Year B - Proper 19 (2009) St. Paul's, S.I.Every business or agency or organization has a product, or a service, or a body of knowledge totransmit. I'd like to suggest to you this morning that the primary product of the Church is not theology or doctrine or morality or aesthetics. The primary product of the Church is relationships.Our purpose every Sunday morning is to recognize and strengthen the relationship God established at baptism between each of us and Christ's Body the Church. We deepen that relationship through our corporate worship, and we live out that relationship through our relationships with one another.The Priest’s primary role in this is not as an executive, or even as a teacher. The priest's function is toadminister the Sacraments. And the Sacraments are all ways that God uses to enter into and maintainrelationships with us. The grace conveyed in the Sacraments is that God gives Himself to us through theoutward and visible signs. The Sacraments are entirely about relationships.The relationships that God and the Christian community are concerned with are relationships that arehonest, loving, and patient - relationships in which all parties have each other's best interests at heart.These are tough relationships. They aren't polite social acquaintanceships. They’re like familyrelationships. And family relationships are powerful and can be explosive, because we know oneanother's weaknesses.The Ink Spots used to sing, "You only hurt the ones you love." It's not just that we only hurt the ones welove; we are able to hurt only those who love us and wish us well, because others don't care.Our relationships with one another are risky, and they can be abused or taken advantage of. They arerelationships that require lots of patience, forbearance and forgiveness, because we often make mistakeswith each other.When I was in parish ministry, I dreaded Vestry meetings. It wasn't because I was anxious about theaffairs and finances of the parish. I dreaded those meetings because when people discuss business or money or programs, it's easy to forget that maintaining relationships of love and affection and respect ismuch more important than being right, or getting our own way, or receiving the recognition we think wedeserve.Consider Peter's situation. Publicly rebuked with a stinging phrase that has become a byword, "Get behind me, Satan! You haven't understood a thing about what I'm trying to do here. "Imagine Peter's reaction if he hadn't trusted Jesus so much."Well, excuse me! I was only trying to help and be nice. If that's what you think, well, I know where I'mnot wanted ... " - and on and on would have gone the string of trite expressions of hurt feelings andoutraged dignity. He would have gone back to fishing and told his friends later, "I was part of thatcongregation for a while, but you wouldn't believe what He said to me!"The closer the relationship, the more trust it takes, and in a very real way the relationships we have withour fellow parishioners are the closest relationships we have. We have to trust each other. We have totrust that we are loved, even when we don't understand someone's reaction to us, like Peter with Jesus.The corollary is, of course, that ~ must all work to deserve this level of trust. We must be careful not toslight others and to forgive others' slights, whether real or imagined. We must be quick to apologizewhen we hurt others, even if they hurt us first.It will be no surprise to you to hear that no priest speaks from a position of strength in this regard.Doctors and nurses, I am sure, feel most keenly the lives they don't save; lawyers the cases they lose;and teachers the kids they fail to reach. All of us priests are very aware of the relationships we haveflubbed and are flubbing. I do know, however, that, as in marriage, the answer lies in living through the problems with a heartfelt, unshakeable commitment to the integrity of the relationship.The hard lesson Jesus was trying to teach Peter is the same one that we need to learn in our closest andmost problematic relationships. Like the prophet in today's lesson, and like Jesus, we too must suffer many things in order to live the way God wants us to live in the circumstances in which He has put us. Nevertheless, through our baptism we have already shared in Christ's death, and through our baptismalrelationship we now already share in His risen life.In Christ we can work through all the difficulties and pains and frustrations of our lives and our relationships, because in Christ we have already overcome them.