Saints Peter and Paul...June 29th

I wonder what you made of all that stuff in the first reading today: about the angel filling Peter’s cell with light and leading him past two separate guard posts, through the iron gate at the entrance to the prison and out into the street, having taken the time to stop and have him put on his belt and sandals and cover himself with his cloak. Do you believe all this? Do you think it really happened? Well, although they appear very similar, these are, in fact, two very different question. And so my own answer is yes, I do believe it and no, I don’t think it happened. So how is this possible? How can I say ‘yes’ to one question and ‘no’ to the other? Surely if I say I believe it then it must have happened. Well, no, and the reason takes us to the heart of the Catholic Church’s understanding of Scripture.

One of the great dangers of our time is religious fundamentalism, and at the heart of Christian religious fundamentalism lies a literal interpretation of the bible which leads to the kind of quite disturbing attitudes we have seen in recent years among, for example, people on the religious right in America including President Bush himself. And so it may come as a surprise to know that the Catholic Church also believes that our reading of Scripture must always be based on what the relevant documents call ‘the literal meaning.’ What the Church means by this, however, and what biblical fundamentalist mean by it are very different things. For the fundamentalists, the literal meaning is what the words say. For the Church the literal meaning is what was in the mind of the person who wrote the words, the most obvious example being the Genesis story of creation and the misunderstanding that has surrounded it over the years. In America, creationists want to ban the teaching of evolution in schools because, they say, it ‘contradicts’ the book of Genesis. But this is absurd since the author of Genesis was not remotely interested in this. His purpose, as we have seen many times before, was entirely different. It was not science he was writing, but theology, and so to look for answers to scientific questions in what he says is ridiculous. And that, when applied to the first reading, is why I can say ‘yes’ I believe what it says and ‘no’ I don’t believe it actually happened.

What the author, St Luke in this case, is saying is that the Word of God cannot be chained up. Today’s passage is from chapter twelve. But already, in chapter seven, we have heard of the death of Stephen, the first martyr, and in chapter nine of the conversion of St Paul on his way to arrest followers of Jesus in Damascus. Acts is filled with evidence of people who were determined to stamp out this new movement and the whole point of today’s story, with its two prison guards on either side of Peter, its double chains and two separate guard posts, is that these enemies of the Gospel are destined to fail, that they will never succeed in what they are trying to do. There is in fact a very similar story about St Paul in chapter sixteen of Acts where Paul is thrown into prison, only for an earthquake to shake the prison to its foundation, causing the gates to fly open, whereupon – and this is the real point of the story – Paul preaches to the gaoler and he and his whole household are baptized. And I have not the slightest doubt that what St Luke is telling us through these stories is true; that the Word of God cannot be chained up. On balance, however, I don’t believe in angels filling cells with light or earthquahes making doors fly open, although whether they did or not is, as I hope is clear by now, completely irrelevant.

And we see the same fundamental message in the second reading. In it, St Paul speaks of how he has fought the good fight and run the race to the finish. And it had not been easy. Between the years 45 and 67 AD Paul made three long, difficult missionary journeys all over the Eastern Mediterranian and in the second letter to the Corinthians he lists some of the hardships he had to endure: flogged three times, imprisoned several times, thirty nine lashes on five separate occasions, beaten with sticks three times, stoned and shipwrecked, also three times. And yet, as he says today, the Lord stood by him and gave him power, so that through him the whole message might be proclaimed for all the pagans to hear. Again, the message is clear. The Good News cannot be chained up. Jesus has promised to be with his Church until the end of time and, as we heard just now in the Gospel Acclamation, the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.

But, for me, the real proof of this is in today’s Gospel where Jesus tells Peter that he is the rock on which the Church will be built. Leaving aside for a moment the fact that the others would have fallen about laughing at the idea of Peter, the most unpredictable of men, being a rock on which you could build anything, this story has always been seen as the beginning of a long line of Popes reaching right down to the present day. And what a motley crew they have been. There have been wonderful Popes, holy Popes, great Popes. But there have also been profoundly corrupt Popes, adulterous Popes, politically ambitious Popes. At one point there were three of them and on another occasion persistent, but probably unfounded rumours, that one was a woman. But far from worrying about this, we should, I suggest, see in it the ultimate proof that, deep within the sometimes shocking history of the Church, God is at work. If he weren’t, it would not have lasted two years let alone two millennia. No matter what happens, the Word of God cannot be chained up. Or, as the Pharisee Gamaliel put it two thousand years ago; “If this movement of theirs is of human origin, it will break up of its own accord; but if it does in fact come from God, you will not be able to destroy it.”

Sometimes nowadays people talk of a crisis in the Church. And without a doubt there are serious questions facing us. But one of the things I hope we will learn when we begin to look at the history of the Church next year sometime is that, compared with what has happened in the past, people today would not know a real crisis if it jumped up and grabbed us by the throat.


BIDDING PRAYERS


The history of the Church, like all history, is a story of human weakness mixed in with human greatness. There have glorious times and ignominious times. There have been great saints and great sinners. And so we pray for the maturity we need to recognize the reality of what it means to be the Church in the world today so that when, as will happen, we are confronted by the weaknesses of the Church, we will not be shocked or allow our faith to be undermined............................Lord hear us

And we pray on this feast of Saints Peter and Paul for Pope Benedict, the latest in a long line of leaders going back to Peter himself. We pray that he will be a man of deep personal faith, open to the movement of God in his own life, and so able to respond in a Spirit-filled way to the many challenges facing the Church at this moment in its history. And we pray, too, for our own bishop, John, that he too may have the wisdom he needs to lead our diocese forward at this time...........Lord hear us

Today’s feast was, in the past, a day for ordinations to the priesthood. As a result, many priests throughout Scotland will be celebrating the anniversary of their ordination this Sunday. And so we pray for them. We pray, too, for Philip Kitchen a native of Kilmarnock, who will himself be ordained to the priesthood in St Michael’s this Thursday. St Michael’s has seen six ordinations over the years and we pray that, before too long, St Matthew’s will see one too.........Lord hear us

In the second reading, St Paul speaks about having fought the good fight and run the race to the finish. And so we also remember this week the fast-growing number of retired priests in Scotland. We pray that, like St Paul, they will have a deep sense of how God has been with them all through their lives and that, even now, they will be a source of hope and encouragement to others.........Lord hear us

Fundamentalism in all its shapes and forms today arises out of an unwillingness or inability to face up to and deal with the complexities of faith in the modern world. Rather than confront difficult questions and work out new responses fit for the age we live in, it seeks refuge in old, tired answers which no longer make sense to people. It is the last refuge of narrow-minded, frightened people and we ask God for the grace we need to see it for what it is and have nothing to do with it..............Lord hear us

To be men and women of faith in the modern world, we must have a profound sense of the presence of God in what has gone before, in what is happening now and in what will be in the future. We must know deep within ourselves the truth contained in all three of today’s readings: that Jesus is with us every step of our journey, that it is the Spirit who guides us, and that, ultimately, the Word of God can never be chained up. And so we pray for this grace for the whole parish............Lord hear us