Peter & Paul, A study in Contrasts

A sermon preached by
the Rev’d Peter De Franco at
St. Peter’s Episcopal Church, Clifton, NJ
on June 29, 2008,
Feast of Saints Peter & Paul.

Famous pairs find their way into every area of human life.
Just think of a few you might know: George and Martha Washington, Abbot and Costello, Venus and Serena Williams, Johnny Carson and Ed McMahon, Sonny and Cher, Chip and Dale. In Christian tradition, Peter and Paul endure as a matched pair of saints, as two sides of a coin, as matching book ends in your library. Peter and Paul are as different as salt and pepper yet closely linked as those two spices are bound together on every table at which you sit. Let’s think of the two for a minute and let’s start with Peter.
Of the two of them, only Peter saw the Lord Jesus in his fleshly existence. From the Gospels, we know Peter as an impetuous, hot headed, loud mouthed leader of the apostles. He is hardly the person whom I think would qualify as the CEO of a major company. Don’t you wonder what Jesus saw in Peter?
Jesus saw in Peter a strong leader. Jesus changed his name from Cephas to Peter, the Rock. Jesus wanted Peter to serve as a stone in the temple Jesus was building, the temple of which we are all a part. Perhaps it was Peter’s big heart that so loved Jesus that Peter left behind his family, his expensive fishing enterprise, his prominent place in his society to follow Jesus for that year of intense preaching, healing and even confrontations that lead Peter with Jesus through the backwoods of Galilee to that fateful week in Jerusalem when Peter would deny the Lord he loved and then see that Jesus transformed from the crucified one to the Risen Lord. After the Spirit descends on Peter and the other disciples on the day of Pentecost, the Spirit transforms those fearful men into bold evangelists, proclaiming the word of Jesus’ Resurrection to their fellow Jews and at the Spirit’s urging to include the Gentiles among the people of God. I cannot imagine Peter, a devout Jew from Galilee, ever thinking that he would be the one who would ever eat with Gentiles. Just imagine whomever it was that your parents told you not to associate with, the kids who always got in trouble, the girl who was a little loose with herself, the boy who would find himself on the other side of the fence, just imagine finding out that those very people were devout believers and that you would join them in a supper at church. Strange things that God has in store for us.
Then there is Paul. The Acts of the Apostles first calls him Saul, a Pharisee, a ancient version of the Congregational style of Christians whom some of you know as going to church at least twice on Sundays and rigidly observing the Sabbath.
They are the Christians of the no: No cards, no dancing, no alcohol, no work on the Sabbath, perhaps even no fun. Hardly Episcopalians! Saul was like them. The No Saul had in his head was No Christians and he started by helping to stone Stephen to death and then leading a band of self appointed self righteous bounty hunters to search out, jail and execute those Christians.
Such would have been his lot in life, and a life which later generations would have forgotten, except for that voice from the heavens and that blinding vision that called out to him: Saul, Saul why do you persecute me? Strange words when you think about it. Saul was not persecuting Jesus, he was persecuting the Christians.
Yet from those words, Paul would understand that all Christians are linked together with Jesus in a mystical bond that makes us but one body with Christ.
Saul would become Paul, the one who persecuted the Church changed into its premier apostle, going through the what is now Syria, Lebanon, Turkey, Greece and ending up in Rome where his preaching of the Gospel lead to his death. Those words from Second Timothy reflect what must have been Paul’s sentiments in the Roman jail when he knew that his execution would be immanent: I am already being poured out like a libation and the time of my departure has come. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Saul, turned into Paul, another hot head, another zealot, another one who, like Peter, Jesus turned around and made into a herald of the Gospel. Strange things that God has in store for us.
What does it all mean for us? Are Peter and Paul only a quaint pair of saints we polish off once a year and use their day to do what we do best: have a party? I would suggest that Peter and Paul come to us as a pair to remind us of what is remarkably similar in the lives of these very dissimilar saints: that God has strange, unexpected tasks in store for us. Strange and unexpected tasks – for those of you who love adventure, you are thrilling at such possibilities. Strange and unexpected tasks – for those of you who hate change, you are appalled that God would so upset your apple cart with such a world shattering proposal. Perhaps you would prefer the words of today’s collect, you know standing firm on the one foundation of Jesus Christ and not venturing into the unknown fields where the lost sheep are scattered.
Peter and Paul fulfilled those words of the prophet Ezekiel; they were shepherds who sought the lost, brought back the strayed, bound up the injured and strengthened the weak. They did it all because of love, love for Jesus who called them, love for Jesus who loved them.
As you share in the same Eucharistic feast that fed Peter and Paul, I invite you to draw strength from this table not to stand on the one foundation, but to go into the world. Find those who are on the edge and invite them to the table that nourishes you. Find those who are wounded and invite them to share in the cup that heals you. Find those who are lost and lead them to the home you have found.
For then Peter and Paul are not two dusty saints from the past. They are living models for you and I to imitate. For we, like Peter and Paul, hear those last words from today’s Gospel, words beckoning, not Peter and Paul but you and me, those two words leaping off the page into your ear, into your heart, those two inviting words of Jesus: Follow Me!