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SERMON BY BISHOP DAVID
L. MOYER
Feast of St. Peter and
St. Paul
29 June 2008
+In the Name of the Father, and of the
Son, and of the Holy Ghost, Amen.
Peter said to Jesus, “Lord, you know
everything; you know that I love you.” Jesus said to him, “Feed
my sheep” (St. John 21:17).
I thought it wise not to transfer the
Feast of St. Peter and St. Paul that falls on this Sunday to a weekday
because I have for the last two Sundays preached on the Apostles and
Apostolic teaching in light of the gospel passages we have had and heard,
but more so because we can profit much from thinking about these Holy
Apostles as to who they were as men called to give their lives to Jesus
Christ for His work in the Church for the world.
The question could be asked, “What
would the Church be without these two Apostles and their teaching?”
And the answer would be , “Sorely bereft.”
As we know, God became Man in Christ,
and the Incarnation continues principally in the Body and Blood of Jesus
we receive in the Mass, and also in the ministry of Christ through His
Apostles.
Peter was called away from being a fisherman
to be a “fisher of men” for Christ Jesus. Paul was called away from
being a persecutor of the Church through a powerful conversion experience
at the Road to Damascus to be a powerful and influential teacher for
Christ Jesus.
Peter was the designated leader of the
Apostles – impetuous and passionate in personality. Paul became the
thirteenth Apostle – highly intelligent and strong in will.
I could spend hours preaching and teaching
on their lives, their gifts, their emphases, and their effects by taking
you through the Book of the Acts of the Apostles and through their epistles.
Obviously, time and place doesn’t allow for that; but I want to have
you think today about these two great Apostles in light of how they
were used by God to preach, teach, and heal in the Name of Christ empowered
by the Holy Spirit, in the fullness of their humanity and spiritual
states – human conditions that Jesus understood as fully Man and fully
God, human conditions with which He worked, in and through their spiritual
states knowing that they both were striving to be what He called them
to be.
The Church rightly holds St. Peter and
St. Paul up as Saints — holy men. Their sainthood was and is proclaimed
because of their faith and works, but such strong faith and powerful
works came forth from men who were far from perfect — men in whom
we see personal fear and frustrations with others, spiritual struggles,
and in the case of St. Peter, an open betrayal of the Lord.
You remember that St. Paul once said
in his letter to the Romans, “I do not understand my own actions.
For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate…I do not
do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do…Wretched
man that I am!” But then later proclaimed, “I can do all things
through Christ who strengthens me.”
Today in the Gospel appointed for this
Feast, we are shown what was in the heart of Peter and what was in the
heart of Jesus in the dialog between them. We see Peter being totally
transparent before the Lord, and Jesus taking Peter where he was spiritually
to be used by Jesus in that spiritual state humbly admitted by Peter
to Jesus.
To understand this story and to gain
from its teaching, we must consider the Greek language of the New Testament
from which come the different translations in English and other modern
languages.
Two of the words for “love” in Greek
are agapeos and phileos. Agapeos means spiritual
love – love of God and God’s love for us. Phileos means brotherly
love – love between brothers, sisters, deep relational human love
– one for one another, non-sexual, non-erotic love.
We’re told that during the forty days
between our Lord’s Resurrection and Ascension, He had a post-breakfast
conversation with Peter which consisted of a series of questions and
commands to Peter.
Jesus asked Peter, “Simon, son of John,
do you love me more than these?” (referring to the other Apostles).
The verb and its tense spoken by Jesus was agapas – spiritual
love. Peter answered Jesus, “Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.”
The verb and its tense spoken by Peter was philo – brotherly
love. Jesus then said to Peter, “Feed my lambs.”
A second time, we’re told, Jesus asked
Peter, “Simon, son of John, do you love me?” Our Lord again used
agapas – spiritual love. Peter answered, “Yes, Lord; you know
that I love you.” Peter again used philo
– brotherly love. Jesus said to Peter, “Tend my sheep.”
Jesus asked Peter the same thing a third
time, “Do you love me?” But this third time, the Greek text records
not agapas, but phileis – brotherly love. With the same
question to Peter for the third time, but with a different word for
love, Jesus was asking Peter to own and accept the kind of love He had
for the Lord. The question was used by Jesus to show Peter that Jesus
has heard, received, and accepted the truthfulness of Peter that at
this time he only had brotherly love for Jesus.
Peter responds, “Lord, you know everything;
you know that I love you.” And for the third time he states
and confirms brotherly love with the use of philo. In other words,
Peter was saying to Jesus, “This is where I am, and I only have brotherly
love for you, Lord.” Jesus says to Peter, “Feed my sheep.”
With all of this, we should first see
clearly how the scriptures present its contents truthfully because those
who wrote them were guided and inspired by the Holy Spirit. There is
no fabrication here or glossing over of the state of the soul of the
leader of the Apostles to somehow present a better picture of him. The
threefold denial of Jesus by Peter was not excluded from the Gospels.
And secondly, and more importantly for
us in our spiritual lives, witness, and ministries, the clear teaching
here is that Jesus took Peter where he was because He loved him, trusted
him, believed in him, and there was work to do in and for the
Church. Peter even without being at the point of loving Jesus in the
way he would someday love Him was commissioned and commanded by Jesus
to feed and tend His brother and sister Christians with pastoral love,
care, protection, and oversight.
If the leader of the Apostles who had
once betrayed the Lord three times, and who loved Him less than either
He and the Lord desired, was used by the Lord for the work of the Lord,
dare we say that our spiritual state disqualifies us from love and service,
or should be used as an excuse not to love and serve with all we are
and all we have? What should disqualify us is when we are in
a state of unrepentant sin. What excuses us is if or when we are too
sick to serve our Lord.
As we give great thanks today for St.
Peter and St. Paul for their faith and works, let us all heed the words
of St. Paul the Apostle, “Therefore, since we are surrounded by so
great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and
sin which clings so closely, and let us run with perseverance the race
that is set before us, looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of
our faith…” (Hebrews 12:1-2).
+In the Name of the Father, and of the
Son, and of the Holy Ghost, Amen.
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