Rev’d Peter Balabanski

Peter and Paul Apostles and Martyrs – Acts 12 1-12 Ps 34 1-10 2 Tim 4 6-18 Jn 21 15-22

In the year 64 CE in Rome, during the reign of Emperor Nero, Peter was crucified – upside down at his own request – and Paul was beheaded; Apostles, and martyrs for the faith they proclaimed. So our colour today is red for martyrs, and our liturgy celebrates their encouragement to us as saints of the Church. Peter and Paul were very different from each other: Peter a fisherman and Paul a Pharisee; Peter often vulnerable and uncertain of himself, and Paul feisty and opinionated.

We seem to have very different relationships with Peter and Paul. We’re comforted by Peter’s bumbling fallibility. If he got the seal of approval in spite of everything, Mt 16.18 maybe we’re okay too. By contrast, we’re confronted by Paul’s direct, uncompromising tone in his letters; especially with anyone he thought undermined the faith of the vulnerable new Christians in his care.

Peter’s vulnerability is on show in our Gospel today. We see the one who denied his Lord three times before the crucifixion, now painfully rehabilitated. Jesus asks him three times to reaffirm his loyalty, and each time, Jesus reaffirms Peter’s commission to be a shepherd to his sheep. We also do time with Paul in gaol. He doesn’t expect to come out alive this time. He’s still busy with the networking that underpinned his team’s astounding mission to so much of the Mediterranean world. And he’s also perfectly clear about who must not be part of that network.

They’re so different; so why does the Church choose to remember both Peter and Paul in the one celebration? I’ve tried to hint at what I think by adding an extra verse to the end of the reading from Acts; the story of Peter’s remarkable escape from the clutches of Herod Antipas. That verse says as soon as Peter realized [he wasn’t just dreaming he’d been released], he went to the house of Mary, the mother of John whose other name was Mark, where many had gathered and were praying.

Apart from this verse bearing witness to the power of prayer – because they were surely praying for Peter’s safety – you may have noticed that someone called Mark was also mentioned in today’s reading from 2nd Timothy. 9bGet Mark and bring him with you, for he is useful in my ministry. It’s the same Mark. If this is Paul’s final imprisonment, he’s in Rome, 2,000 km away from the Holy Land. And despite that distance, Peter and Paul are working as members of the same intimate network.

So what does this collegial work of theirs have to say to the Church today? I stated the obvious when I said they were very different personalities, Peter and Paul. And as you might have guessed, they certainly had their differences of opinion.

But they worked to reconcile those differences and keep their communication channels open. They had to if their mission was to reach the world Jesus died for. And that’s the same for us. It’s really important that we work out our differences with fellow Christians. We are responsible to make sure our witness to the wider world is unified, clear, and welcoming to the world that Jesus died to save. Jn 17.20-21, Jn 3.16-17 We know Peter and Paul had their differences. But neither held the high ground. They’d both needed rehabilitation by Jesus – Peter as we saw today, and Paul on the road to Damascus. Acts 9 Honouring that sense of grace received, they both managed those differences to work as effective members of the same team.

One point of contention between them was Jewish food laws, which is interesting, because they both agreed these food laws weren’t binding on followers of Jesus. You’ll remember a few weeks ago we read Acts 10-11 that Peter had a vision from God that unclean foods were no longer unclean. So he ate with the centurion Cornelius, and saw the non-Jews there given the gift of the Spirit. That was a turning point for Peter. He realised – and he went and told the Jerusalem Church – that the Gospel was as much for Gentiles as it was for Jews, and very significantly, that laws about who you ate with, and what you ate, were irrelevant for Gentiles. Last week, we found Paul arguing much the same point to the church in Galatia; that whoever we are, we’re saved by grace and faith, not by obedience to the law. Gal 2.19f

They visited each other to discuss this and other matters. Paul writes in Gal 1.18 that he visited Peter in Jerusalem three years after his Damascus Road conversion. And again, fourteen years later he returned to Jerusalem for the Council which decided Gentiles were not subject to food or circumcision laws. Acts 15, Gal 2 But later, while Peter was visiting Paul in Antioch, concerned for the feelings of the Jewish Christians who joined them, he stopped eating with the Gentile Christians. Paul saw red and confronted him with this as hypocrisy. Both of them were doing their best to care pastorally for the people in their care. Both of them would die for doing so.

The message I draw from this today is that they were team players; networkers for a common cause. They had their differences, and like siblings do, they chipped away at each other’s rough edges. I think these are good examples to us to encourage us to persevere with ecumenism – visiting and listening to Christians of different kinds. We’re called quite clearly to strive for multi-faceted unity in the Church – for the sake of the world Jesus died to save. Peter and Paul were quite open about how hard that can be. But their example was that they kept at it ‘til the end.

Let’s say the collect again together. Almighty God, whose apostles Peter and Paul glorified you in their deaths as in their lives: grant that your Church, inspired by their teaching and example, and knit together in unity by your Spirit, may ever stand firm upon the one foundation, your Son Jesus Christ our Lord; who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen