The Sword of St Paul

   

Midweek Evensong

Third Week after Epiphany

Reading: Acts 9:1-22

Homily:

Lord, we pray for the preacher, for you know his sins are great.

Grace, mercy and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

Today marks the Conversion of St Paul, and the end of our annual week of prayer for Christian unity, which began last Wednesday with the Confession of St Peter. The pairing of these two, Peter and Paul, certainly highlights the theme. They’re a classic odd couple: Peter is impulsive, hands-on, a fisherman from the countryside; Paul is erudite, cerebral, cosmopolitan, well-connected.

They do not always get along. They certainly don’t agree on everything. But both men recognize the shared mission entrusted to them by Jesus Christ our Lord. It is Jesus who brings together the historicism of Matthew, the mysticism of John, the righteousness of James, the worldliness of Luke. The New Testament contains an astonishing variety of viewpoints, each pointing to the same Jesus, but from a different vantage, in a different way.

Yet even among such a host of witnesses, Paul stands out. And I think it’s because he begins as a villain. Paul is the bad guy in those earliest days of the Church. Sure, Jesus welcomed sinners, tax collectors chief among them, but Paul specifically set out to quash the Way of Christ. He was sent to arrest all the Christians.

He is an interesting fellow: thoroughly religious, a member of the Pharisees, who were considered one of the stricter sects of Judaism, deeply concerned with the Law. He is also a Roman citizen, which puts him in a unique position. Most first century Jews appear to view the Romans as interlopers, foreigners, invaders. Religious Zealots and Sicarii seek to cast them out, to rise up against the Legions. Paul doesn’t see it that way. That’s not his experience.

Paul was born a Roman, inheriting his citizenship from his father, and believe you me, that was a big deal back then. To be a citizen made you sacrosanct. Nobody dared to touch you without recourse to Roman law, least of all the soldiers. Paul spoke Greek, the lingua franca of the eastern Empire, and had connections to the Herodians, the Roman-backed ruling house of Judea.

He calls himself a tentmaker, but given his wealth and his travels, he probably had a contract to supply the Roman army. For Paul, you could be a good Roman and a good Jew at the same time. But you couldn’t be a Christian and a good Jew. At least that’s how he saw it. Certainly the first generation of Christians, who were entirely Jewish, would disagree. That’s why he had to root them out.

Paul had been there to witness and to approve of the stoning of Stephen, a deacon in the Church and the first martyr recorded in Scripture, murdered for his faith in Christ. Stephen seemed to Paul to be a heretic, a blasphemer, and so he was authorized by no less august a personage than the High Priest himself, to go and arrest Christians.

Paul is the bad guy, the moustache-twirling villain, the avowed aggressor and enemy of the followers of Jesus Christ. You could hardly cast a more perfect villain. He has the resources and blessings of both religious and civil authorities, warrants signed by the same corrupt Temple establishment which crucified the Lord. And he’s a Roman to boot—a Roman gripped with holy righteousness, convinced that his threats and his violence are all done for the honor and the glory of God.

Now, if this narrative were not in the New Testament, how might we expect the story to go? I would imagine that Peter and James and John would heroically stand up to Paul and all that he represents, that they might be miraculously delivered from his wicked schemes and clutches, and that Paul himself might come to a well-deserved and ignominious end. Right? Isn’t that what happens to the enemies of God in most of the Scriptures?

But that’s not how it goes. On the road to Damascus, on his way to uproot the congregation that meets there, Paul is struck by a vision of the Lord, in which God explicitly identifies Himself as the Risen Jesus Christ. And the vision leaves him blinded—a blindness only lifted by the prayers of a faithful Christian, so that Paul is delivered by the very soul whom he had come to destroy. And this changes everything for him.

Paul, the great enemy of Jesus Christ, the great persecutor of the Church, becomes now Paul the Apostle, Paul the Gospel preacher. The greatest enemy of God’s people falls to earth and resurrects as now their greatest advocate. And he goes on to suffer for the faith as he made others suffer. It is a complete heel turn, the original redemption arc, whereby the villain becomes a hero to be remembered as a saint.

And he who once worked so hard to exclude from God’s people those who thought differently, acted differently, believed differently, now becomes the indefatigable advocate for inclusion, for mercy, for universal brotherhood and love. God’s justice is perfected in His mercy, and His mercy is perfected in giving the sinner opportunity to make restitution for his crimes, to heal the wounds he inflicted.

This is how God punishes those who persecute His people: by making them one with His people! And this pattern will be repeated in age after age. The greatest foes of Christians in any given generation often become the Christians of the next. Let those who have ears to hear understand! We are to love our enemies, for we were once enemies of God, and He loved us while we were yet sinners, forgave us even as we murdered Him. That is the God of Peter and Paul. That is the God of us all.

Someday every hatred will give way to love, and every foe will rise as a brother or sister in Christ. Our calling is to witness to this truth in the lives that we live out today.

In the Name of the Father and of the +Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.