February 22, 2026
• Rev. Dr. Rob Fuquay
St. Luke’s UMC
February 22, 2025
Lent 1
Words from the Suffering
“I Don’t Know the Man”
Matthew 26:69-75
Our Lenten series this year is called Words from the Suffering. Suffering is the meaning of the Latin word for Passion. In this series we will reflect on important statements from the Passion, but not the words of Jesus. Rather they will be statements made to or about Jesus by other characters in the story. We began on Ash Wednesday with the words of Pilate who presented a beaten, bloodied Jesus to the religious leaders with the words, “Behold the man.” Today we look at the words of the disciple Peter who denied Jesus saying, “I don’t know the man.”
This story of Peter’s denial is well known. It is told in all four gospels. The association of a rooster crowing with betrayal is known even by folks who don’t know the biblical story. But this story is of little value if we don’t also know two other stories. The first occurs right after the Lord’s Supper. Jesus warned the disciples about what was coming that night. He predicted that they will all fall away, to which Peter responded, “Even if everyone else deserts you, I will never desert you.” (Matthew 26:33)
Jesus said that “before the rooster crows, you will disown me three times.”
To which Peter replied, “I would die first!”(LB)
Very key words, because they are what make the story of Peter’s failure so difficult. It’s not about the failure of someone who was unfaithful or irreligious. It’s about the failure of a devoted Christ follower.
My first year in ministry came out that was getting a lot of attention among my church members. It was titled Disappointment with God: Three Questions No One Asks Aloud by Philip Yancey. This author spoke to the very questions on people’s minds and the issues they wrestle with in faith. He became immensely popular, writing other books that were life changing, What’s so Amazing About Grace; The Jesus I Never Knew, Prayer: Does It Make Any Difference, Reaching for the Invisible God. Those titles grab you don’t they?
Then, just a few weeks ago, Philip Yancey announced that he was not going to be writing or speaking or blogging anymore. He had been having an affair with another woman for 8 years. He said he was withdrawing from public ministry. He acknowledged the inconsistency of his actions with his faith and writings as well as the deep pain caused to both his family and the other woman’s family. He fully owned his failure and the dishonor his actions were to God, leading up to these words, “I am filled with remorse and repentance, and I have nothing to stand on except God’s mercy and grace.”
What stands out to me about that announcement is that it doesn’t presume grace. It acknowledges regret and shame and a dependence on grace, but it doesn’t speak of forgiveness being experienced. It is simply written from a place of failure.
That is hard to hear from such a devoted Christ follower. What do you do with that? With the failure of someone who has been a great person of faith and shared in Jesus’ life-changing work?
This is what makes our story today so hard. Peter was not someone who lived far from Jesus. He was not someone so wretched that you say, “I expect him to fail.” No, this was the first person to declare Jesus as the Messiah, the Son of God, whom Jesus blessed and said, “On this rock I will build my church.” Peter was the bedrock of the church. And he failed. And his failure was colossal.
After Jesus was arrested, he was taken to the home of the High Priest where he was put on trial. All the other disciples had fled just as Jesus predicted, but not Peter. He still followed Jesus, as far as he could anyway, to the outer courtyard of the High Priest’s house.
A servant girl recognized him. She said, “You were also with Jesus of Galilee.” It is an accusation, but it sounds like the high mark of Christian faithfulness, being recognized as someone who has been with Jesus. But for Peter this is uncomfortable. He denies knowing Jesus. Then he is accused again. This time he swears an oath that he doesn’t know Him. Don’t miss the clever way in which this story is told. A trial is going on inside while outside Peter is swearing an oath. When does someone usually swear an oath? Before taking the witness stand.
The Greek word for witness is martyr. We normally think of a martyr as someone who dies for their faith, but martyr simply means witness. When we witness to our faith, meaning, when we let our lives reflect the life of Jesus and his values of love, and justice, and compassion for the poor, then such witness can be costly.
