SAINT PETER AND SAINT PAUL

Sunday, June 29, 2025

Saints Matthew and Mark, Barrington, R. I.

 

Ezekiel 34:11-16

Psalm 87

2 Timothy 4:1-8

John 21:15-19

 

Since the middle of the third century, the Church has kept June 29th as the Feast of Saints Peter and Paul. The feast falling on a Sunday this year affords us a wonderful opportunity to take an in-depth look at these two leaders and martyrs of the early Church.

 

Even though they share the same feast day, in many ways Peter and Paul couldn’t have been more different from each other. Peter was a Palestinian Jew, from a fishing village in rural Galilee. Paul was a Jew of the Diaspora, a native of the city of Tarsus in Asia Minor, an important center of commerce, culture, and learning. Most likely, Peter spoke Aramaic as his first language, while Paul spoke Greek. Peter was by all accounts a simple fisherman without much formal education. Paul, on the other hand, was not only a highly educated rabbi, but also a Roman citizen.

 

The differences don’t stop there. Peter had known Jesus from the beginning of his earthly ministry. Paul, on the other hand, met Jesus only years later on the road to Damascus when he was blinded by a great light and heard the risen Lord speaking to him.

 

Their respective roles in the early Church were different, too. The New Testament depicts Peter as the leader of the twelve apostles. By tradition, he was the first bishop of the church of Antioch in Syria, and then the first bishop of the Church in Rome. Paul, on the other hand, had a very different vocation and ministry: a traveling missionary going from city to city and town to town preaching the Gospel and planting dozens of new churches.

 

There were even moments of tension between Peter and Paul. In his Letter to the Galatians, Paul recounts that he once opposed Peter to his face for drawing back from eating with Gentile converts. The Acts of the Apostles records that Peter eventually came round to Paul’s understanding that Gentiles could be admitted to the Church without having to become Jews first.

 

For all their differences, however, Peter and Paul had much in common. For one thing, they both received new names. Paul grew up with the Hebrew name Saul, and appears to have started using the Latin-Greek name Paul after his conversion and baptism. Likewise, Peter was originally known as Simon, but received from Jesus the Aramaic name Cephas, or “Rock,” which in turn translates into Greek as “Petros” or Peter.

 

Something else they had in common was that neither was perfect. Both did things that they deeply regretted. On the night of Jesus’ betrayal and arrest, Peter three times denied being one of Jesus’ followers. (Incidentally, in today’s Gospel, the point of Jesus asking Peter three times, “Do you love me?” is to give Peter the opportunity to undo his earlier triple denial.)

 

For his part, Saint Paul writes in his First Letter to the Corinthians that he’s the least of the apostles, unfit to be called an apostle, because he persecuted the Church of God. And again in his First Letter to Timothy he writes that Jesus called him even though he was formerly a blasphemer, a persecutor, and a man of violence. Nonetheless, Paul continues, Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, and Paul received mercy as the foremost of sinners so that Christ might display his utmost patience as an example to all believers.

 

Finally, Peter and Paul both ended up in the city of Rome, the imperial capital, and there died as martyrs. In today’s Gospel, Jesus predicts Peter’s death in the haunting words: “Very truly, I tell you, when you were younger, you used to fasten your own belt and to go wherever you wished. But when you grow old, you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will fasten a belt around you and take you where you do not wish to go.” (He said this to indicate the kind of death by which he would glorify God.)

 

Similarly, in the Acts of the Apostles, when Saul is converted, the disciple Ananias receives a vision in which the Lord tells him to go and lay his hands on Saul so that he may regain his sight. When Ananias protests that this Saul has done great evil to the church in Jerusalem, and has come to Damascus to arrest all who call upon the Lord’s name, the Lord answers: “Go, for he is an instrument whom I have chosen to bring my name before gentiles and kings and before the people of Israel; I myself will show him how much he must suffer for the sake of my name.” 

 

So, in both cases that the call to follow Christ as Lord comes with the prediction of suffering and death. Being an apostle is not for the fainthearted.

 

According to one legend, after the emperor Nero started a persecution of Christians in Rome following the great fire in the year 64, Peter was making his escape from Rome along the road known as the Appian Way. But then he met Jesus coming towards him, again wearing his crown of thorns and carrying his cross. Shocked, Peter said, “Domine, quo vadis?” – “Lord, where are you going?” To which Jesus responded, “I am going to Rome to be crucified again.”

