Ss Peter & Paul, Kettering
Good News
I heard the voice of many angels surrounding the throne and the living creatures and the elders...singing with full voice, “Worthy is the Lamb that was slaughtered...”
This is a sermon about all sorts of people - but mainly, it’s about us! So - which do you want first? The good news, or the bad news?
It’s an old question, and one we hear so often: “I have good news and bad news - which do you want first?” There can be exceptions, of course. I remember in one episode of the insightful and delightful TV series Yes Minister, Jim Hacker’s Private Secretary, the ever keen to please Bernard Woolley coming in to Hacker’s office saying, “Do you want to hear the bad news, Minister?”, to which Hacker replied, “Do you mean you’ve got bad news and good news?”, only to be told, “No, minister. I’ve got bad news and worse news!” Well, let’s see what kind of news we’ve got in this morning’s readings...
I wonder what kind of news Peter thought he was being given. I guess he’d been through some really profound bad news and good news moments, hadn’t he! After all, he’d been given the bad news that, despite all his bravado, he was going to betray Jesus three times - which he promptly did within a matter of a few hours. And then he’d been given the good news by Mary Magdalene that, incredibly, she’d seen the risen Lord. And, here, at the very end of the last of the four gospels, he’s getting some mixed messages again...
As the story opens, we see Peter returning to his original trade - not fishing for men and women, as once he had been promised, but simply fishing for fish. But the presence and the power of the risen Christ turns even that simple intention upside-down, as an empty net is filled (and filled with fishes representing the entire peoples of the world), and a stranger who is anything but a stranger cooks him a barbeque breakfast on the beach. And then comes the questioning - Do you love me? Do you love me? DO YOU LOVE ME?
Clearly, there’s forgiveness floating around, for there is this constant commission, Feed my lambs, tend my sheep, feed my sheep. Peter is, somehow, back in Jesus’ good books, with his commission restored and returned to him. Much as he deserved it, he is not, in fact, disowned by Jesus, despite his awful behaviour in the courtyard of the High Priest’s palace. But if that’s good news (which I guess it is), then there’s bad news to come - maybe, in Yes Minister style, there’s worse news:
When you were younger, you used to fasten your own belt and 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.
Good news? Doesn’t sound it, does it... And After this he said to him, ‘Follow me.’
But this isn’t just about Peter - it’s about us...
For I heard the voice of many angels surrounding the throne and the living creatures and the elders...singing with full voice, “Worthy is the Lamb that was slaughtered...”
Peter wasn’t the only person today who had to encounter good news and bad news, was he? For there was Saul, as well - Saul, who was breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord. The story we heard about Saul just now, that was a story with a real mixture of good and bad news - and, like Yes Minister, a dose of worse news as well. In fact, depending on your perspective, it could be quite hard to work out what was bad and what was good in Saul’s story...
Certainly, if you’d asked for Saul’s own opinion as he was packing to set off towards Damascus - if you’d asked Saul what he would think about the idea that he might become a follower of Jesus, and, in amongst such a dreadful notion, he would be blinded and starve for three days, I don’t think he would have been exactly pleased by the notion. And, if you look at it from a Christian perspective, I’m not sure that Ananias exactly felt he was being offered good news when he was told he had to go and deal with this infamous, angry persecutor of his new-found religion. You can just picture the re-write of that dialogue between Ananias and God: “Ananias, I’ve got good news and bad news. The good news is that you are going to be instrumental in bringing a new convert to Christ and in restoring his sight both metaphorically and literally.”
“Great, Lord - what’s the bad news?”
“The bad news is that it’s Saul of Tarsus!”
But the good news for you and me was that Saul of Tarsus did become a Christian, and, frankly, if God hadn’t chose him to become a follower and a proclaimer of the risen Christ, there wouldn’t have been much hope for you and me. But, for Saul-turned-Paul, there was good news, bad news, and perhaps, just like Peter, worse news - for God says to Ananias:
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.
And, indeed, his own, remarkable writings show us just how much he did suffer for the sake of Jesus’ name, and tradition, if not Scripture, sees him facing martyrdom just like Peter. Indeed, their joint martyrdom became almost the founding landmark of what we might now call the Roman Catholic Church, the mother city of which claims both their deaths. And as for Paul:
Immediately he began to proclaim Jesus in the synagogues, saying ‘He is the Son of God’.
But this isn’t just about Paul - it’s about us...
For I heard the voice of many angels surrounding the throne and the living creatures and the elders...singing with full voice, “Worthy is the Lamb that was slaughtered...”
Peter and Paul. The twin foundations of the Church Catholic; arguably two of the most important saints of the New Testament; the joint patrons, indeed, of this very parish. Indeed, this is not just about them, it’s about us, for we meet in our parish church under their very dedication. And they both had to cope with good news and bad news...
They had to cope with lives turned upside down - in the one case, leaving behind a simple and peaceful fishing business on the north shore of the Sea of Galilee, and in the other case turning on its head a zealous vocation as a pharisee to guard the purity of Judaism against sects and heresies. They had to cope with the loss of just about everything they took for granted and which they held dear. And for what?
Well, for itinerant lives as preachers and teachers, often being hated and persecuted, and, ultimately for martyrdom. And all the more remarkable because Peter was - at first - a dim-witted coward who betrayed the man who was to become his Risen Lord, and Paul was an aggressive and dangerous persecutor of the man who was to become his Risen Lord. But, for both of these towering figures of Christian history, when the chips, finally, were down - when Peter agreed, three times over, to feed Jesus’s sheep, and when Paul allowed Ananias to place his hands on his head, their vocation proved unstoppable: Jesus tells Peter the kind of death by which he would glorify God and after this simply says to him Follow me!, and immediately Paul has his sight and strength renewed, he began to proclaim Jesus...saying ‘He is the Son of God’.
But, as I keep saying, this isn’t about them. This isn’t about the two saints in whose patronage and dedication this parish was formed - it is about us.
For, in no less a way than Simon-turned-Peter and Saul-turned-Paul, we are called to follow Christ, to feed his brothers and sisters, and to proclaim him as the Son of God. And, on this Sunday in Eastertide, just about on the eve of our Annual Meeting (which is a time when we both take stock of the past and look to the future), there could not be a better time to acknowledge that once again.
We have challenges, problems and opportunities, and we have the vocation given to us in our baptism...
But we have the guiding example of the heroes of our Gospel reading and our first reading - Peter and Paul, in whose name this parish was formed. And nor should we forget the dedication of our no less precious daughter church, built in the honour of Michael and all the angels. For John heard the voice of many angels surrounding the throne and the living creatures and the elders; they numbered myriads of myriads and thousands of thousands, singing with full voice, ‘Worthy is the Lamb that was slaughtered. And he heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and in the sea, and all that is in them, singing, ‘To the one seated on the throne and to the Lamb be blessing and honour and glory and might for ever and ever!’
Do you want the, er, the good news... or the good news... or the best news of all?
The good news is that like Peter and Paul, we are called to glorify God in our lives and proclaim Jesus as the Son of God. The good news is that following that call is and will continue to be costly (yes, that’s good news - because God is worth it). And the best news of all is that not only is there no bad news in the Gospel of the Risen Christ, but that if we are faithful to our call, then we, too, might just have our own place with the myriads of myriads and thousands of thousands who not only glorified God in their life and their death, but who still do so now, gathered around that heavenly throne. Amen.
Dominic Barrington, April 22nd, 2007
Office Address:
The Rectory
Church Walk
Kettering
NN16 0DJ