Trinity Sunday

 

"And thou shalt make the breastplate of judgment with cunning work; after the work of the ephod thou shalt make it...And thou shalt set in it settings of stones, even four rows of stones: the first row shall be a sardius, a topaz, and a carbuncle: this shall be the first row....And the fourth row a beryl, and an onyx, and a jasper: they shall be set in gold in their inclosings." (Ex. 28:15a,17,20)

It is interesting to note that the order of the stones given for the priestly breastplate here in Exodus is reversed in the book of Revelation. The sardius, or sardine – a deep, brownish red reminiscent of blood – exchanges its first place with the jasper – which can appear opaquely white. How appropriate that in the literary and theological transition from the Old to the New Testament, the first has become last and the last, first. Just so then, the first Adam, by his disobedience, is stained with blood and death. The second Adam, Christ the sinless and unstained one, assumes his place and becomes "the first begotten of the dead" (Rev. 1:5). So the positioning of the stones in these two instances acts as a mirror image of our redemption. Life was exchanged for death, which became life again. As we read in I Corinthians 15:22: "For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive."
    

Consider this as well. Dr. Oliver Greene, in an article posted on Philologos.org, says: "In the Old Testament the saints looked forward to the day when the Lamb would come, they looked forward to the cross [cf. Isaiah 53], and therefore saw the Sardius...the blood-red stone...first. They looked beyond that and saw the Jasper, the clear white stone representing His power and His rule at His second coming." (philologos.org/bpr/files/j001.htm) The Lamb having now been offered once for all and the vision of the heavenly liturgy being opened out before him, the Evangelist St. John quite naturally sees things from the other side as it were where the victory of the Resurrection appears to have priority amongst the allegorical imagery. "And he that sat was to look upon like a jasper and a sardine stone." (Rev. 4:3a)
    

There are certainly plenty of other things to consider in today's Epistle. I will, however, limit myself to just two. The Rev. Isaac Williams, in a sermon for Trinity Sunday, had this to say: "The seasons of our sacred year have carried us through the great events of our Redemption, our Lord’s Birth and Temptation, His Passion, His Resurrection and Ascension, and the coming of the Holy Ghost; and now...the mystery of the Blessed Trinity is revealed; and for one half of the year from this time we commemorate by lessons of obedience this doctrine of the Three Persons in One God." (Williams, Sermon 47)
    

It is clear from this that the doctrine of the Holy Trinity is not just something that we hold casually and incidentally. When the Rev. Williams speaks of our commemorating this doctrine "by lessons of obedience", that can be seen in at least two instances. First of all, in the liturgical praxis of the Book of Common Prayer and several of the pre-Reformation western rites, every Sunday from now until Advent will be celebrated or commemorated as some ordinal number after Trinity. Thus the life of the Trinity becomes for us the referent in all of our public worship.
    

Secondly, our Lord Jesus Christ, in His divine nature, is the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity. In those very lessons from the Gospels that we hear, when He tells a parable, that is the eternal Godhead telling a parable. And here we must pause to bear in mind as well that speech is impossible without both words and the breath that impels them. Thus we are hearkened back to the beginning of creation in Genesis where God speaks His Word Who is moved by the Spirit. "And the Spirit of God [which word in Hebrew, ruach (roó-akh), is synonymous with "breath", "wind" or "spirit"] moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be light: and there was light." (Gen. 1:2b-3) So in every instance where Jesus speaks, there before us is another manifestation of the creative power of the Triune God. Thus it becomes trebly poignant when Jesus preaches, for that is God preaching.When He heals, that is God healing.  And when we read in John 11:35 "Jesus wept", in a particular sense that is God weeping. For as the Athanasian creed proclaims, "Who although he be God and Man, yet he is not two, but one Christ." So it seems pretty clear to me that we are indeed, and greatly privileged that it should be so, "commemorat[ing] by lessons of obedience this doctrine of the Three Persons in One God."
    

