The example of St. Peter

 

Sunday 27^th June – Commemorates St. Peter

Ezekiel 3: 22-27. The resonance with St. Peter is I think the similarity to Peter being unable to speak up and denying even knowing Jesus when Jesus was arrested (as well as the incident from Acts 12 which is our second reading today) yet subsequently becoming a vocal and articulate preacher of God’s truth at Pentecost and other occasions enabled by God’s Spirit.   

Acts 12:1-11. A story of an angel helping Peter to escape Herod’s clutches. An angel is a messenger from God doing God’s bidding or delivering a message from God. Understood literally this would be a marvellous act of God, understood more metaphorically a message that God is on the side of Christ’s disciples against all that would try and hinder the spread of the gospel.

Matthew 16: 13-19. The famous incident when St. Peter accurately proclaimed the truth that Jesus was “the Christ” (anointed one or Messiah). Jesus knew that this truth was revealed to Peter directly via the Holy Spirit and told him so. Peter is known as the rock on which the church will be built though whether it is Peter personally or more generally “faith in Christ” that is the rock on which the church will be built can be argued either way.

 

Having St. Peter as your patron is quite a boon because he was “very human” had lots of flaws, got things wrong sometimes and could be difficult (coming into conflict with St. Paul at one time)famously denied Christ at one time but despite all of that came good in the end.

It was Peter that accurately proclaimed Jesus was the “Messiah” or Christ that Israel had been waiting for.

It was Peter who was the spokesman for the fledgling Christian community at Pentecost.

It was Peter who walked on the water, let his gaze slip, and started to sink, and had to be rescued by the strong arm of Jesus.

And perhaps it is this last example that chimes with me most when thinking about the Raleigh Mission Community and today St. Peter’s in particular, aswe are named in his honour.

All the while Peter keeps his eyes fixed firmly on Jesus he could walk on water.

But he was distracted and battered by a boisterous wind as the king James Bible puts it and he took his eyes of Jesus, became frightened and started to sink.

It was then that Peter cried out to Jesus to save him and Jesus stretched out his arm and helped him into the boat.

If we imagine ourselves as St. Peter who has been battered by a boisterous wind and may have had our faith knocked, to save ourselves we need to cry out to Jesus to save us and he will stretch out his arm to us to lead us to safety.

Seeking Jesus’ help is the only way to steady ourselves and our church when we have been rocked.

Look around you at the people sitting to your left and your right, in front of you and behind you.

We are Christ’s body on earth so pray for this church for our well-being and flourishing.

Keep the people around you on your heart as you come to receive Jesus in communion.

Pray to God to inspire and guide us by his Spirit through the choppy waters and reveal to us our direction.

We are a praying church. We pray to God spiritually and physically communicate with him as our central act of worship which are both ways of cementing our relationship with Him and just as importantly with each other.

It is together as a united church that we express the will of God.

United in Christ under the patronage and example of St. Peter we are able to present a united, happy and flourishing body of Christ to the world.

Pray for the ways means and ideas of how to successfully present Christ to our community and to be able to identify and meet its needs in ways that are particular to us.

God won’t ask us to do anything that is beyond us, but we must ask in Spirit and truth for direction to steer this boat in the direction or directions that God has identified in his wisdom.

As I have said before, this is not my church, neither is it your church, it is God’s church to do with and direct as he sees fit.

     

 

Calming the storm

 

Sunday June 20^th – Trinity 3 – Proper 7

Job 38: 1-11. Is there no point to the human quest for knowledge? The point of chapters 38 to 41 is to state that humans are not able to see things from God’s standpoint. We couldn’t make any sense of reality even if we could. The quest for knowledge and for answers to the most perplexing questions of human existence must never be discouraged but our intellects are tiny when measured against an infinite universe and God deals compassionately with humanity despite our inhumanity to each other.

2 Corinthians 6:1-13. We are working together with Christ to bring the salvation of the world wrought by God in Christ, so we are ministers of that good news. Our work is part and parcel of the saving revelation in Christ – co-workers in fact. Paul describes the ups and downs of that ministry – the truth of it in God’s eyes and the slanders that come our way. The power of the gospel is from God but its credibility owes much to its ministers.

Mark 4: 35-41. Jesus shares our predicament amidst the storms of life, but this parable tells us that Jesus can do something about them as well. That Jesus was sleeping presents us with a picture of someone at total peace, even in the face of a storm. The parable offers us not simply a strategy for coping but the promise of salvation.

 

 

It is a truth that we no control over what happens to us – good or bad – but we do have a choice over how we react to things.

The most powerful book I have ever read that makes that so apparent is a book by the psychologist and Auschwitz survivor Viktor Frankl. I’ll read from the very end of the book about how the prisoners behaved towards each other.

“In the concentration camps, in this living laboratory we watched and witnessed some of our comrades behave like swine and others like saints. Man has both potentialities within himself. Which one is actualised depends on decisions not on conditions.

Our generation is realistic for we have come to know man as he really is. Man is that being that invented the gas chambers at Auschwitz, but he is also that being that entered the gas chambers upright, with the Lord’s prayer or the Shema Israel on his lips."

That, for me is a 20^th century re-telling of the stilling of the storm. The storm of the gas chambers couldn’t ever have been envisioned by Jesus, but he fully understood mankind so he understood the potential for those and a million other storms in our lives.

He knew our need to see and know a greater reality, a greater love and acceptance, that could absorb and transcend such horror.

That is the message of the cross and resurrection. That horror was absorbed and turned to joy.

We can choose what to do in the face of the storms of life.

We can let them overwhelm us and we end up fearful and drowning, alone in a cold uncaring universe, victims of chance and circumstance or we can choose to have faith that there is someone there, who understands, a friend who loves us, who has felt what we are feeling, and can lift us out of the storm.

Someone who is at one with God and can ultimately lead us to safety. This is the power of the gospel.

Those of us who share this faith can choose to share that with others and by doing so we can be Christ to others.

It is within our gift to be that helping hand, the steadying support, the bringer of the comforting word, a protector.

We are in that case working in co-operation with Christ as his co-worker. Christian means I suppose a little Christ.

You do hear people saying, usually clerics like me, talking about doing God’s work but every Christian that is kind and shows concern, either material or spiritual for their fellow man and woman is doing God’s work.

Bringing in the kingdom in our own small, humble but very important way. Paul calls it being Christ’s body here on earth.

Amen.