Br. Randy Greve, OHC
The Feast of St. Peter & St. Paul - Friday, June 29, 2018
To hear the sermon in its fullness click here.
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| Br. Randy Greve, OHC |
This is the theory, anyway, of their ends, although there is no historically verified account. Although John the Evangelist makes a passing reference to Peter’s death in the gospel reading, the silence of the New Testament as to the details of their deaths may indicate that, in the chaos of the persecution, no one was a witness and therefore no one could attest as to the actual event, so it was left out. Early tradition places the site of their deaths at what is now St. Peter’s Basilica, and some recent archeological exploration appears to lend authority to this claim.
The accounts we do have are two stories of two remarkable men:
Simon, later “the rock” is the earthy, hotheaded, impulsive fisherman on the Sea of Galilee. "Come, follow me" are the words that change a life bound for common obscurity into one that changes the world. At a moment of great testing, he fails and denies Christ, yet by the day of Pentecost preaches a sermon that sets the new Jesus movement into its mission. His great insight is that what God calls clean he must not call profane, in other words that Jesus has fulfilled the law, has inaugurated a new way of freedom. In the face of persecution and confusion, he becomes a nonviolent resister to the power of fear. His life belongs to the one who has the power over death. In the letters attributed to Peter, the author points to the example of Christ who, “when he was abused, he did not return abuse; when he suffered, he did not threaten; but he entrusted himself to the one who judges justly.” (1 Peter 2:23)
Saul, later Paul, the educated, zealous, theologically brilliant Pharisee, upholder of the letter of the law, persecutor of Christians, this new blasphemous sect, knocked down and blinded by a vision of the One he has been persecuting; a few years of study follow, and then he is off across the Mediterranean, writing a third of the New Testament along the way. His great insight is that truth without grace is no truth at all. Paul became a nonviolent resister of the power of legalism, the false belief in our own capacity to save ourselves and a champion of the grace of God as pure gift. For Paul, our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against cosmic forces of evil. The resistance takes on a new aim, “do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.” (Romans 12:21).
They met at least once, these two, but because they were so different, probably did not like each other. They realized that they had distinct callings and went in different directions! Yet there are common threads in their stories. Each had been called by Jesus but also questioned by him.Peter with Jesus on the beach, after the resurrection - "Do you love me? Paul in a vision of the glorified Christ - "Why are you persecuting me? The rest of their lives is an answer to these questions.
Jesus is speaking to the most painful moments in their lives. I call them nonviolent resisters, because they had both been violent men. Peter’s anger most dramatically seen in his cutting off the ear of the servant of the high priest in the Garden of Gethsemane as Jesus is being arrested. Paul’s mission to eradicate the new teaching that Jesus is Lord through his possibly direct or at least approved persecution, sometimes execution, of Christians told in his condoning of the stoning of the deacon Stephen, the first martyr. They both had deep emotional upheavals and had come into a profound encounter with their own acts of evil. And when the temptation would have been to wallow in guilt or self-pity or lash out at reminders of their failures, they chose the path offered them by Christ of forgiveness. They may at one time have boasted in their arrogance, but no longer. They realized that in their weakness was their greatest strength, in their own awareness of their reception of and need for mercy and forgiveness was the authority for ministry.
Their conversions and ministries are about the movement from violence to nonviolence. They knew firsthand the destructive power of violence. It is tempting, but a dangerous delusion. It leads only to more suffering. The way of Jesus was the way of real power. This nonviolence is not docility or passivity in the face of conflict or crises; far from it. Nonviolent resistance is resistance. It is the resistance of evil itself, not simply the evil person. It is about truth, the heart; about relationship. This gospel way of being does not ignore, but transcends labels, alliances, and identities which the culture says make people enemies. The gospel says these differences invite us to the challenging work of compassion and care. Peter and Paul came to live in a way that they knew that their witness was precisely in and through their imperfection. Their past failures did not define them, but became points of healing into humility. God used their raw, unformed and distorted passion and converted it into the service of good, of peace. True freedom was found in a greater vision, a grander purpose than attack and fear.
Peter and Paul faced seemingly impossible challenges; from persecution outside the church to division within it. For us, over the last few years the cultural and theological rifts in this country have been widening. While there is progress as old accepted patterns of prejudice and power are being called out and an awareness of previously secreted forms of abuse are being exposed, debate and dialogue across political and cultural differences is as angry as ever. Some Christian voices are calling for us to go on with business as usual and focus solely on spiritual things, relegate religion strictly to the soul. Others want to make the church into an agent of advocacy for their own agendas and rally people against a common enemy with God on their side. Are these the only choices? Is it possible to be Christian without colluding with the empire or burying our heads in the sands of isolation? The sources, the sacred texts and the lives that created them speak afresh to these questions. What we need is all there in the texts. We can recover a theology and practice of faithful witness that makes respect possible if we recognize the gift that God offers of a justice without judgmentalism, a mercy without manipulation, and a grace that is free, but not cheap. It is one thing to say we will respect the dignity of every human being.
Then when a particularly undignified human being tests our theology, we get to see what is really in our hearts. If we watch and read Peter and Paul seriously and carefully, we will discover that it is possible to stand for justice and peace and against oppression for all people without doing verbal or social violence to anyone and while pointing to the source and aim of true unity and peace. But this respectful, evil-resisting way can only come when we are aware of our own tendencies toward arrogance and defensiveness, toward the impulses of division and blame within us. The greatest witness to spiritual maturity is not the skill with which I hit back at my perceived enemies, but my commitment to witness to a way of peace that sees the one I label “other” as one for whom Christ also died and was raised.
Peter and Paul would be the first to tell us that their service is not first about their great skill, their excellent administrative abilities or advanced theological training. Though they evangelized, preached, and pastored the people God entrusted to them, they were great apostles and servants because they knew who they were. The greatest gift we can give a family, community, church, and world is the grounding and gratitude we have in our true identity. We are forgiven people. We are people who have received God’s grace and mercy. We are people who have overcome and are overcoming evil with good. When we remember that, then we will see our brothers and sisters in Christ living before God just as we do. In that unity we find our common heart and life, we find community.
The renewal to which these saints call us is hearing Jesus’ questions to them as questions to us:
“Do you love me?”
“Why are you persecuting me?”
Do you want to be counter-cultural? Do you want to stand up to the forces of spiritual wickedness? Then really break away from the crowd – be courageously kind. Be honest and humble about who you are, what you believe. Listen. Learn. Live a love that exposes the empty powers and principalities of the world. We conquer not by the sword but by the power of the overcoming powerlessness of love.
Amen.
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