The Feast of Sts. Peter and Paul

A blessed Feast of the Glorious Leaders of the Apostles, Peter and Paul.

Today our parish celebrates our heavenly Patron, St. Paul the Apostle as we also conclude the Year of St. Paul which celebrated the 2000th birthday of one of the men chosen by Christ our God to lead His Church.    Just yesterday the Vatican announced that the scientific studies on the relics in the sarcophagus of St. Paul are indeed those of someone who died in the 1st or 2nd Centuries, lending credence to the notion that the relics are indeed those of the Apostle to the Nations.

Though Sts Peter and Paul are considered the founders of Christianity, the foundation of the Church is Jesus Christ.  In other metaphorical language the Church is the Body of Christ, and the Apostles like all Christians are members of that body.

Some  have accused St. Paul of having changed Christianity – among those critics of St. Paul are Muslims and modern historians.  

To say St. Paul “changed” Christianity would mean that Christianity already had a monolithic and established form which he then altered.  It almost assumes that the Christian message fell from heaven in a printed book which left the disciples with nothing to do but follow its instructions.     I don’t think that is true to history at all.   The nascent Christianity was only beginning to coalesce as Church.   The Apostles were working out their own salvation, taking up their own crosses daily, endeavoring to follow Christ, and preaching the Gospel – they were actively engaging the world while in their hearts engaging the Word.   In this sense Paul wasn’t changing Christianity at all, he was however founding it – establishing what it was to become by helping to form its structures.  This in fact is what Christ our Lord entrusted His chosen apostles to accomplish.   Our English words edify and edifice have the same root words in them.  St. Paul was edifying people which also was establishing and building up the edifice of the Church.  Paul was doing what Christ called him to do. 

 The original Apostles were at first so afraid of the Jews as to keep themselves hidden away from public view.  Pentecost  (Acts 2) changed all of that and for the first time Peter publicly proclaimed the Christian Gospel. The story in the Acts of the Apostles shows some miraculous and sudden growth of Christianity, but it was sporadic and not organized or energized.  The first Christians were still trying to figure out what it meant as Jews that the Messiah had come.   It is Paul who truly grasps the universal significance of the Gospel and the coming of the Messiah.  It is he who pushes ahead taking the Gospel to the non-Jews, creating the “crisis” about whether to become Christian you had to become a Torah keeping  Jew.  This crisis causes the original Apostles to consider the issue and realize that it was not necessary to become a Jew to embrace the Gospel (Acts 15).  In this sense St. Paul was involved with helping to form Christianity.  However, though he sparked the debate about the requirement of keeping the Law, it was the Apostolic community still based in the Jerusalem who decided that this indeed was the message of Christ and the direction for the Church.

Biblical scholar, Stanley Porter in his Hearing the Old Testament in the New Testament says of St. Paul: 

The divine mystery that was revealed to Paul in Christ opens for him new ways of reading and listening to the ancient texts of the Jewish people. His belief in Christ is both an experience and a conviction that, in his eyes, allows him to comprehend the “true” meaning of the religion of his people and their sacred texts. Christ and Scripture are closely connected for Paul; and, I would argue, it is impossible to speak about his reading of Scripture apart from his Christology. Christ is the presupposition for his encounter with Scripture. It is the revelation of Christ that shapes his understanding of God’s people and God’s purposes. For Paul, as for many other interpreters of Scripture in his own day and beyond, the Scriptures yield their “true” meaning to those who are guided and transformed by the Spirit. 

Relics of St. Paul Confirmed

The Vatican is reporting that a scientific analysis of the bone fragments in what was believed to be St. Paul’s sarcophagus has confirmed they are the bones of someone who died in the first or second century.  Pope Benedict announced that the scientific tests confirm what pilgrims have believed for centuries to be true.

You can read the story at http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/06/28/AR2009062801356.html

The article reports that a little over a week ago the discovery of the oldest known icon of St. Paul, of which we can hope the Vatican will release a photograph.  The icon was designed to be used in prayer and is not just art said the Vatican.  The icon fresco dates from the end of the 4th Century, dating it near the time of the 2nd Ecumenical Council.

The announcments from the Vatican come as the proclaimed Year of St. Paul is brought to a close on the Feast of Sts. Peter and Paul, June 29.   The Year of St. Paul proclaimed by the Pope and the Greek Orthodox Ecumenical Patriarch marks the 2000th anniversary of the birth of St. Paul.

