Acts 12:1-11 2^nd Timothy 4:6-8, 17-18 Matthew 16:13-19

In addition to announcing the Gospel, Peter and the other early Christians endured many hardships, including imprisonment and death. It’s interesting how in modern Church lore, one can easily get the impression that Christians were persecuted because of their God. In fact, the Roman Empire was polytheistic and anyone’s god or goddess, singular or plural, was welcome among the pantheon of divinities. The wrinkle was whether one’s religious practice disturbed the Roman Peace by needlessly irritating others and whether one would be so gracious as to worship the current emperor, a first Christian century pagan practice. Peter and Paul and the others usually got into trouble by irritating their fellow Jews when they both insisted on calling Jesus “Raised from the Dead,” a Pharisaic expectation and a heresy to the Sadducees! The controversy they incited, along with appealing to both Jew and Gentile to join in their worship of Jesus as Messiah, spilled out into the streets and into the Roman legal courts. This political and social religious controversy appeared subversive to civil order to the Roman leaders in Palestine, a backwater Roman territory. Those Roman leaders in Palestine were neither the best nor the brightest of the Empire; it took very little to provoke them.

Peter’s imprisonment in Acts 12 is written to look like the violent Roman reaction “was pleasing to the Jews.” Thus, it was hoped that in the territory ruled by Herod, a vassal king in the Empire, Roman peace could be restored by applying pressure to the heralds who proclaimed that Jesus of Nazareth had been raised from the dead. The miraculous escape remembered in today’s text is a parallel to various salvation miracles in sacred scripture (e.g., see Daniel 6).

In the text from 2^nd Timothy, the author gives the impression that Paul was writing in his final years of life, having endured many difficulties and been true to his Gospel vocation. He attributed his successes and longevity to God’s faithfulness. This was a philosophical “apology” (a summary explanation, not a statement of regret) for how he spent what might have been nearly 40 years of preaching and evangelizing. He used “his heavenly kingdom” as the metaphor for his life-long goal, being with God completely.

The Gospel business of both Peter and Paul was preaching, evangelizing, teaching, exhorting, correcting, persuading, reproving and edifying (building up!) the fellowship which was the logical consequence of hearing and embracing the Gospel. Notice that Jesus did not preach the Church. The Church was a result of preaching the Gospel and in associating in a fellowship of mutual love and concern by all who embraced the Gospel.

The Gospel text today is one of those “establishment” moments in which the early Church explained it’s appreciation for a stable structure in the Gospel fellowship. This role by the middle of the 1^st Christian Century had been attributed to Peter. In last evening’s Vigil Gospel text, we heard the Johannine Post-Resurrection setting reiteration of Peter’s task to shepherd Jesus’ disciples. In today’s Gospel text, a memory preserved in Matthew’s Gospel has Peter speak of a profound insight into Jesus’ personal and intimate connection to God and of his messianic role well before the inspiration of Easter or Pentecost. The assertion “you are Peter and on this rock...” (a Greek word play on the name “Peter”, in Greek “petros” or “rock”) and “to bind and to loose” are most fully understood as a practical metaphors for leadership wisdom. Jesus, as much as anyone before or since, appreciated how messy life could, would and must be. To include leadership in the disciples’ formation program was wise on Jesus’ part, and necessary for any who would shepherd disciples in the future. Leadership had to be culturally appropriate. In tribal villages, tribal customs prevailed. In the Roman Empire, imperial law prevailed. In fact, the Church literally inherited the imperial structure (including processes, customs, dress, terminology, and civic responsibilities) in the 4^th Century when the Emperor Constantine decreed Christianity would be legally tolerated, and himself became a catechumen. As history evolved, the empire was succeeded by medieval feudalism and princely power, while the evolving papacy preserved the imperial style along with much of the Western Roman Empire. The Renaissance, Reformation and succeeding centuries witnessed numerous power shifts, producing the Western world’s first modern democratic republic in the 18^th Century’s United States of America. The complexities of life, both in Western societies and in all other cultures, present opportunities about which the Church rather slowly, but surely, learns that every conceivable style of leadership is possible and even necessary. Whatever Jesus might have meant by “tend my sheep” in John 21 or “whatever you bind ... or ... loose ...” in Matthew, today’s realities demand modern wisdom and insight in order for leaders to be effective. Leaders must always look to proclaim and live the Gospel effectively within the cultures in which the Gospel is planted. Leadership styles and practices may change frequently, significantly and profoundly. The Gospel is very, very flexible. Human leadership tends too often to be inflexible or to learn flexibility later than in might. Wisdom preserves them each to the extent the proper wisdom is preserved: Gospel first; power second. Power serves the Gospel; the Gospel governs power.

This feast of Peter and Paul has effectively become a feast of the Roman Papacy. Perhaps it would be more fruitful if it were restored to a festival of preaching and evangelization, of teaching and explaining, of exhortation and edification. Peter and Paul were executed by the worst of Imperial Roman power. The Gospel power is the very opposite. Peter and Paul preached that Gospel, not earthly power. Gospel power builds up and frees, inspires and explains, provides insight and understanding all to the service of compassion, truth and life.

Here’s to Peter and Paul, heralds of Gospel life!