St Peter and St Paul
St Peter and St Paul, 2020
Readings for Year A: Acts 12:1-11l Psalm 33; II Timothy 4:6-18; Matthew 16:13-19
This weekend we celebrate the feast of Saints Peter and Paul. These are the two key leaders of the early Church. Peter was the one called to be the leader of the apostles, the rock on which the Church was built. Paul was the great missionary and his letters gives us much of our understanding of the significance of Jesus’ mission, death and resurrection. The Acts of the Apostles focuses on the story of these two great figures. Both of apostles bore witnesses to the Gospel by their martyrdom.
I find it comforting that the picture we get of both of these individuals in the New Testament is such a comforting one. Peter comes across as impetuous and enthusiastic but when it comes to it he is less reliable. In the Gospel he often does not really understand the mission of Jesus. At one point Jesus says to him, “get behind me Satan”. When if comes to the Passion Peter denies Jesus three times. Even after Pentecost Peter is uncertain. He needs to be shown that the Gospel is for everybody, gentiles as well as Jews, and that the gentile converts are not expected to follow all the provisions of the Jewish law. This is the source of the disagreement between Peter and Paul. In the Acts of the Apostles this rather played down. The Apostles easily come to an agreement. However, Paul’s account is rather more strident, he talks about the way he stood up to Peter.
Paul himself was an unlikely apostle. He was strongly against this new religious movement which he saw as a travesty of what he believed as a Pharisee. So much so that he was a leading persecutor of the early Christians. He need to encounter Christ and undergo a conversion. In his life and mission Paul is very conscious of his own weakness.
For both Peter and Paul it is the Spirit at work with them that enables them to be the ones who lead the early Church and spread the Gospel around the world of their time. In the Gospel Jesus tells Peter that it is not flesh and blood that has enabled Peter to confess that Jesus is “the Christ, the Son of the Living God” but his Father in heaven. Church, not because of Peter’s natural skill and understanding. Paul tells us that when he asked to be freed of his weakness God told him, ”My grace is enough for you: for power is at full stretch in weakness”.
There are perhaps two things which we can learn from this. Firstly, when we look at the reality of the Church, both historically and as it is today, and we see how much evidence there is of human weakness, we realise that it is precisely through this very human institution, founded on Saints Peter and Paul, that God has chosen to work. What is more we see that same humanity in ourselves if we are honest. That should give us compassion and hope, for ourselves and for the Church. Secondly, what we celebrate today is the way in which God worked through these two real human beings and made them the instruments through whom the Good News of Jesus Christ was brought to the world. It is not an accident, it is not that the Holy Spirit was able to work though weakness although it was not ideal. This is an expression of the reality of the Incarnation. The message they proclaimed was that Christ became one of us, shared the reality of the our lives and brought salvation to sinful humanity. As we give thanks for Saints Peter and Paul and all we have inherited from them, we give glory to God. God who worked though them and is able to work through us as we seek to live out and share that same Gospel in our own time.
Fr Chris Pedley, SJ