Sermons

Saints Peter and Paul

Preached by The Reverend John Porter on Seventh Sunday after Pentecost (Sunday, June 29, 2008)

If you take a close look at the liturgical calendar, you won’t find too many pairs of saints in comparison to those saints celebrated individually. Some of the pairs we do have are

1. Joachim and Anne, parents of the Blessed Virgin Mary
2. Cyril and Methodius, founders of the church in Slavonia
3. Perpetual and Felicity, early Roman virgin martyrs
4. Philip and James, apostles and martyrs
5. Cosmas and Damian, early Roman martyrs
6. Simon and Jude, apostles and martyrs
7. Timothy and Titus, early martyrs and disciples of St Paul
8. Mary and Martha (& Lazarus), friends of Jesus
9. Latimer, Ridley, and Cranmer, Reformation bishops & martyrs
10. Kamehamaha & Emma, King & Queen of Hawaii
11. Peter and Paul, apostles and martyrs

Similarity of purpose, or closeness of relationship seems to be a must. But in Peter and Paul, we have clear opposites who complement each other in their distinctive differences as shown in the Scriptures—how they wrote what they wrote and what it said—and in the liturgy—how different the supplemental texts are for these saints—the minor propers, as well as the scriptural selections for each.

In the older Western liturgical tradition, Peter was never mentioned without mentioning St Paul, and vice-versa.

O God,. . .who gave to this Apostle
Saint Peter, many excellent gifts &
commandest him earnestly to feed
Thy flock. . . .

O God, who thru the preaching of
thy blessed Apostle St Paul hast
caused the light of the Gospel to
shine forth upon the Gentiles. . . .

The basis on which we celebrate both of these apostles is solidly scriptural. And for each of them, Scripture shows us how different they are. Peter is a man of humble origins, leading the simple life of a fisherman. Paul is a man of the entire ancient world, a Roman citizen, intellect, orator, author. Peter was a weak man, full of foibles, with none of the worldliness and sophistication by which his own successors have come to be known! Paul is a worldly man who understands human nature and has had a blinding experience of God that turned him around.

In today’s readings, we have a strong statement from Paul: “I solemnly urge you: proclaim the message, be persistant, in season, out of season.” And from Peter, “Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you.”

In celebrating, Peter and Paul together, we don’t show forth yin and yang or even a dualism of good and evil.

Each of the apostles gives a full response to Jesus’ intervention in their lives. Each responds from where he finds himself: a poor Jew who catches and sells fish; a Roman citizen who is very smart and God knocks him over the head with a baseball bat (forgive the anachronism).

In a wonderful work (a dialogue), called Phrædrus, Socrates describes the soul as having two horses: the one—unruly, governed by passions, pulling in the direction of self-indulgence; the other—restrained, dutiful, refined, governed by a sense of shame and self-control. W. H. Auden describes this same phenomenon as the dark and light sides of the self, always in struggle.

We may be celebrating these two apostles on the same day for some historical and unrelated liturgical reason, but the marriage of the two is a good thing. It gives us two disciples of Jesus who encountered the Lord, each in their own context, and whom God called to follow Jesus. In all their differences, they were obedient to their individual calls, remained essentially themselves, but opened their hearts to growth and conversion, in response to encountering Jesus.

Their written words have nourished us throughout our whole lives, ever since we’ve been listening and reading Holy Scripture. Let us truly thank God for these two apostles and the impact their witness to Christ has had on us.

It might be amiss to make no reference to today’s local civic celebration: Gay Pride Sunday, as it relates to today’s liturgical celebration. It struck me that Peter and Paul, in their personalities, might well respond quite differently to this modern liberation-oriented public celebration of self-assurance, openness, and a wider acceptance of LGBT people in American culture. It is hard to second-guess a first-century person’s inevitably anachronistic understanding of some twenty-first century issues. However, setting aside modern doctrinal and cultural adjustments, we can imagine that it is at least possible that Paul—despite his railings against various sexual practices—might understand the changes in society and the awakening of differing forms of human identity and find some reconciliation within him with them. Peter, on the other hand, if his accepted character were to perdure, would seem to be more like the country-bumpkin relative who might not be inclined to broader acceptance, especially from the closely defined cultural and religious norms with which he was familiar.

The truth is, one cannot really know how these two men might approach the development of doctrine in modern Christianity, much less the various revolutions that have happened in the ensuing twenty centuries. What I have suggested above is really somewhat improbable, given we have no evidence but the situations these men faced in their own time. What we do know is that God’s grace gives to each human person its own special and differentiated characteristics and that the understood differences between Peter and Paul would probably still be there, were they living in our own time. What we can do is thank God for those differences and thank God for the freely given grace of intelligence and life that each of us experiences daily.