This week's sermon

 

PAUL AND JESUS

        To begin, I’m going to say something that got me in trouble with seminary professors and this week, with some of my friends and colleagues: “I don’t like St. Paul!”

        On Tuesday I said it on a regular Zoom meeting I have with four other Episcopal priest, three lay folks (including—but not that day—Steve McGraff) and a Roman Catholic priest from West Virginia—my brother-in-law, Dan Pisano (who wasn’t on the call this week).

        Those on Zoom were all quick to defend Paul.

        One of them even told me, “if it wasn’t for Paul, you wouldn’t even be a Christian.”

        What they meant was that Paul was an evangelist to Gentiles.

        Over Paul’s lifetime there were two kinds of Christians—Jewish Christians and Gentile Christians.

The Jewish Christians believed that before a Gentile could become a Christian, they had to convert to being a Jew, be circumcised and obey the dietary restrictions and all other Jewish laws. Then they could follow Christ.

        Very few if any Gentiles would go through with that. Paul proclaimed they didn’t have to. They could remain Gentiles and follow Jesus.

        So, in some way my friend was right—if it hadn’t been for Paul I would have never been a Christian.

        But I still don’t like Paul.

        Case in point—today’s lesson from one of Paul’s letters to the believers in Corinth.

        Listen—“Though I am free in respect of all, I have made myself a slave to all, so that I may win more of them. To the Jews I became a Jew….To those under the law, I became as one under the law….To those outside the law I became one outside the law….To the weak I become weak….I HAVE BECOME ALL THINGS TO ALL PEOPLE….I do it all for the sake of the gospel, so that I may share in its blessings.”

        He sounds like a politician, running for re-election.

        He is ‘all things to all people’ so he might share the blessings.

        Jesus doesn’t become ONE with those he serves.

        If he did, when he found Simon’s mother-in-law was in bed with a fever, he would have developed a fever!

        If he did, when he found himself with someone possessed by a demon, he would have invited a demon into himself!

        If he did, when someone denounced him, he would have denounced himself!

        Jesus wasn’t ‘all things to all people’, he came to bring The Good News to all people!

        Given a choice between Paul and Jesus, I would choose Jesus every time.

        Don’t tell the Bishop, but I don’t like Paul….