I shall return to Isaac Williams' commentary in a moment, but first a brief aside about the Athanasian Creed. It is a curious thing to me that, while it has been included in every edition of the English Book of Common Prayer from the getgo in 1549, it took until 1979 for it to make an appearance in an American Prayer Book. A variety of theories have been proposed as to why this is the case from it simply being a matter of length to our rather (in some quarters) robust embrace of principles stemming from the Enlightenment which tend to shy away from strong doctrinal statements such as: "Whosoever will be saved, before all things it is necessary that he hold the Catholic Faith. Which faith except everyone do keep whole and undefiled, without doubt he shall perish everlastingly." Seemingly, yes, that is a strong doctrinal statement. But it is no more so than what we read in John 14:6, "I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me." Two things about this whole issue. First, some of the squeamishness can be laid directly at the feet of our generically Nominalistic approach to things as a default position. The Nominalist says: I see words such as "catholic" or "perish everlastingly" and I feel that I ought not to like them, therefore they are categorically unlikeable for me. I have named them as such, and that is my truth.
    

Secondly, this visceral objection to such things as the aforementioned portions of the Athanasian Creed and the Gospel need not have the 'teeth' that we think it does. Philosophically, I am something of a Neoplatonist and that colours my outlook on a lot of things. I tend to think in terms of archetypes and images. Thus, I can quite sincerely both recite the Athanasian creed and mean every word of it, while at the same time not assuming that everyone who has left the practice of Christianity for a variety of reasons is simply destined for hell. It is simply not our place to judge and condemn as we do not know the circumstances. And it's no wonder so many people have been frightened away. Frankly, religion in our day has reached a low ebb. We have become so confused that we now simply apply a "Jesus veneer" to our pet neuroses and anxieties and call it a day. All I'm saying is that things don't have to be what we think they are at first blush.
    

Back to the business at hand, again from today's Epistle. "[T]he first voice which I heard was as it were of a trumpet talking with me; which said, Come up hither, and I will shew thee things, which must be hereafter." (Rev. 4:1) Isaac Williams continues on: "It was a voice speaking, and yet it was as of a trumpet.  This combines together the two great events of Pentecost—the awful trumpet of Mount Sinai on the giving out of the Law, and the living tongues on the descent of the Spirit; the one expressive of fear, the other of love; the fear and love with which we are henceforth to live in the great mystery of Godliness, as revealed to us in the Old and New Testament."   (Williams, ibid)
    

This transition from holy fear alone to that converted and inflamed by the Holy Ghost in the fire of His love is aptly illustrated for us in (appropriately enough) three instances in today's Gospel. Firstly, Nicodemus comes to Jesus under cover of darkness and gives for his opening volley what has, no doubt, become the default "party line" of affirming Jesus' good intentions. And yet, I don't think Nicodemus is being anything but sincere here. In light of the risk to his socio-religious position he is taking in associating with Jesus, certainly an understandable fear, he is being a cautious man. Straightway does Jesus begin to help him see by looking beyond the established way of seeing things. This new birth will take away all that has been holding him back. Jesus not only recognises the position that Nicodemus finds himself in, he offers the way out of it. Such is the goodness of the love of God overcoming the fear that has been engendered via the keeping of the Law and its accretions in the context of living under the watchful eye of the Roman state.
    

Secondly, Nicodemus takes Jesus too literally, thinking that he is being asked to go back in time, stuff himself back into the womb and do a second take. He is afraid that what he is being told, appealing as it is to him, is impossible. The bit about the wind blowing "where it listeth" is a good follow-on to the rector's sermon on the Sunday after the Ascension when he told us that it doesn't so much matter "how" the Ascension happened as "that" it did. Jesus is comforting Nicodemus out of what must have become an ingrained eye for fine points and details that his experience of interpreting and living the Law must have provided him. The "how" of the operation of grace in being born again of water and the Spirit is not so important as the "that" of being born of water and the Spirit, which administration thereof has been entrusted to the life of the Church. 
    

