Saints Peter and Paul

One thing I like about these two apostles is their unlikelihood as leaders:  Peter: brash, compulsive and often glib, who denied knowing Jesus shortly after his crucifixion, and Paul’s zeal for persecuting the early Christian community seem to create a perfect storm of apostolic inadequacy . But then again, the way God seems to reveal His purpose, all of this seems familiar. David, the first King, was chosen by God, and anointed by the prophet Samuel reluctantly when David’s older brothers would have made a much more reasonable choice. Also, there is Jacob’s call, just as late in life as his grandfather Abraham’s and after a life of deceit is given a new name by God: Israel. Moses, the one who leads his people out of Egypt replies to God’s call: “I am nobody. How can I go to the king and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?” If God chose the next president from a list of ten highly qualified candidates, He probably would choose the overworked but loyal 60-something secretary in the outer office who has been passed over for promotion numerous times for her eccentric behavior and who is not a “team player.” What can we learn, then, through Peter and Paul that suggests God continues to work in the all too human institutional Church?

Peter and Paul’s lives were defined by passion, and a type of stubbornness that often led them afoul of the community, but it was this weakness that God transformed into strength. Peter’s glibness led him to speak what he felt to identify Jesus as the Messiah; Paul’s zeal at persecution was transformed to a zealous apostle. God took these weaknesses and transformed them into strength. Paul, in particular, writes about his sense of inadequacy in numerous places in his letters. Here is an excellent example in writing to the Corinthians where he describes himself as “…the least of the apostles and do not even deserve to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God.”(1 Cor. 15:9). But Paul’s humility wasn’t simply a moment of hopeless debasement, but one keenly tailored to the problems in Corinth with ego abounding and divisions rife throughout the well-heeled community. Paul uses his weakness as a source of his evangelization because his life was a display of God’s grace. Following this verse, Paul writes “But by the grace of God I am what I am, and His grace toward me did not prove vain; but I labored even more than all of them, yet not I, but the grace of God with me.”

Our failings and weaknesses, keenly known and felt, too often are the proverbial “light under the bushel”.  Paul writes about one’s weaknesses being sources of great grace—good news! For it is often in our weaknesses that we are most vulnerable—open to God and to others. The great faith of the saints is often exemplified in their woundedness. Paul writes about God’s message to him through his weaknesses: "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me.  Both Peter and Paul continued to struggle with their personalities, but they lived lives keenly aware of God’s grace.

It is not despite our weaknesses that God’s grace is revealed to humanity, but through them, when our weaknesses are not hidden but shared as a source of God’s great love and grace.