Sermon for the Feast of SS Peter & Paul, Patronal Sunday, 26th June 2022
(While in Brussels I was robbed of my iPad, so there will be no recorded sermon until I have a replacement).
We have taken the liberty of moving the Feast of St. Peter and Paul from their calendar date of June 29th, to today, so that we could honour these two great ‘apostles of Christ’ on the nearest Sunday.
The normal date for our Patronal Festival would be January 25th when we celebrate the Conversion of St. Paul, but January is not such an attractive option for a garden lunch, compared to June. So we can also use this summer month to honour our patronal saint.
In the ‘old’ Prayer Book St. Peter is celebrated alone on June 29th, and it is only in more recent decades that the holy apostles of Peter and Paul have been placed side by side. Both were martyred in the city of Rome.
They belong together in so many ways but chiefly as foundations for the building up of the Christian Church.
Two little dickie birds sitting on a wall; one named Peter, one named Paul. Fly away Peter, fly away Paul, come back Peter come back Paul.
I have often pondered whether this little rhyme has any connection with the Peter and Paul that we honour today. These two saints are very different, and yet have much in common.
One was a fisherman living a simple married life beside the Sea of Galilee; the other was a tent maker but also a well educated Pharisee, having studied under the great Gamaliel. The lives of both were transformed with a call to follow Christ.
Peter’s call was from Jesus directly. Peter was one of the close group of disciples that Jesus gathered around him. So Peter is an eye witness to the things Jesus did, and the things that he said. As we see from this morning’s gospel reading, Peter acknowledges this Jesus as Messiah.
Paul never met Jesus in this same direct way, yet there was some type of powerful encounter with the risen Christ that we learn about in the book called the Acts of the Apostles that turned Paul’s heart and mind towards being the greatest apologist for Jesus as his Lord.
The book known to us as the Acts of the Apostles is divided into the narrative of the missionary lives of Peter and Paul, the former in Galilee and Judea, the latter as he travels around the Mediterranean visiting small emergent Christian congregations, to whom he wrote letters, letters that are packed full of one man’s grappling with the effect of his new understanding that Jesus fulfilled all Jewish expectation, and is in fact no less than the mirror image of God, God’s self-emptying characteristic of servanthood, with a focus on the mystery of the cross.
By different routes and through different routes, both Peter and Paul ended their lives and their ministries in Rome, still witnessing to the Christ who called them, and being martyred for their convictions.
There is good reason for celebrating these two pillars of the faith together as they witness so powerfully to Jesus as Lord, to Jesus as the Messiah, the Christ of God.
Peter’s confession constitutes today’s gospel reading. Jesus asks two questions when they are in the area of Caesarea Philippi. This is Peter’s home territory. The first question put by Jesus is about the Son of Man. It is an unusual title, ‘Son of Man’, but one used in various ways in the Old Testament scriptures.
Jesus is fishing around to test the understanding of his close followers, and it is the Fisherman, Peter, who takes up the challenge, and declares that Jesus is the Christ, and Son of the living God.
This moment is for Peter as Paul’s famous conversion on the road to Damascus is for him, or St. Thomas when he says of the risen Jesus, ‘My Lord and my God’. This moment is to them as the moment is for each one of us, when we have declared ‘I turn to Christ’, and in turning to Christ we open up our hearts and minds to his love, compassion, and glory.
Peter, beside the Sea of Galilee confesses that Jesus is the Christ. In one of his letters, Paul says that Jesus is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. Both of them together, this Peter and Paul are twin apostles of Christ’s Church, sent out to live, teach and model the Christ-likeness that is the vocation each one of us has been given by God.
Let us pray today in thanksgiving for these two apostles, with thanksgiving that our church and community have Paul as their patron, and pray in humility that Christ can build something of his church on you and me.
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