THE CONVERSION OF SAINT PAUL THE APOSTLE

Sunday, January 25, 2026

Saints Matthew and Mark, Barrington, R.I.

(By Zoom)

 

Acts 26:9-21

 

Today, Saint Paul is perhaps the most misunderstood and criticized of all the apostles. Some even go so far as to compare the religion of Jesus presented in the four Gospels with a religion about Jesus that they claim Paul invented and the early Church expanded upon. According to this view, Paul and his followers unnecessarily complicated Jesus’ simple and pure message of love with superfluous dogmas and doctrines about who Jesus was and what he did. I think that’s nonsense. What this supposed contrast fails to recognize, among many other things, is that Paul’s letters are generally considered the earliest writings in the New Testament, coming years or even decades before the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.

 

Paul’s greatest achievement, in my opinion, was recognizing the significance of Christ’s death and resurrection for everyone, Jews and Gentiles alike. Through his travels and preaching throughout the eastern Mediterranean, Paul transformed what might have remained a small, short-lived sect within Judaism into a global church with a universal mission that continues today. In this way, Paul’s life and work made our current membership in the church possible. 

 

Paul’s crucial part in spreading early Christianity depended on his conversion. The reason we celebrate today is that, by God’s grace, Saul, the zealous persecutor of the Christian Way, became Paul, the Church’s Apostle to the Gentiles.

 

On Saint Stephen’s Day, December 26th, we remember how those involved in stoning the Church’s first martyr laid their garments at the feet of a young man named Saul, who fully approved of their actions. For Saul to become the Apostle Paul, he needed a complete 180-degree turnaround, a total shift in his outlook and purpose in life.

 

Indeed, the word conversion means something like turning around. By virtue of our baptism, we are all called to turn away from the darkness of sin and death toward the light of new life in Christ. For many people, conversion is slow and gradual, often a lifelong process, rather than a decisive single moment. Saul’s conversion, however, could not have been more sudden or dramatic. Blinded by a bright light that causes him to fall to the ground, he hears a voice speaking the words: “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?” In response to his question, “Who are you, Lord?” the voice replies, “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting.”

 

Notice that the voice doesn’t say, “Why are you persecuting my disciples?” or “Why are you persecuting my Church?” but rather, “Why are you persecuting me?” These words lay the foundation for a key theme of Paul’s teaching. Here, the risen Christ identifies himself so completely with his followers that Paul later writes repeatedly of the Church as Christ’s Body on earth.

 

It’s hard to imagine a ruder awakening. In an instant, Saul is made to realize that he is on the wrong side. He believed he was serving God by persecuting a deviant sect; suddenly, he understands that he has been committing the grave sin of wounding the Lord himself. 

 

At that moment, he probably feels he deserves to die. But instead of being struck dead on the spot, as he likely expects, the surprising part of the story—the great reversal—is realizing that despite his enormous guilt and unworthiness, God forgives, chooses, and calls him anyway. Such moments of encounter with the living Lord are both terrifying and life-giving.

 

Herein lies the core of Christian conversion: realizing that we were wrong when we thought we were right, that we were dead when we thought we were alive, and that we were at our worst when we thought we were doing our best. But instead of facing the judgment and condemnation we deserve, we receive God’s love, forgiveness, and healing. God calls us to new life with a new purpose. Therefore, it’s no surprise that another key theme in Paul’s teaching is the completely free gift of salvation in Christ, a gift we cannot earn by our own merits but can only accept and receive through faith.

 

So, at least two major themes of Paul’s theology—the Church as the Body of Christ and salvation by grace through faith—stem from that single moment when the risen Lord speaks, and Paul realizes his life will never be the same. He then spends the rest of his life working through the costly implications of what happened to him during that life-changing encounter with the risen Christ. It’s not always easy, but it’s always worth it.

 

Once again, as Christians, we are all called to conversion. Sometimes, that conversion happens in a dramatic, life-changing moment of meeting the living Lord. Some Christians can pinpoint the exact day, date, time, and year when they found Christ—or, more precisely, when Christ found them. Others, however, experience a slow, gradual, gentle, and lifelong journey of turning to Christ. Looking back on their lives, such Christians see how God’s grace has gradually transformed them, but they can’t really identify a single moment when the change occurred.

 

Either way, Saint Paul stands as our model and example as we give thanks today for his conversion. No matter how far we may have strayed from the right path, if God could rescue Paul from the error of his ways, God can certainly rescue us. So, we do well to pray for the grace of conversion in all our lives.

THE CONFESSION OF SAINT PETER THE APOSTLE

Sunday 18 January 2026

Saints Matthew and Mark, Barrington, R. I.

 

Matthew 16:13-19

 

Over there, behind the altar rail, next to the chair where I normally sit, there’s another chair that no one sits in. The Bishop is the only one who’s allowed to sit there. On most Sundays, it remains empty to remind us that, even though the Bishop isn’t physically present with us, he’s present in spirit, and all our worship and parish life take place under his pastoral oversight. Whenever he visits us, as he will next Sunday, he comes not as a guest or a stranger, but as our shepherd coming to his own, where we keep his chair ready and waiting for him.

