Unity, Constancy and Peace

Readings (3rd Sunday after Easter, Year C)


Lord, remembering the collaboration and the martyrdoms of Peter and Paul, may we also serve you in unity and constancy and peace. Amen.

Paul’s conversion

on the road to Damascus

after having persecuted

Jesus’ followers…

Peter’s restoration

after having denied Jesus…

(Peter, do you love me? by ShouYume)

Two major events in the lives of two major figures in the early Church – one was trying to get the likes of the other one killed – and God brought them together to work side by side. What a crazy idea! Inviting a malicious opposition leader into the Church as a teacher, or putting the responsibility of shepherding the vulnerable new Church in the hands of a coward. But that’s what Jesus did – forgive them; they didn’t know what they were doing. But Jesus knew what he was doing.

One way to get rid of an enemy (other than blowing him to smithereens) is to make him a friend. It sounds idiotic and naïve, but that’s basically what Jesus did with Paul. And so the relentless persecutor of Christians became the Church’s most effective missionary. And what about Peter? 'With friends like that, who needs enemies?' But Jesus used Peter, too – the one who bailed and ran became part of the foundation of the Church. I suppose one way to teach people responsibility is to give it to them.

The story of Peter and Paul is also our story - Confrontation, judgment, forgiveness, restoration – and a new life together. In the Eucharist, we pray “Sanctify us…that we may serve you in unity, constancy and peace.” Peter and Paul neither one started out being constant, and they were the farthest thing from unified at first.

Peter and Paul were on opposite teams; Paul was jailing Peter’s friends and colleagues and having them killed, methodically and with the consent of the religious authorities. When people were stoning Stephen to death, Paul (the man on the right -->) was holding their coats for them.
Later, he got more proactive about it. He obtained letters authorizing him to round up anyone following what they called ‘the Way.’ That’s where he was headed, letter in hand, when Jesus struck him blind, asking “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?”

Paul was full of himself with authority. Jesus had to knock him off his high horse – literally – before he would be quiet enough to listen to the story he’d been shouting down, and hear the truth of the Gospel message. Blinded, helpless, he had to let his victims lead him by the hand, and he learned about faith from them: people he thought were destroying the faith - people like Peter.

Peter’s issue was a bit the opposite. He didn’t need to be knocked down; he was already 'lower than a snake’s belly' with shame, ever since he denied even knowing Jesus – after he had sworn to die for him. He'd thought he was brave but found out he wasn’t. Jesus had to get him to lift his head again and take responsibility for leading the others, even though he didn’t feel able or worthy to, even though he was still scared to die, because people were still trying to kill them – people like Paul.

The persecutor and the deserter... the faithless friend and the outright enemy: both would prove constant in the end.

From the beginning, Peter had left his fishing nets and his home, left everything to follow Jesus. He was the first of the disciples to correctly apprehend who Jesus was.
“Who do you say that I am?”

“You are the Messiah of God” 

At the Last Supper, when Jesus began talking about his imminent betrayal and murder, Peter vowed

"Lord, I am ready to go with you to prison and to death!"

But a few hours later, a girl pointed at him in the firelight and said he had been with Jesus, and Peter said,

“I don’t know him.”

Peter, the rock, was not so strong and constant then, and when he heard the rooster crow, he broke down crying and ran.

But encountering the risen Christ can make a difference – can change a person. Jesus rose again and came back to see them, and one of the things he did was restore Peter to dignity and to responsibility –
“Do you love me?”

“You know everything; you know I love you.”

“Feed my sheep.”
And he told him something else – he told him that it would cost him his life. And standing there by the lake, just as they had three years before, Jesus once more said to Peter,
“Follow me.”

And again, Peter did – this time, knowing all that it might mean, he didn’t shrink back; he didn’t run; he didn’t deny Jesus. He followed him to prison, to trial, and to death, crucified upside down at the hands of the Romans under Nero.

Constancy: Peter, who had denied Jesus, turned out to be as strong as a rock.

Jesus can change people in ways that don’t seem possible. We see this in the unlikely collaboration of Peter and Paul. Paul was a well-educated and sophisticated Jew and a Roman citizen. Peter was an uneducated fisherman from Galilee. Peter believed Jesus was the Messiah; Paul wanted to kill people like him. 2000 years later, we remember them together on June 29, the Feast of St. Peter and St. Paul.

