of a bureaucracy become populated entirely by incompetent people. If you read the cartoon strip Dilbert, or watch The Office, they are variations of the Peter Principle where bosses are incompetent people.

At first glance, the biblical personality of Peter fits “The Peter Principle.” Peter is an unlikely candidate to be a disciple let alone build the church upon his shoulders.  He may be the most famous disciple but many in his time would not have perceived him as such. Some might even say he'd risen to his own level of incompetence. He is described in scripture as impetuous, headstrong, reckless and stubborn.  Standing before the Sanhedrin, the ruling body of Judaism, Peter and the apostle John were described as “uneducated and ordinary men.” (Acts 4:13).  Based upon the way we assess people, we would not select Simon Peter to be our leader. Nevertheless, Jesus did pick him and builds him into one of two great leaders of the early church.

It is our starting point in this Lenten sermon series.  God looks at the value of people in a very different way than you or I look at people.  We look at someone and rate him on his looks or intelligence or personality or how much money he has. We think, because of the way he’s packaged or the way she appears, they can do that job. It’s why the Peter Principle or the Dilbert Principle functions in business. When we evaluate people solely on outward appearance and performance, eventually there is a point of diminishing return, a place of where we just don’t get it right. Our standards aren’t deep enough; they are flawed.

By contrast, when it comes to the value of people, God has a completely different approach. God looks less at what the world considers valuable and more at what God knows is within you, what God imagines you to be. God knows your full potential and wants to guide you to become the best version of you. God sees capacity and inner worth in each of us. We learn this principle centuries before we meet Peter. God reveals this when God is selecting a young shepherd boy named David to be the next king.  

“But the Lord said to Samuel, "Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature… for the Lord does not see as mortals see; they look on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart." (1 Samuel 16:7).

This verse of scripture is lived out in the life of Peter. We see it from the start when we meet Peter for the first time. Oddly Peter’s not on stage when we are first introduced to him. We just hear about him. This first reference comes in the first chapter of the gospel of John around the story of Jesus and John the Baptist. We know from Luke that John is Jesus’ cousin and from the synoptic gospels that John baptizes Jesus in the river Jordan. But in the Gospel of John, we don’t see John the Baptist baptize Jesus; rather, he points him out to two of his disciples, saying, “Look, here is the Lamb of God!"  The two disciples heard him say this, and they followed Jesus… One of the two who heard John speak and followed him was Andrew, Simon Peter's brother.” (John 1: 36b-37, 40). 

That is the first reference that we have of Peter. He’s Andrew’s brother and what we discover is Andrew introduced his brother to Christ.

It is a powerful image. Without Andrew there would be no Peter. Without Andrew’s witness to his brother, Peter would not have emerged as the leader of the church. John states it simply, “He brought Simon to Jesus…” (John 1: 42).

Before every Billy Graham crusade there is a program called “Operation Andrew.” The basic idea behind Operation Andrew is that people who know Jesus are encouraged to share their faith with their friends and family.  They know this simple truth from Peter’s story. We will listen to those who we know and respect.  People are introduced to Jesus by a caring person rather than a powerful book or a door to door missionary or a televangelist.  We don’t know how many other people Andrew brought to Christ but the one we do know became the dynamic leader of the early church. Peter’s faith was built because his brother introduced him to Jesus.

When you are excited about something, you talk about it. People are brought to Christ by people who are excited about Jesus.  Are you excited enough about your faith to share it with others, to be an Andrew and say, “We have found the Messiah” (John 1:40b)?  Someone was an “Andrew” for you. Be an “Andrew” for someone else.

“He first found his brother Simon and said to him, "We have found the Messiah" (which is translated Anointed) He brought Simon to Jesus, who looked at him and said, "You are Simon son of John. You are to be called Cephas” (which is translated Peter). (John 1: 41-42).