Finally, poor exasperated Nicodemus just can't take it anymore. "How can these things be?" he asks. And Jesus gives him a brief glimpse of both the necessity of the Incarnation as well as the promise of the Resurrection in terms that Nicodemus could understand via Moses' use of the bronze serpent to heal the people of Israel, who had complained themselves into dire straits once again. Most certainly was this complaining done out of uncertainty and fear, just as the human motives of the Sanhedrin and the secular power under Pontius Pilate for crucifying Jesus were also impelled by uncertainty and fear and just as the commission of Original Sin was also motivated by uncertainty and fear. Yet, thanks be to God, such things no longer need have place among us for, as Isaac Williams says: "[The Spirit] makes present on earth the things of eternity; He reveals to the heart the mysteries of Heaven. "
    

In conclusion, in all the things we have considered today, the old and new Adams enshrined and foreshadowed on the breastplate of the high priest, the life of the triune God obediently considered in all the Sunday Eucharistic propers in the Prayerbook and the conversion of the stupefying fear of the Old Covenant into the reverential and loving fear of the New by the descent of the Holy Ghost, the Holy Trinity is on display in full force.
    

It has been said that the longer one preaches on Trinity Sunday, the greater the likelihood of falling into heresy becomes. Thus, in the face of all that is presented to us for consideration on this day, let us then fall silent and take to heart the words of Psalm 95: "O come, let us worship and fall down, and kneel before the Lord our Maker. For he is the Lord our God; and we are the people of his pasture, and the sheep of his hand."

Sunday within the Octave of the Ascension

 "The end of all things is at hand; be ye therefore sober, and watch unto prayer." 

(1 Peter 4:7)

 A couple of things come to mind when I read or hear this  verse, both having to do with our contemporary cultural situation. But first, an important caveat. Passages like this in the Scriptures may indeed speak to our circumstances, but rarely (if at all) do they speak of our circumstances in more than a generalised way. What I mean by that is that, no, the Bible does not predict or describe political or social events in 21st century America, 16th century Europe, or any other socio-political phenomenon outside of the eschatology of the Christian  faith proclaimed in the New Testament during the 1st century A.D. To think otherwise is, quite frankly, to reduce the Scriptures to the status of pagan superstition and to embrace idolatry. There are many idols, just as there are many "antichrists". The current ones are neither special nor unique. "Little children, it is the last time: and as ye have heard that antichrist shall come, even now are there many antichrists; whereby we know that it is the last time." (1 John 2:18)
    

To resume, then, we who live in the "last times" (which began at the moment of Jesus' Resurrection by the way, and have persisted until our own day) are indeed both called to be "sober" and to witness to its lack among our fellows. In the Greek, the word translated as "sober" is sōphronéō [Strongs G4993], which can mean: to be of sound mind, to exercise self control, to curb one's passions.
    

Surely the embrace and dissemination of conspiracy theories is a key indicator of the lack of soberness present in our culture. Consider this, from Lifeway Research, a ministry associated with the Southern Baptist Convention: 

 [C]onspiracy theories have become a growing concern for many pastors and church   leaders across the country. In a recent Lifeway Research study, 49% of U.S. Protestant pastors say they frequently hear church members repeating conspiracy   theories. While spreading harmful information has no religious or ideological limits,   such dangerous explanations have a long, unfortunate history among Christians.Church historians, Christian apologists, and those who have personally suffered as a result of conspiracy theories say followers of Christ must be concerned with seeking and following truth. Mary Jo Sharp, author of Living in Truth: Confident  Conversations in a Conflicted Culture, says there are two main reasons people are  drawn to conspiracy theories—ease of understanding and escape from the  ordinary....Sharp says conspiracy theories often ignore the myriad of complex beliefs, desires, and motivations humans bring to an issue. Without those complicating matters, the conspiracy theorist can more easily comprehend the issue and move on with other things. 'Belief in a conspiracy theory may be born out of a good desire to understand a situation but devolves into finding quickly digestible answers,' she  says, 'like fast food for the mind.' [click here for the whole article]

 

In other words, it is an ego-maniacal exercise in conveniently shoring up the fears and suspicions of the individual. Conspiracy theories offer an easy to comprehend explanation, a sense of fellowship with one's fellow believers, the thrill of having "inside information", and the addictive power of the passions in angrily justifying oneself to one's perceived enemies by means of the available anonymity of social media. Such things have no place among Christian people, as we read in Ephesians 4:22-24, "That ye put off concerning the former conversation the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts; And be renewed in the spirit of your mind; And that ye put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness." 

"Be ye therefore sober."    

