Tuesday 29th June: Feast of SS Peter & Paul
Deanery Eucharist at St Peter's, Arkley
As today we celebrate the Feast of St Peter and St Paul, our readings focus not just on their faith – Matthew’s account of Peter’s confession that Jesus is the Christ of course being one of the pivotal points in the whole gospel narrative – but focusing also on their lives as they come to an end.
As today we celebrate the Feast of St Peter and St Paul, our readings focus not just on their faith – Matthew’s account of Peter’s confession that Jesus is the Christ of course being one of the pivotal points in the whole gospel narrative – but focusing also on their lives as they come to an end.
They are both marked men. The leaders of the early Christian community were being picked off, and the communities they pastored were facing harsh persection. Herod had succeeded in taking out James, the brother of John and son of Zebedee in about 43 AD, and then swiftly pursues Peter and successfully imprisons him. The first reading from Acts recounts Peter’s narrow escape on this occasion thanks to angelic intervention – but within 20 years, James, the brother of Jesus and leader of the church in Jerusalem, Paul the apostle to the Gentiles, and Peter ‘the rock’ would all be dead. Martyrs for their faith in Christ. And of course, that’s how today we rightly honour them. Models of Christian discipleship, fearless faith and commitment to our Lord.....BUT...what is clear from Luke’s accounts in the Acts of the Apostles, is that had they been in the same room for any length of time they would have almost certainly been at each other’s throats and it would have kicked off, big-time.
History repeats itself.
It has to.
No one listens.
History repeats itself.
It has to.
No-one listens...
Well if that’s true of history in general it is certainly the case with Church History – and across the board of traditions and denominations it usually the aspect of our faith of which we are less informed. So forgive me as I offer a brief resume and reminder of what we know about Peter and Paul from the Acts of the Apostles and the letter to the Galatians in particular. Paul had been a leading member of the Church in Antioch in Syria for a number of years and had pioneered the conversion of Gentiles, non-jews. And in the course of their discipleship, the question had arisen as to how much of the Jewish Law these non-Jewish converts needed to comply with.
Perhaps surprisingly, Paul’s line is relatively liberal - he exonerates them from keeping the ceremonial laws. Now that immediately got Paul into trouble with the wider Christian community. At the beginning of Galatians 2 he writes that ‘false brethren’ had been ‘secretly brought in’ who ‘slipped in to spy out our freedom that we have in Christ Jesus, that they might bring us into bondage’. (Gal 2.1-4) Those ‘false brethren’ were in fact other Christians who had travelled 350 miles from Jerusalem, and from Paul’s tone it seems they hadn’t been exactly up-front as to their motivation. As soon as they had evidence of what they perceived to be unacceptable behaviour on the part of the non-jewish Christians, they lodged a complaint with the Apostles in Jerusalem. Paul was belligerent and refused to budge, and in the end took Barnabas and Titus with him to confront James and Peter in Jerusalem.
In the end the meeting went of peaceably enough, but Paul refers to James and Peter with a slight sneer as: ‘those who were supposed to be acknowledged leaders (what they actually were makes no difference to me; God shows no partiality)—those leaders contributed nothing to me’ and then in Galatians 2.11 he reminds his readers that “....when [Peter] came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he stood condemned”. There’s no love lost there is there?
History repeats itself.
It has to.
No one listens.
It good to be gathered here as a Deanery this evening, as we help mark this Church’s Patronal Festival; and of course we could have focused on Peter alone. But I think there is more wisdom, more reality, and ultimately more hope to be celebrated when we remember Peter and Paul together. They weren’t enemies of course – not like Moriarty and Holmes, or Thatcher and Scargill. But clearly they weren’t like Cameron and Clegg either! Possibly Blair and Brown reflect the relationship Peter and Paul seem to have had!
Two men, two Apostles, two Christians whose genuine passion and zeal for the gospel pulled them in different directions, and in the earliest days of the Church they loved and gave their lives for, brought them into direct conflict.
History repeats itself.
It has to.
No one listens.
So like Peter and Paul, our churches, our congregations and our church leaders may well at times seem to be pulling in different directions – concerned with different and maybe even conflicting priorities. And of course it doesn’t take much for us to see that replicated not just in our Deanery but nationally and throughout the Anglican Communion. I suspect that in similar circumstances, Peter may well have told Paul to carry his mitre rather than wear it!
As we celebrate these fractious apostles, we thank God for their differences – and we thank God for ours. And although it may at times seem to be a truth which is as yet beyond us all, we give thanks that like them, we are co-workers and companions in the gospel – by the grace of God and to the glory of his name. Amen.