Can you see what the Gospel writer is subtly doing here? Jesus is on trial inside, but outside Peter is on trial. Will he allow his life to give witness to the life of Jesus? And this is where you begin to wonder if this story is about more than just Peter. Fred Craddock says, “The fact is, the trial of Jesus has been over ever since he prayed, “Father, glorify thy name.” But the trial of Peter, and of the disciples, and of the church today, is not over; it continues.” (The Gospel of John, p132)
One more time Peter is accused of being a follower of Jesus and this is where we see the immensity of his failure. It wasn’t just that he denied knowing Jesus. It gets much worse. This time it says, “Then (Peter) began to call down curses on himself and he swore to them, ‘I don’t know the man!’” The word for curse in Greek is anathema. Anathema refers to extreme dislike. Hate. Now, hate in the Bible isn’t talking about an emotional response to something, like we might use the word. Hate in the Bible simply refers to a complete separation or removal from something. So what is Peter removing himself from?
Some translations make this scene confusing. It sounds like Peter is cursing himself. But that doesn’t make a lot of sense. What good does it do to validate his denial of Jesus by cursing himself? Some say Peter was just simply cursing, as if he was trying to prove his innocence by getting fiery in defense. That makes more sense, except anathema is used here as a verb, and a transitive verb at that, meaning it requires a direct object. In other words Peter was cursing someone. But who? Not himself. And the way the verb is used he wasn’t cursing his accusers. Who was Peter cursing?
Jesus.
You wonder if some translators of scripture could not bring themselves to write that. They just couldn’t say that the Bedrock of the Church cursed Jesus. What would you do with that? In our world today, our only option with such a leader who committed that kind of colossal failure would be to exile him. Cancel him. And then what would we have? After all Peter was the first pope of the Church!
We’ve got ourselves a conundrum here. If word of this sermon gets out, the whole church may collapse.
Peter cursed Jesus and said, “I do not know the man!”
Let’s remember that anathema refers to hate. And hate in the Bible means to separate from, have nothing to do with. Peter is acting as if he has nothing to do with Jesus. Have you ever acted that way? Have you ever acted in a manner in which people would never accuse you of having been with Jesus?
There’s a story about a woman who was tail-gating the car in front of her, blowing her horn, screaming at the person, giving them the middle finger. A police officer pulled he over. He asked her to step out of the vehicle and began arresting her. After running her registration he came back and uncuffed her and said she was free to go.
She demanded to know why he did that. He said, “Well, I saw you tailgating, yelling at the driver in front of you, making rude gestures. Then I saw your cross hanging from your mirror, and your bumper stickers that read “What Would Jesus Do?” and “Follow me to church”, and, well, I assumed it must be a stolen car.
We’ve all contributed to hate haven’t we? I don’t just mean our mean-spiritedness. I’m thinking of times when our living was separate from, removed from, the life of Jesus. Has your life ever reflected such a separation? A separation from the things you really believe? You really want to be about? You really value?
And them realize that Peter doesn’t just represent us, he is also the bedrock of the church. Has the church ever separated itself from Jesus? By our words, or lack of words about the injustices and abuses in our world? By our lack of love and compassion? By our fear of advocating for the least in our society because it might be political? Has the church ever made a false witness to the life of Jesus?
If so, then we, individually and corporately, need to repent.
I remember Fred Craddock telling a story in class one day in seminary. It was about a time this story of Peter spoke to him. He was in graduate school at Vanderbilt University. He was prepping for comprehensive exams that would make or break you. Every night, around 11 or 12 he got in the habit of taking a break and going to a diner to get a grilled cheese sandwich and cup of coffee and brood over his New Testament exam. He was in there one night and noticed a man at the end of the counter. A gray-haired, black man. He had not been waited on even though Fred had been served and even had his coffee refilled. Finally the cook went over to this man and rather unkindly said, “What do you want?” Whatever the man told him, the cook went to the grill, scooped up a piece of meat, put on a piece of bread without condiment or napkin, put it in a bag and handed it to the man who paid, exited by the side door where the garbage cans were, and sat on the curb to eat.
