Yesterday I had the privilege of being in the gathering at Wakefield Cathedral for the ordination of new deacons for this Diocese of Leeds – a scene repeated around the nation, and in other dioceses again today.
It was joyful, and hot, and a stirring of reminiscences, and a remarkable tying together of lives led around many unexpected corners by God’s providence, and a deposit of hope for what is to come.
These new deacons looked awed and happy and zealous. They, I am sure, will be nothing like the Yorkshire curates whom Charlotte Bronte skewered in her novel of this area: Shirley. Those young men of the 19th c. spent their working days visiting each other, feasting, drinking and arguing merrily.
Peter and Paul, the pillars of the Church, and the apostles for whom we thank God today, we meet at times in the scriptures also eating and arguing. It is remarkable how consistent the witness is that they met one another, and influenced one another. But their feasting and arguing was not the self-referential indulgence of Charlotte Bronte’s curates. Rather, both Peter and Paul were working out how this treasure of good news, which had been delivered to them, could be received by their generation across the Mediterranean. It was not just a message. It was a life, a life lived in common and in common care for one another, and a life turned toward others, to whole societies and to those in need. This new good news, in short, was carried by something the world had not seen before, the Church. That is to say, an ekklesia – those called out by God -out of self-reference and into hope for the world.
The Church to which we belong is this same Church, this same ekklesia. Today it is not often spoken about as God’s sign of hope for the world. But it should be. The Church we hear about month by month in the news sounds all too human, and fallible – even failing. Do you enjoy reading about the Church? I don’t. That is the surface, the appearance. But the heart of the Church can’t be lost. It can’t be lost – it is indefectible – because it is Christ Jesus who built it and builds it still – Christ who as Son of God, the living One, is the divine presence among us and is life. Simon his friend opened his heart to see this truth in the man whom he accompanied day by day – and the knowledge came to him. It came to him not as human understanding but as the uncovering of divine truth behind the appearance of the world: “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” We can’t but hear the shock and overwhelming joy in Simon’s voice when he declares this. It changes everything, becomes the key to everything, God-with-us. No wonder Simon himself gains a new name and in this knowledge, which is also love, becomes a rock, Peter, foundation of a new people.
You can think for yourself how this is true for Paul as well. And why it was that the one of them who was an unlearned fisherman and who deserted his Lord became apostle to the Jews. And the one of them who had studied Jewish Law and radiated zeal more than all his contemporaries became the apostle to the other nations, the gentiles – as Paul says of himself: unknown, weak and foolish.
At Mattins we heard the prophet Zechariah’s striking vision of the lampstand with seven lights which, he is told, are the eyes of the Lord which range through the whole earth. And of the two olive trees on the right and on the left, supplying the fuel to the lamp: the two sons of oil who stand by the Lord of the whole earth. Christians love to interpret these olive trees as Simon Peter and as Saul become Paul. Be that as it may, notice the striking import of the vision. The light of God which brings light to the world draws on human beings – the olive trees fuel the light.
God, in God’s wisdom, and mercy, and unshakeable love for us, has chosen that the good news of His salvation and the living icon of His presence will be mediated by ordinary, and very fallible, human lives. Peter – Simon Peter – and Paul – Paul who was Saul – wrestled with questions much like the ones we face today. They each prayed. They each reflected and argued and spoke out. They encouraged others. They remembered their failings. They didn’t always agree. And through them Christ built His Church, the vessel of hope. So when you pray for the Church today, for Pope Leo, for this Church of England, for the next Archbishop of Canterbury and the next Archbishop of Wales, for the new deacons and priests ordained this Embertide, and for yourself and for each other, pray knowing that God’s love for us is such, is so deep and inexhaustible, that he chooses the daily lives of men and women to be the fuel for the light of the world, in succession to the apostles, Peter and Paul. And give thanks. Amen.