Peter Waldo

*Preached at Grace North Church September 24th, 2000.*

When I was a teenager in High School, I studied avidly in order to be licensed to preach by my congregation, Berea Baptist Church. Our class of "preacher-boys" was taught by our Pastor, Brother Frank, and even then it was clear to me that the class was long on dogma and short on homiletical skills. We practiced on each other, we practiced at the roller rink, we practiced at the nursing home. And finally, we were granted the boon of delivering the Sunday night sermon, a much-coveted slot for us preacher-boys.

One of the guys in my class was a good-natured Italian fellow named Frank (oddly, the majority of men in our congregation were named Frank. I think it's kind of a Bermuda Triangle kind of thing). Frank was the brother-in-law of my first real girlfriend, Kathy. Now Kathy was a lanky lass with a great sense of humor and a funky fashion sense. Best of all for a sixteen-year-old like myself who was just starting to feel his hormones, she was an awesome kisser.

Frank, like the rest of Kathy's family, was kind of a trip. He laughed a lot, even if he wasn't terribly smart. For evidence of this, I present the fact that only 24 hours after he met Kathy's sister, they were married and had moved in to her parents' basement. Even then, I thought that was sounded like an ill-conceived plan, even if it was sickeningly romantic. But Frank and his bride seemed blissfully happy in their basement home. Go figure.

Like the rest of Kathy's clan, Frank was raised Roman Catholic, and found his spiritual liberation in the Baptist faith. No more would their lives be ruled by capricious priests. No more would they worry about purgatory or the certainty of their salvation. They were whole-hearted converts to the notion of the priesthood of the believer, and Frank was positively giddy to find a community where even he, a married, non-celibate man with barely a High School education and no formal theological training, could be licensed to the Gospel ministry, authorized to marry 'em, dunk 'em, and bury 'em, and best of all, stand up before the assembly and bring 'em the Word of God.

Finally the night came when Frank would be bringing us the sermon on Sunday night. I'm afraid I can remember none of the details. I only remember sliding down in my seat, cringing in embarrassment for the poor guy, thinking, "Oh my god, this is terrible." After all, at the ripe old age of sixteen I had sat through nearly 800 sermons in my short life, so hey, I had some idea of what went into making a good one. Frank's wasn't, but that didn't diminish his enthusiasm any. He beamed like the sun itself after the service, and everyone told him what a brilliant job he had done. Frank went on to deliver horribly inept sermons at every opportunity, overjoyed at finding a religion where even someone like him could stand up and make the Good News sound bad and still receive a storm of praise for it.

Frank would have felt right at home in the twelfth century movement begun by a layman like himself named Peter Waldo. Now, Waldo was a wealthy merchant in Lyons, France. One day while he was hosting a lavish banquet at his mansion, one of his guests suddenly fell over dead. Not only did this bring a quick halt to the festivities, but it also arrested Waldo's conscience. Not long after, he was listening to a troubadour singing the tale of St. Alexis, who sold all he had and went on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. The troubadour sung of Alexis' holy death in his father's house, and it struck Waldo at his very core.

The very next morning he high-tailed it to the school of theology and began asking questions, which, as you might expect, was not entirely welcome. Still, he found one patient soul to instruct him, and was taught the many paths that discipleship could take. Baffled by the choices presented to him, he asked his teacher which was the most CERTAIN way to salvation. His instructor told him, "If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell all that thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven; and come and follow Me."

Waldo was obsessed by this advice, and as we read in the anonymous account of Waldo's conversion, he signed all of his property over to his wife, and gave all of his cash to the poor. He began preaching to the masses, warning that people cannot serve two masters, God and money. He felt he had been liberated from the lies perpetuated by society when he surrendered his money, and he called on others to do likewise.

Of course, this meant he had to beg for his meals. His wife was so horrified by this that she hauled him by the ear before the archbishop of the city, and practically throttling him, made the case that no one should be allowed to give poor Waldo any alms but her, a request that the bishop--no doubt baffled by this outbreak of neurotic religiosity--granted.

Waldo's conversion was dramatic, and sincere, and soon he had gathered around him quite a swarm of followers. Like my friend Frank, none of them were very educated, certainly not in matters of religion, and yet Waldo bid them to go forth in twos, just as Jesus had bid the disciples, carrying nothing but the clothes on their backs, and preaching the gospel in every city they came to.

At first, the Pope was pleased by the zeal of what were then called "The Poor Men of Lyons," and their efforts gained a measure of official support. But this did not last long, because along with the support came a number of restrictions, all of which they ignored. Not only that, but they began attacking the corruption of the papacy and the hierarchical structure of the church in general.

They eschewed marriage, and sent both men and women out to preach. In fact, everyone who followed Waldo preached. It was a movement made up entirely of missionaries, and everyone who felt compelled to follow the preaching of this charismatic layman left their home and wealth behind and set out on the road to preach the gospel. They were so single-minded and dedicated that the Waldenses, as they came to be called, spread quickly throughout Europe.

The Waldenses felt that not only could ordinary Christians preach, but they could also absolve people from sin, say Masses and perform any of the other sacraments they deemed necessary.