 It’s two powerful verses of scripture both in what it says about Peter and what is missing. What’s missing is any exchange between Peter and Jesus. Peter doesn’t say a word.  We can only speculate about what was going on in Peter’s mind but, we have a pretty good idea.  As we look at Peter’s life, we’ll discover that he will have many misconceptions about who Jesus is. In fairness, when Andrew said to his brother, “We have found the Messiah” it set Peter up to have a distorted view about who Jesus was.  First century Jews were looking for a Messiah that would liberate their nation from foreign rule and oppression, a military Messiah. Over the next three years, Simon Peter is challenged to understand that Jesus is a totally different kind of Messiah than he wanted or even expected. Discipleship requires adjustment of expectations and motivations for following Jesus. [1]

Like Peter, when you first started following Jesus you may have had an unclear view of the Messiah. Most new Christians (and some experienced Christians), have a distorted view of Jesus. I know this was my experience. When I made my decision for Christ, I remember thinking that because I believed in Jesus and because I was committed to following him, that if I prayed hard enough for something, it would happen. I wanted a Messiah who was a combination of a superhero and magician, one who could stop bullets, cure cancer, help me hit homeruns and pass tests and in general, make my world a safer place to live.  Eventually, I discovered that I was trying to make Jesus meet my naïve image of a Messiah.  I came to realize that you can’t build Jesus into your personal Messiah; he builds you into his disciple and this process happens over a lifetime of understanding of Jesus. Jesus builds Peter into a great leader but it would require Peter to reshape his thinking.

Peter may not have had the first clue to who Jesus was but Jesus knows immediately who Simon is.  He calls him by name. This is a first in the story of Jesus.  Peter is the first disciple called by name by Jesus. He also gives him a nickname, Cephas which John translates as Peter, the Greek version of the Aramaic word. Here is the fascinating thing about the nickname Cephas. It doesn’t show up again in the gospels. We never ever hear Jesus call Peter Cephas other than this one time. It’s a nickname that Peter has to grow into and does. When he becomes the “rock” upon which is the church is founded, it becomes common practice to talk about Peter as Cephas. In the Apostle Paul’s letters, he often refers to Peter this way.  When he writes about the resurrection, Paul says, “For I handed on to you as of first importance what I in turn had received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, and that he was buried, and that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. “ (1 Corinthians 15: 3-50) For the early church, Peter was Cephas, “the rock.”  He became the person that Jesus saw in him. [2]

It’s God’s Peter Principle. You don’t rise to your highest level of incompetency. You become who God designed you to be. Following Jesus allows you to flourish and grow, to become fully you. To follow Jesus is to be sent on a lifelong journey that will clarify and sharpen our truest gifts and identities, to become who God really wants you to be.

There is a wonderful story during the Renaissance which might bring this principle home.  In 1463, the City of Florence commissioned a sculptor by the name of Duccio to carve a giant statue to stand in front of city hall, to be the city’s icon.  Duccio went to the quarry near Carrara and marked off a 19-foot slab to be cut from the white marble. However, he had the slab cut too thin. When the block was removed, it fell, leaving a deep fracture down one side. The sculptor declared the stone useless and demanded another, but the city council refused. Consequently, the gleaming block of marble lay on its side for the next 38 years, a source of embarrassment for all concerned. Sculptor after sculptor said the marble was trash, worthless.

Then, in 1501, the council approached a young sculptor, asking him to complete the ambitious project, using the broken slab. He was 26 years old, filled with energy, skill, and imagination. He said “Yes, this rock is fine. I can work with this.” He then, locked himself inside the workshop behind the cathedral to chisel and polish away on the stone for three years. When the work was finished, it took 49 men five days to bring it to rest before the city hall. Archways were torn down. Narrow streets were widened. The people from across Europe came to see the 14-foot statue of David relaxing after defeating Goliath, what most believe to be Michelangelo’s greatest achievement, carved from marble that was consider flawed, even worthless.[3]

Jesus looked at Peter and said, “Yes, I can work with this ‘rock’.  I can carve him into disciple.  I can make him into something great.

Jesus wants to do the same for you. When we are first introduced to Jesus, we cannot see ourselves as Jesus sees us but he looks deep inside and knows who we can be. He knows your special qualities and capabilities better than you. He sees your full potential. If you are willing to follow Jesus long enough and allow him to shape your life, he’ll carve from the depth of your soul the best qualities in you. That’s the first of the Peter principles. It’s how Jesus built Peter and it’s how he’ll build you.