Conversion of St Paul

 

SERMON PREACHED AT St JOHN’S, EAST BENTLEIGH

FEAST OF THE CONVERSION OF St PAUL

(Sunday 24^th January) 1988

 

Paul. Saint Paul, once Saul, who in his enthusiasm for his faith as a Jew used to persecute the embryonic Christian Church. At three points in the New Testament first Paul (chronologically) then Luke tells us of the enthusiasm with which this young apprentice Pharisee had set out to persecute the new set of followers of Jesus the Nazarene. Paul, a man whose letters boil with nervous energy. Paul: the most significant and farsighted theologian in the history of the Christian faith. Paul, the author of our New Testament reading today. Tomorrow is the feast commemorating the conversion of St. Paul.

I’m not convinced we should call the experience that Paul underwent on the road to Damascus a “conversion.” It was not that he was requiring a conversion to the service of God, for as a trained Jewish theologian he was already a far more dedicated servant of God than any of us are ever likely to be able to lay claim to be. Rather, the events of the road to Damascus were something of a reawakening, a new insight into the relationship of God to humanity. Later he came to realise the place that the Jesus-event had in this new insight, but that was to come later.

Paul. In the last few years I have come to love this man. There was a time when, like many opponents of Christianity, I saw him as the arch-distorter of the teachings of Christ. Later I came to see him as the arch-conservative foil to the more liberal theologies of, in particular, John, but perhaps also of our Lord himself.

But in recent years I have discovered him to be neither. He isn’t conservative, and he is certainly not out of step with the teachings of Jesus. I have come to realize as I have studied him just how great his genius is, and, together with that, how close he was to the heart of God. Before all others he saw the significance of the Easter message, saw the central place the event of the Cross must take in Christian thought, worship, and service. Before all others he saw the relationship between the Old Testament Torah, or Law, and the New Testament message of grace (charis). I could rhapsodize for a long time about the merits of this saint, Paul.

And yet he never, of course, rhapsodized about himself. But more than that, he barely ever writes about himself. Luke tells us far more about him, and adapts his biographical details to his own proclamation of the gospel, far more than Paul ever tells us about himself. From his Letter to the Galatians we learn a little about him, but only because he uses the information about himself to further his argument with the people of that region. He speaks about himself only to prove a theological or pastoral point. He lives according to his own famous maxim,

I have been crucified with Christ, and I live now not with my own life but with the life of Christ who lives in me (Gal. 3:20).

 

The essence and meaning of the life of the servant of Christ is not self, but Christ, and the crucifixion of Christ.

But where and how did this first great theologian of Christianity learn his trade? Where did he learn the truths that he was later to proclaim with such vigour to the Church? Often the impression is given that the very experience he underwent on the road to Damascus, the blinding light and the voice from seemingly nowhere, that this event, somehow infused to him an instant theology, an instant insight into the teachings of the Christians he had enthusiastically persecuted.

It is perhaps more probable that in his contact with what he saw to be a heretical sect he had himself absorbed something of their thought. But what he emphasizes is that his knowledge of Jesus Christ was given to him by no one; that it was the result of his own encounter with God. He tells us in the letter to the Galatians that after the Damascus experience he travelled immediately into the region he called Arabia, not stopping at all to sit at the feet of the Christian teachers. Instead he would have begun once more to read the Old Testament scriptures, this time in the light of his new insight that Jesus had truly risen from the tomb on Easter morning. For that was the discovery he made on the road to Damascus at the time of what has come to be known as his conversion.

Luke tells us in Acts,

after he had spent only a few days with the disciples in Damascus he began preaching in the synagogues, “Jesus is the Son of God.”  (Acts 9:20).

 

Wild horses, as they say, would not have restrained Paul from communicating something of the new theological insight he had been given, but he also knew that his time for a more complete ministry to the Church had not yet come. According to his own account,

I did not stop to discuss this with any human being, nor did I go up to Jerusalem … but went off to Arabia at once (Gal. 1:17).

 

So far, then, we have discussed two important points concerning Paul’s life: the first is his obedience to the implications of the new insight he receives on the road to Damascus, and the second is his willingness after receiving this new insight not to rush into rash or  naïve  action, but instead spending first three, and then a further fourteen years preparing himself for the ministry that he now knew himself to be called to.

But I think there is a third significant lesson to learn from this great man of God. I have alluded to it already, for it was this aspect of Paul that eventually conquered all my doubts and cynicism about the man and convinced me that it was indeed he that had seen so clearly to the heart of the Christian gospel.

For it is Paul who sees how central to faith and theology the Cross must be and is. He writes to the church at Corinth,

I resolved to know nothing when I was amongst you accept Jesus Christ, and him crucified (1 Cor. 2:2).

 

A useful exercise that I thoroughly recommend – indeed, If I could I would legislate! – is that sometime in the near future you sit down and read one or two of Paul’s letters at a sitting. By hearing or reading only a small fragment of biblical literature at a time we lose so much of its real impact. If you were to sit down and read full epistles of Paul you would quickly discover that he adapts his style and content to the audience he is dealing with. In his letters to Corinth and Galatia he is issuing a stern reprimand to believers who have, in his opinion, strayed from the core of the gospel that he has preached to them. To the church at Ephesus and at Colossae, he writes enthusing at the strength of their faith. To some churches he wrote demanding a stricter observance of Old Testament principles, while to others he emphasizes the contrast between the legalism of the old order and the emphasis on grace and faith in the new. But always at the heart of his teaching there is Christ and the Cross.

Grace, and the Cross. In his letter to the Galatians Paul utterly slams those who have not seen the message of the Cross, and who are attempting to legislate that Gentile converts should undergo circumcision. The letter of the Law of Moses, Paul explains, is still insufficient to earn salvation. Grace and grace alone is the key to God’s favour. He writes with no small touch of annoyance,

Are you people in Galatia mad? Has someone put a spell on you, in spite of the clear explanation you had of the crucifixion of Jesus Christ? (Gal. 3:1).

 

What, then, is the link between these three aspects of Paul’s life and ministry, and does this have any significance for us? He is faithful to his call that he experiences on the road to Damascus, but he gives himself time to grow into God and into the necessary understanding of his new found faith in Christ. What relevance for us has the life or in particular the so-called conversion of St. Paul? Passionately, as a result of the development of his initial insights, he proclaims to all his people the message of Easter, that Christ has conquered death, and that our salvation has been won for us not on our merits but through the merits of Jesus himself. How do these aspects of Paul’s life link up, and how do they link with ours?

I think it is in this way: Paul was an ordinary if academically very capable man. He was, like the Jesus he served, an ordinary bloke, one who took his religion as a Jew, and subsequently as a Jew serving Christ, very seriously indeed. He was always alert and open to the possibilities open to him and to the world in God, and as a result of that openness was able to receive and then utilize the insight he gained on the Damascus Road.

And while we cannot really tell what happened on that road, we can give thanks to God that this man was obedient to his discovery, that he did retreat into the area around Damascus and around Syria, and that he did then come back to the churches and proclaim his fiery insights. For above all Paul tells us that it is by the Cross alone that we are able to return to the communion with God we lost in Eden.