Not surprisingly, all of this caused a great deal of alarm to the church's authorities, who were at a bit of a loss as to how to deal with a sect that did not formally separate itself from the church, was widely diffused into the general population, and had no structure to speak of that they could attack. Some Waldenses splintered into more and more heretical and extreme sects, and some considered themselves a reform movement within the Catholic church itself. And since there was no governing body, what the Waldenses movement actually WAS depended largely upon which Waldenses you asked.

The hierarchy was running scared, and things began to get ugly for Waldo and his followers. Waldo appealed to the Third Lateran Council in 1179 to give a defense on his ideas, but the bishops refused to hear him. Five years later he was formally excommunicated for his heretical teachings. Of course, this did not slow the movement down any, and it gained not only an increasing number of missionary members, but greater acceptance by the general population, who had grown suspicious of rich and powerful clergy. According to church historian David Christie-Murray, the Waldenses were "blameless in their lives, being humble, industrious toilers with their hands, who dressed simply, were temperate in all their appetites, sober, truthful, slow to anger, eschewing the gathering of wealth, and avoiding taverns, dances and similar worldly pleasures." The general population were in awe of them.

Finally, the Catholic officials felt that the best way to take the wind out of their sails was to form an officially sanctioned group within the church itself, in order to effectively sort out the wheat from the chaff. Thus, in 1208, Pope Innocent III formed what he called "The Poor Catholics" which supported what parts of Waldo's movement that the church could tolerate, while keeping a short leash on its members. It was a brilliant "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em" kind of move, one the church would employ again successfully hundreds of years later when battling the Masonic menace by forming the Knights of Columbus as a rival fraternal organization for faithful Catholics.

In retrospect, the Catholic authorities were amazingly tolerant of the Waldenses. They tried persuasion whenever they could, and only resorted to force when peaceful avenues had been exhausted. The first group of them were burned at the stake as early as 1212, and they soon became the target of the inquisition. Oppression, of course, only strengthened their resolve and zeal for the true faith, and one fateful day in 1393, 150 were burned en masse.

Those that remained free fled to the Italian Alps, but even there they were not safe, as Pope Innocent VIII organized an entire crusade against them alone, and their numbers were decimated.

But they were not wiped out or discouraged from what they felt was the "true faith." Was this faith heretical? Well, today, we would probably wouldn't call them heretics, but Protestants. One could make a good case that it was in fact Peter Waldo, not Martin Luther, that kicked off the Reformation. For it was Waldo who instituted the doctrine of the "priesthood of the believer" in deed if not in name, and nearly all of his reforms were shared by the later Reformers.

The Waldenses, against all odds, survived every assault Rome hurled at them. The crusaders were not able to root them all out, and when Calvin organized his reforms in Geneva, the Waldenses recognized the faith of the Reformed Christians as nearly identical to their own, and the remaining Waldenses were absorbed into the Swiss reformation.

So what can we learn from Peter Waldo and his followers? Waldo showed us that in his own age, as in any other, not everyone is willing to blindly follow when someone tries to pull the wool over their eyes. It was common sense to Waldo that the religious system of his day was corrupt, and that in his earnest desire to follow Christ, he could tolerate no compromise.

We also see that once again, the Holy Spirit will not be confined or controlled by a human institution. As Gerard Manly Hopkins would write nearly a thousand years later, "the Grandeur of God will flame out like shining from shook foil." God is not a tame lion, will not obey arbitrary human rules, and those who are in touch with the Spirit within them likewise cannot be controlled. Waldo and those who followed him were proto-Protestants, whose singular devotion to the lifestyle and teachings of Christ drove them into opposition with the establishment. And like Martin Luther, John Calvin, and even Martin Luther King after him, his devotion presaged the conflict that MUST follow when people of true faith try to live the Gospel with integrity.

For the Gospel does not support society, or the status quo as so many preachers and priests who owe their livelihoods to the "system" would have us believe. The human spirit, like the Spirit of God, is indominable in its quest for freedom, for salvation, and for the right to preach the Gospel, whether you are clergy or lay, an eloquent orator, or like my friend Frank, a dreadful preacher. God wants to use us all, and Frank, God bless him, like Peter Waldo before him, was simply willing. May God grant all of us such courage and willingness to be a minister no matter what station of life we are called to, no matter what our talents or lack of them, no matter who we are or what we have done. All Christians are priests, and have a responsibility to share the Good News with the little bit of the world that is ours. Let us go forth into the world and proclaim good news of God's grace and good will to every creature. Let us pray.

God of the high and low alike, you are no respecter of persons, and you have instilled in all of us a calling to be the bearer of grace and good tidings to the world. Help us to have the courage of your servant Peter Waldo, the willingness to abandon those things which impair our spiritual progress, and the guts to confront corruption and evil wherever we find it. For though the cost may be great, we ignore such things at the peril of our souls, and the souls of those who come after us. Teach us, O God, to hear your Spirit, even when it whispers things which are hard for us to hear, for we ask this in the name of the one who followed you, even unto death, Jesus Christ, your beloved child. Amen.
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