Something else to consider with regard to "soberness" has to do with 'being in one's right mind'. And, yes, it's easy to laugh and joke about that. But it is a very serious concern. As many of you know, I struggle with mental health issues including depression and anxiety, which have been greatly exacerbated over the course of the past year where seemingly everything is in flux and we are surrounded by chaos and despair. And the Christian Church has not been spared these things even within her own ranks. But that should not be a surprise, for we are not called to be of the world, but we still do live in the world and bear its burdens.
    

I can tell you that I like to know what's happening, I like to make plans ahead of time. And that is just not possible right now. And, yes, we can talk about how that is a grace and wallow in pious imaginings, but it is also a hard thing to endure. There are days when my anxiety is literally debilitating to the point I can't summon the will to go outside. I wake up in the morning fearing the worst and spend the rest of the day talking myself down from those heights. It is a destructive pathology that cannot be overcome solely by the strength of my will. I am getting help to manage these things, but I also admit that I may have to carry them around for a while, perhaps for balance of my life. Perhaps this is my "thorn in the flesh" that St. Paul talked about (cf. 2 Cor. 12:7). That is my lack of soberness.
    

And I tell you this for two reasons. One is simply to offer encouragement to you. We all, without exception, have things to struggle with. And it is so easy to convince ourselves that it's just us, everyone else is fine. In reality, that is mostly a façade. Much of our strength of character comes from how we choose to acknowledge this on the spectrum from outright denial to acceptance to living into our challenges under God's grace.
    

The other reason I tell you this is to counteract the nonsense that is spread abroad among, particularly nefariously, some Christians who see this as a sign of deficiency (of faith, religious practice, or what have you) or of demonic influence. Don't get me wrong, the dark powers have free reign to influence persons and things to destruction, but Satan didn't give you bi-polar disorder or cause your marriage to break down. There are much more prosaic causes at the root of such things.
    

So, no, things are not well right now. But we have no justification to expect perfection in this life. Indeed as we read just beyond the text of today's Epistle, "Wherefore let them that suffer according to the will of God commit the keeping of their souls to him in well doing, as unto a faithful Creator." (1 Peter 4:19) Yes, as unpleasant as it it, there is suffering in this life as a matter of course. But there is also faithfulness. There is good and bad, there is truth and there are lies, there is darkness and there is the light that shines in the darkness and which shall not be overcome by it.
    

In conclusion, I would offer you this as encouragement. Every time we gather here at St. Michael's we are gathering as the Church and we are making an offering, and it is not just bread and wine, prayer intentions or money, we are making an offering to God of our whole selves. And while we rightly desire to bring all the good and beautiful things as a thank offering, it is true that we will also bring those things that are not so nice to behold: worries, impatience, fear, anger, mistrust, grievances, brokenness, the list can go on. But that's okay too. Indeed that is the whole point. God does not ask for a part of  us, but the whole of us, good and bad. As I have said on Easter Sunday before, the veil of uncertainty, anguish and despair is now permanently torn away. For, you see, our God has the uncanny ability to turn that which is hideous and filled with death into something perfectly beautiful and life giving. And just as our Lord Jesus Christ passed through the Cross into the Resurrection, so are we, of our very nature as Christian people, called to do likewise. In the words of St. Gregory Nazianzen: "Let a man give all things to him who gave himself for us as the price of redemption and as the substitute of our guilt. Nothing so great, however, can be given in return, as the offering of ourselves, if we rightly understand this mystery, and if we, for his sake, become all things, whatsoever he for our sakes became."
    

Consider this as well, from John's Gospel: "In the world, ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world." (16:33) And so, my friends, if we wish to heed His call and ascend with Him, this is the mind of Christ that we must have at all times, Who has indeed overcome the world.

some thoughts

 

In no particular order...

It's been a year and we are still dealing with the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic. I have personally received the first dose of one of the vaccines with no ill effects. This has been a hard year for us all, not helped by the ongoing economic perils and the political events surrounding the last general election. But that is all so much wind hot air that blows where it will and is then gone. Stop trying to grasp it with a desperation that is close to idolatry. Enough with conspiracy theories, sound bites, and the twin passions of shame and anger inflamed by social media. "Be ye therefore merciful, as your Father also is merciful." (Luke 6:36) After all, He gives food, water, shelter, and life to those you hate. You can, likewise, at least stop trying to bludgeon your enemies with your own inflated sense of right(and righteous)ness.

