Commemoration Sermon

By the Revd. Noel Kemp-Welch, M.A.

I do hope I am not doing anyone an injustice when I say that I do not remember a Commemoration Sermon about St. Peter. It does seem odd, doesn't it? Has it seemed too obvious a theme? Or have Commemoration preachers in recent years thought that we would know all about St. Peter in any case?

A few weeks ago Roger Depledge gave us a series of week-day readings on the theme of Courage. After considering three courageous women, Joan of Arc, Edith Cavell and Ann Frank, he finished off with two events in the life of St. Peter.

The first was his burst of courage—in the heat of the moment and with the support of his fellow Apostles—when he slashed at the ear of the High Priest's servant: and then the contrast of his abject failure when he found himself alone and inactive, faced with a sudden challenge out of the blue.

So Roger Depledge set the Peterite ball rolling: let us follow it up for a few minutes this morning, for St. Peter is so typically the ordinary man who suddenly finds himself caught up in the influence of Jesus.

Let us think of three other incidents which represent three stages in St. Peter's spiritual growth—indeed in the normal spiritual development of any of us.

The first is the moment when Jesus borrowed Peter's boat as a sort of floating pulpit from which to address the crowd on the shore. Peter had been fishing all night without any success. Now he was cleaning his nets and was obviously very reluctant to push out again. When Jesus suggested the idea it seemed plain daft. But against his instincts he did as Jesus had insisted, and to his immense surprise he netted a large shoal of fish. He had the reward which comes when we respond to Jesus's pressure, and it was then that Jesus promised him the far more satisfying reward of catching men.

What about ourselves? Can we say, as Peter did, that we have toiled all night and caught nothing; that we have genuinely tried to let Jesus into our lives and yet do not seem to have got anywhere? Perhaps we have: though I suspect that a good many of us have not even begun to try. If we have tried, then Jesus says to us: "Push on; don't give up feebly. You may get fed up, but stick to it," and eventually—perhaps quite suddenly—there will be a break through.

In the past few years I have had a number of letters from O.P.'s who didn't seem to get much, if anything, out of their religious experience at School. Yet like Peter, doing his regular job as a fisherman, they had been picking up experience without realising it. When suddenly the influence of Jesus had become an unavoidable thing in their lives they felt, like Peter, so ashamed that they had resisted him in the past. I can think of one O.P. who is now a lawyer in York, another who is a research scientist on the other side of the Pennines and another who qualified as a doctor and is now a lay evangelist in West Germany.

The second incident represents a new stage in Peter's growth toward maturity. At the moment when Jesus asked him who he thought him to be, Peter found himself making the whole-hearted statement that he believed Jesus to be the Christ, the Son of the living God. 12

When Jesus pointed out that he would be rejected by his fellow Jews and put to death, Peter did his best to deter him. Now he really cared for Jesus and it seemed horrible—unthinkable even—that such a man would be treated in this way. Perhaps, too, Peter had a sub-conscious feeling that if Jesus was going to be treated in this way the same sort of treatment might be coming to him. Jesus rounded on him sharply: "Get behind me, Satan".

However kindly meant, Peter's attempt to dissuade Jesus was really making things more difficult for the man he was coming to respect. And surely it is the reverse side of the coin of love that when we come to know someone more intimately we are tempted to use them for our own advantage, it may well be without realising what we are really doing. I am very conscious that that has been so in my own life. Yet, without doubt Peter was by this time genuinely devoted to his master. At this stage he has swung from rather unwilling obedience to somewhat over emotional concern for Jesus. And this brings me to the third episode.

Peter was staying at the little sea-side town of Joppa. While he was waiting on the roof-top, with mouth-watering smells of the mid-day meal coming up to him, he dozed off and had a strange dream of a ship's main-sail being let down containing all sorts of food which a Jew was forbidden to eat. Well, many of you know the rest of the story.

If ever a dream showed how a man's sub-conscious mind was working, this was it! And when, immediately afterwards, a little group came to him from the Roman Centurion Cornelius, Peter went to this Gentile's house without a moment's hesitation.

It was a spontaneous revolutionary thing to do. It was guaranteed to bring down on him the wrath of his fellow Jews. It was going clean against the whole of his upbringing and the conventions of his own people. Yet if Peter had not acted it is as certain as anything can be that we would not have been here this morning in a School dedicated to him.

Had it not been for Peter's dream and his reaction to it the whole of history might have been quite different and Christianity might have remained a closed shop to a tiny minority of pious Jews. But by this time we see a Peter who is mature, standing on his own feet, making his own decision and prepared to defend it.

Peter had reached maturity in a remarkably short time—as people do who have had some pretty scaring experiences. Perhaps in about four years, the length of time most of us are in St. Peter's. And in that short time we can see how Christian conviction evolves.

First, doing what we are told in the early stages, relying on the experience and wisdom of others, even if it doesn't make sense to us.

Then the dawning realisation that there is something altogether good and wonderful about the life of Jesus.

Finally, there comes the willingness to respond to his call, even if it means a complete break with our old way of life and the conventions in which we have been brought up.

In this last stage we set sail with the wind of the Holy Spirit behind us, not knowing where we shall be blown. Almost certainly we will end up miles from our starting point. It is very unlikely we will have an 13