(Zechariah 4.1-6a,10b-14;
Acts 12.1-11; Matthew 16.13-19)
Today’s first reading from the
prophet Zechariah gives us a vision and a dialogue. First, the prophet’s
vision:
I see a lampstand
all of gold, with a bowl on the top of it; there are seven lamps on it, with
seven lips on each of the lamps that are on the top of it. 3 And by it there are two olive trees, one on the right of the bowl and the other
on its left.
The lampstand and its seven lamps represent the
all-seeing nature of God, an angel tells the prophet. But the dialogue
continues:
‘What are these two olive trees on the right
and the left of the lampstand?... What are these two branches of the olive
trees, which pour out the oil through the two golden pipes?’ … 14 Then he said, ‘These are the two anointed ones
who stand by the Lord of the whole earth.’
Does
that leave you any the wiser? We don’t know who these two “anointed ones” are
in the vision of the prophet, several hundred years before the time of Christ.
But as we read these words today, we are led on to think of the two great
apostles, Peter and Paul. St. Paul
…I had been entrusted with the Gospel for the
uncircumcised, just as Peter had been entrusted with the Gospel for the
circumcised (for he who worked through Peter making him an apostle to the
circumcised also worked through me in sending me to the Gentiles).
The call to be an apostle is the call to
be sent out with a task. Christ is to
be seen at the centre of our faith. And if he is to be the heart of a living
faith, then he needs people who will communicate that faith to others. Nearly
two thousand years ago he chooses these two men, Peter and Paul. Today he
chooses people like us.
Because
Peter and Paul are people who are so like us. We remember them together on this
Feast Day that bears both their names, but
the truth is that they didn’t get on. Paul has harsh words for Peter,
saying that he “opposed him to his face,” and that Peter had acted in such a
way that he was “self-condemned.” And we can imagine how Peter must have felt
about Paul - the uppity self-proclaimed apostle who had come so late to the
Christian faith after a career of persecuting the first disciples. You can read
for yourselves in the Bible about their feud and suspicions. And you’ll
probably find yourself concluding that here are two men who should just grow up
- each of them needs to recognise where he is wrong and the other one right.
But in spite of it all they do remarkable things, each with a distinctive
mission which results in the spread of the Christian faith across the
Mediterranean from Palestine through Asia Minor
and Greece to Rome and probably on to Spain Galilee .
Paul is a Jew from the diaspora, a
Roman citizen growing up with all the benefits of a Pharisaic training and a
Hellenistic understanding which serve to make him all the more determined to
oppose the heresy he detects amongst the people who had proclaimed Jesus to be
a Messiah. But each of them finds his life transformed when Jesus calls them.
Each of them will carry out a mission they could never have imagined. Each of
them finds a new way of living because each is called to be open to the converting
and renewing love of God in Christ.
If
you go to Rome
The
tomb of Peter is easier to reach. It’s in the crypt beneath St. Peter’s
Basilica - and the whole edifice is built so that the altar is located directly
above the tomb. You can understand what the builders are saying. They’ve heard
those words of Jesus in today’s Gospel:
I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will
build my church…
But
we need to hear those words properly. Peter is the first of the disciples to
recognise who Jesus is: “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God,” he
tells him. It’s Peter who has that gift of perception
which Jesus needs to find in his followers - and with it he has the boldness to say what he has found. Jesus
can build using people like this. It’s Jesus who actually gives Peter his name -
he had been known as Simon; now he is to be Peter, which means literally, “the
rock.”
Again
and again I find myself looking to Peter as an example for holy living and
discipleship. Upon the foundation of such as him, God wills to build his
Church. Not just to build on Peter. To
build on each one of us. Peter is a
man of no great ability, a humble fisherman from Galilee, a near-forgotten
backwater of the Roman Empire . And Peter is a
man of great faults: rashness
particularly, as eagerly he pushes himself forwards without considering whether
he’s up to the task he takes on; and then when his courage fails he finds
himself denying Jesus at the time of
his trial, the time when he is needed most.
But with such people Jesus
chooses to work – with frail human creatures like ourselves. Peter is a rock,
not because in himself he is strong, but because he is made strong by the grace
and redeeming love he finds in Christ. We find it when Jesus appears to the
disciples by the lakeside after his Resurrection. It’s Peter who rushes to be
with him, jumping into the lake to get to him first. But then he finds himself
looked in the eye and asked, “Simon, son of John, do you love me more than
these?” Three times Jesus asks him, just as three times Peter had denied him.
And Jesus tells him: “Feed my lambs… Tend my sheep.” Peter had fallen short of
his calling, but still Christ calls him and uses him.
As a priest I find this passage of scripture to be
one of the most important in the whole Bible – certainly closest to my heart. It’s about my calling as a priest, about the calling of another eight
priests who were ordained in Durham cathedral yesterday and eleven deacons
being ordained this morning… We need to pray for them - but then remember, it’s
about our calling, a common calling,
all together. To care for the flock of Christ – his treasure bought with his
blood upon the Cross. And what enables us to do this caring is that first
Christ has cared for us, reached out to us, touched those parts of our lives
where we fail, healed the very wounds we bear through our human frailty. We
don’t cease to be flawed creatures. The grace of orders conveyed upon deacons
and priests does not make them better people or any more clever or able. But it
gives something which Peter finds, as he discovers once more his calling from
the forgiving Christ.
Peter, I have found myself making my own patron
saint, because of his frailty, but also I hope, because of his love. It is love which first draws him to Jesus, love which enables him to find
forgiveness from him as three times he says, “Yes, Lord; you know that I love
you.” And love which carries him on as he seeks to feed Christ’s flock.
A priest at ordination is told, “Because you cannot
bear the weight of this ministry in your own strength but only by the grace and
power of God, pray earnestly for his Holy Spirit.” We need that grace and power
which were given to St. Peter and St.
Paul
