Peter's Gates

Length of Shower: I wonder if there will be showers in heaven? --Today I was thinking about heaven.  Not sure why but I was.  Maybe because taking a shower sometimes feels like heaven, especially after you come off of several days straight of playing sports, drinking, staying up late and not getting good sleep.  Whatever the reason, I was thinking about heaven.  Not all of heaven or what it will be like, but more specifically I kept thinking about the gates of heaven.

I remembered a joke about the gates of heaven, it goes like this:
A guy goes to the gates of heaven where he meets St. Peter.
St. Peter says to him, "God has looked at your book of life, and you are welcome in heaven under one condition."  The man says, "What's that?"
St. Peter says, "You must spell the word 'Love'."
So the man does and he is let in to heaven.
As he is walking in, St. Peter's beeper goes off.
He asks the man to watch the gate until he returns, and reminds him that he must ask whoever comes to spell the word 'Love.'
Next thing you know, the man's wife shows up at the gate and he asks her, "What are you doing here?"  She says that on the way home from the funeral, there was an accident and she died.
The husband says, "Alright, but you have to spell one word first before you come in to heaven."
She asks, "What's that?"

He answered, "Spell Czechoslovakia."

While the joke is funny, it got me to thinking about the gates of heaven and the fact that St. Peter is always there letting people in.  Now, I was raised going to church and I know a bit about the bible and the disciples of Jesus and all that.  I remembered that Peter was a fisherman with no formal education.  So I wondered: Why is a fisherman in charge at the gates of heaven?  I mean of all the disciples shouldn't it be Matthew who is charge at the gates of heaven?  He was a tax collector and was educated.  He was good at math and sorting and numbers.  Now with the massive amount of people I feel are lined up at the gates of heaven waiting to get in, shouldn't it be Matthew who is in charge of that?  I mean Matthew is more of a type-A personality right?  And what we know of Peter is that while he had great faith, he wasn't the smartest tool in the Carpenter's collection.  So unless heaven is kind-of a mess (fishing boats are not the cleanest and most organized places on the planet), I really think Matthew should be in charge at the gates of heaven.  


But I'm neither a fisherman, nor tax collector, nor disciple and haven't been to church in a while...so what do I know?  Except that I do feel it shouldn't be Peter.  What about John?  Or how about not going with a disciple at all?  You know who should get the honor of working that post at the gates of heaven...one of Jesus' siblings!  Yea, according to scholars Jesus had several brothers and sisters (Joseph and Mary apparently didn't learn their lesson from all the trouble Jesus caused when he was born so they felt the need to keep popping 'em out).  But you never hear about them and they never get any credit or special attention at all.  So, why not have them at the gates of heaven?  Or what about Lazarus?  He died twice, he would certainly qualify for knowing what it takes to get into heaven, I mean the guy made it in twice!  


My point is that while I am not qualified to say who should or should not work at the gates of heaven, I'm just saying Peter should be like the 10th choice, not the first choice.  No offense to God, or Jesus, or Peter himself but when I die and go to heaven I would love to be surprised and find someone OTHER THAN Peter working the old pearly gates!