Today we being the Apostles’ Fast. Luckily, this year, it only lasts one day (some years, it’s a month long!).
The length of this fast depends on how late Pascha and Pentecost are. If those feasts are early, it means we can fast longer. But, if they’re later in the year (as was the case this year), then the celebration of those feasts takes precedence over the fast.
The two Apostles we celebrate tomorrow (June 29th) are Peter and Paul.
You’ve probably noticed they they are always together in icons, and, very rarely, do they have their own icon.
But, why is that?
Well, the reason has to do with a clash the two Apostles had. Here’s Paul’s version of the story:
“Then after fourteen years I went up again to Jerusalem with Barnabas … Then I laid before them (though only in a private meeting with the acknowledged leaders) the gospel that I proclaim among the Gentiles, in order to make sure that I was not running, or had not run, in vain. … when they saw that I had been entrusted with the gospel for the uncircumcised, just as Peter had been entrusted with the gospel for the circumcised … they gave to Barnabas and me the right hand of fellowship, agreeing that we should go to the Gentiles and they to the circumcised. They asked only one thing, that we remember the poor, which was actually what I was eager to do.
“But when Cephas [the Hebrew name for “Peter”] came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he stood self-condemned; for until certain people came from James, he used to eat with the Gentiles. But after they came, he drew back and kept himself separate for fear of the circumcision faction. And the other Judeans joined him in this hypocrisy, so that even Barnabas was led astray by their hypocrisy. But when I saw that they were not acting consistently with the truth of the gospel, I said to Cephas before them all, ‘If you, though a Judean, live like a Gentile and not like a Judean, how can you compel the Gentiles to live like Judeans?'” (Galatians 2:1-21, edited for length)
Essentially, what had happened was that Paul preached to Peter and the other Judea-Christians in Jerusalem, and they agreed that Paul’s version the gospel was spot on.
Later, Paul was in Antioch and so was Paul. Peter was living according the gospel as Paul had been preaching it, but when some folks from Jerusalem came, he started living in a way that was contrary to the gospel. (In this case, the matter revolved around whether Judeans could eat with Gentiles who weren’t circumcised.)
Paul was not happy with Peter. As Paul saw it, Peter had betrayed the gospel (you should also be reminded of the time Peter denied Christ three times).
Though it seems like a trivial matter to us–who you eat with or don’t eat with–for Paul it was a bid deal.
Eating together, like communion at Liturgy, was a sign of fellowship: communion in Christ. Not eating together is a sign of broken fellowship and a fractured Body of Christ; or, to think of it another way, if eating together is a sign of the unity that the gospel brings, then not eating together is an undoing of the gospel.
So, what does Paul do? Well, in good Pauline fashion, he calls Peter out; he puts him on the spot.
And, the stage is set for an epic showdown.
But, this match between two preeminent Apostles isn’t just a historical footnote. It tells us a lot about the gospel and continues to challenge us in several ways:
- Our identity is not centered around identities given to us by secular society. Instead, once we’ve been baptized into the Body of Christ, we are now “Christian,” and that’s our primary identity. So, even if the person sitting next to us in church is “different” than us, they are still our brother or sister in Christ with whom we are in communion (i.e., a loving relationship).
- We shouldn’t compromise the gospel message by skipping God’s Heavenly Banquet. It’s easy to distracted by society around us. It’s easy to “skip church” thinking to yourself, “Well, I can go next week.” But gathering to eat (commune) together is a BIG DEAL! It’s the family dinner that defines who we are as Christians.
- We need to take the gospel seriously. Now, this doesn’t mean we can’t or shouldn’t struggle with the gospel; after all, “Israel,” another name we go by, means to “struggle with God.” What it means is that we have to take the gospel seriously enough in order to be able to struggle with it just as Peter and Paul struggled with it.
- And, finally, if we do have a disagreement with another another member of our Christian family, we should learn to approach the situation in a loving way.
So, what happened to Peter and Paul? Well, if you get any insights from their brotherly embrace in the icon, is seems their struggle brought them closer together than ever before! And, their iconic showdown and subsequent embrace is now an eternal part of our Orthodox tradition.