 

The bishop’s chair carries great symbolic significance. In biblical times, Jewish rabbis traditionally sat in a chair to teach. The Gospels describe Jesus sitting down to teach—most notably as he delivers the Sermon on the Mount. The bishops of the early church likewise presided at worship and delivered sermons from a chair, which came to symbolize both the content of their teaching and their authority to teach. 

 

In the early centuries, the principal churches of the Christian world carefully preserved the chairs of their founding bishops. The priest Tertullian wrote in the late second century: “Visit the apostolic churches in which the very chairs of the apostles preside in their places. If you are near Italy, there is Rome.” According to the fourth-century historian Eusebius, the Church in Jerusalem preserved the chair of Saint James, and the Church in Alexandria the chair of Saint Mark. The Latin word cathedra, meaning "chair," is the root of the English word "cathedral," the main church of the diocese where the bishop has his principal chair.

 

Up until 1960, today’s observance was known as the Feast of Saint Peter's Chair in Rome. If you visit Saint Peter’s Basilica in Rome, you can see at the very back of the church the magnificent bronze sculpture by Gian Lorenzo Bernini that encases the chair believed to be the one on which Saint Peter sat as the city’s first bishop.

 

The feast of the Chair of Saint Peter celebrated the apostle’s teaching authority, derived from our Lord’s words in today’s Gospel: “You are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and … I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven.” In Saint Peter’s Basilica, if you crane your neck and look up, you can read those words in the Latin inscription encircling the interior base of the massive dome.

 

Caesarea Philippi, the scene of today’s Gospel, is a long way, about 1,500 miles, from Saint Peter’s Basilica. It’s located in the northernmost tip of Galilee, among the rocky foothills of Mount Hermon. I visited the site about four years ago, on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. It was clearly a major center of pagan worship. There, you can still see temples and shrines to the Greek god Pan carved into the face of a high cliff, above the large, gaping mouth of a cave, which was believed to be an entrance to the Underworld, or Hades. So, when Jesus says to Peter that the gates of Hades will not prevail against his Church, he’s very likely referring to this feature of the local landscape.

 

Peter has just confessed his faith: “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.” The Lord’s response needs a bit of unpacking. “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father in heaven.” In other words, we can’t come to true knowledge of who Jesus is by our own unaided human abilities, but only by God revealing that knowledge to us. True faith in Christ is always a gift of God. 

 

“And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my Church …” Here, Jesus is engaging in a bit of amusing wordplay, employing a pun that doesn’t translate that well into English. In the Aramaic that he’s speaking, the name Peter, Kepha or Cephas, is identical to the word for “rock.” In Matthew’s Greek, the two words remain similar: petra for rock, Petros for Peter. It’s almost as if he said, “You are Rocky, the Rock!” His point is that, in contrast to the pagan cliffs of Caesarea Philippi, Peter’s confession of faith constitutes a rock-solid foundation for Christ’s Church.

 

“… and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it.” Here, as I’ve mentioned, Jesus is probably alluding to the nearby cave believed to be an entrance to the Underworld. Some commentators also point out that this image is not one of the Church resisting the attacks of demonic forces from hell, but the other way around. As the Church spreads throughout the world by the preaching of the Gospel, its reach will eventually extend into every part of creation: in heaven, on earth, and under the earth. Nothing, not even the gates of hell, can keep the reign of God and the Gospel of Christ out.

 

“I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven …” The keys of the kingdom symbolize the Church’s ministry of Word and Sacrament: what we do here every Sunday. Preaching the Gospel, administering Holy Baptism, and celebrating the Eucharist are the keys that open the doors of heaven to all Christian believers.

 

“Whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.” Here Christ gives Peter, the apostles, and their successors, the bishops, divine authority to govern the Church on earth. It is their responsibility to make binding decisions for the Church’s life, teaching, and worship. And heaven will guide and ratify their decisions.

 

From Caesarea Philippi, Peter and the other apostles accompanied Jesus south to Jerusalem. Sometime after the Lord’s death and resurrection, Peter went to Antioch, in what is today southwest Turkey, where he stayed for seven years as that city’s first bishop. Then he went to Rome, where he served as bishop for about 25 years before his martyrdom during the persecution of Emperor Nero in about 64 AD.

 

In 1979, the Episcopal Church added January 18th to the calendar as the Feast of the Confession of Saint Peter. Today marks the beginning of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, ending next Sunday with the Conversion of Saint Paul. During this week, we pray not only for the healing of the divisions stemming from the sixteenth-century Reformation, but also for reunion between the historic Churches of the Christian East and West. 

 

The Confession of Saint Peter reminds us that reconciliation of the Church’s divisions cannot be built solely on good feelings and warm relationships, nor even on cooperation in shared pastoral concerns and social witness, valuable as those things are. No, before all else, genuine Christian unity rests upon the rock of the apostolic faith and teaching—the faith symbolized by Saint Peter’s Chair in Rome, and also by our own bishop’s chair here in this church. 

 

SECOND SUNDAY AFTER CHRISTMAS

January 4, 2026

Saints Matthew and Mark, Barrington, R. I.

