We are still trying to understand what it was about Marshall Applewhite, the leader of the Heaven's Gate cult, that attracted the thirty-eight who joined him in suicide. One who escaped the spell and left early speaks of the man's self-promotion and his almost hypnotic ability to control others. These observations do not help us understand the man's power to attract, but they do serve to highlight the contrast between leadership in a genuine religious community and leadership in a cult.
This Sunday we celebrate the men who, after Jesus, were the founding leaders of the Christian community-—Saints Peter and Paul. What is striking about these two leaders, who differed profoundly from one another in character and background, is that both found themselves thrust into the roles of leadership in the early Christian movement by a power beyond themselves. Peter the denier and Paul the persecutor both found their lives divinely altered and directed in ways they did not plan. Moreover, their lives were divinely supported in ways they could never have anticipated.
Today's readings focus mainly on Peter—his appointment as leader (Matthew 16) and his liberation from prison (Acts 12). The scene of his appointment is richly rooted in Israelite tradition and surprisingly playful in its language. When Simon bar-Jonah identifies Jesus as “the Christ, the Son of the living God,” Jesus tells him that his ability to understand him in that way came not from human savvy but from divine inspiration. And so Jesus makes Simon a foundation of the temple of the new community of Israel that he is bringing into existence. In naming him kepha (“rock” in Aramaic; petros in Greek, the same root that gives us petroleum and petrify), Jesus was not invoking a conventional given name common in first-century Palestine; he was creating a nickname with a venerable Hebrew lineage. It was the image used by Isaiah with reference to Abraham and Sarah, the founding couple of the people of Israel, when he said:
Look to the rock from which you were hewn, to the pit from which you were quarried. Look to Abraham, your father, and to Sarah, who gave you birth; When he was but one I called him, I blessed him and made him many (Isa 51:1-2).
The foundation of the Church, like rock upon rock, builds upon the covenant with Abraham. And just as Isaiah's oracle continues with the promise of divine restoration of Zion, with blessings of fertility and justice, Jesus adds a promise of divine support: "The gates [the structural stronghold of a city, and therefore a symbol of power] of the netherworld shall not prevail against it." The defense of this restored community of Israel will be God's doing, not that of humans.
The account of Peter's miraculous release from prison in Acts dramatically illustrates the fulfillment of that promise. The power of evil in the form of the tyrannical Herod Agrippa has already struck a blow against the Church in the beheading of James bar Zebedee. Peter is apparently next, but he gets sprung from prison by an angel. Luke is careful to narrate this event in a way that reminds us of the Exodus, the release of the people of Israel from their "imprisonment" in Egypt. He highlights the fact that this happens during the approach of Passover (the celebration of the Exodus event), and he reminds us of the Passover ritual in the angel's word to Peter, "Put on your belt and your san-dals" (see Exod 12:11). It helps to recall that this happens in a book whose last word is akolytos ("unfettered") — referring to Paul's preaching in prison: " ... preaching about the kingdom of God and teaching about the Lord Jesus Christ with boldness, unfettered" (translation mine, reflecting the order of the Greek text). Unlike the leaders of cults, Peter and Paul drew their leadership not from their ability to charm and control others but in their readiness to be charmed and controlled by God, who gave them unfettered free-dom, even in prison. The same can be true for us.