Chrysostom: In Praise of St. Paul

This excerpt from a homily preached by St. John Chrysostom around 400 AD in praise of St. Paul is used in the Roman Office of Readings for the Feast of the Conversion of Saint Paul on January 25. 

 Paul, more than anyone else, has shown us what man really is, and in what our nobility consists, and of what virtue this particular animal is capable. Each day he aimed ever higher; each day he rose up with greater ardor and faced with new eagerness the dangers that threatened him.  He summed up his attitude in the words: “I forget what is behind me and push on to what lies ahead.”  When he saw death imminent, he bade others share his joy: “Rejoice and be glad with me!” And when danger, injustice and abuse threatened, he said: “I am content with weakness, mistreatment and persecution.” These he called the weapons of righteousness, thus telling us that he derived immense profit from them.
Thus, amid the traps set for him by his enemies, with exultant heart he turned their every attack into a victory for himself; constantly beaten, abused and cursed, he boasted of it as though he were celebrating a triumphal procession and taking trophies home, and offered thanks to God for it all: “Thanks be to God who is always victorious in us!” This is why he was far more eager for the shameful abuse that his zeal in preaching brought upon him than we are for the most pleasing honors, more eager for death than we are for life, for poverty than we are for wealth; he yearned for toil far more than others yearn for rest after toil. The one thing he feared, indeed dreaded, was to offend God; nothing else could sway him. Therefore, the only thing he really wanted was always to please God.
The most important thing of all to him, however, was that he knew himself to be loved by Christ. Enjoying this love, he considered himself happier than anyone else; were he without it, it would be no satisfaction to be the friend of principalities and powers. He preferred to be thus loved and be the least of all, or even to be among the damned, than to be without that love and be among the great and honored.
To be separated from that love was, in his eyes, the greatest and most extraordinary of torments; the pain of that loss would alone have been hell, and endless, unbearable torture.  So too, in being loved by Christ he thought of himself as possessing life, the world, the angels, present and future, the kingdom, the promise and countless blessings. Apart from that love nothing saddened or delighted him; for nothing earthly did he regard as bitter or sweet.
Paul set no store by the things that fill our visible world, any more than a man sets value on the withered grass of the field. As for tyrannical rulers or the people enraged against him, he paid them no more heed than gnats. Death itself and pain and whatever torments might come were but child’s play to him, provided that thereby he might bear some burden for the sake of Christ.   (St. John Chrysostom)

The Year of St. Paul and Charles Darwin!

In 2009 we Christians are commemorating the 2000^th Birthday of St. Paul the Apostle to the Nations.  In this same year, the scientific community is remembering the 200^th Birthday of Charles Darwin, and the 150^th Anniversary of the publication of Darwin’s THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES.

While Darwin grew up in a world greatly influenced by the writings of St. Paul, St. Paul himself did not show a lot of interest in the things which became Darwin’s concern.  Paul in his writings was almost singularly concerned with pleasing God, and showed little interest in the natural world except in as much as it too was revealing God to us.  Darwin on the other hand, following the ideas of Francis Bacon, had no interest in allowing his thinking to be shaped by ancient wisdom or revelations and was singularly interested in discovering as much as he could about nature – including its ancient past – through observation of the empirical world.  Bacon was convinced that ancient wisdom, especially Greek pagan wisdom and philosophy, was in fact misinforming and misshaping our understanding of the visible universe.  He believed that God wanted us to come to as clear an understanding of the physical world as is possible, but this meant pursuing observation and deductive testing rather than allowing ancient wisdom to shape our way of seeing the world. 

While Darwin was interested in the origin of species (something empirical and observable), St. Paul’s writings are much more influential in Christian thinking on the origins of sin.  Darwin only later in his life applied his thinking to humans and to human ancestry in writing THE DESCENT OF MAN, whereas Paul early in his Christian career wrote about the effects of the original sin of our human ancestors and human history to this day. Darwin saw the history and descent of man as an evolution from earlier ape forms to the existence of modern humans.   St. Paul on the other hand saw the descent of man as referring to humanity’s loss of closeness with God due to our sinning.

