A Chair and a Half
Praised be the God and Father
of our Lord Jesus Christ,
he who in his great mercy
gave us a new birth;
a birth unto hope which draws its life
from the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead;
a birth to an imperishable inheritance,
incapable of fading or defilement,
which is kept in heaven for you
who are guarded with God’s power through faith;
a birth to salvation
which stands ready to be revealed in the last days.
As any good preacher does, I paid my due diligence and researched the history of 1 Peter for this occasion. It was clear to me that this reading for today was the blessing prefacing a longer teaching; but when was it written and to whom? That’s when I came across this explanation from a commentary: “[We] suggest [an authorship] . . . after the death of Peter and Paul, perhaps A.D. 70–90. The author would be a disciple of Peter in Rome, representing a Petrine group that served as a bridge between Palestinian origins of Christianity and its flowering in the Gentile world. The problem addressed would not be official persecution but the difficulty of living the Christian life in a hostile, secular environment that espoused different values and subjected the Christian minority to ridicule and oppression.” Reading this alone in my room I uttered an audible, “wow.” The relevance to our current cultural situation is astounding. After sitting with this for awhile, the reality that nothing much has changed since the first century is oddly comforting. I know that in the midst of the centuries following this letter, persecution of the faithful increases, religious wars ensue and controversy and scandal within the Church abounds. Yet amidst all of this hardship the Church grows and bears fruit. The great mercy of Jesus Christ gives us new birth, again and again; hopes are dashed but never diminished to despair. The Church remains a symbol of heaven, of the imperishable inheritance, incapable of fading or defilement and the means through which our salvation comes. This indeed is a great blessing.
Today we celebrate the Feast of the Chair of St. Peter: the chair that serves as a symbol of the Church but also as the ultimate bridge builder—the pontifex—between the religious and secular worlds. I suppose the idea of a chair being a bridge builder is an odd one. As a Rector, though, this idea makes a good deal of sense to me. When I began my ministry this fall as the new Rector of Ryan Hall, I was told my apartment would have some new furniture. Upon walking through the door my eyes focused immediately on this giant, way-oversized grey armchair. I will admit that my mind immediately joked: “Ah yes, my Rector Throne.” I learned shortly thereafter that this type of chair is deemed ‘a chair and a half’ for its peculiar size. It’s slightly smaller than a loveseat but slightly larger than a regular lounge chair. Being as short as I am, if I sit diagonally across the length of the chair my legs rest comfortably without hanging off the edge. This is indeed an extraordinary chair.