Everything is changing, and it's scary. But so were the World Wars of the last century. So were the Napoleonic Wars. So were the upheavals of the Reformation, the Black Plague, the Mongol invasions. Heck, our ancestors were probably freaked out by fire the first time someone struck a flame too. If we have learned nothing else from modern physics, macroscopic appearances to the contrary, everything is in flux and relative to everything else. It's nothing new. We just have to adapt, more or less successfully, and believe that our stability lies not finally in this life but in the life to come. If you're like me, that is a huge ask. But, "(e)very good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning." (James 1:17)

Come back to church. If you think virtual attendance is good enough, you're wrong. If you think this, having come from a sacramental/liturgical tradition, you're even more wrong. It's time to face up to the hidden shame, the narcissism, the delusion, the lack of seriousness that dwells within you. Way too many have had poor motives for attending church and refused to learn the faith and (even the content of!) the scriptures. Being satisfied with a primary school level of catechesis and a plate full of emotional responses, they have not grown in understanding. Do you approach your job in such a half-assed way? Your marriage and/or family life? If so, more's the shame.

Too many people in the Anglican continuum have held on simply because we are (or are perceived to be) "traditional" or "conservative". And they stop with that, making an idol out of their perceptions. Knowing neither the tradition nor what it is we are attempting to conserve, our churches are dying and our people are trapped in the morass of self-satisfaction.

We simply must do better. We have to reach those who have not been reached by the Gospel. We must not expend more wasted energy on the apathetic. We are not anti-science. We are not homophobic or misogynistic. We are not the Republican party at prayer. We cannot afford to define ourselves solely by what we are against. We need an educated clergy, an informed laity, a firm commitment to and understanding of a life of prayer and perpetual conversion. And we need to cease and desist from bowing down before and worshiping things that are not God.

Then, and only then, do we stand a chance of survival and growth into the 21st century and beyond.

Does anyone else actually care?

Sexagesima

 

I can readily admit that, in these dark days, I am full of anxiety and despair. Our culture continues its accelerated decline under the burdens of a pandemic, economic distress, a lack of seriousness in higher education, slogans and sound bites in the place of considered analysis, and the fact that so many will have been permanently seduced away from the Christian Church through the convenient appeal of virtual attendance even after it has been judged safe for all to return. But, on the other hand, this isn't really surprising given the widespread addictive power of the online world. People are constantly on their phones, as their creators intended.

My concern for each of you as well as for myself is to continually respond to the saving faith of Jesus Christ, to live a life of continual conversion and intellectual assent to the truth of the Scriptures, the Creeds, and the sacramental life of the Church that is able to speak to and resist the worst impulses of modern life. And I often feel like I am just screaming into the wind or banging my head against a brick wall. And what makes me feel that way more than all else are my own faults and failings. It is so very tempting to just give up.

In the face of that, I would ask you to consider this, from Chapter 4 of the Fellowship of the Ring: "'We still have our journey and our errand before us', answered Gandalf. 'We have no choice but to go on, or to return to Rivendell.' 'I wish I was back there', [Frodo] said. 'But how can I return without shame – unless there is indeed no other way, and we are already defeated?' 'You are right, Frodo,' said Gandalf: 'to go back is to admit defeat, and face worse defeat to come.'

In like manner do we read in John 6:68, "Then Simon Peter answered him, Lord, to whom shall we go? thou hast the words of eternal life." So we continue on, under grace, as best we are able. And thus today I would like to consider with you Ecclesiastes 11:1-6 which is one of the Old Testament lessons appointed for Evening Prayer today in the Lectionary Tables and which concerns itself with some details surrounding belief and charitable works.  

