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.
