TRINITY IV / PETER & PAUL
27 June 2010

The end of June and the beginning of July see us celebrating four significant New Testament figures in a row: Saint John the Baptist on 24th June, Peter and Paul on the 29th, and finally Thomas on 3rd of July. And each, in his own way, tells us something about vocation - our calling to the service of Christ.

John the Baptist, of course, was quite literally called from his mother's womb, leaping for joy while yet unborn when his mother Elizabeth greeted her cousin the Virgin Mary. For that reason, John is unique in the Church's calendar as the only saint whose principal commemoration is of his birth rather than his death. And the reason we celebrate John when we do, is that we are told that Elizabeth was "in her sixth month" when Mary received the word that she was to be the Mother of Jesus ... 24th June is, more or less, six months before 25th December - the difference of a day having to do with the old Roman way of counting dates.

There are many today who, by virtue of birth into a Christian family and a faithful upbringing, might be said to be like John. They have known the Lord, according to their age and comprehension, for as long as they can remember. We baptise infants on the understanding that is, if sometimes a generous assumption, at least a possibility for everyone. And many of those in our churches today will naturally identify with John's pattern of growth in faith, never having known a time when they did not know the call of Christ ... even if, unlike John, that call may not involve rudimentary clothing and strange dietary habits (camel's hair and locusts) and, more seriously, imprisonment and death for witnessing to the truth.

To some degree, Peter and Paul fit the same pattern. Paul certainly testifies to the importance of his upbringing in shaping his faith - even though he also admits he got it spectacularly wrong. Peter can be assumed to have come from a conventionally observant household, but what we know his his character suggests a pragmatic rather than a dogmatic approach to such things, unlike Paul. But what both had in common was a mid-life experience of conversion, Paul on the Damascus Road, Peter perhaps when Jesus called him, with Andrew, James and John from the nets ... or perhaps at Caesarea Phillipi where, in a moment of blinding insight, he suddenly grasped just who Jesus was and articulated it on behalf of his fellow apostles for the first time.

Both had known the story; but both, in different ways, came to understand it in a new way. And both died a martyr's death for their new-found faith within a few years of each other in Rome, which is why they are so closely associated in the Church's liturgy and share a common feastday - even if Archbishop Cranmer seems to have thought that unfairly advantaged Paul and dropped him for 29th June in his Prayer Book, only for the joint commemoration to be restored as the calendar was progressively revised.

And there are people like that today, to whom their faith suddenly becomes alive in later life. Perhaps like Paul, up to that point their faith his been solely about rigid practice; perhaps like Peter its been a matter of convention. But all of a sudden something happens that makes it all real in a new and exciting way, and they have found their lives transformed as a result.

And what about Thomas? Until recently his feastday languished on 21st December, largely obscured by the approach of Christmas. But his story is well known because of the events in the Upper Room the first Easter evening and the following week, which we read about every year. He is a questioner - and we see that elsewhere in the Gospels as well. That same questioning spirit is even developed in the traditions that surround his later life, with our Lady supposedly dropping the belt she was wearing to him from heaven at her assumption, to convince him it had really happened ... and that same belt is purportedly in the cathedral in Prato, near Florence, which I visited on my sabbatical; but I do not think one should take such legends too seriously!

But that there are people like Thomas among us today there is no doubt - the people who always ask the awkward questions, who won't be satisfied with conventional answers. But that does not make them any less faithful in their following of Christ. Thomas himself was put to death for his faith after travelling as far as India, where the Christians of Goa still take their name from him. And a questioning Christian can be no less a witness to the faithfulness of Christ today.

All four of these figures are significant. Each died a martyrs death. And all are commemorated within 10 days of each other. John may well have met all but Paul – we know some of his disciples left him to follow Jesus, one of them Peter's brother Andrew. Paul would have known Thomas and Peter, but certainly didn't always get along with them. John was a lonely prophet; Peter a solid man not afraid to speak his mind or to admit his mistakes, but was chosen by Jesus to lead the apostolic band; Paul was a scholar, a writer, but certainly had his rough edges; and Thomas, as I've already said, was a searcher, a questioner. Putting all four in the same room would have been an interesting exercise. But each in his own way helped to build the Church by proclaiming Christ. And the same is exactly true today.

We come together from different backgrounds - lifelong Christians and new converts, simple believers and questioners - all with different temperaments, and together we are called to build on the foundation laid by the patriarchs and prophets, the apostles and martyrs. But we are all needed. Will their be disagreements? Surely - you don't need to tell any parish priest that, let alone a member of General Synod! The challenge is not to stamp out disagreement, but to find ways in which all can be faithful and all are honoured, something that by and large Anglicanism has been pretty good at, whatever its anomalies.

As we recall the witness of John, last and greatest of the prophets, Paul's journeys and letters and Peter's commission as the rock on which the Church was to be built, and Thomas' quest for truth, we pray for the unity of the Church, especially of our own Communion; and we recommit ourselves to working together with one another in our common vocation of service to Christ and his Church.