One of the things I’ve spoken about from time to time, is the misunderstanding so many people seem to have about holiness. For many people, holiness means nothing less than spiritual and moral perfection, but that really isn’t what it means to be holy. Holiness has nothing to do with perfection, of any kind; it has everything to do with dedication to God. And we can see that if we look at the Greek word agios.
Anyone who’s been to a Greek speaking part of the world will no doubt have noticed that the churches there are called Agios, followed by the name of a saint. So, whereas we would call a church St Peter’s, for example, the Greek’s would call it Agios Petros. So, in the Greek language, agios means ‘saint’. But agios is also the Greek word for ‘holy’ so, in Greek, the word for ‘saint’ and ‘holy’ is the same, and this means that in Greek, and therefore also in the New Testament, which was originally written in Greek, saints are holy people. That might not sound so surprising but, when we read about the people whom we call saints, we very quickly find that the saints, these holy people, were far from perfect.
A very common human trait is to idealise, if not actually idolise, the people we look up to, and that happens in the Church just as much as in any other area of human life. In the Church, we look up to the saints as examples of how to live good, Christian lives: we look up to them as examples of holiness, in fact. And so, we have a tendency to idealise them. But the saints were not perfect, they were not flawless marble statues, they were human beings with faults and failings, just like us. What makes the saints examples of Christian living for us, what makes them holy, is that they were dedicated to God in spite of their faults and failings. They’re examples to us, not because they managed to eradicate their faults, but because they learned how to be dedicated to God in spite of them. And we can see that in the lives of perhaps the two greatest saints of all, the saints whose lives and example we celebrate today, Saint Peter, and St Paul.
When we read about St Peter in the New Testament, he appears as something of a well-meaning, but rather impetuous, fool. He was the kind of person who, to use a modern phrase, opened his mouth before his brain was in gear. And not only did he speak without thinking, he acted without thinking too. And he certainly wasn’t a man who could be relied upon in a crisis; in Jesus’ time of greatest need, St Peter denied even knowing him, and this in spite of saying, just a few hours earlier, that he would die before he denied Jesus. And yet, in spite of all this, St Peter was the one whom Jesus chose to lead the Apostles and the early Church. The Acts of the Apostles show St Peter as the leader and spokesman of the Church, and as the first and greatest miracle worker among the Apostles. We know from St Paul’s letters that St Peter visited the Church in Antioch and probably Corinth too. And the writings of the Church Fathers in the late 1st and early 2nd Centuries tell us that St Peter, along with St Paul, was responsible for founding the Church in Rome. But, in spite of all this, St Peter still had his faults: chapter 2 of St Paul’s Letter to the Galatians make it clear that St Peter could be pressured into changing his mind and making poor decisions, that he could be hypocritical and, no doubt because of his status as the leader of the Apostles, he led others astray because of his hypocrisy. Nevertheless, the Church has always regarded St Peter as one of the greatest of the saints, one of the greatest of God’s holy ones, because of all he did in leading the early Church and proclaiming the Gospel, in spite of his faults.
In that second chapter of his Letter to the Galatians, St Paul speaks about opposing Cephas (St Peter) “to his face” because of St Peter’s hypocrisy, but St Paul himself was far from perfect. We know that, prior to his conversion to Christianity, he was a great persecutor of the early Church. And even though he did all he could to make amends for his earlier actions, he still had his faults after his conversion to Christianity. It’s quite clear from his letters in the New Testament that St Paul was convinced of the correctness of his own views and opinions, and it’s equally clear that he didn’t appear to suffer fools, or perhaps those whom he regarded as fools, those who disagreed with him, gladly. Judging from his letters, St Paul appears, at times, to be have been arrogant and abrasive, acerbic in his comments about or criticism of those he disagreed with or he felt had wronged him. He seems to have been argumentative and perhaps quite hot-tempered. And we know that St Paul was tormented by a “thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan” that was given to “harass” him and keep him “from becoming conceited”. We don’t know what this was, it may have been some kind of psychological problem or unpleasant character trait, it may have been an external problem, such as his own enemies and persecutors, or it may have been some kind of physical ailment. But whatever it was, it was clearly something St Paul would rather not have had because “three times” he “pleaded with the Lord about this, that it should leave (him)” but it didn’t. So, just like St Peter, St Paul had his problems and faults too, and yet it’s doubtful if anyone has ever done as much as St Paul to spread the Gospel, or has ever been more holy, more dedicated to God, than he was.
So, as we look at the lives and example of these two great saints, and indeed of any of those the Church regards as saints, we find that they didn’t become saints because they had no faults, they became saints because they were holy; they became saints because they managed to dedicate their lives to God, in spite of their faults. And that’s why they are such great examples to us: because we’re called to be just like them.
We know that Jesus called us “to be perfect”, and that is what we should aim to be, but we also know that we’re sinners with faults and failings, but those faults and failings don’t mean that we can’t be holy people who’ve dedicated our lives to God. So, let’s be saints ourselves. Let’s be the holy people we’re called to be. And if we think our faults and failings are holding us back from being holy, let’s simply remember the example of people like St Peter and St Paul and dedicate ourselves to God, nevertheless. And let’s remember too that, when St Paul prayed that his “thorn in the flesh” would be taken away, God’s answer was,
“My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”
And if God will not allow our ‘thorns in the flesh’, our faults and failings to prevent us from becoming saints, from being holy people, why should we?
Amen.
You’ll find the Propers for St Peter and St Paul here.
Parish Church of St Mark Chadderton 