KICK YOUR ENTHUSIASM (12)

By: Flourish Klink
February 10, 2022

One in a series of 25 enthusiastic posts, contributed by 25 HILOBROW friends and regulars, on the topic of a favorite sidekick — whether real-life or fictional.

Christ Rebuking or Calling Saint Peter. Photo credit: National Trust Images

THE APOSTLE PETER

When one reads the Old Testament closely, one realizes it’s full of people who suck, and God does not seem to mind. Jacob is a compulsive liar. Joseph is a stuck-up queen. Samson has no redeeming qualities beyond “muscles.” The kings of Israel sacrifice children to Ba’al left and right. These are not minor problems. I would not be friends with any of these assholes.

The New Testament, on the other hand, brings us a more relatable level of dysfunction, and the banner-carrier for this theme is none other than Jesus’ trusty sidekick, Peter. On the one hand, Peter is the rock upon which the church was built, the first Pope (if you get down with Popes) and first among the disciples. On the other hand, as long as Jesus is alive, he’s kind of a dummy. Whenever Jesus really wants to make a point, there Peter is, ostentatiously not getting it. It doesn’t seem like an act, either. Peter’s genuinely doing his best, and his best isn’t very good.

The funny thing, though, is that the moment Jesus dies, Peter undergoes a transformation. In the book of Acts and the letters of Paul, he's suddenly giving passionate sermons; people are seeking to worship him, and he tells them “no, I’m also only a man”; he’s receiving visions that give him license to break Jewish law. Once Jesus exits the scene, Peter takes on his mantle — like Robin becoming Batman — and he’s remarkably good at it. Better than any Robin ever was, frankly.

Maybe that’s why Peter is the most appropriate divine sidekick: he’s the best and the worst of humans, all in one package. A story about Jesus wandering around being perfect would be, frankly, pretty boring. A story in which Jesus simply humiliated opponent after opponent would be almost worse. A story with Jesus constantly correcting Peter, yet never quite giving up on him, is better. And after all, isn’t their relationship a synecdoche for all humans’ relationship to God? The average person isn’t passing their firstborn son through the fire, but they definitely are prepared to deny their beliefs when it’s convenient. Yet God (we are told) never stops chuckling indulgently at our foibles.

Which brings us to what is perhaps the point of Peter’s character. You’re familiar with “Jesus is my boyfriend,” but what if “Jesus is my hero”? Or, cast another way: “I’m Jesus’s sidekick”? We all would like to be protagonists in our own story, but isn’t it rank hubris to assume that we are, particularly if we take as written the existence of an omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, omnibenevolent God-man? Someone get me Jars of Clay, or St. Bernard of Clairvaux, or St. Catherine of Siena. I’ve got a pitch for them.

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MORE ENTHUSIASM at HILOBROW

KICK YOUR ENTHUSIASM (12)

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