by CCW | 29 June 2025 10:00
The Feast of St. Peter and St. Paul commemorates the twin pillars of Christ’s Church. Their joint commemoration is itself a work of Providence. It draws together into one festival two prominent figures from the Scriptures of the New Testament, and a later tradition about their martyrdom and the subsequent translation of their remains to a common resting place in Rome. It suggests a spiritual connection between Scripture and Tradition; namely, how we think about what is received and given to us in Revelation.
The Feast of St. Peter and St. Paul places us with Christ in his body, the Church, but only insofar as it stands upon the Word of God revealed and written, hence the primacy of Scripture as the Revelation of the Word of God. Therein is the important connection. The preaching and teaching of Saul, renamed Paul, the Apostle to the Gentiles, is about the primacy of the Scriptures, “things written for our learning (ad nostram doctrinam)” about our life in Christ. This is the basis for the understanding of our life in the body of Christ, the Church, established by Jesus upon Simon, renamed Peter, the rock, upon which he will build his Church against which ”the gates of hell shall not prevail.” The Church is not primarily or simply a human or social construct.
This feast also marks the 40th anniversary of the ordination of Fr. John Park to the sacred priesthood, to his ministry within the sacred body of Christ. We are delighted and honoured to have him as our celebrant this morning. It speaks to all of us about our life in Christ. The ministry is nothing less than sacrifice and service, nothing less than the motions of Christ in him and for us. The ministry is not self-referential, not a celebration of individuals in their various skills and talents, but a reminder to all of us about our vocation to loving service in the body of Christ. “Let no man glory in men,” Paul tells us in the second set of readings provided for use in the Octave of this feast. Ordination is not about the person in the office but the office in the person. The office of Priest is the ministry of Word and Sacrament founded upon nothing less than the Word and Spirit of God. “Let a man so account of us, as of the ministers of Christ, and the stewards of the mysteries of God,” as Paul puts it.
And what is the Church? A building? A bishop? A congregation? A denomination? A parish? A diocese? A synod? A national church? No. Those at best are nothing more and nothing less than the outward expressions in one way or another and to some extent or another of “the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church,” as we profess in the Creed. What we celebrate today with Fr. Park especially is that reality: the Church’s unity in God as Trinity, the Church’s holiness by the guiding light of the Holy Spirit, the Church’s catholicity in the fulness of the Faith, and the Church’s apostolicity as grounded in the mystery of Pentecost. In short, we are reminded of what we are called to be for that is the role and purpose of the ordained ministry of the Church. Forty years ago, John Park was ordained and enrolled in that understanding that reaches far beyond the mechanics and systems of our human devices. Father, remember that “thou art a Priest for ever” in the high priesthood of Christ, Tu est sacerdos in aeternum.
It is all and always about the grace of God moving in us for the perfecting of our humanity in Christ. “We preach not ourselves,” as Paul puts it, “but Christ Jesus the Lord; and ourselves, your servants for Jesus’ sake.” In this morning’s Gospel we heard Peter’s confession of Christ. “Whom do men say that I, the Son of man, am?” Jesus asks the disciples. “Some say that thou art John the Baptist, some Elijah, and others Jeremiah, or one of the prophets,” they reply. Hardly a compelling or adequate response but one which reflects their confusion and uncertainty by defaulting to what others have said. Not unlike our age. “Whom say ye that I am?” he then asks.
Simon Peter answers with clarity and conviction. “Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.” Wonderful to be sure, so much so that it occasions the wonder of Christ himself! “Blessed art thou, Simon son of John,” Jesus says. Blessed in what he has confessed, in what he has said so clearly, so openly and rather spontaneously. But the real wonder and truth of what he has said is captured in what follows. What Peter has said is not a human construct. “For flesh and blood,” Jesus says, “hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven.”
What Peter has said is divine revelation, not human invention or opinion. It is a profound insight into the truth of Christ. It is something received in him and proclaimed by him; divine truth spoken in human speech. It is faith, not as an assent to some proposition or another, an opinion in a list of propositions or opinions (a mistaken modern view), but faith that is trust and commitment to what is grasped in heart and mind as substantial and true. Only so is it a living faith which is meant to live and grow into understanding in us; fides quarens intellectum, faith seeking understanding.
Yet what directly follows this Gospel reading is the exact opposite of Peter’s Confession; in fact, it is a complete betrayal of what he has said. It shows us that faith is more than personal assertion or opinion, a personal point of view alongside everyone else’s personal point of view. Peter, hears what Jesus goes on to say about his going up to Jerusalem and suffering many things, being killed and being raised, and straight way contradicts him. “God forbid, Lord! This shall never happen to you.” Only to have Jesus rebuke him in the strongest way imaginable.
“Get thee behind me, Satan! You are a hindrance (literally, a stumbling block), to me; for you are not on the side of God but of men.” Quite a rebuke! Peter goes from being blessed to being cursed! And why? Because Peter has failed to understand what he confessed about “the Christ, the Son of the living God.” For what that means is exactly Christ’s Passion and Resurrection. “We preach Christ crucified,” Paul will say, “unto the Jews a stumbling block [note the word] and unto the Greeks foolishness. But unto them which are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God. Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men; and the weakness of God is stronger than men.” There is always the problem of reducing God to ourselves.
The message is clear. We have to work at living out what we profess and that means learning and growing into an understanding of our faith in Christ Jesus.
[Such is faith and service. Peter Harrison, who has pointed out the shift in understanding about religion and science as habits of mind and soul to becoming abstract static entities, things such as ‘Science’ and ‘Religion’ (Territories of Science and Religion, 2015), does the same thing about the faith by which we believe (fides qua creduntur) and the faith which we believe (fides quae creduntur) (Augustine). He shows that what is properly united has become separated and divided in the modern period into the categories of subjective and objective modes of thinking. But the two cannot be separated. It is a false separation. Just as the act of love can only be understood in relation to what is loved, so the faith that is believed, cannot be separated from the faith by which it is believed (Peter Harrison, Some New World: Myths of Supernatural Belief in a Secular Age, pp. 44-45).]
Are we simply left with this state of contradiction? Peter blessed, Peter cursed? What is there to celebrate in that? No. Peter’s confession of Christ leads to his confession of his threefold denial of Christ in the Passion and, consequently, to his recapitulation or restoration in love by the Risen Christ, as John tells us in the last chapter of his Gospel. It is also the Gospel provided for in the Octave. Peter, who betrayed and denied Christ three times, is reconstituted three times in love and for love by the Risen Christ. “Simon, son of John, do you love me? Feed my lambs … Simon, son of John, do you love me? Tend my sheep … Simon, son of John, do you love me? Feed my sheep.”
Is not this the deeper truth and meaning of what is revealed not by “flesh and blood” but by “my Father which is in heaven”? Peter’s rise and fall and his rising again complements Paul’s insight that “now we see in a glass darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.” Peter confesses Christ and then confronts himself as a sinner and only then begins to learn the radical truth of his confession of Christ. Reconstituted in love for love he is set in motion and apostolic mission.
But is this not also what Paul learned? “For I am the least of the Apostles, because I persecuted the Church of God. But by the grace of God, I am what I am: and his grace was not bestowed in vain.” And is this not the very pattern of our lives that we celebrate and give thanks to God for Fr. Park’s forty years of priestly ministry?
Fr. David Curry
Feast of SS Peter & Paul
June 29th, 2025
Source URL: https://christchurchwindsor.ca/2025/06/29/sermon-for-the-feast-of-st-peter-and-st-paul/
Copyright ©2026 Christ Church unless otherwise noted.