The Most Important Thing

Yesterday, I wrote a little about Anselm, a figure from medieval church history who spent a large part of his life looking for a refuge. I resonate with Anselm's story even though unlike Anselm, I have never been homeless. For the most part, I had a happy childhood, but I did grow up in a foreign country. By the time I was a teenager, the time of a person's life when they most want to fit in, I stuck out like a sore thumb everywhere I went. As a result, I resonate with Anselm's longing for a refuge he can take shelter in.

Today, I want to talk about someone else from medieval church history, Peter Waldo. Peter was a successful merchant from southern France who in his 30s began to doubt almost everything the church he was preaching. Since he was a wealthy man, he was able to commission a couple of monks to translate the New Testament into French. He was shocked by what he read. The early church looked nothing like medieval Catholicism. Doctrines like indulgences, purgatory, and transubstantiation weren't even mentioned. When the pope declared that all Catholics had to believe in transubstantiation on pain of death, he was profoundly troubled. He kept his misgivings to himself, though. He didn't want to rock the boat.

Around 1175, however, Peter had an experience that rocked the boat for him and knocked him out of it. At a garden party he was hosting, a close personal friend who was about the same age as him suddenly collapsed and died on the spot. Peter spent weeks grieving the man, who had been the picture of health, and wondering where his soul had gone. He wondered where his would have gone if he had been the one to die. During this time, he read his New Testament for solace. 

The preaching of Jesus convinced Peter that God was calling him to sell his material goods and give the proceeds to the poor. He began preaching on the street. His first sermon was based on Jesus' words. "You cannot serve two masters - God and money." He began telling people that the Bible doesn't say anything about purgatory or transubstantiation and calling them to a simple life of humility and obedience to Christ. Before long, he had several followers who called themselves the "Poor in Spirit." Since they contradicted much of what the church was teaching, the local bishop banned him from preaching. Peter appealed his case to the pope in Rome, but the pope considered him a menace to the church. Peter refused to stop preaching, so the church excommunicated him.

Peter's message spread like wildfire anyway and he spent the rest of his life preaching and evading church authorities. Eventually, his followers (the Waldensians) were forced to move high into the Italian Alps, which was the only place they could be safe from persecution. Four hundred years later, during the Protestant Reformation, they aligned themselves with the Reformers in nearby Switzerland.

A couple of years ago, I had an experience similar to Peter. I was awakened at 2 a.m. by my phone buzzing. When I opened it, I had a text message that said that my college roommate had died. Like Peter's friend at the garden party, he had been the picture of health. He had ambitious business plans, a wife and two beautiful children. Like Peter, his death has caused me to ask what the most important thing in life really is. Unless a person has something worth dying for, I'm not sure they're really living. Peter Waldo found that something and left no doubt about which master he was serving.