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Sts. Peter and Paul
Today we come to the feast of Sts. Peter & Paul, and perhaps it offers us more than we first realize, so let us look at it a bit more closely. It is all about leadership. The first thing to notice is that leadership is not confined to a single human being. This is the feast of both St. Peter and St. Paul, and both exercise leadership, even if St. Peter has an additional ministry. In our liturgical texts we refer to these two as having “the first seats,” the chairmen. In icons of Pentecost Peter and Paul are pictured to the right and left of the very center of the bench on which the whole college of The Twelve is sitting. Obviously, they are not the only leaders, they are simply the chief leaders.
Let’s take a moment to compare these two individuals. Peter was a tradesman, a fisherman; while Paul’s family made their wealth from making tents. When we speak of tents here we do not mean sewing the little canvass shelters the Boy Scouts or an army might use on maneuvers, but in some cases far more elegant affairs for wealthy people traveling by caravan. I say that Paul’s family had money because Paul was a Roman citizen, not something a poor person could acquire if not born to it. Peter was probably barely literate if at all, while Paul studied Torah with the great Rabbi Gamaliel in Jerusalem. Peter came from a little backwater town up in a backwater province while Paul was from the very prosperous and cosmopolitan city of Tarsus, capital of the Roman Province of Cilicia in modern-day Turkey. Two very different personalities with two very different backgrounds, but they are together the chiefs of the apostles.
Now let’s look again at the word apostle. We all subscribed to the creed when we were baptized, and in it we profess to believe in one Church that is holy, universal and apostolic. This means more than that we can trace our lineage back to The Twelve. An apostle is a missionary. The Church is missionary in its essence. We are not to sit back and wait for the Lord to return, but to go out and spread the Good News that extends the Kingdom of God.
Where does leadership in the Church end? With Peter and Paul, with The Twelve? With the others who came to take their place, the bishops? How about the priests and deacons that the bishops ordained? The truth is that the whole Church is a community of leaders: you are a leader. Just as Peter and Paul were two very different personalities with very different gifts, each of us—as distinct and individual as we are—have different gifts and different opportunities, but not one of us is free of the obligation to be a missionary, a leader. Whether we are professionals or laborers, whether we are highly educated or not, whether we are people of means or not, we all are missionaries in the circumstances in which we live: in our workplaces and our homes, in our businesses and in our associations, for our neighbors and even at times for strangers we meet on a bus. Peter and Paul may indeed be the preeminent apostles, the foremost leaders, but to someone somewhere you may well be the most important leader!