 

Upon hearing that, Peter knew that he had to return to Rome, come what may. According to the tradition, he was sentenced to death by crucifixion; and by his own request he was crucified upside down, declaring himself unworthy to suffer the same death as his Savior. His body was then buried in a cemetery on the Vatican Hill, in the place over which the high altar of Saint Peter’s Basilica now stands.

 

Saint Paul is believed to have died during the same persecution—possibly on the same day. Tradition has it that as a Roman citizen Paul was granted the privilege of a quick death by beheading. The execution occurred three miles south of Rome, at a place known as the Three Fountains. And his body was buried in the place over which the high altar of the Basilica of Saint Paul’s outside the Walls now stands.

 

Despite their many differences, what unites Peter and Paul more than anything else is their faith in the one Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Peter and Paul were both instrumental in articulating and explaining that faith to the first generation of Christians. And they were both instrumental in helping launch the Church’s mission to preach the Gospel to all nations.

 

Our celebration today reminds us that the faith that we’re called to believe, practice, and teach is none other than the same faith taught by Peter and Paul and handed down from generation to generation in the Church to our own day. By the teaching, example, and intercession of Saints Peter and Paul, may God grant us all the grace, strength, and courage to persevere in that faith until our life’s end.

CORPUS CHRISTI

Sunday, June 22, 2025

Saints Matthew and Mark, Barrington, R. I.

 

Deuteronomy 8:2-3

Psalm 116:10-17

I Corinthians 11:23-29

John 6:47-58

 

The feast of Corpus Christi originated in the 13th century as a celebration of Christ’s gift of himself to us in the Holy Eucharist. It’s properly kept on the Thursday after Trinity Sunday, but can be transferred to the following Sunday, as we’re doing today.

 

Eight weeks ago, on Maundy Thursday, we celebrated our Lord’s institution of the Sacrament of his Body and Blood at the Last Supper on the night before he died. But so many other themes are competing for our attention during Holy Week, that the Feast of Corpus Christi offers us the opportunity for a second look at this wonderful mystery.

 

The Episcopal Church’s appointed readings for this occasion highlight key aspects of the Holy Eucharist.

 

Together, the Old Testament reading from Deuteronomy and the Gospel reading from John, chapter six, compare the sacramental Bread and Wine of the Eucharist with the manna which God provided to the children of Israel during their 40 years’ journey through the wilderness. In the Eucharist, likewise, God gives us bread from heaven. But unlike the manna, this bread and wine give eternal life to those who eat and drink, and God will raise them up on the Last Day.

 

In his First Letter to the Corinthians, St Paul emphasizes that he handed on to them the Eucharistic meal that he also received from the Lord. At the Last Supper, Jesus commanded his disciples to do this in remembrance of him: “For as often as you eat this bread, and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.” And so Paul warns the Corinthians against receiving unworthily, and exhorts them to receive only after self-examination, for those who eat and drink without discerning the Lord’s body eat and drink judgment against themselves.

 

So, on one hand, Holy Communion brings great benefits—those who eat this bread will live forever!—but, on the other hand, it requires careful preparation. We need to examine our consciences and repent of our sins before we dare approach the Lord’s table.

 

But the remedy for unworthy reception is not to stay away from the Sacrament, but rather to do whatever we can to be spiritually prepared for it. For gathering to celebrate the Eucharist on the Lord’s Day is the one distinctive activity that identifies us as Christians, members of Christ’s Body, the Church.

 

It’s true that many worthy activities can express our Christian identity and commitment, such as volunteering in various ways to help those less fortunate than ourselves. But most of these activities can be performed equally well by members of other religions or of none. The one thing that sets us apart as Christians is what we’re doing here and now: gathering to break the bread and share the cup in our Lord’s name. Everything else we do as Christians flows from and returns to that.

