Christ Church

“The people pressed upon him to hear the word of God”

Today’s Gospel illustrates wonderfully the Epistle reading from 1st Peter. Both readings  complement rather providentially the significance of this Sunday as falling within The Octave of the Feast of St. Peter and St. Paul. They are the twin pillars and princes of the Apostolic Church and Faith grounded upon the living word of God which defines their life and ministry. The Gospel for the Feast is ‘the confession of Peter’ that Jesus is “the Christ the Son of the living God.” Jesus acknowledges this as something revealed to him not invented by him. That strong sense of commitment to the revealed word of God is what unites two very different personalities, that of Peter and Paul. As Augustine notes,”they are as one.”

They are as one in their attention to the living word revealed in Christ Jesus despite their very different backgrounds and biographies, the one a poor fisherman, we might say, as seen in this morning’s fishing story gospel, the other, a proud scholar who is blinded into sight by the vision and words of Jesus that transforms him from the persecutor, Saul, into the Apostle to the Gentiles, Paul. In the Gospel for The Feast of St. Peter and Paul, Simon son of John, sometimes identified as Simon Peter, Jesus plays upon the name Peter: “thou art Peter,” πετρος, meaning rock or stone, “and upon this rock I will build my Church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.” He then invests the apostolic ministry with ‘the power of the keys,’ the grace of Christ’s forgiveness on the Cross for our sins conveyed through the sacrament of priestly absolution. (It is worth noting that Lancelot Andrewes recognized the principle of forgiveness as inherent in the sacrament of the altar, the body broken and the blood outpoured “for [us] and for many for the remission of sins”).

The Feast of St. Peter and consequently Petertide is one of the oldest Christian festivals looking back to at least the early 3rd century. Yet from the earliest times the Feast of Peter was also associated and accompanied by the commemoration of St. Paul. The two are inseparably linked as witnessed by the sermons of Augustine and Leo, for instance. Much later in the 17th century, Bishop John Cosin, attempted to restore the title “St. Peter’s, and St. Paul’s Day” in the Prayer Book. In other words, throughout the churches both East and West, both Roman Catholic and Protestant, to use later terms, Peter and Paul have been commemorated together.

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“Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God”

There is no greater contrast than between Peter and Paul, the one a poor fisherman, the other, a proud scholar. And yet, as Augustine argues, “they were as one”. What unites them? Christ Jesus. What does that mean? It means that Christ Jesus has overcome all the oppositions, enmities and animosities that are present in the world and in our souls.

The truth and unity of the Church is found in the confession of Christ. “No one can say, Jesus is Lord, except by the Holy Spirit,” Paul will say, just as Peter famously confesses to Jesus, “Thou art the Christ, the son of the living God.” And Jesus says to him that “Flesh and blood has not revealed this to you but my Father who is in heaven.” One of the most dominant metaphors for God in the Old Testament is God as the Rock, the rock which like a father has begotten you, the rock which like a mother has brought you to birth, as the Song of Moses in Deuteronomy puts it. “That rock was Christ,” Paul proclaims, having in mind the wilderness journey of Israel and the stricken rock out of which comes life-giving water. The image is at once static and solid and dynamic and life-giving. Christ is the stricken rock out of whose pierced side water and blood pour forth, the symbols of the sacraments by which we live from him who died and lived again. Jesus says to Simon Peter, “you are the rock upon which I shall build my Church.”

The Church, the ekklesia, referring to the gathering together in unity of heart and mind, is defined by the Lord, Kyrios, from which is derived the word, Kirk, and Church. Peter and Paul are one in the beginnings of our coming together in “the blessed company of all faithful people,” the Church. Their stories are best known from The Book of the Acts of the Apostles and from their writings. The many Epistles of Paul and the two Epistles general of Peter, are essential parts of what becomes the New Testament. Yet their story is not without controversy and argument, a conflict about the universal and the particular, about Jew and Gentile, about the Old Covenant and the New, in relation to Christ and his company. It was a necessary argument out of which arises a deeper understanding and confession of “Christ, the son of the living God,” whose death and resurrection means the overcoming of all and every form of enmity and whose redemptive love is by definition for all.

“God is love,” we commonly say, forgetting that this is the love which died and rose again for us. Why? So that in him we might die, being “buried with him by baptism into death; that like as Christ was raised up from the dead … even so we also should walk in newness of life”. It is the very meaning of our life in Christ, our life in his body, our life as confessing the crucified and risen Christ.

It means dying to ourselves and our hatreds in order to live for Christ in and through one another. The mission of the Church universal proclaims our life in the body of Christ as the community of reconciliation and reciprocity. The feast of Peter and Paul in the tradition of the Church unites these two Princes of the Church and the Faith. To commemorate them is to remember the rock upon which we stand and the living word which goes forth to all the ends of the world. The rock and the mission are one.       

“Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God”

Fr. David Curry,
Feast of Peter & Paul,
June 29th, 2026.

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“Be ye therefore merciful, as your Father also is merciful”

Suffering and glory. Mercy and justice. They seem to stand in opposition one to the other yet our readings suggest otherwise and illuminate the nature of the Christian pilgrimage of the soul. It is nothing less than our participation in what has been fully and completely accomplished for us in Christ’s sacrifice but which remains to be more fully realized in us. We live by faith in what we have been given to know. We live by hope in what belongs to the truth and end or purpose of our humanity in God. We live by love that unites faith and hope and sustains us in the journey of our souls to our homeland in God both now and evermore. In short, we await “our full adoption as sons.”

That sense of participation highlights a sense of agency in our taking a hold of the life of Christ. Our seeking is our finding in order to seek all the more. It is not about possessing the truth, as if it were a thing, a consumer product, or simply a fantasy of our own devising; rather it is about being possessed by the truth. What that means is further illustrated in the witness of John the Baptist whose nativity was this week. In the tradition of the church we meet within the Octave of that feast precisely because of the significance of John the Baptist in the pilgrimage of sanctification.

An intriguing and challenging figure, his life and story is only about one thing and one thing only: he points us to the truth of God in Christ. The whole purpose of his being from his birth to his death is to point to the one who is greater than himself, the one whom he names as “the Lamb of God”. John the Baptist prepares the way of Christ by preaching of repentance. Repentance is our constant turning to God, a twofold turning, a turning towards God and a turning away from our sins which separate us from God; in short, conversion and contrition. John the Baptist preaches a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins; Christ is that forgiveness. Christ’s baptism by John in Jordan reveals the truth of God and the meaning of that truth for us in the restoration of the image of God as Trinity in us, for that is the radical meaning of our pilgrimage, our sanctification in embracing and growing into Christ.

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