Let me read the ending in Dr. Craddock’s own words:
I didn’t say anything. I did not reprimand, protest, or witness to the cook. I did not go sit beside the man on the curb. I didn’t do anything. I was thinking about the questions coming up on the New Testament. And I left the little place, walked back across campus to my room to resume my studies, and there, right in the middle of the Vanderbilt campus, off in the distance, I heard a rooster crow. (Craddock Stories, p48)
Do you know that sound? It’s one of the worst in the world. It is a crowing unlike any other. It is not the crowing of boastful pride and self-congratulations. Just the opposite. It is a sound that makes you feel about as awful as you can feel.
It makes you aware of something you would do anything if you could change, but you can’t. Something so regretful that the mere remembering of it causes you to feel so ashamed. It is something that you know deep down, if it got out, everyone around you would desert you.
And that brings us back to our question, what do we do with that?
This brings us to the second story I mentioned earlier that is important for understanding the story of Peter’s denial. This other story took place some time later, after Peter’s denial. It came after Jesus’ resurrection when he met Peter by the Sea of Galilee. It is a story I honestly don’t want to talk too much about because it moves us too quickly ahead. It jumps us to forgiveness and grace and restoration and we aren’t ready for that yet. So I’ll skip most of the details. The risen Jesus met Peter and asked him three times, ‘Do you love me?” This grieved Peter because he felt as if Jesus was hammering away at his shame. But he’s not, of course. Jesus’ three questions correspond to Peter’s three denials. Forgiveness will result, but first there had to be a return to the failure.
Why? Because without that, we don’t really change. If we don’t acknowledge the shame we just make excuses. We defend ourselves and explain why our actions should be understandable. Or we deflect. We say things like, “Well what I did was nothing compared to what others have done!” Or we make ourselves victims. We beat ourselves up and talk about how terrible we are, so that people will feel sorry for us and console us believing that will resolve our shame but it doesn’t.
Because the only one who can take away our shame is the one who has borne our guilt and sorrow. The one who loves us so much he was willing to die for us. The one who never disowns or denies us.
Next week we will get to grace. We will come to forgiveness, I promise. But this Sunday leaves us with some unfinished business. Today we stand where Peter did, simply feeling the guilt. So overcome by his own unworthiness, all he could do was run away and weep.
Where’s the good news in that? Where’s the hope in that?
Consider a two things as we close:
First, Peter’s failure was a sign of his faith. The reason he failed was because he still followed Jesus, right up to the moment of his own human limitation. No other disciple was in that courtyard. Only Peter. The pain of his failure was a sign that he was still as close to Jesus as he could get. This is what the Apostle Paul called “godly sorrow.”
He had written a letter to the Corinthians calling out their bad behavior and it had an impact. Listen to his response in his next letter we call First Corinthians:
“I see that my letter hurt you, but only for a little while…because your sorrow led you to repentance. For you became sorrowful as God intended and so were not harmed in any way by us. Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regret, but worldly sorrow brings death. See what this godly sorrow has produced in you: what earnestness, what eagerness to clear yourselves, what indignation, what alarm, what longing, what concern, what readiness to see justice done.” (1 Cor. 7:8-11)
Worldly sorrow is what happened to Judas. Godly sorrow is what happened to Peter. It meant that he stuck around even though he felt he had given Jesus every reason to give up on him, he held out in faith that Jesus really meant what he said, “I will be with you always.”
And second: Pain is always purposeful, even when, and perhaps especially when, our pain is shame. Think about this. How do we know this story about Peter’s betrayal? No other disciple was there. No one recorded the moment. How do we know? It had to be Peter. He had to have told this story. Some historians speculate that Peter preached it often and that’s perhaps how it ended up being in all four gospels, because it came to be widely known.
Why would he have told such a painful, regrettable story about himself? Could it be because it wasn’t the end of his story? That he went on to experience more in Christ?
Maybe the best way to end today is offer our shame to God and ask what more God has in store…