 

Indeed, the first question that we’re asked in the Baptismal Covenant is this: “Will you continue in the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, in the breaking of bread, and in the prayers?” Answer: “I will, with God’s help.” Just think: participating in the Holy Eucharist is something that we made a vow to do at our Baptism. And we fulfill that vow as we gather here, Sunday by Sunday, in the Eucharistic assembly. In this way, we’re able to join with the psalmist in singing: “I will fulfill my vows to the Lord, in the presence of all his people; in the courts of the Lord’s house, in the midst of you, O Jerusalem. Hallelujah!”

 

During our lifetimes, many of us have seen great changes in the Church’s Eucharistic practice. Within living memory, the Holy Eucharist was celebrated in some Episcopal parishes maybe once or twice a month, with Morning Prayer as the principal service on the other Sundays.

 

Then, under the influence of what was known in the mid-twentieth century as the liturgical movement, the 1979 Prayer Book specified that the Holy Eucharist was to be the Church’s principal act of worship on the Lord’s Day. Moreover, the expectation grew—rightly or wrongly—that every parishioner would normally receive Communion every Sunday. And it just happened that during the 1970s and 1980s we had a chronic oversupply of priests in the Episcopal Church, so there was no problem finding rectors for parishes, and celebrants for at least a weekly Eucharist.

 

Now, some fifty years later, that’s all changed. Here in this parish you know what it’s like to have the Eucharist and Morning Prayer on alternating Sundays because of sharing your priest with another parish. To his credit, our bishop is encouraging the training and licensing of lay worship leaders to officiate at Morning Prayer when no priest is available to celebrate the Eucharist. He regards the Daily Offices of Morning and Evening Prayer as a unique gift and vocation of the laity, and a form of worship that congregations can undertake together for worship in the absence of a priest. And he’s right about that.

 

For my part, however, I remain committed to the ideal of the Eucharist in every parish every week on the Lord’s Day. I realize that in many places that’s no longer practicable, but so long as I’m here, I’ll do my best to ensure that it's what happens at Saints Matthew and Mark.

 

Yes, the reality is that there’s a chronic priest shortage. For example, the parish where I was Interim before I came here has now been without a rector for over two years, even though they’ve got a budget to support a priest full time and a beautiful rectory besides. Just a couple of decades ago, they would have had twenty or thirty applicants to choose from. But times have changed.

 

I believe that responding effectively to this current priest shortage requires not only training and licensing lay worship leaders, but also encouraging vocations to the priesthood. We need to be doing everything we can to understand and remove whatever obstacles are preventing people from offering themselves for Holy Orders in the Episcopal Church. If you know any young people who might be attracted in that direction, please, please, please, don’t discourage them!

 

Most of all, we need to pray, and pray hard, that God will call more people into this Church’s ordained priesthood. For that’s the only way that we can continue to enjoy the spiritual benefits of the Eucharistic life that today’s feast holds up for us. Perhaps, then, in the coming weeks and months, we might think about ways to incorporate prayers for an increase of priestly vocations into our life and worship as a parish community.

TRINITY SUNDAY, 2025

Saints Matthew and Mark, Barrington, R. I.

 

 

Good morning, and Happy Father’s Day to all the dads among us. Congratulations to all the young people being recognized on this “Honor our Youth” Sunday. And, last but not least, a blessed Trinity Sunday to all!

 

Elizabeth and I have just returned from a two-week pilgrimage to Turkey. Our first time there, and I hope not our last. It’s a beautiful country with friendly people, and amazing food! This trip was organized by The Living Church magazine to commemorate the 1,700^th anniversary of the Council of Nicaea, which formulated the earliest version of what we recite today as the Nicene Creed. And Nicaea was one of the towns that we visited—known today as Iznik—about 55 miles southeast of Istanbul.

 

Summoned by the Emperor Constantine, 230 bishops from all over the then-known world gathered at Nicaea for the first assembly of its kind: an ecumenical Council. In this context, the word ecumenical means “worldwide” or “universal”—a council bringing together bishops from all over the then-known world.

 

Some of the bishops who traveled with their entourages along the Roman roads to Nicaea bore the scars of tortures they’d suffered in the last great persecution under the Emperor Diocletian, just twenty years before. Such a gathering would have been unthinkable as long as when Christianity remained an illegal religion.

 

In those days, local councils or synods met to consider questions facing the Church in specific regions. But now, following the conversion of Constantine in the year 312, an ecumenical council could gather with authority to make decisions for the entire Church throughout all lands. The Council met for two months and issued rulings on a variety of topics, ranging from the date of Easter to ratification of the Church’s four principal sees as Rome, Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem.

