With Open Arms and Open Hearts

With open arms, with open hearts.
A Sermon preached by the Rev’d Peter De Franco on June 24, 2007,
the Patronal Feast of St. Peter’s Episcopal Church, Clifton, NJ

On this day, we gather in St. Peter’s church and celebrate the memory of our community’s patron. I have always felt blessed to serve in a church with which I share a name. Whenever I go to Sikora’s, the religious goods store in Passaic, they all know me as Father Peter from St. Peter’s. It’s a fun thing.
Now St. Peter and I go back a long way so I want to tell you a story about me and St. Peter that happened when I was in the second grade. When I was a child I attended St. Anthony’s Roman Catholic School in Paterson, New Jersey. It was October and Halloween was approaching and the nun who taught our class had the bright idea that we all should dress up as our patron saints. Concetta, the girl who lived down the street from me, dressed as the Virgin Mary; my best friend was named Joey and he dressed up as St. Joseph and of course I dressed up as St. Peter.
It was a family project to put the costume together. My mother was a seamstress so she designed a white robe and a cord belt for me. My father, who loved to work with wood, made a three foot key for me. The key was almost as big as I was! And the crowning piece of the costume was a white wig and white beard. I looked like Santa Claus in a nightgown!
On Halloween day, we all came into school in our saint’s costumes and then paraded around the street with all the other children in our school for the Halloween parade. I really felt proud of my key. For years, that key hung up in our living room on a pillar that supported the ceiling near a bay of windows.
We all know that all the saints have symbols. If you look at the stained glass window of St. Peter here in church, you will see two symbols of St. Peter: a set of Keys and an inverted cross. The keys recall those words of Jesus to Peter: I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven. Whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven. The roman church uses that gospel story about St. Peter to remind them of the connection between Peter and the Bishop of Rome. I think they want to remind their people who has the power. Thank God we don’t have that story.
You see, we use a different gospel and it refers to the second symbol of St. Peter: The inverted cross. You will recall after Jesus asks Peter three times if he loves him and three times Jesus invites Peter to feed his lambs and his sheep. Jesus then says something rather strange: Very truly, I tell you, when you were younger, you used to fasten your own belt and to go wherever you wished. But when you grow old, you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will fasten a belt around you and take you where you do not wish to go.” 19(He said this to indicate the kind of death by which he would glorify God.)
Jesus is telling Peter something that must have totally frightened Peter. Jesus is telling Peter that when he is old, he will stretch out his hands and another will lead him where he would not go. Peter knew full well what Jesus was talking about. For but a few days before Jesus had stretched out his hands when a soldier fastened Jesus’ hands to the beam of the cross. Peter would follow Jesus to that same crucifixion. A venerable Christian story says that during the persecution of the Christian Community in Rome under the Emperor Nero, Peter was captured and condemned to death by crucifixion.
He asked that he be crucified head downward since he felt himself unworthy to die the same death as did Jesus. The upside down cross is a reminder of that final following by Peter of his Jesus.
You will all recall that when Jesus was going to the cross, Peter was so frightened that when a little servant girl asked Peter if he knew Jesus, Peter denied it as fast as he could. Somehow, Peter’s fearful heart was transformed into a courageous heart.
I think it had to do with that day on the Sea of Galilee where Jesus forgave Peter for his betrayals and restored Peter to friendship with Jesus. In healing his heart, Peter’s heart was opened. Somehow his heart was opened and he learned the important lesson of embracing all people.
For in the days after Pentecost, Peter is the one who brings the Gentiles into the church. Peter is the one who breaks down the barrier that divided Jewish Christians from Gentiles.
Deep in the heart of this community lays a similar commitment to open our arms in welcome. On this day, we bring together both the celebration of our patron as well as pride day, a day when we open our hearts to our Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgendered sisters and brothers. The seed for this pride celebration comes from Father Hank Dwyer who saw the civil rights movement of the 1960’s embracing the struggle of the LGBT community to achieve full equality. I believe that Hank saw the Spirit of God opening up hearts and minds of Christians to embrace those whom God already loved. God is putting into our hearts a desire to love others with the same love God has for them. The beginning of such love lies in opening our hearts and minds.
For us Christians, we, like Peter, learn how to do that from Jesus who stretched out his arms on the cross. Jesus learned that lesson when his own arms were stretched out on the cross – that God opens our arms that we might open our hearts to include all in the embrace of our love. To open our hearts like Peter comes as an invitation to overcome the fear that keeps our hearts closed. A first step in overcoming that fear is to see the other as a person like us, a person loved and cherished by God, a person. I believe the deeper we go in opening our hearts to the love of God, the easier it is to release fear from our hearts.
We are in a time in our parish life when we are asking ourselves where is God calling us as a community. We are a community who have done so much with so little.
In part, we have done so much because we are a people who love much. We do not only receive God’s love into our hearts, but we ask how can we share that love?
What is God asking us to do in the next five years? Shall our response be one that flows from closed arms or from open arms? I invite us this day to look to the example of our patron, to look in the way we have opened our hearts and minds to embrace our Lesbian, gay and bisexual sisters and brothers. We have the courage to continue to open our arms in welcome for God has opened our hearts in love.
So if you see a little boy with a white wig and robe carrying a key in his hand, ask him for the key. It will open your heart.