Having famously declared that all is vanity, the sacred author examines the failures of purely human wisdom and philosophy, the pursuit of pleasures and material goods for their own sake, and the false practice of religion. In his introductory remarks to this book for BlueLetterBible.org, the 20th century American Presbyterian Dr. J. Vernon Mcgee notes that:
 

Solomon pursued in this book every avenue, experience, and interest of man in this life to find satisfaction and fulfillment. Solomon as king had full freedom to carry on this experiment, and he was not hindered by financial or power limitations. He could go the limit in every direction. The result is “vanity” — emptiness. Frustration and dissatisfaction met him in every experiment. The conclusions are human, apart from the divine, made by the man under the sun. This is the ultimate end of man’s efforts     apart from God. (www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/mcgee_j_vernon/notes-outlines/ecclesiastes/ecclesiastes-outline.cfm)

Verse 2 of Chapter 11, which is one of the more difficult, reads: "Give a portion to seven, and also to eight; for thou knowest not what evil shall be upon the earth." St. Jerome's commentary on this verse tells us:
 

And in Ezekiel there are found seven or eight steps leading up to the temple. And after the 'ethical' Psalm, that is one hundred and eighteen, all the psalms are of fifteen steps by which we are first taught the law, and when the seventh is finished, we then climb to the Gospel through the 'eight steps. Therefore it is taught that we should believe with equal respect in each, the same for the old as for the new.  The Jews dedicated their seventh part, believing in the Sabbath, but did not dedicate that eighth, denying the resurrection on the day of the Lord.  On the other hand, heretics, Marcion and Manichaeus and all who rip up the ancient law with their savage mouths, dedicate their eighth part, taking up the Gospel.  But they do not save as holy the seventh, spurning the old law.  For we are not able to understand the worthy crucifixions, the worthy punishments already in mind, which are reserved for those who are moved to wickedness on earth, that is for the Jews and the heretics, and for those denying the other of the two....The Hebrews understand this passage in this way: keep both the Sabbath and the rite of circumcision, for if you do not adhere to these wickedness will come over you unexpectedly. (sites.google.com/site/aquinasstudybible/home/ecclesiastes/jerome-commentary-on-ecclesiastes)

This, obviously, needs some further unpacking. The "ethical psalm" that he refers to here is 119 in the Prayerbook which uses the Hebrew rather than the Greek numbering. The difference being due to whether you consider Psalm 10 as a part of Psalm 9 or standing on its own as a separate literary unit. Each portion of Psalm 119 (a meditation on the Law) is 8 verses long. And indeed the two subsequent Psalms, 120 and 121 in our numbering, consist of 7 and 8 verses respectively as St. Jerome says.

And then he talks more specifically about maintaining the balance of both Testaments. The one is useless without the other for Christian people. Of the two heretics he mentions, Marcionites reject the Old Testament and what they see as its separate "god". Practically speaking, consider this, we Anglicans are blessed with a robust Daily Office system that includes both the Psalms and the Old Testament as integral parts of our daily liturgical prayer. Yet, many (most?) people don't make use of them and many parishes can't (or won't) offer weekday worship. Clergy all too frequently do not preach on the Old Testament. At all. Frankly, you're lucky if the priest or deacon pays attention to the Epistle during his sermon. So there is some danger of a soft Marcionism creeping into our identity. Awareness, however, is a good first step to counteract this. Don't know where to begin? Well, as a cheap advertisement, when it is safe to do so we can resume our planned Bible Study reading Dr. John Walton's treatment of Genesis Chapter 1. Stay tuned!

The other important thing St. Jerome mentions is the devotion of the Jew to Sabbath and circumcision. Just so, the Christian must devote himself to the Lord's Day and baptismal identity. (N.B. Sunday is not the Christian Sabbath, it is the Eighth Day, the day of Resurrection and completion/ fulfillment, the Lord's Day, in Russian it is Воскресенье, literally "resurrection day" – our liturgical use of the Decalogue which mentions keeping holy the Sabbath is strictly allegorical on this point.)

What does all this have to do with my opening remarks? Well simply that we are being encouraged by Ecclesiastes to carry on with our God-inspired work, whether the fruits of reward are evident or not in this lifetime. We are further instructed by St. Jerome not to "stop short" in our belief, to stall out on the Seventh Day but to carry on to the Eighth Day, for as Psalm 118 declares: "This is the day which the Lord has made; we will rejoice and be glad in it."(vs. 24)

And so I bid you good cheer and encouragement. These are dark days. People, already long troubled by the rootlessness and vacuity of modern life (whether aware of it or not), are struggling. A good dose of kindness and compassion, particularly to those who are seemingly unlovable and undeserving, will not go amiss. As Lent will be upon us soon, it is an opportunity once again to regroup, re-evaluate, take ownership of our besetting sins and bad habits, and trust in the Lord's mercy and the great hope that the Resurrection is real.