Our national cathedral is the Cathedral Church of St. Peter and St. Paul. How did they end up together, these two who started out so diametrically opposed to each other?

Paul had thrown people in prison and approved of executing followers of Jesus, trying to protect his faith from those he felt were trying to destroy it - until Jesus met him on the road and turned him around. Paul then became a wholehearted follower of Jesus and studied under those he had tried to have killed, including Peter, submitting to their leadership. Amazingly, they let him in and taught him – and then sent him out with their blessing to preach to others.

It ended up mostly being Gentiles who listened to him, and this created another complicated issue for the Church. Lots of people weren’t sure Gentiles should be included, or if they were, perhaps they should submit to the Jewish customs also. In Acts, Peter has a vision, followed by an encounter with the family of Cornelius, a centurion, that leads him to accept the idea of Gentiles being part of the Church, but it wasn’t easy for him. Paul tells about confronting Peter for not being consistent in his acceptance of Gentile Christians. They had a very public argument about it. But when the church leaders gather for a council in Jerusalem, it’s Peter who stands up first to speak on behalf of the Gentiles.

For his part, Paul was also putting his neck out there in support of the Gospel being for everyone. During his travels, he was arrested, beaten, put in prison, stoned, and exiled – several times – before being beheaded, for preaching that Jesus was the Savior of the whole world: Jew and Gentile alike. According to tradition, Paul was also executed in Rome under Nero, the same year as Peter. Being a Roman citizen, he was granted the right to have his head cut off rather than be crucified. The Jew who had approved killing to protect the Jewish faith from the Gospel in the end died proclaiming it to people who weren’t even Jews.

Peter and Paul had different backgrounds, different gifts and failings, and different missions in the Church. Both worked, in different contexts, to spread the good news that Jesus had saved everyone in the world from sin. When you have a message like that, it’s ridiculous to fight over logistics.

We have the same message to share. We have different backgrounds, different gifts and failings, and different missions in the Church. We live and work in different contexts. Peter and Paul’s collaboration is an example for us of the unity we pray for and work towards.

Jesus’ words to Peter and to Paul - and to us - are clear.
“Why are you persecuting me?”
“Do you love me? …Feed my sheep.”
Our prayer and our response should mirror theirs: Lord, open our eyes to ways we injure you in our conflicts; give us strength and courage to follow you despite our fears… “that we may serve you in unity, constancy and peace.” (BCP 363, Eucharistic Prayer A)

Amen

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Extra! Extra!

"Stained glass bluegrass" group Daily & Vincent singing "Don't you want to go to heaven when you die?" - partly coming from today's gospel text:

Here's another one: "Peter, Do you love me?" by The Primitives

John 21:15-19 in American Sign Language.

Seeing and Knowing God

Easter 6, Year A
Readings: Acts 17:22-31 Psalm 66:7-18 1 Peter 3:13-22 John 14:15-21

Do you know God?
Have you ever seen God? How do you know God is real?

Bob and Joyce are driving to Houston. As they come into the city, traffic starts to pick up. Just as they enter a construction zone, Bob spots a car stalled, partly in their lane because of the construction barricade. He looks in the mirror to move over, and there’s a semi in the other lane – there’s not enough space for all three vehicles – and nowhere for Bob and Joyce to go.
They both flinch, expecting impact – and then, somehow, they’re on the other side.
“How did you do that?” Joyce asks, amazed.
“I don’t know,” Bob says. “It wasn’t me.”

How do you know God is real? Have you ever seen God?
Lots of you have children and grandchildren. Think back to holding that brand new little baby for the first time – those perfect, delicate ears, beautiful eyelashes and tiny fingernails.
Look at your own hand and the lines on your knuckles, the roadmap of purple veins just under your skin.
“The God who made the world and everything in it, he who is Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in shrines made by human hands, nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mortals life and breath and all things.” (Acts 17:24-25)
It feels like this is true – that there must be somebody responsible - It feels like there must be a God, but how do we know God is real if we can’t see God?
Can you see your eyelashes? Why not? Because they’re too close to your eyes.
Maybe we can’t see God because God is too close. Paul tells the people in Athens, “indeed he is not far from each one of us.”
Can you see your heart? Why not? Because it’s inside of you.
Maybe we can’t see God because God is inside of us. Jesus tells his disciples, “You know [the Holy Spirit], because he abides with you, and he will be in you.”

