We celebrate Saint Peter and Saint Paul together today – not because they don’t deserve their own days – indeed, they each have their own singular observance in January, commemorating important moments in their spiritual lives – the Confession of Peter, the Conversion of Paul.  But today’s feast day puts them both together, in special commemoration of their deaths as martyrs.  Tradition tells us that they both died in Rome in 64 AD during the persecutions of the Emperor Nero.  Tradition says that Peter was crucified, head down, and Paul was beheaded.  The executions did not happen on the same day, and apparently did not happen on June 29, either.  But this day was chosen for something that happened about 200 years later – when their bodies were exhumed and taken to the Catacombs for safekeeping, during a different persecution phase, that of Emperor Valerian in 258.  Early Christians did not want the graves of these great saints to be desecrated by the Romans, but rather that their remains would be treated with special veneration by the faithful.

 Given the enormous influence of these two men, what can one say in a ten-minute homily?  I am so humbled by their witness and ministry that I am left nearly speechless.  Nearly.

 Peter and Paul had very different personalities, and our New Testament scriptures tell us much about their lives.  Peter was a plain, uneducated fisherman working in Galilee, who caught Jesus’ message immediately and became a devoted follower and leader of the movement.  Peter was often impetuous, and very human, giving comfort to centuries of those who came after, knowing that Jesus loved him no matter what.  Paul, on the other hand, was well-educated and highly intelligent, though impetuous in his own way, often insistent on his own way of doing things.  He may be the first diagnosable obsessive-compulsive Christian.  But you’ve got to love the guy – he would do anything for our Lord, despite the fact that he never actually met him in his earthly existence.  Paul traveled, wrote letters, endured prison seven times, and carried on his ministry with zeal and absolute certainty of the Kingdom of God.  We look back over 2000 years at the lives of these amazing founders of the church, and in the process, look at the history of the movement they started.

 Norm and I have just returned from two and one-half weeks in France, and in that time we walked through centuries of history.  We toured the Loire Valley, visiting many chateaux and fortified castles.  We saw monuments to aggression and military power, such as the Arch of Triumph in Paris, a tribute to Napolean’s wars and victories.  We saw many references to Joan of Arc, her bravery and her fiery death. We visited a castle where Catherine di Medici lived – she, who ordered the massacre of thousands of Protestants on St. Bartholomew’s Day in 1572.  Two thousand years of Christian history in wars, fortified castles, and persecution of religious differences.  On the one hand, these events were evidence of the absolute failure to hear Jesus’ message of peace and nonviolence; they were evidence that Christianity is constantly getting off track.  But on the other hand, we also saw many tributes to faith and Christian love.  We walked through the Chartres Cathedral, experienced the beautiful stained glass windows, saw the labyrinth on the floor, and knew that Christians had been trying to find their way to Christ through symbolic and artistic means for centuries, no matter what wars raged outside.  In many ways, it seemed like the French were standing in for all of us, trying to follow Christ but getting sidetracked more often than not.

 But I want to tell you about the best moment, a redeeming moment, when it all came together, and I did not despair.  It was last Sunday morning, when we went up to the high hill above Paris known as Monmartre, where an arts colony thrived in the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries.  We went up on Sunday morning because that is the way it worked out in our tourist frenzy to see everything, having spent the previous four days in museums and castles.  Finally we had a morning just to hang out in Monmartre!

It’s funny, you know.  No matter what your motivation, God can work with you.  We wandered into the big church, the Basilica of the Sacred Heart, or Sacre Coeur.  It is huge, with a large mosaic of the Risen Christ in the copula ceiling.  We went into the center of the seating, to get a better look.  We sat down.  And we stayed.  The service began, in French, with Roman Catholic liturgy that was very familiar.  We were drawn into the beauty and the mystery and awed by the majesty of the space, and the reverence of the faithful – there were about 500 people in attendance.  The music was glorious, chanted by nuns.  Incense wafted around the altar.  The readings were the same ones you heard that day – there is a commonality of religious experience that connected us with you, and with Christians all over the world.  Peter and Paul founded a universal church, and we felt that connection, that universality.  We were entranced.

 And then I noticed all the other people.  We were seated in the center of the building.  All around the edges, there was a constant stream of tourists.  I would guess that thousands of tourists walked around us during the service – walked around the edges in a constant circle.  I hope it was a good experience for them, on the fringes.  They had come in to see a church, and the church was doing what churches do – worshipping God in community. 

 I hope that silent parade of tourists could feel the beauty of the service, could be touched by the faith of the 500 souls in the center, could be drawn to God through experience, even from the edges.  I was reminded of a poem by T.S. Eliot where he described “the still point of the turning world…where past and future are gathered.”*  Elliot envisioned the still point around which the entire world revolves, like a massive gyroscope, where time is contracted -- past, present and future -- all of human time encompassed in God’s time.  The tourists in the church revolved around the still point of reverence, and, if they were open to the experience, perhaps they could feel the stillness, the beauty, the purpose of the place.  In the center is the sacred heart of Christ.

 Now who am I to criticize the tourists, when Norm and I were tourists ourselves?  We came into the church as tourists, arriving at the time of the service almost by accident, and we were drawn to the center.  It had not occurred to us earlier that morning to worship at the Basilica.  But God will take you wherever God finds you.  We were drawn to the center, and I hope others were drawn in some way, too.

 And so I consider the timeless message of Christ, and his constant call to all of us, to draw near to the center and feel the love of God.  Saints Peter and Paul began this invitation 2000 years ago.  Often in Christianity’s history, we Christians have misinterpreted the invitation and we have gotten it wrong; but there is still the potential to get it right.  Despite centuries of war and persecution, there are still moments of stillness, quiet and beauty.  There is stillness at the center that can reach out to those on the fringes and change their lives. 

 Perhaps this has happened to you personally, bringing spiritual centering to your soul when you enter this house of God.  A place of beauty, like this one, can be a still point in the center, affecting us ourselves, and affecting people around us in Downtown Canton, who may be drawn into this quiet place to center themselves.  We can reach out to the circling populace, we can invite them in and offer them something beautiful, something sacred.  In the tradition of Saints Peter and Paul, we can bring our passion for Christ into a world circling around us, and offer our still point in love. 

Amen

 *T.S. Elliot, The Complete Poems and Plays, “Four Quartets, Burnt Norton,” p. 119, Harcourt Brace Javanovich, Publishers, New York 1971.

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