St. Paul the Apostle

Christianity as a general principle is on the receiving end of a lot of criticism, much of it self-inflicted. From our sad, millennium old theological disagreements which confuse and repulse, to the embrace of the excessive rationalism of the Enlightenment which sterilised the wondrous mystery of the faith into an overly moralistic, strictly regulated behavioural programme that turns Matt. 11:28-30 into a lie (“Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me, for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”), to the contemporary substitution of the death bearing idols of politics and finance for the living Word of God.
    

One of the more recent victims of this long decline is the person and reputation of Paul the Apostle, whose conversion we celebrate tomorrow. He stands accused of everything from misogyny, homophobia, and antisemitism (deeply ironic, that) to helping prop up the institution of slavery. Now, I am in no way attempting to excuse any flaws and failings that he may or may not have possessed in this life. However, three things about such critiques: 1. It is surely impossible to have an accurate read of the state of anyone else's soul, particularly those who lived 2000 years ago. 2. Being acknowledged in the liturgy as belonging to the company of those whose sanctity is particularly noteworthy and fruitful for emulation does not guarantee that those who are lived a perfect, sinless life. People who would otherwise give no credence to any sort of "immaculate conception" seem to demand it of those they wish to take issue with. 3. There is little or nothing I can do by taking up the banner of condemnation against anyone anyway. If there is any change I have any reasonable hope of effecting, under grace, it is in my own heart. Do you want to change the world? Then the counsel of the abbot to his monks I read about two weeks ago holds: "Pay attention to yourself." It is neither your place nor within your power to deal out perfect justice tempered with perfect mercy. That is merely a delusion generated by the words of the serpent in the garden: "For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil." (Gen. 3:5)
    

'John J. Kilgallen, professor of New Testament at the Pontifical Biblical Institute in Rome, begins his America magazine essay, “A Complicated Apostle,” by admitting that “when one reads or hears what Paul wrote, one often meets a personality that can seem unpleasant or even antagonizing … appearing pompous, cantankerous, superior, harsh.” Experts agree: Paul can be a difficult fellow. He exhorts love for enemies, yet is not above wishing aloud that his enemies would castrate themselves (Galatians 5:12). He calls his addressees stupid (Galatians 3:1)....Even Paul’s biggest booster, the author of Acts, introduces Paul to the reader as an accessory to a lynching (Acts 7:60). So we may well ask: why should we take seriously, let alone read reverently, this vituperative, hallucinating, conflict-ridden polemicist who was at the same time both a passionate disciple of a man he never followed and a passionate enemy, by his own admission, of those who did? Why hasn’t the world written him off as a fulminating, apocalyptic crackpot? And why has a worldwide Christian communion been celebrating his birthday?' (https://www.pbs.org/wnet/ religionandethics/2009/08/05/august-5-2009-the-real-paul/3839/)
    

Certainly this article is guilty of taking certain things out of context, operating under a lens of heightened suspicion that leaves no room for genuine conversion, and not acting on the three principles I enumerated above (not that there would be any expectation of that happening anyway). But I think the question at the end remains a sound one, one that can be asked of any theologian, indeed any believer. Why should we attend to what you think?
    

