Peter's Shadow Work

From March 8, 2026 - John 18:12-27....

"Whether you’re Peter Pan or Peter the Rock, seeing one’s shadow has a way of creating a reaction. Pan makes Wendy sow his back on, a mere annoyance and a goofy game—but Peter the Rock crumbles. The Swiss psychologist Carl Jung has a process for that revelation called “shadow work.” 

Thanks for listening! May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. (Romans 15:13) For more information about Keith visit www.authorkeithlong.com or St. Luke Lutheran Church visit www.stlukecg.org

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Welcome to the Pocket Pastor Podcast, Sermons on Demand, a show for those on the go, instant inspiration, questions for the quest, strength for the soul. I'm Keith Long, and this Pulpit to Your Pocket preaching comes to you from St. Luke Lutheran Church, a congregation of the ELCA in Cottage Grove, Minnesota. For more information about me, check out authorkeithlong.com. To see what we've got going on at St. Luke, visit us in person at the corner of 70th and Hinton in Cottage Grove, Sundays at 9 a.m., or check out Saint LukeCG.org for more information. Thanks for listening. I'm honored to be part of your spiritual journey. May the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all. Peter's denial. In this passage of John's Gospel, we follow both Jesus and his top disciple Peter as Jesus is arrested and dragged before the powerful ruling class of the Jewish elite of their day, men who have been watching from afar and infiltrating Jesus' lessons, looking for a way to end his radical rabbinical teachings. Bound under the cover of darkness, Jesus, without legal representation, is brought into a back room somewhere in the depth of the city to be interrogated. This is a peculiar detail found only in John. The text suggests the high priest is fishing for valuable information that could be brought to the Roman governor. Jesus refuses to play the game, pointing out that unlike his captor, he prefers to speak to his target audiences in broad daylight, where any fault could be easily detected and exploited. The working preacher commentators stated it so eloquently. Jesus' response is, among other things, a gentle reminder to the high priest that his late night interrogation is a naked display of coercive power. The highly unusual nature of their conversation is proof of a deep anxiety within the halls of religious power in Jerusalem. Jesus knows it, and Annas, the high priest knows it, but power requires that this fear is never noted, even though it is obvious to everyone present. Meanwhile, Jesus' disciple Peter is in an equally prickly pickle of his own, just outside in the courtyard, warming himself beside a charcoal fire and critically suspicious strangers around him. It is here by firelight that Peter's cover is blown in more ways than one. In John's Gospel we meet a particularly zealous and fiery Peter, one who is deaf with a sword and almost unusually passionate and quick tempered. Peter gets the most lines in all four Gospels, leading readers then and now to reason that it is this disciple who is the most committed. Only Peter vows to lay his life down for Jesus. Apart from Jesus and John's gospel, only Peter stands firm when the heat index rises. Except here. Here, under the pressure of a council of strangers, Peter's macho persona exits stage left. What is to be made of such a fall from grace as Peter's threefold cock crow producing no show for Jesus? Is this an instance of strength and numbers? Herd mentality? Does Peter, which is a loose translation of the Greek word for rock, turn into a pebble because he's no longer accompanied by his peers? Perhaps. It is of course much easier to sound strong when we stand behind strength. And after witnessing Jesus do the unthinkable over and over, I can see how someone with Peter's persona would take advantage. But from the ancient temple courtyards to our contemporary locker rooms, the captain of the team is not around to enable anyone's posturing. Peter now stands by himself, and his vulnerability by the fire becomes unbearable. Be it by a sunny day or an evening fire. Whenever we find ourselves illumined like that, our body casts a shadow. Spiritually speaking, the shadow we see is more a reflection of our mind and heart. Whether you're Peter Pan or Peter the Rock, seeing one's shadow has a way of creating a reaction. Pan makes Wendy sew his back on a mere annoyance and a goofy game. But Peter the Rock crumbles. The Swiss psychologist Carl Jung has a process for that revelation called shadow work. Shadow work is a necessary but difficult task of confronting your ego, which is your constructed identity. The story you tell yourself about who you are. Jung described that self-made identity as a social mask or persona. Beneath that mask, according to Jung's teaching, lies the shadow, the parts of us we suppress and long to be accepted. But it's not who you really are. It's only a dim reflection of the real you. Here, Peter Peter's shadow catches up to him, and beside that fire, in those circumstances, he not only sees it but realizes what such a sight means. It means that he is ready to lose the act of being Peter. The act of macho man, I can do all things because I am the rock. I interpret this threefold denial as the moment Peter wakes up. From an article by Fractal Wisdom on Medium. What feels like losing yourself is often the losing of the mental structure that was exhausting you. This isn't about destroying who you are. It's about becoming someone you no longer have to perform. You didn't lose yourself. You lost the version of you that was surviving. In other words, when Peter's courage runs dry, he is finally ready to become the man Jesus saw in him all along. Of course Peter doesn't know that. He, along with many of us, only saw a man confronted with moral failure and cowardice, a man who sat down when in hindsight he should have stood up. On this side of history, it is easy to compare Jesus and Peter and conclude that in this story the only true victor is Jesus, the one who on the other side of the courtyard was refusing to give in to the powers that be while Peter is a big loser, caving in to a couple of no names with cold hands. It is true that Jesus is legitimately awesome through and through, that when pushed, prodded and coerced remarkably sticks with his mission, but I challenge you to see Peter in a different light, to see that we too are called to the difficult but necessary shadow work like Peter courageously confronted. Because if this were just another instance of a disciple's confusion or fearfully falling apart under pressure, then that would have likely spelled the end of the disciple's tenure at the top of Jesus' list. But it wasn't. Peter learns and grows and leaves behind his exhausting persona once and for all. The next time we see him, Peter is restored. I can't help but be reminded of Plato's allegory of the cave from his book The Republic. The allegory tells a similar transformative tale using shadow. It's a story of prisoners who find themselves chained in a cave, only able to watch their shadows flickering against the walls of their captivity. The prisoners mistake shadows on the wall for reality, and it is only when a freed prisoner escapes that one learns that their shadows were just an illusion, not the reality. From Plato to Peter to Carl Jung, most of us live day to day believing illusions. Illusions we tell ourselves and illusions the world convinces us are true, that people who differ from us are to be feared, coerced, and conquered. That you are not good enough, or that Jesus alone is the hero of the story. I think it's time to see and be enveloped by the light of Jesus Christ through his call for awakening. To see our shadow, but not be defined by it. To know that just because you have a mask doesn't mean you have to wear it or let it imprison you. Take a page from Peter and be courageous enough to confront whatever is exhausting you and to embrace how Jesus sees you, as his rock on which the church stands, the fiery example of his loving forgiveness and amazing grace, the spirit born child of God who is free to be free, for you have a mission that the world is ready to be transformed by. In Jesus' name. Amen.