 

But the most pressing item on the Council’s agenda was a raging theological dispute that been dividing Christians for the previous seven or eight years. In the Egyptian city of Alexandria, the presbyter Arius had been teaching a doctrine that struck many of his contemporaries as heretical and blasphemous.

 

Both Arius and his opponents agreed that the Son of God had come down from heaven and taken flesh in the womb of the Virgin Mary. So Jesus was the incarnate Son of God. But Arius insisted that this Son of God who’d become incarnate in Jesus Christ was not fully divine but rather a created spirit—the highest of God’s creatures to be sure, but nonetheless inferior and subordinate to God the Father, whose divine nature he did not and could not share.

 

Those who opposed Arius, including his own bishop Alexander of Alexandria, and Alexander’s successor Athanasius, rightly discerned that unless Christ was truly divine as well as truly human, he could not reconcile fallen humanity to God or communicate God’s divine life to humanity. The Council of Nicaea thus sided decisively with Alexander and Athanasius against Arius.

 

And to make the Church’s faith clear, the Council solemnly issued the earliest version of what we know today as the Nicene Creed, beginning “We believe in one God, the Father, the Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, of all that is, seen and unseen.”

 

To refute the Arian heresy explicitly, the Nicene Creed affirmed that the Son is “God from God, light from light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, of one being with the Father …” That clause represented the first step in the Church’s formal definition of the doctrine of the Holy Trinity as one God in three Persons: co‑equal, co-eternal, sharing one and the same divine nature.

 

On Trinity Sunday, we give thanks for the Councils and Creeds handed down to us as key components of what’s known as the “deposit of faith.” A week ago today, we celebrated the Holy Spirit’s descent on the Day of Pentecost. The Creeds and Councils reflect the Holy Spirit’s continuing presence and work in the subsequent centuries, teaching the Church and leading her into all truth.

 

A useful way of thinking about the Creeds is as thumbnail summaries of the teachings of Scripture. As Episcopalians we affirm that the Bible contains the definitive record of God’s revelation. At the end of each reading, the reader says, “The Word of the Lord.” At my ordination to the priesthood, I was required to swear an oath that I believed the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments to be the Word of God, and to contain all things necessary to salvation.

 

But the Bible is a vast compilation of writings, spanning many periods and composed by many human authors in many literary genres. Left to themselves, different groups of Christians generally come up with widely varying and often mutually contradictory readings of biblical teaching. Scripture is not self-interpreting. We need an authoritative guide to Scripture’s true meaning. And the Councils and Creeds supply the guidance we need.

 

Our celebration of Trinity Sunday invites us to reflect on the Creeds’ place in our life and worship. A key point is that when we say the Creed together, we’re not simply giving a collective expression to our personal faith as individuals. No, what’s really happening is that the universal Church in heaven and on earth is proclaiming its faith, and we’re being invited to join in. The Church’s proclamation of faith will continue until the end of time whether we join in or not. But when we do join in, week by week, year by year, the Holy Spirit gradually leads us into all truth, forming in us a mature faith capable of transforming our hearts, minds, and wills—and of withstanding all the challenges that life in this world can throw at us.

 

The great blessing of belonging to a Church where we regularly recite the Creeds in worship is that we don’t have to keep on reinventing the theological wheel. As we profess the Nicene Creed at the Eucharist every Sunday—and ideally the Apostles Creed at Morning and Evening Prayer every day—we’re drawn into a living relationship with the three divine Persons that the Creeds describe.

 

So, let’s never tire of faithfully reciting the Creeds! They point us towards our fulfillment, consummation, and bliss in union with the one God who is a community of three Persons bound together in love. For God is love. The one divine nature that the three Persons share is none other than love itself.

 

It follows that just as the one true God is a community of Persons bound together in love, so, as we share in God’s life through Word and Sacrament, we begin to realize our identity as the Church. The doctrine of the Holy Trinity thus describes not only who God is, but who we’re called to be as creatures made in God’s image. For the Church’s highest calling is to reflect in its own life the pattern of God’s life as a community of persons bound together in love.