No Buns for Peter and Paul
Why Their Legacy Needs No Festival
The apostles Peter and Paul are remembered on 29th June, a little overshadowed by the Feast of St John the Baptist on 24th June. In some places, these dates marked the beginning and end of a season of open-air celebrations, shared hospitality around bonfires in the streets while the days were long and the crops were ripening in the field. No-one was hurrying into the field to gather in the harvest. It was an enormous task. Today, a gigantic combine harvester would clear a vast field in a couple of hours. In the 14th century it would take dozens of men and boys days on end. Why rush? Enjoy the sunshine.
Some communities may have held back mid-summer celebrations until 29th June if their church was dedicated to Peter and Paul. Today, 299 churches are known as ‘St Peter and St Paul’. You’ll find plenty of them in the towns and villages of Somerset, such as the ones in Shepton Mallet, Wincanton, South Petherton and Churchstanton.
Neither Peter nor Paul have much in the way of church or folk tradition surrounding them. No bun is baked in their honour or ceremonial rite performed in their name. Perhaps it’s because their standing in the New Testament speaks for itself. Peter is, essentially, the leader of the disciples and then the leader of the early Church, the first Bishop of Rome. The Pope is the successor to St Peter which is why the Basilica in the Vatican bears his name.
Paul the persecutor of Christians, whose dramatic conversion is remembered on the 25th January, becomes the Apostle to the Gentiles. He travels all over the Mediterranean and eventually to Rome, writing plenty of the New Testament in the process.
There is so much that could be said about them individually, but let us consider them as a pair, since they are celebrated together. Let us note this: we would not have picked either man for either job. And yet, the Lord did exactly that.
Jesus did not even begin with Peter. He chose Andrew to call his brother Peter, both young uneducated Galilean fisherman. It is hard to imagine anyone less promising. Galilee is a backwater. They’re not even shepherds as Abel, Jacob, Moses and David had been. They are fisherman, not a noble profession to 1stCentury Jews. The only other person to get wet like that in Old Testament is Jonah.
Throughout the Gospel accounts of Jesus’s ministry, we see Peter leap in feet first, perhaps only saying what everyone is thinking. Heart on sleeve, brain frequently in neutral, he refuses to let Jesus wash his feet and then, once corrected, demands Jesus wash his head and hands as well. Within hours, he denies even knowing Jesus. Peter is an unlikely candidate to be declared the rock on which Christ said he would build his church.
Peter Post-Pentecost
Peter gives us all hope. It’s not because ‘he gets it right in the end’, or is ‘true to himself’. Today, he would be encouraged to lean into his authentic Galilean fishing origin story. No, at Pentecost, he is transformed by the Holy Spirit. He stands up and preaches an astonishing sermon, quoting the scriptures like a Rabbi. Peter becomes the Apostle to the Jews or, as the Apostle Paul puts it:
For God, who was at work in Peter as an apostle to the circumcised, was also at work in me as an apostle to the Gentiles. (Galatians 2:8)
Meanwhile, Paul has been sent to the Gentiles. Paul was not one of them. In fact, he was far from being a Gentile as it is possible to imagine. Paul was:
… circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; in regard to the law, a Pharisee; as for zeal, persecuting the church; as for righteousness based on the law, faultless. (Philippians 3:5-6)
Apart from all the persecuting, Paul is the ideal candidate to wow his fellow Jews into believing in Jesus. He already knew the scriptures and was trained in rhetoric and argument. And yet Paul is the one sent on the road and across the waves – like Jonah – to take the gospel to the Greeks and the Romans.
God does not choose the people we would expect to do the things we would expect. Look through the Church of England calendar to see those who are remembered centuries later and you will find an astonishing cast of characters who felt completely unsuited to the greatness thrust upon them.
Thomas Cranmer was a humble academic, thrust into the limelight by God’s providence – and Henry VIII. Julian of Norwich bricked herself into isolation for prayer and contemplation. John Bunyan, similarly, allowed himself to be imprisoned while he wrote Pilgrim’s Progress, one of the best-selling books in human history. God used an eccentric man like John Wesley to call tens of thousands to repentance and faith.
Who defines greatness anyway? Paul says it is nothing to be pursued. He would be happy that the Feast of St Peter and Paul is barely noticed by the Church. He explains why as he continues in Philippians 3:
But whatever were gains to me I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in him.
God could be using you to do something truly unexpected. Let us do the unexpected: follow Christ wherever he leads.
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Who REALLY Brought Christianity to England?
Was it Joseph of Arimathea? Did those feet in ancient time walk about England’s green and pleasant land? Did he come to Glastonbury? Did his staff turn into a tree that lives to this day? How has the story of the Holy Thorn been used over the centuries to tell a story about Christianity in England? I made a YouTube video about that on a glorious summer’s day. Would you like to see it?
And don't forget to check out the Wycliffe Papers:
