St Peter’s Day

1994 (Year C), 26 June / Pentecost 5

St Peter de Beauvoir Town St Peter’s Day

One of the most enduring memories I have of being a young innocent curate; I really was; is of visiting the hospital where the vicar and I were part time chaplains. It was a small General Hospital in Wakefield. Tuesday was minor operations day and patients were shunted in and out all the time. I walked into Woman’s Surgical and marched up to a bed. I leant over a woman just as she began to come out of the anaesthetic. Big mistake. As she opened her eyes and saw me in a bright new dog collar her face just filled with terror. She screamed at the top of her voice, ‘Oh God, I’m there already!’ Now, the correct response presumably was, ‘You should be so lucky, St Peter is nowhere near as good looking as this.’ All I did do was panic myself and try to clamp my hands over her mouth saying, ‘Shush, shush, shush!’ It is to my knowledge the first and as yet only time I’ve been mistaken for St Peter.

And now, in spite of this, we come to remember and give thanks for the life, witness and ministry of Peter. We come to give thanks for the ministry of this church, dedicated to his name. We come to give thanks for what we see and what we share of God. Together we pray and look forward to the coming of the kingdom.

And at the entrance of that kingdom, so tradition tells us, stands Peter. Jesus entrusted him with the keys. He said to him, ‘I will give you the keys of the Kingdom of heaven.’ He’s holding them there in the painting behind me. Peter stands at the gateway where heaven and earth meet.

A strange thing but the parish church immediately next to the one where I used to work has, ‘This is the very gate of Heaven’, written above the door. The bus stop next to the church is known as, ‘The Gates of Heaven’. It’s the only place I know where you can ask again and again for, ‘One and two halves please to, ‘The gates of Heaven’, and keep being taken there.

And more than this, Jesus said to Peter, ‘whatever you bind on earth shall be considered bound in heaven; whatever you loose on earth shall be considered loosed in heaven’. Whatever Peter declares on earth will be considered so in Heaven. Jesus said those things to him. They are at the same time an immense gift and terrific responsibility. I believe the same things have been given to us also.

I really do wish that this church would also be known as ‘The Gates of Heaven’, and that we recognised the reality of what we are – Gatekeepers. For we are a community which does stand at the gate of heaven and earth.

We have been entrusted with a vision and we have all been called to the same vocation. And the vocation is this; to open, and to keep wide open the gates of heaven, so that all who want to, can walk in and share the glory. We have been entrusted with the gift to open the kingdom of heaven for our sisters and brothers. And they are entrusted to keep it open for us. Often that’s more difficult for us to deal with. We offer access or we block it, and they do precisely the same for us. It’s an enormous privilege; an incredible responsibility.

Just call to mind one or two of your relationships. The loving ones are comparatively easy. It’s fine to try and open the gates of heaven to them. Yet each one, no matter how insignificant or difficult it is; no matter how trivial, has the potential to open up the kingdom. Suddenly each one becomes precious. Each one vital. The day that you arrive home feeling absolutely shattered having been mistreated by everyone – to be faced with one more crisis, is the point you have the potential to allow your child, your partner, your friend, a glimpse into the kingdom. It’s a frightening prospect.

And the image of the gate is worth pursuing just a little farther. Very few gates allow access only one way. Of course it allows access so that what is outside might enter. It also allows what is inside to flow out. We have the possibility of allowing heaven to flood out and embrace earth. Now that really does need time to take in.

It seems to me that the Christian community – the community founded on ‘the rock’ called Peter – is unique in that it discovers Jesus in people, and that those people are the kingdom. It is unique precisely because participates with others in flinging wide the gates of heaven so that all may enter. Sinners, saints, rich poor, young and old can all stumble in. To do that it must itself remain open; allowing all to bring their gifts which will in turn enrich the whole and may even surprise us for they will open gates that we never even knew were there.

That is the vision. But it’s not the end. There is an end to all this gatekeeping. I want to leave you with one more picture. I want to remind you of the final, the very last vision in the book of Revelation of the Heavenly City. It has so the story goes twelve gates. It has no temple for ‘the temple is the Lord God the Almighty. And the City has no need of sun or moon to shine upon it, for the glory of God is it’s light ... By its light shall the nations walk; and the kings of the earth shall bring their glory into it, and it’s gates shall never be shut by day – and there shall be no night there; they shall bring into it the glory and the honour of the nations.’ The gates will never ever be closed. Pray, my sisters and brothers, for the coming of that Kingdom. AMEN