Thank You for Your Company!

An old saying has it that you can learn a lot about a person from the company they keep. The Pharisees who watched Jesus so disapprovingly obviously thought so, as they watched him surrounded so often by joyous, needy people. Well, in the Church we have been keeping excellent company this June, remembering our saints in Morning Prayer, and then celebrating St Alban in style. The holy ones of God offer us their own powerful blessing.

Now, of course, we are celebrating St Peter, one of the best known saints in our tradition and patron of our church. There are many references to him in our scriptures. He was clearly a powerful character, trusted by Jesus to spread the good news of God's love for all people. One of my favourite stories occurs near the beginning of St Mark's Gospel, where Jesus visits Peter's house in Capernaum and cures Peter's mother-in-law of fever. It is so short. But it reminds us that there are women in our story!

Then there is the moving account of Peter flinging himself out of the boat on the Sea of Galilee, in order to obey Jesus's invitation to come to him (Matthew 14:22-23); happy and rapt, until he senses the wind whipping up the choppy waters. How many of us suffer often from divided attention and so risk separation from what we most desire?

And of course there is the famous story of Peter in the courtyard of the high Priest's house, denying that he knew Jesus, as Jesus is led to trial. All four gospels record this story. So we know that Jesus put his ultimate trust, not in a make believe super hero, but in a fallible human being.

Like Jesus's companions, we are all of us very different people. Joyous and needy by turn. But week by week, in the long shadow cast by St Peter, we meet and share the story of Jesus. (Thank you to our friends from Marlborough Road Methodist Church for joining us on Sunday!) and become that bit more alive, that bit more ourselves. We couldn't do it without each other - and wouldn't want to. Because we have all been trusted and chosen by God, in that amazing way that Jesus trusted and chose Peter.

Thank you, Lord, for the gift of St Peter,

for his humanity and his great love for you.

As we celebrate him

help us to find you in our midst,

the source and focus of our community

in this and every age.

Amen