 

Matthew 2:1-15

 

Today is the eleventh day of the Twelve Days of Christmas. Eleven pipers piping! Tomorrow evening is Twelfth Night, and this Tuesday, January 6th, is the Feast of the Epiphany. By rights, we really should schedule a weekday Eucharist on Tuesday to observe this principal feast of the Church Year. We may do so in future years. But in the meantime, the lectionary allows us to anticipate the Epiphany by reading the Gospel recounting how the Wise Men, led by a star, visited the newborn King of the Jews in Bethlehem.

 

The Feast of the Epiphany is subtitled in the Book of Common Prayer, “the manifestation of Christ to the Gentiles.” In the biblical languages, the word “Gentiles” is interchangeable with “nations.” To appreciate the significance of the wise men bringing their gifts from afar, we need to review the biblical understanding of the nations’ place in God’s plan of salvation.

To go back to the beginning: the creation story in the Book of Genesis envisions humanity as essentially one. All are descended from the same first parents, Adam and Eve. Later, after the Flood, all human beings can trace their descent to Noah and his three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth. This common descent signifies the common humanity that we all share, and that binds us all together, regardless of race, language, nation, or culture.

 

But human sin rends this unity asunder. The story of the Tower of Babel in Genesis 11 describes how all the earth’s peoples once spoke the same language. But when they attempted to build a tower reaching up to heaven, God confused their language and scattered them over the earth as punishment for their pride and presumption. This story symbolizes how the various nations and peoples have become estranged from one another in mutual incomprehension and mistrust.

 

Later, however, God calls Abraham to be the ancestor of a new people, in whom all the nations of the earth will be blessed. From this point on, the Old Testament divides humanity into two parts: Israel, the People of God, and the nations, everybody else.

 

Most of the Old Testament depicts the relationship between Israel and the nations as one of mutual suspicion and hostility. The nations pose a threat to Israel on two counts. First, they’re a political menace. Israel’s existence is always under threat from hostile empires and kingdoms seeking to subjugate God’s people and take possession of their land. Second, the nations present temptations of paganism and idolatry: a constant threat to Israel’s unique covenant relationship with God. For this reason, Israel’s prophets and teachers are constantly urging separation from foreigners to avoid pagan contamination.

 

Despite all this, the nations still have a definite place in God’s plan. The Bible never loses sight of humankind’s original unity. God’s purpose in choosing Israel is not to exalt Israel over everybody else, but to make Israel a light to the nations. Ultimately, not Israel alone but all the earth’s peoples are to share in the blessings of universal peace in God’s kingdom.

 

This promise begins to be fulfilled in the New Testament. The old dichotomy between Israel and the Gentiles is overcome in the Church, the expanded People of God, in which all the nations have an equal place. The Risen Christ commissions his apostles to go into all the world and preach the Gospel. All nations, races, tribes, and tongues are to be gathered into one Church, thus restoring humankind’s original unity in Christ, the new Adam. 

 

In this light, we begin to appreciate the meaning of the wise men from the East traveling from afar bearing their gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh for the newborn king of the Jews. Matthew’s point is that Jesus’ coming into the world begins to fulfill the prophecies of reconciliation of the ancient divisions between Jews and Gentiles, and among all races and nations. 

 

Matthew makes no mention of how many wise men there were, and nowhere does he say that they were kings. The notion that they were kings comes from a prophecy of Isaiah, “Gentiles shall come to thy light, and kings to the brightness of thy rising.”

 

And the Christian tradition settled on the number three not only because they brought three gifts—gold, frankincense, and myrrh—but also because three is the number of the sons of Noah—Shem, Ham, and Japheth—from whom the Book of Genesis describes all the earth’s peoples as being descended after the Great Flood. 

 

By tradition, Shem was the ancestor of the Semitic peoples, Ham of the African peoples, and Japheth of the European peoples. Thus, artistic renderings often depict the three kings as representing these different races. The symbolic point is that when Christ is born, all the earth’s nations and peoples unite in the worship of the one true God, bringing with them all their wonderfully diverse gifts.

 

This symbolism suggests two practical consequences. First, the Church must always be a place where people of all backgrounds are welcome to offer their gifts. Unity in Christ does not mean cultural uniformity. The diverse gifts brought by representatives of the world’s different cultures immeasurably enrich our life together in the universal Church. We always need to guard against the temptation to feel superior to the expression of cultural traditions other than our own in the Church’s life and worship.

 

And second, our membership in the universal Church confers a shared identity with fellow Christians worldwide, transcending all differences of nationality, politics, culture, and language. It’s good and praiseworthy to be devoted family members, conscientious employees, enthusiastic participants in our local communities, and patriotic citizens of our country. By fulfilling our responsibilities in these spheres—family, workplace, community, and nation—we contribute to the common good that God intends for all. 

 

We just need to remember that our identity as Christians comes first. The claims of our membership in the worldwide fellowship of Christ’s Body rightly take precedence over all other claims upon our loyalty and allegiance. We’re Christians first, Americans second, Rhode Islanders third, and members of our local communities fourth. And that order of precedence needs to shape our understanding of our obligations to our fellow human beings the world over.