Confession of St. Peter - Sunday, January 18, 2026

The Confession of St. Peter

Church of the Atonement

The Rev’d Charles Everson

January 18, 2026 

Standing here today, I am preaching from this pulpit adorned with an icon of St. Peter, and like nearly every icon of Peter, there is a set of keys. Keys are not merely decorative. They are symbols of responsibility. They open, they close, and they carry the weight of trust. And whenever the Church starts talking about Peter and keys, it is never very long before questions of authority arise – questions that make Protestants and Anglicans and Roman Catholics alike shift a little uncomfortably in their seats.

Today’s feast, the Confession of St. Peter, invites us to look carefully at what those keys are for. Not to secure power, but to serve as the confession on which the Church is built.

In Matthew’s gospel, Peter confesses, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” Jesus responds not by congratulating Peter on his insight, but by reminding him that this confession is revealed, not earned. “Flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father in heaven,” St. Peter says. And only then does Jesus speak of keys – keys of the kingdom, authority to bind and loose, responsibility entrusted to human hands.

In the reading from the Acts of the Apostles, Peter stands before the rulers, elders, and scribes of Israel. The man who had been given the keys is on trial. He has no status to shield him, no credentials to rely on. What he has is boldness – boldness that Luke tells us comes not from temperament or his office, but from the Holy Spirit. The authorities are astonished not by Peter’s credentials, but by the fact that he has been with Jesus.

How ironic. Peter is given keys in Matthew, and in Acts he stands utterly exposed. The keys do not shield him from vulnerability. They compel him to tell the truth even when it costs him. That paradox – power received yet restrained – is central to the Anglican understanding of St. Peter and the office of the papacy.

When I was twenty-four years old, I was received into full communion with Bishop of Rome, the successor of St. Peter. I stood before a Roman Catholic priest and said, without qualification, “I believe and profess all that the holy Catholic Church believes, teaches, and proclaims to be revealed by God.” And that profession included everything Rome teaches about the papacy.

In hindsight, it’s clear to me now that at the time, I needed black and white answers to all of the theological questions I had, and the Roman Catholic Church certainly has black and white answers. Within a few years of saying that, I realized that the Christian faith and the world in general is not nearly as black and white as I wanted it to be back then – it is far more grey.  And I realized that I no longer believed Rome’s doctrinal understanding of the papacy.

Not because I had stopped taking St. Peter seriously. Not because I had stopped caring about Christian unity. And certainly not because I believed that authority doesn’t matter in the church.

I stopped believing that the authority symbolized by Peter’s keys could be faithfully reduced to unilateral jurisdiction or doctrinal finality resting in a single office. But I never stopped believing that the Church needs a Petrine ministry – a ministry of unity, of witness, of holding the Church together in truth and in love.

That conviction places Episcopalians in a distinctive position. We are neither dismissive of the papacy nor uncritical of how the pope’s authority has been exercised. Our founding doctrinal statement, the 39 Articles of Religion, doesn’t mince words: “The Bishop of Rome hath no jurisdiction in this Realm of England.” 

Anglicans do not reject the jurisdiction of the Bishop of Rome because we dislike authority. We reject the claim that any single bishop possesses universal jurisdiction or guaranteed doctrinal finality by divine right. We believe authority in the Church is exercised collegially, through bishops gathered in council, accountable to Scripture, tradition, and the whole Body of Christ, through synodality  –  bishops, priests, deacons, and lay people. Rome speaks of papal supremacy. Anglicanism speaks instead of primacy without supremacy  –  deference and honor without undiscerned loyalty.

That vision sounds far more like Peter in Acts 4 than Peter speaking infallibly from a throne. It describes authority marked by vulnerability, truthfulness without force, and leadership formed by closeness to Jesus.

Since 1979, in the Episcopal Church, today’s feast marks the beginning of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity. Unity, we are reminded, does not begin with agreement on every doctrine, nor with submission to a single office. It begins with a confession of faith. “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”

St. Peter’s confession unites before it divides. And the keys entrusted to him are given not to lock the doors of the Church, but to ensure that the doors remain open to Christ’s saving work. Peter’s authority does not exempt him from struggle or make him infallible.  Peter’s authority is a responsibility – a responsibility to speak truthfully, to guard communion, and to place the confession of Christ above every other claim to power.

That brings the question uncomfortably close to home, because authority in the Church is never only about Rome or Canterbury – it is about us. We too hold keys. Not literal ones, perhaps, but real keys all the same: the keys of sacramental access, of teaching, of welcome, of public witness. We can use them to control outcomes, to protect ourselves, to decide who belongs. Or we can use them as Peter eventually learned to use them – for the sake of healing, truth, and unity.

The icon on this pulpit does not show Peter triumphantly enthroned. The keys are present, but they do not dominate the image. What we are given first is St. Peter himself  –  the disciple who will fail, deny his Lord, and be restored. That is not a flaw in the story; it is the point. Authority in the Church is real, but it is never detached from the vulnerability of the one who bears it.

The Church does not stand because those entrusted with authority get everything right. It stands because Christ remains faithful to the confession of St. Peter – even when Peter himself falters. The keys entrusted to the Church are real, but they are given not to dominate, but to open doors — doors of mercy, forgiveness, and reconciliation.

And beneath every key, every ecumenical council, and every ministry of authority, the Church is sustained by the Confession of St. Peter: “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” That is the confession we guard, the confession we share, and the confession that unites us together in baptism.