Sermon for Sunday, June 29th 2025

June 29, 2025
Saints Peter and Paul

Very truly, I tell you, when you were younger, you used to fasten your own belt and go wherever you wished. But when you grow old, you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will fasten a belt around you and take you where you don’t wish to go.

Please be seated.

Friends,

When the Lectionary was put together — our Table of Readings which shapes our every Sunday liturgy, and the particular readings and prayers for the Feast of Saints Peter and Paul – when today’s readings were brought together, the framers wanted to nod in the direction of each of these giants in the early history of the Church.

In the direction of Paul we have Paul speaking to his protégé, Timothy, in a farewell speech. But the writer is also speaking to us. We get to listen in. In the direction of Peter, we have not Peter but Jesus admonishing Peter “Feed my sheep”. But it’s also a farewell speech. And, of course, the author is also speaking to us.

First, the voice of Paul in my own translation.

“As for me, I am already being poured out in self-sacrifice, and the time for me to go is now. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have guarded the faith. Ahead, there is set aside for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord … will give me, and not to me alone but also to all who have longed for his return.”

The context, is that time has run out for Paul and Jesus has not returned as Paul had hoped. Late in life, Paul has discovered that God works in God’s own time and that time has a dimension he had not anticipated. The Kingdom will come in fits and starts in its own time.

But Paul is dying. He is spent – that’s how he sees himself – he is spent in the service of others: poured out as a libation … an ancient turn of phrase … spent in self-giving. Drawn down that others might be drawn up.

He doesn’t know the precise day, or hour, but he knows that the wide road is behind him, that a narrow road lies ahead and where he could make big choices in the past

…  the choice to take up the journey of the people of the Way, for example …
the choice to give up persecuting the Christians and join them …
to teach the People of the Way …
to become a pastor and an evangelist for the People of The Way …
the choice to honour the hospitality of Lydia
and the women who were the earliest among the People of The Way …
to choice to be a pastor or priest to his last breath …
but where he could make big choices in the past, he could make fewer choices now; his world closing in; his travelling days are done; and a narrow road unfolds ahead.

There is something deeply moving about this passage. The word “pathos” comes to mind.  Pathos. There is an element of deep sadness as he commends the great wide journey to those who come after. So Paul.

And then Jesus and Peter.

“Let me tell you, when you were younger, you used to fasten your own belt and to go wherever you wished. But when you grow old, you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will fasten your belt and take you where you don’t want to go.”

Ush. At my station, that cuts a little too close to home or maybe to the home.

But you see, Jesus is also dying. Not quite in the same way. Paul was being diminished by disease and the infirmities of age. He was sick. His eyesight is failing he’ll tell us in next week’s reading. But Jesus’ road has narrowed also. Differently, of course. And young in life. But his end is near, and he’s less than half my age.

His pastoral instincts will remain, to the end … “Mary … take care of John. John … take care of Mary.” Peter … Take care of my flock. I know you can do it.

In French we’d say something like “Courage, bon brave. … Tu sais faire.” (or in contemporary French “T’sais faire.”) Take heart. You can do it. It is within you to do it. Jesus to Peter.

In both readings there is an important element of sadness – not despair … sadness at the world’s truths, at lives coming to a close … and of commendation and encouragement. Paul and Jesus share a witness of “you can do it” – the journey is now yours — commendation. Paul to Timothy. And a generation earlier … Jesus to Peter.

I think these elements have always been significant aspects of the Christian journey. Christians are no strangers to sadness. Roads narrowing; roads not taken. Journeys cut short. But also, to encouragement and commendation. With food for the journey. And companionship for the journey. Bits of real-world sadness, to be sure, but so, too, encouragement for the journey and commendation of the journey itself.

You can do it. Here’s some food. You can do it. Here’s a friend.

It seems to me that this place is a place of some shared sadnesses, joys and sorrows both, but it is first, and foremost, and always a place of great encouragement.

Encouragement to stay the course;
encouragement to set aside that which is unworthy;
encouragement to protect the vulnerable;
encouragement to assist the less and differently-abled;
encouragement to honour the whole human family
whether any particular example looks like you or not;
thinks like you or not; speaks like you or not; lives like you or not;
or loves like you or not.

We share elements of sadness, we do –joys too, at other times — but encouragement always. Saints Peter and Paul lived in a world governed by that truth – an extraordinary world of encouragement in a journey commended to those who came after, to Peter and Timothy, and in the long arc of history and this moral universe, a journey commended to us.

Silence for reflection.

And may the church say “Amen”. Amen.

André Lavergne CWA (Pastor)
Honourary Assistant,
Church of St. John the Evangelist, Kitchener.