St. Peter and St. Paul

Today, in churches throughout the country, men and women will be serving as deacons and priests for the first time.  They were ordained yesterday.  But some are being ordained today - this morning - probably even as I speak!  Among them are Pauline and Michael Chandler’s daughter, Claire. She is being ordained deacon in Winchester Cathedral this morning and she is truly one of our own. Claire was baptised, confirmed and married at St. Mary’s where she was nurtured through Sunday School and the Youth Group. David Muriss trained her as a server and she was briefly on the PCC after university before moving away from Harrow.  Pauline and Michael will be proud parents: onlookers this morning as their daughter takes this momentous step in her life. 

The 29^th June is the Feast Day of St Peter and St Paul.  The weekend nearest to the 29^th June is traditionally when we ordain men and women to be ministers in the Church of England.  But why do giants of the Church, like Peter and Paul have to share the same feast day?  Why do they not have one of their own?  After all they are such important figures in the history of the Church. 

That is the point.  Together they represent the great initial leadership of the Church.  St Paul, the powerful missionary to the Gentiles who, through his tireless journeys and lengthy epistles seeded the spread of the Good News of Jesus Christ throughout the Roman Empire; and Peter, the Rock, as Jesus himself called him, who appears to have stayed more at home where he headed up the Church and is considered the first pope.  Everyone who had hands laid on them yesterday and today by a bishop at their ordination was ordained in a direct, unbroken line of the laying on of hands which traces itself back to St Peter.  Even our reformation did not break the line.  Roman Catholic bishops simply became Church of England bishops when Henry Vlll created the Church of England.  This is quite something if you think about it.  Pauline’s daughter is receiving an inheritance of blessing for her ministry this morning stretching right back to Jesus through those who talked with him, ate with him, walked with him and learnt from him everyday when he was alive on this earth. 

Peter and Paul share the same saint’s day because their stories are outstanding examples of vocation – what it is and why, if you have a vocation, it cannot be denied.  And of course, a vocation is not just a calling to serve God in the Church.  You can have a vocation to teach, to nurse, to write, to paint, to make music, to childcare, to virtually anything which is good and worthwhile.  What makes a vocation a vocation is a drive in you that cannot be denied, because it is about who you are at the deepest possible level.  A vocation will not let you go.  You may try to run away from it, as Jonah ran from God’s command to go to the people of Ninevah, but eventually you have to follow your calling or never feel right in yourself.  A vocation followed will not give you an easier life – we have only to look at the hardships and challenges Peter and Paul underwent to see that.  But a vocation followed does give life in all its fullness; does give shape, purpose and meaning to life. 

One of the great gifts of the stories of Peter and Paul is that we see these two men developing in their Christian lives.  We see how, as they get to understand Jesus’ message more and more deeply, as they mature, as they try to put all they have learnt into everyday practice – we see these men grow – in love, in patience, in humility – more and more into the image of Christ. 

Our scriptures this morning concentrate on Peter.  Jesus saw the gifts of leadership, courage and tenacity in Peter, right from the beginning.  Jesus also saw Peter’s limitations.  But thankfully, God does not just call us when we are fully formed saints!!!  God calls us despite our limitations – and perhaps, also, because of them.  We can learn so much from our weaknesses and mistakes when we own them.  In his relationship with Jesus, Peter was confronted by his weakness and failures on several occasions – and he was appalled and shamed by at least one of them.  But Jesus continued to trust him. 

“You will deny me three times.” Jesus told Peter on the night Jesus was betrayed.  “But” – such an important word, that “But” – “But when you have turned back, strengthen your brothers.”  Be the rock on which your wavering, frightened fellow disciples, can stand. 

It is Peter’s very failure that will enable him to understand, to have compassion for and mercy on his fellow believers, in the early days of the Church, when life gets tough. 

The gospel allows us to see the seeds of Peter’s vocation as leader as Jesus might have seen them.  In today’s gospel – such a powerful moment in the development of all the disciples, Jesus really puts them on the spot. 

“Who do people say I am?”  That is the easy question to answer.  You just have to repeat other peoples’ opinions. 

“But you, who do you say I am?”  That is the big question.  It is the question everyone who calls themselves Christian has to hear spoken to them at some point in their faith journey.  I remember I had called myself Christian and been a churchgoer for some years before I heard that question as being directly addressed to me.  “So, Alison, who do you say I am?”  It was a moment of absolute clarity and then a heart and mind decision that Jesus was my Lord and God. 

It is Peter who has the insight, the belief, the courage, to step forward at that moment and say, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the most high God.” 

Wow, this is such a big moment.  This changes everything.  For hundreds of years, the Jewish people had been awaiting the arrival of God’s promised Messiah.  Many of them are still awaiting him today.  Peter is saying, “We don’t have to wait anymore.  This man, this carpenter’s son from Nazareth, is the promised Messiah.” 

Yet the first thing Jesus does is to tell his disciples not to talk about it, not to tell anyone.  Why?  Because Peter is right and wrong.  Peter has made this enormous leap of faith and commitment and it is in the right direction.  But like an arrow shot at a target might only be a little way off-centre from the marksman’s point of view, by the time it reaches the target it is way off the mark.  So, Peter – at this stage – will miss the mark by miles if he thinks he knows who Jesus is.  We see Peter and the other disciples, trying to fit Jesus’ messiahship into their inherited model of what the Messiah is to look like and do – and that is quite, quite different from God’s intention in Jesus.  Jesus must die and be raised from the dead before Peter and the other disciples begin to fathom the mystery of the love and mercy of God’s own nature revealed and expressed through the man, Jesus Christ. 

In our reading from Acts, we see Peter in prison.  He had been chained up between two guards – the same thing was to happen later on to Paul.  This means that Peter was literally chained to two men all night and all day.  Both Peter and Paul underwent imprisonment, and certainly in Paul’s case, beatings, and finally death, for their belief in Jesus Christ.  What made them so committed? 

The famous biblical scholar, N T Wright, puts it down to the power of the Resurrection.  Pentecost happened forty days after Easter Day.  At this point the handful of followers should have been deep in mourning, unable to think clearly, let alone to function and focus on the future.  But they had witnessed the Resurrection.  They had remained together in prayer since the Ascension, and with the coming of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost, they find themselves driven into the public square to proclaim Christ crucified and raised to anyone who will listen. 

N T Wright suggests that we latter day Christians are too often content to settle to vague ideas about the Resurrection and how we feel about it.  The point that N T Wright makes, is that many movements have been inspired by charismatic leaders who have either died naturally, in war or been executed.  Most of these movements fizzle out.  For those which didn’t, a new leader was found.  Only, only in the story of the Christian Church is the claim made that the executed leader was resurrected.  So powerful was the experience of Jesus’ Resurrection for those first disciples that within forty-three days of his death, when they should have been defeated by Jesus’ failure and their grief, they were proclaiming Jesus alive and their Lord.  In Jesus they saw truth, in his life, in his words and in his actions.  And an extraordinary, new vision of a God who loved his world so much that he gave his only begotten Son that we might live. 

We celebrate the vocations of those called to be deacons and priests today.  But actually, in our baptism we are each given a vocation and called into ministry, to serve our God and one another. But this baptism only comes to life when we personally answer the question, “But you, who do you say I am?” and when we come alive to the fact of the Resurrection.  Then we can say “He is risen.  He is risen indeed.  Alleluia.”