Fr. Kenneth Baker, a Jesuit priest writing in Homiletic and Pastoral Review, tells us why in a summary of the essence of St. Paul's theology: "Christ is the key to St. Paul.  His theology is Christocentric.  The Gospel according to St. Paul is that the Son of God became man in Jesus Christ, in order to reconcile all mankind to God the Father, by his life, passion, death and resurrection.  For Paul, Christ is the glorified Christ, now reigning gloriously in heaven, and seated at the right hand of the Father. Here are some of the main points in the theology of St. Paul: 1) Because of the sin of Adam, and each one’s personal sins, all men are sinners and in need of redemption (Rom. 3:23; 5:12-21).  2) In order to save mankind, God sent his Son into the world, born of a woman (Rom. 4:4), to make a fitting satisfaction for sin.  3) That Son is Jesus Christ, who communicates his grace, and justifies all who believe in him, and are baptized.  4) The grace of Christ includes the sending of the Holy Spirit, which constitutes the believer as an adopted child of God, a member of the body of Christ, and an heir of eternal life.  5) Christ Jesus is the fulfillment of all the prophecies of the Old Testament, and has established a New Covenant to replace that of Moses; therefore, Christians are not bound by the ceremonial and dietary laws, and circumcision, contained in the Law of Moses.  This means that one does not have to become a Jew in order to be a Christian.  This insight of Paul made Christianity into a religion open to all peoples (see 1 Tim. 2:4)." (https://www.hprweb.com/2012/09/ the-theology-of-st-paul/)
    

If you demand a priori perfection of everyone you will live a very lonely life. It is a fact that the perfect Word of God is entrusted to imperfect persons in an imperfect church which both has and will continue to sully it in various ways by its imperfect witness. The 6th cent. A.D. Chinese Buddhist Sang T'san wrote:
    

    One thing, all things:
    move among and intermingle
    without distraction.
    To live in this realisation
    is to be without anxiety
    about non-perfection.

In our present context there are two things that can speak to us as Christian people from this insight. One is that God was incarnate in time and space, "And was made man" as we confess in the Nicene Creed'; the "one thing" (perfect divinity) among "all things" (our scattered humanity). And that very act, given our own imperfection and labour under the auspices of Original Sin, means that things, even post-Easter are going to be messy, marked by failures as well as successes because the resurrection has not displaced free will. True love is not to say, "let me do everything for you". Rather, true love is "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life." (Jn. 3:16) Keeping this always at the forefront, and having confidence in the two primary truths of the faith that are always true, regardless of what anyone says: Christ is Risen and the Kingdom of God is come among us, will help to banish the "two-storey" thinking identified by Fr. Stephen Freeman and which pervades so much of modern thought and gives rise to so much religious anxiety, living with and in the midst of imperfection. Strive, then, to be without anxiety. For the Kingdom of God is come, in the manner that it has, whether we like it or not.
    

Finally, hoping that I have shed some light on how we can realistically approach and be in company with St. Paul, let me close with some thoughts by Bishop Tom Wright, formerly of Durham and one of the proponents of the "New Perspectives on Paul" school of theology (which, as an aside, is worth looking into, even if you find yourself disagreeing with some of their particulars):

[T]he claim [of Jesus' Messiahship] only makes sense as the validation of everything that first-century Jews like Paul had held dear (the ancient purposes and promises, the long covenantal narrative). The symbols of Jewish identity themselves – circumcision, Sabbath, food laws – were set aside, not because they were irrelevant or ‘legalistic’ but because they were forward-looking signposts to the reality which had now been unveiled. To cling to the signposts is to imply that you have not yet     arrived at the reality; but the point of Paul’s gospel was that the reality had dawned in the events concerning Jesus. In him, the promises to Abraham had been fulfilled; Adam and Eve had been rescued, and with that new creation had been launched; Israel’s exile was over and ‘Israel’ itself had been transformed, as so many scriptures had promised, into a new worldwide family. This story, with this fulfilment, is the necessary substructure for Paul’s mission; and, I would submit, for ours as well. Fresh teaching in all these areas is urgently needed if we are to understand our shared mission as both the announcement of Jesus as the crucified and risen Lord, demanding the personal response of obedient faith, and the inauguration of new creation, with signs of healing and hope pointing forward to the eventual renewal of the whole cosmos. (ntwrightpage.com/2017/09/27/learning-from-paul-together).
 

And that, that, is why we should listen to what St. Paul has to say. It's not about him. It's not about you or I as 'rugged individuals' anxiously hoping to save ourselves by 'fixing' that which surrounds us. It's about the proclamation of the glory of God, the promise of things to come. It's because of this that we value these Epistles, this 'paperwork', amongst all the other documents we acquire in our lives as so clearly illustrated last week.

Glory to God for all things. Amen.