Peter's Rehabilitation and Virtue Lists

Monday, December 15, 2008 -- Week of 3 Advent; Year One

Today's Readings for the Daily Office (Book of Common Prayer, p. 938)
Psalms 45 (morning) 47, 48 (evening)
Isaiah 8:16 - 9:1
2 Peter 1:1-11
Luke 22:54-69

Today our Gospel tells the story of Peter's three denials of Jesus. On one hand, we see Peter's loyalty and courage. Following Jesus' arrest, Peter is trying to get near enough to follow the proceedings. It is risky business to be identified with someone under arrest and suspicion of treason. His accent or maybe his clothing give him away as being from Galilee, and it is well known that Jesus and his party are from Galilee. He is challenged. Three times he denies knowing Jesus. The writing is poignant: "At that moment, while he was still speaking, the cock crowed. The Lord turned and looked at Peter." What a moment of grief and failure. Peter went away "and wept bitterly." The questioners begin to soften the prisoner before his interrogation, beating, hazing and disorienting him. These horrors still happen.

One of the remarkable and wonderful things about our faith is the rehabilitation of Peter. Both Judas and Peter betrayed Jesus on the same evening. Both were bitterly disappointed and contrite. But Judas despaired of the possibility that God's mercy and forgiveness could be as great as his failure, so in the ultimate act of control, he took his own life. Peter remained with his failure, and became a witness to the resurrection. Later Jesus came to him in a dramatic story in John's gospel and allowed him to reaffirm his love of Jesus three times. Jesus then commissioned him to leadership, and he became the de facto leader of the early church movement.

Sometime after Peter's death, we have the epistle we read from today written in his name, probably during the last decade of the first century. Peter is honored as a founder and authority for the early Christian movement.

The opening of 1 Peter has a delightful admonition to mature living. It invites us to a high calling: to "become participants of the divine nature." The chain of virtues the epistle lists is worth some reflection: "You must make every effort to support your faith with goodness, and goodness with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with endurance, and endurance with godliness, and godliness with mutual affection and mutual affection with love." That is not a bad list to recommit to each morning.

That passage reminds me of another chain of virtues that Paul offers in Romans 5. He opens that chapter with a foundational reminder -- we have peace because our justification to God is a free, unqualified gift through Jesus. Our faith is our simple acceptance of the gift of acceptance, "through which we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand." Paul also has a high calling: "We boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God." Then Paul offers this series of virtues: "knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us."

The two lists seem related. Each is a calling into divine union. Each rises to the ultimate -- love. Paul invites us to an approach that begins with suffering and ends with love. 1 Peter invites us into a journey that begins with faith and ends with love. You might take them as teachings for different days -- Paul for those tough days; 1 Peter for days that start well.

Lowell

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About Morning Reflections
Morning Reflections is a brief thought about the scripture readings from the Daily Office of Morning and Evening Prayer according to the practice found in the Book of Common Prayer of the Episcopal Church.

Morning Prayer begins on p. 80 of the Book of Common Prayer.
Evening Prayer begins on p. 117

An online resource for praying the Daily Office is found at www.missionstclare.com
Another form of the office from Phyllis Tickle's "Divine Hours" is available on our partner web site www.ExploreFaith.org at this location -- http://explorefaith.org/prayer/fixed/index.html


The Mission of St. Paul's Episcopal Church
is to explore and celebrate
God's infinite grace, acceptance, and love.

Visit our web site at www.stpaulsfay.org

Our Rule of Life

We aspire to...
worship weekly
pray daily
learn constantly
serve joyfully
live generously.

Lowell Grisham, Rector

St. Paul's Episcopal Church
Fayetteville, Arkansas