A Tale of Two Peters
He said to him a third time, “Simon, son of John, do you love me?” Peter was grieved because he said to him the third time, “Do you love me?” and he said to him, “Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you.” Jesus said to him, “Feed my sheep.” (John 21:17)
None of the four Gospels stops at the news of Jesus’ resurrection; each of them expand upon and extend the narrative in a unique way. St. Luke includes details not found in Matthew, such as the conversation with two disciples on the Road to Emmaus. In Mark we find those words which should be known to every Christian: “Whover believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned.” (Mark 16:16). John calls to memory Jesus’ very first order of business after he appeared risen from the dead to his apostles. Our Lord reinstates St. Peter as an apostle. Peter, who had denied knowing him before he was tried and crucified.
It is certainly not the case that, if Peter had stood up for Jesus in the temple’s outer Court of Women, he would have been able to save our Lord from unjust trial and execution. But make no mistake: our Lord meant business when he told his disciples that “everyone who acknowledges me before men, I also will acknowledge before my Father who is in heaven, but whoever denies me before men, I also will deny before y Father who is in heaven.” (Matthew 10:32-33) Peter had sinned. Was this the leader whom the Church was to look up to, the one whom Jesus personally awarded the keys to the kingdom of heaven (16:19)?
The Harry Potter series by author J. K. Rowling is something of an allegory for the Gospel. No, unlike Holy Scripture, Harry Potter is neither inspired nor inerrant. It is fiction. When Warner Bros. Studios and actor Daniel Radcliffe thrust the scarred, bespectacled unlikely hero into the public eye, I came aware of how divisive Rowling’s fantasy world could be – especially among Christians. One of the more astute criticisms of Harry Potter I heard was from a friend in university. She complained that the story did not offer sufficient demarcation between “good” and “evil.” It is a sound argument. However, I disagree. Make of it what you will. However, no retelling of the Gospel can ever be written about perfect people for perfect people.
It is for sinners Christ Jesus came to die and rise to new life. In my church office I have a portrait of the literary figure Albus Dumbledore: the beloved Headmaster of Hogwarts Academy. Making up the background of the portrait is page from The Life and Lies of Albus Dumbledore, a testament to his checkered past. Much of the seventh book is dedicated to “dispelling” (if I may) the main protagonists’ idealized image of their white bearded father figure.
The earlier installments of the Harry Potter series feature their own Peter – Peter Pettigrew, small of stature and decidedly lacking moral fibre. Peter Pettigrew, not unlike St. Peter the Apostle, caved under pressure. Pettigrew betrayed his friends to prison sentences and death, ultimately casting his lot with the dark side. The side he believed to be bigger, more powerful, or more promising for someone as small and ineffectual as him. The author Rowling (whose stance in the current “culture wars” affirms she stands by what she has written), while not endorsing Pettigrew’s abhorrent acts, affords him a glimmer of redeeming grace which is not captured in the cinema adaptation.
In the case of saint-and-sinner Peter, he was commanded to make a bold witness to what he knew: Jesus was the Messiah, a falsely condemned criminal who had done nothing against God’s (or Roman, or Jewish) law. It did not matter whether he would be believed or whether he would have to make good on his rash vow even that he was prepared to die with Christ (Luke 22:33). Too often we frail and fallen humans who make up the Church on earth give in to calculating and catastrophizing thoughts. If I do this, then it will not help; if I fail to do this, it will do no harm.
And just the same as “good” and “evil” actions cannot be measured by their anticipated outcome (utilitarianism), we are also called to refrain from too easily placing people into “good” and “wicked” categories. The character Beatrice in The Divine Comedy explains, when she gives the reader a tour of heaven, with a touch of good sense: “Nor should one be too quick to trust his judgment; be not like him who walks his field and counts the ears of corn before the time is ripe.” “No Mr. or Miss Know-It-All should think, when they see one man steal and one give alms that they are seeing them through God’s eyes, for one may yet rise up, the other fall.” (Paradise XIII, 130-32, 139-41). A better way of saying “judge not” can hardly be thought of.
I am not sure where the following stock phrase originated, but it is on point: “love the sinner while hating the sin.” There is grace for Peter. If he had never met our Lord after his resurrection, he, like Judas Iscariot, may have died in his sins and despair. But Christ Jesus does meet Peter. He acknowledges Simon Peter to be a believer with the rhetorical question, “Do you love me?” and he reinstates the rough and rugged fisherman to once again go fishing for men. Never again would Peter knowingly and intently sin against his Lord. One is hard pressed to believe Peter’s life after that point was perfect. In fact, if we believe St. Paul, he made more grievous errors.
But even in this, the white bearded Prince of the Apostles sets a pattern for everyone who has encountered Christ crucified and risen. The Baptismal waters cover all our sins; and daily we rise to new life with Jesus long before it comes our appointed time to die. The distinction between saint and sinner, good and evil, will never be as clear cut as we want it to be, whether in the real world or in fantasy. A bleeding and condemned criminal is a far cry from the knight in shining armour we’ve been told will rescue us from all our afflictions. The ends do not justify the means – unless, of course, we have in view God’s plan, which is nothing short of the redemption of the world, “making peace by the blood of (Christ’s) cross” (Col 1:20). That is good news for us and for our neighbour.
