Homily, Into the Water
The Confession of Saint Peter, 2026
St. Peter’s Episcopal Church
Plant City, FL
The Rev. Derek M Larson, TSSF
In the name of God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.
Have you ever wondered what’s the deal with the big banner back here with the lion and the rooster on it? It’s a beautiful banner. And it’s been the banner of our parish for at least 40 years. But what does it mean? What does it represent?
Visitors ask me about it all the time! And I don’t blame them. I’ve had the same question since I arrived. I had one visitor ask why we had the lion of England and the Rooster of France together on the same banner! And so I began to look for the answer.
I didn’t find it for a while. None of the history books of the parish mentioned it except for one brief line, that it was donated by Fabian and Dale Howard. I asked around, but most folks weren’t exactly sure and pondered, wasn’t there a rooster in the story of Peter in the gospels? Yes, I said, but where does the lion come from? That’s normally associated with St. Mark.
Finally, I found the answer while visiting a long time parishioner, Sally Bradley. As we were looking through old directories on the back I found this description.
“The Coat of Arms of St. Peter’s Parish. The base of the shield is silver with a black chevron and is taken from the arms of Weddell in honor of The Rev. J. J. Wendell. Fr. Weddel was the founding priest of this congregation in 1889. Its placement in the base of the shield symbolizes the foundational role this man of the cloth played in the life of today’s St. Peter’s.
“The upper background is red memorializing the life-blood driving force of Colonel W. T. Whitney who kept St. Peter’s alive and growing from 1909 until his death in 1955. The lion, in gold, refers to the arms of Hillsborough County. (By the way I’ve since learned the County stopped using that emblem in 1993).
“The small shield in the center is in gold for glory and supports a rooster, a symbol of Peter, our patron saint.”
So there you have it. Mystery solved.
But still, for me, a question remains. Why the rooster, which reminds us of Peter’s failure—his denial of Christ at the crucifixion? There are other symbols of Peter. It could have been keys to signify authority. It could have been an inverted cross to signify his brave faithfulness when he was crucified upside-down. It could have been a rock to signify his strength and dependability, the very image we hear from our gospel passage today for the Feast of the Confession of St. Peter. But no, we use the rooster. A symbol of the Denial of St. Peter, and perhaps the worst moment of his life. And we display it proudly in honor of our patron.
The truth is, Peter was a mixed-bag. For all his passion and boldness, he was also full of faults. He was the first to step out of the boat to walk on water, but moments later he began to sink. He was the only male disciple not to run away when Jesus was arrested, but when questioned by others, he denied even knowing him. He was the one who spoke up in Caesarea Philippi, “You are the Messiah. The Son of the Living God.” But if we were to read on, one paragraph later he is reprimanded by Jesus for tempting him, “Get behind me, Satan. You’re thinking of human things and not Divine.”
Peter, like us, for all his successes also experienced the pain of failure.
But after Christ’s resurrection from the dead. And after his ascension into heaven. It is Peter who preaches the gospel with the most conviction and leads the new community of believers into what was next.
We see this in our passage from Acts. Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, proclaimed the message of Jesus, even as he was arrested and persecuted for doing so, and the reading ends with these words, “Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John and realized that they were uneducated and ordinary men, they were amazed and recognized them as companions of Jesus.” I love that line, “uneducated and ordinary men.”
Peter’s listeners may have paid attention because of his boldness, but they recognized him as companions of Jesus because he was ordinary and uneducated. That is why they knew he belonged to Jesus.
Now we could read this line to say that Peter had boldness as Christ’s servant in spite of his inexperience and ordinary life. But perhaps its more accurate to say that Peter had boldness as Christ’s servant because of his inexperience and ordinary life. In fact, you might say that these things were a prerequisite for being a companion of Jesus. For those that followed Christ, were not great by their own achievements, but by their humility and openness to follow wherever the Holy Spirit would lead them. And the same is true of me and you.
Christ doesn’t call us to serve because we know what we are doing. Christ calls us to serve because we are willing to follow him even when we do not know what we are doing. It is in our very inexperience, frailty, failure, and ordinariness that Christ most clearly comes to us and invites us into something new. As Jesus said in another place, it is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. And so Jesus comes to us in our imperfections, not in spite of them, but because of them.
When we are educated. When we are special. When we are rich. When we are self-sufficient. When we are talented. When we are skilled. When we are beautiful. When we have it all put together. Those are the moments when we are most at risk of missing the voice and presence of Christ in our midst.
But when we practice humility and openness and interdependence and simplicity and trying new things, that’s when we’ll most clearly find Christ in our midst, leading us by the power of the Holy Spirit.
As Dr. G here said so perfectly at Bible Study this week, “I’ve been in school for more than 40 years of my life as a doctor, and I am still uneducated. I am still learning.”
Perhaps the rooster boldly stands as an emblem of our parish to remind us that we do not always know what we are doing. To remind us that we are imperfect and that we will fail. And that that is precisely where Christ will meet us.
I wonder what you have been missing from the Spirit because you have been pretending that you have it all put together and that you need no one’s help.
I wonder what you have been missing from the Spirit because you are all too aware of your imperfections and failures and assume Christ won’t meet you there.
But Christ does meet us there. That’s his favorite place to join us. To call us. To lead us. To comfort us. To save us.
In the story of Peter’s denial of Jesus a rooster crows. But we often forget what happened next. In Luke’s account, the Scripture says it was at that moment, that Jesus also turned and looked upon Peter.
May the emblem of this parish be a reminder to us all individually and as a community that in our failures and weaknesses Jesus sees us, he loves us, and he calls us to service. Amen.
Questions for Reflection
- In what areas of my life do I feel inadequate or unprepared, and how can I embrace my shortcomings as opportunities for growth and service?
- How has my understanding of faith been shaped by my experiences of failure or imperfection, and what lessons can I draw from those moments?
- In what ways can I cultivate humility and openness in my daily life to better recognize Christ’s presence and guidance?
- How do I typically respond to my own faults or failures, and how might shifting my perspective bring me closer to understanding God’s grace?
- What steps can I take to foster a sense of community and interdependence with others, recognizing that we all share in the journey of faith, imperfections and all?
Thoughts on Faith 