Just because you can’t see something, doesn’t mean it isn’t there.
Sometimes you can feel what you can’t see
You can’t see your eyelashes because they are too close to your eyes. But, you can move the tip of your finger near your eye and feel the tiny hairs brushing against your skin, so you know they are there.
You can’t see your heart, because your heart is inside you - but you can put your thumb in the little space between your collar bones and feel bom-bom as it pumps blood through the arteries in your neck.
I can’t see God, but there are times when I feel that God is with me. I remember once in early spring, taking a walk in the middle of the afternoon, and suddenly, I felt that God was walking with me. I didn’t see him, but I knew he was there. It seemed that if I leaned my head over, it would be resting on his shoulder.
I remember how familiar and simple it felt to be walking together like that with God, and I remember feeling surprised that it was so familiar and so simple – as though we already knew each other very well.
You don’t have to see God to know him. And you already do know God, and he knows you. “Indeed he is not far from each one of us.”

Jesus told his disciples, "I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, to be with you forever. This is the Spirit of truth …. You know him, because he abides with you, and he will be in you.”
Jesus, the Father and the Spirit are all connected with each other and with us, so when we encounter God, it will probably feel familiar rather than strange and frightening.
In a way, this can make God’s presence hard to recognize. If we are expecting God to be completely different from anything we know, we may be surprised to encounter God in a way that feels close and familiar.
Philip, one of Jesus’ disciples, asked him, “Lord, show us the Father, and we will be satisfied.”
And Jesus said, “Have I been with you so long, and yet you do not know me, Philip? He who has seen me has seen the Father.”Don’t make it more difficult than it is – you know this already
Sometimes, we can make things more difficult than they are.
Some things are difficult and complicated; that’s true. But some things are simple, and we make them complicated when they don’t need to be.
For example, how do you feel about Algebra?
x + 2 = 5 Solve for x. If you’re like me, just hearing ‘ x’, you feel a mild panic. But relax and think about it – slow down. You already know this. It’s actually familiar. If you start with 2, how do you get to 5?
You have to let yourself recognize the familiar parts and realize that you know them so that you don’t panic or give up. Don’t make it more difficult than it is.
For some people, reading and spelling cause the panic.
How do you spell ‘Episcopalian’?
It’s so long and has all those syllables! I can’t do it.
Yes, you can – slow down – listen to the sounds. What are the letters that make those sounds? Just do one at a time. You already know this. It’s actually familiar. Don’t make it more difficult than it is.
Learning to read is similar – for someone learning to read, looking at all those words can be intimidating. They’ll just start guessing. You have to tell them, “Slow down, look at what’s there; don’t guess.“
When it connects – that those letters represent familiar words – it’s like epiphany – like revelation.
Knowing God is similar. It may seem intimidating or even impossible to think about trying to know God.
How can I know God? I’ve never seen God. God is totally ‘other’ – completely beyond human comprehension.
Except that Jesus and Paul both say it’s not like that.
We’re God’s children, Paul explains, so we know God already, because God made us and takes care of us. In him we live and move and have our being, and He is not far from each one of us. We know the Spirit, Jesus says, because he is with us and will be in us.
God is familiar, even if we can’t put words to it or explain it. So don’t worry about what you can’t see, what you don’t know; look at what’s there. We’ve seen God reflected to us in thousands of ways. We’ve seen God reflected through people and events; we’ve seen God reflected through the beauty of the world around us; we’ve seen God reflected in scripture, in the liturgy, and we’ve seen God reflected in our own hearts.
CS Lewis says we each have a ‘God-shaped hole’ in our hearts, so even before we recognize what’s missing in our lives, the shape of the emptiness traces an outline of what God must be like to fill it.
Don’t make knowing God more difficult than it is – you already know God. And He knows you.
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Given to St. John's, Silsbee
April 27, 2008