Apostles and Martyrs
The Big Hitters
A sermon for the Feast of Ss Peter and Paul
Primary texts
Acts 12:1-11
2 Tim 4:6-8
Matt 16:13-19
Saints Peter and Paul were two major figures in the early church, who continue to be of great importance. Peter is prominent throughout the Gospels, being an early follower of Jesus and one in whom Jesus put a lot of trust. Paul doesn’t appear to have known Jesus before he encountered him months or even a year or two after Jesus’ resurrection and ascension.
Peter and Paul were very different men in terms of temperament and experience. Peter was an indigenous Jew, a Galilean fisherman and small-scale employer, likely with little formal education. His first language was Aramaic. He would have known some Greek but, in all likelihood, he was illiterate – unable to read or write in either language.
Paul was a Jew of the diaspora, living in the Greek or Hellenistic world. Like Peter, he had a practical trade – tent-making – but Paul was a clever-clogs, highly educated, and comfortable communicating complicated ideas in writing if not in person (2 Corinthians 10:10).
We can’t do justice to either in one ten-minute sermon – but we can have a go. Let’s start with Peter.
A lot of people, throughout Christian history, have felt a sense of connection or familiarity with St Peter. He’s quite a human saint. He impresses us with his enthusiasm and we can easily forgive his tendency to speak first or ‘fire from the hip’ without thinking things through because it reveals a humility or innocence of character – think of when Peter told Jesus to go away when he realised – after their first meeting at the lake – that Jesus was of God (“Go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man” – Luke 5:8); and we can even forgive his biggest flaw, that of denying Jesus following our Lord’s arrest, because – well – it’s a rare person who stands by another when the penalty for doing so is likely death.
After Jesus’ resurrection, Peter eventually forgave himself for denying Christ – long after Christ had forgiven him. The risen Jesus continued to see Peter as leadership material, and Peter became an excellent Shepherd of the Lord’s sheep. You can see the successes that he chalks up in the pages of Acts.
It is in Acts that we find Peter this morning – having an unsolicited break from evangelical ministry as a result of his incarceration (being locked up in prison).
Peter’s ministry of preaching the Gospel, the gospel of peace, of repentance, of hope – of a world in which the ‘last would be first’ and the ‘first last’ – disturbed the powers that be. It disturbed them enough to have him thrown into a high security prison (‘four squads of guards’ keeping watch over him’), almost certainly with
the intention of executing him when Passover was ended. Through his death they hoped to intimidate Jesus’ followers into submission.
In human terms, St Peter’s situation was grim and hopeless. In a similar situation (Acts 16:25) Ss Paul and Silas are reported as praying and singing hymns, but nothing like that is reported of Peter on this occasion.
Reading between the lines, it appears that Peter’s response to being locked up with the imminent prospect of execution was quiet resignation. He doesn’t appear to have been fearful (otherwise, presumably, he would not have been able to sleep the night before his planned public execution) but there is no sign of him being confident of release from this situation (when the Angel does lead him out of prison, he assumes he is simply dreaming). And you can’t blame him for that; his situation really was dire. He had seen his Lord killed in very similar circumstances and he knew, following the murder of his fellow Apostle and friend James, that the threat against his own life was clear and present. So, in that cell, Peter, being the faithful but down-to-earth sort of person he was, quietly surrendered to his fate, seeing God in it somehow, but not explicitly hoping or praying for escape from it.
What is crucial to note in all this is that the church prayed to God for Peter – doing so fervently when he was in no psychological or spiritual position to be making that prayer himself. And that prayer was effective – incredibly effective: Peter walks out of the prison and past the guards, through an iron door that opens automatically, and, when he comes to his senses, Peter makes a B line for a friend’s house, “where many had gathered and were praying.” V.12 (the next verse from the one we finished on this morning).
Peter’s arrival was the answer to their prayer, but it was still an enormous shock to them; it is quite comically reported – the maid, Rhoda, who hears Peter’s voice is so excited she leaves him at the gate and rushes off to tell the others he is outside. Time is then wasted as they question the merits of her incredible report; while the great saint continues to stand outside, knocking at the door to come in. Finally when the door is opened he talks to them in the doorway itself (it would appear), describing “how the Lord brought him out of prison” and giving some instructions, before leaving “to another place.”
After all that knocking and waiting at the gate it does strike me as a bit strange that he didn’t go in. Apparently, this pillar of the early church really needed to be somewhere else. His trip to the house of Mary, the mother of John, then, was a deliberate detour that highlights something very significant about his release from prison, namely that it was the prayer of others, of the gathered community, that had been instrumental in his liberation.
Exemplary as a man of God as Peter was, he remained a very human figure, with understandable limitations. On matters of faith and morals, for instance, he moved much more slowly than Paul when it came to the relaxing of Jewish dietary and other regulations for converts to Christianity.
In his very heated letter to the Galatians, Paul berates Peter for the way he wavered over this matter:
But when Cephas [another name for Peter] came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he stood self-condemned; for until certain people came from James, he used to eat with the Gentiles. But after they came, he drew back and kept himself separate for fear of the circumcision faction. And the other Jews joined him in this hypocrisy, so that even Barnabas was led astray by their hypocrisy. (Gal 2:11-13).
Paul was probably right to tell Peter off, but I think a lot of us in the Church can identify with Peter, and the struggle he had dealing with momentous change in religious matters (and there is no doubt about it, this was a big deal for an older Jewish man). We should note, however, that although he wasn’t the first cab off the rank when it came to rethinking Christianity in the first century, he did eventually embrace the change (see Acts 10 which documents that process of realisation) – the same way that I have seen people of a certain generation in our church come to terms with, say, the ordination of women.
One priest, now very-well retired, told me quite openly that he had voted against the ordination of women to the priesthood in the 1970s, but that his view changed completely when he had to work with a female priest whom he recognised as having every priestly charism. He was walking in Peter’s footsteps – more plodding than Paul, but moving forward nevertheless.
The red we are wearing today reminds us that both Peter and Paul died for their faith. They were probably killed during Nero’s persecution in the early 60s, but, unfortunately, the NT is silent on where and when they died.
Maybe that is a good thing.
Details of their cruel demise might distract us from what really matters,
and that is their very human,
sometimes halting,
sometimes uncomfortable,
but ultimately positive response to God’s call in Christ.
Let their good lives be a lesson to us.
Tony Surman