The New Peter Principle

"The New Peter Principle"
Luke 22:54-62
Acts 4:13-14


In the early 1970's there was a book written titled The Peter Principle.  One of the main ideas of the book had to do with the observation that in many large companies (I'm sure companies of all sizes) people get promoted to a level they are unable to handle.  They just aren't adequately trained for that level of expertise.  They've been elevated to a position for which they have no passion nor desire to excel.  They ultimately fail, and the company suffers under the mismanagement of this inadequate person.

From the verses read a moment ago, coming from Luke's gospel, it appears we have found the forerunner and namesake of "The Peter Principle."  Here we see the disciple, Peter, promoted up the ladder by Christ from fisherman, to disciple, to leader of the disciples.  But he couldn't handle it.  He blew it royally.

How would you feel if you were Peter standing there in the courtyard, after the third denial, and have Jesus turn and look at you.  I don't know about you, but I would have crawled out of there feeling like worm.  How could he live with the fact of such a visible act of falling on his face?  One professional ice hockey goalie said, “You think you have a tough job.  Try mine.  Mess up and a red light goes off with sirens, and thousands of people watching boo you.”

If we were to look only at these verses in Luke's gospel, we would all agree, Peter is the embodiment of the Peter Principle.  But another verse was read from Acts of the Apostles that makes us stand up and take notice.  Here we see a Peter who has been arrested for simply preaching the Good News about Jesus.  Here we see a Peter arrested for restoring a lame man back to walking health.  Here we see the arresting council amazed at the boldness of this "uneducated man."

Because we see the two stories together, we realize that something happened to Peter between the time he buried his face in his big fisherman's hands, weeping, and the time when he emerged as the bold and fearless leader of the infant church.  You might say, he got an education.  I believe his education came, not through his great success as a disciple, but by his failure as a disciple.  He learned from his mistake.  He was willing to get up and try again.

That's what makes the difference between Judas and Peter.  In their own ways they both failed their Lord.  Under the weight of their failures, they reacted the opposite.  Judas went out and took his failure to the nth degree, hanging himself.  Peter learned something about himself, and went on living, in a stronger and more vital way.

On New Years Day, 1929, Georgia Tech played the University of California in the Rose Bowl.  In the first half of that game, a California player, Roy Riegels, recovered a fumble, but started running in the wrong direction.  One of his teammates, Benny Lom, overtook Reigels and tackled him 65 yards down the field, just before he scored for Georgia Tech.  California, with their backs against the goal line, ended up having to punt after 3 downs.  The punt was blocked and Georgia Tech scored a safety, which was the ultimate margin of victory.

As I mentioned, that happened in the first half.  After Coach Nibbs Price gave his halftime talk, all the players got up and started out back to the field.  All but Riegels.  Coach Price went and sat by Riegels.  "Roy, get back out there; you'll be starting the second half."
"Coach," said Riegles, "I can't do it to save my life.  I've ruined you.  I've ruined the University of California.  I've ruined myself.  I couldn't face that crowd in the stadium now."
Coach Price reached out and grabbed Riegels by the shoulder and said, "Roy, get up and go back out there; the game is only half over!"

Riegels went back out.  Those Georgia Tech players would tell you they never saw anyone play football as hard and as well as Roy Riegels did in the second half.

We take the ball God's given us and we run the wrong direction.  We stumble and fall and are so ashamed of ourselves that we never want to try again.  Then The Lord comes to us and puts his hand on our shoulders in the person of Jesus Christ and says, "Get up and go on back; the game is only half over."  That's the gospel of the grace of God.  It's the gospel of the second chance, of the third chance, of the hundredth chance.  It's the New Peter Principle:  The game is only half over!


Let's take a moment to examine some of the qualities a person needs to participate in the New Peter Principle--the kind of characteristics needed to play in the second half after a first half failure.

Probably the first characteristic is the willingness to admit we make mistakes, that we do fail sometimes, and that as human beings we mess up.  The saying is certainly trite, but nonetheless true:  no one is perfect.

Part of our willingness to pick ourselves up and get back into the second half after falling on our faces means abandoning any attitudes or notions of perfection.  No matter how we try and avoid it, we can't help but having our failures brought up before us.  The only way out is to admit them and move on.

I read that there's a new computer coming out that is so human that when it makes a mistake it blames another computer.  Not being able to admit the fact that we are human, and that we do make mistakes, is the real and larger problem.

A guy became disenchanted with city life.  He decided to move to the country and start a chicken farm.  He bought a farmhouse with some land around it.  After he moved in he bought 200 baby chicks.  But they all quickly died.  He bought 200 more baby chicks but, again, they all died a short time later.

Puzzled and distressed he called up the county ag agent and described what was happening.  "I want to be a successful chicken farmer," he told the agent, "so can you tell me have I been planting the chicks too close together or too deep."
The agent replied, "I can't help you until I get a soil sample."

We don't help another person who has failed, by not helping them recognize real shortcomings.  We must courageously tell the truth, and face the truth.  Unrecognized and covered up, those mistakes will never be amended and we will continue messing up in life.

Secondly, getting back up and going out for the second half involves a certain amount of risk.  Risk that you just might fail again.  Certainly Peter had to risk that.  Faced with a similar situation, would he deny his Lord again?  Certainly Roy Riegels risked going out on the football field and making another error in front of thousands of people.

The truth of the matter is that we WILL make other mistakes.  Peter did.  But the paradox of that truth is that we often learn best by making mistakes and coming up short now and then.

A young man had been appointed Vice President of the bank.  He'd never dreamed he'd be Vice President at such a young age.  So he approached the venerable Chairman of the Board and said, "I was wondering if you could give me advice."
The old man came back with just two words:  "Right decisions."
The young man had hoped for a bit more than that, so he said, "That's really helpful, but can you be more specific?  How do I make right decisions?"
The wise Chairman simply responded, "Experience."
The young man said, "Well, that's just the point.  I don't have the kind of experience I need.  How do I get it?"
The Chairman's terse reply, "Wrong decisions."

That's the risk we take.  Making wrong and bad or hurtful life decisions, and then suffering the consequences.  But the other level of risk we then face is moving on after a bad decision and risk making more wrong decisions.

There was a landscape contractor who had his first full-fledged job.  One of the first tasks he had to tackle was blasting out some stumps with dynamite for a farmer.  Since the farmer was watching the landscape guy went to some length to measure out the fuse and set the dynamite just as if he really knew what he was doing.  The problem was he didn't really know how much dynamite would be just right to do the job.

When the landscape guy was all set up he breathed a prayer that he had enough dynamite packed under the stump, yet not too much to blow them both to kingdom come.  The moment of truth came.  The landscape guy looked at the farmer and gave him the thumbs up, and pushed down the plunger.  With a resounding boom the stump rose up in the air and arched magnificently over towards his pickup truck.  The stump landed right on the roof of the cab, demolishing it.

The farmer turned to the landscape guy and said, "Son, you didn't miss it by much.  Just a few feet.  With a bit more practice you'll be able to land those suckers in the truck bed every time."

Sounds like a Mark Graber story.    But that landscaper wouldn't be able to go on to the next stump or the next task if he wasn't ready to risk it again.  Peter could have said, "I've had enough.  I've done enough damage.  Enough with this bold experiment of a new gospel.  The risk is too great.  I'm going fishing."  Which is what he did for just one evening.  Then something happened to him that got him on his feet and ready to risk again.

And that's the third and final point of the New Peter Principle.  Getting back up and trying again after a failure means reaching out to God and allowing the Lord to pull us back into the game.  Without The Lord, we will never quite get all the way up, nor will our steps be quite as steady, nor will our foundation for the future be quite as sure.

Getting back up means letting someone else--that is, the Holy Spirit--help us up.  How many times had Peter seen Jesus do that for someone else.  Why did Peter ever think that couldn't happen for him?  In all aspects of life we must admit that without our Lord Jesus we fall hard.  But also without Him we can't get up either.

That's what the New Peter Principle is all about.  Here we see the difference between Judas and Peter:  Judas' hands were too tightly grasped around himself and his failure.  Each time he tried to get himself up he fell harder.  Until he fell to his death.

Peter fell, but during the fall reached out and grasped for forgiveness.  Like someone rolling down a hillside in a tumbled fall, grasping at shrubs and rocks, anything that you can hold on to to stop the momentum.

This third attitude encompasses the other two.  If we hold on to the misguided idea that we never make mistakes, that we are perfect and it's always someone else's fault, we will never know what God's forgiveness is all about.  We will never allow God, really, to be God--to allow God to do what God does best.  If we are unwilling to take a risk, we will never discover the blessings that come with the adventurous promises made by Christ.  We will never know how strong and limitless we can be if we don't take those risks with the promises of God.

This is the New Peter Principle.  May it be our guide as we move into the new ministries and goals we are setting for this church.