The reality is St. Paul did not write much about the origins of humanity.  He certainly was aware of the Genesis creation story and accepts the basic revelation it contains.  But he does not quote Genesis 1-3 all that often, nor is the creation of the world his biggest concern – in fact he writes as much about the new creation in Christ (eschatology) as he does about the Genesis creation (origins).   Paul shows no real interest in the origins of the rest of the animal world or creation.  His main interest in Adam is in understanding Christ.  For St. Paul the significance of Genesis is that it helps us to understand Christ and he reads the text Christologically not scientifically.  Adam is important but not as a study in the origins of humanity but as a prototype of Christ.  In this sense Adam is about all of us in that he shares in our humanity and he is a prototype of Christ who also shares in our humanity.  Adam for St. Paul helps us understand Christ theologically, metaphorically, allegorically and prototypically.   St. Paul thus reads Genesis in order to understand Jesus Christ not in order to understand the science of the world’s origins.  In fact for St. Paul as for the Judaism of his day (and of the Torah for that matter) the origins of the human species are not as significant as the fact that humanity did not have a proper relationship with God.  St. Paul is more concerned about the effects of sin on humanity than he is in the origins of mankind.

I do not read St. Paul in order to learn science or the origins of humanity.  St. Paul did not read Genesis to learn about science or the origins of humanity.  He read Genesis in order to understand the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.   I do read St. Paul to understand humanity especially theologically.  St. Paul writes to help us understand Christ and he uses the Genesis story of Adam to help us understand Jesus Christ and salvation.  I do not believe St. Paul would have been much troubled by the writings of Charles Darwin not because he would have thought Darwin was false, but because Paul’s singular focus was on God, on what God has been doing in humanity through history and through Jesus Christ.  Darwin on the other hand was focusing on what he could understand about creation (and thus humanity) by focusing on the observable created world.  St. Paul was focused on the way on what he called our spiritual body  (1 Corinthians 15 – what our bodies are to become in Christ) and he would have understood Darwin as being interested only in the natural physical body (what are bodies are as a result of our relationship to Adam and to sin).   Paul would have simply been amazed that anyone could be so concerned with that body of death which is passing away rather than in the body as it shares in the resurrection of Christ.  Ultimately Darwin’s origin of species is about this world, natural selection, death and that which is passing away, while St. Paul is concerned about the renewal of life in the resurrection, the triumph over death and life in the world which is to come.

In Praise of St. Paul

While St. Paul’s importance to all of Christianity today cannot be denied, we might wonder how St. Paul understood his own role and calling in the life of the Church.  Biblical scholar and Anglican Bishop N. T. Wright has written extensively on the scripture attributed to St. Paul, Apostle to the Nations.  Bishop Wright offers the following summary based upon St. Paul’s own words of how Paul envisioned his role in the unfolding history of God’s plan and God’s people:

Paul, too, believed himself to have a special, unique role within the overall purposes of Israel’s God, the world’s creator; and that role was precisely not to bring Israel’s history to is climax – that had been done in the death and resurrection of the Messiah – but rather to perform the next unique task within an implicit apocalyptic timetable, namely to call the nations, urgently, to loyal submission to the one who had now been enthroned as Lord of the world.  Paul believe that it was his task to call into being, by proclaiming Jesus as Lord, the worldwide community in which ethnic division would be abolished and a new family created as a sign to the watching world that Jesus was its rightful Lord and that new creation had been launched and would one day come to full flower.   (PAUL IN FRESH PERSPECTIVE) 

From Vespers honoring St. Paul the Apostle, we Orthodox sing this verse:

Today we celebrate your memory, O Apostle Paul, and bless your struggles for Christ, your many pains and much labor. You were sent as a sun to us who were sitting in the darkness and shadow of delusion. You preached the Gospel of peace and redemption from our vanities. We who are unworthy were shown to be worthy by your godly preaching and became children of the Father through the Son in the Holy Spirit. The Orthodox Church boasts in you as her unbreakable foundation. O great Apostle and wise teacher, all the world is made beautiful by your teaching! Intercede with the Lord to deliver us from every heresy.

The Conversion of St. Paul

This Sunday, January 25, our parish joins with all those keeping the Year of St. Paul (celebrating the 2000^th Birthday of our Parish Patron Saint) by remembering the Conversion of St. Paul to Christianity.   The Conversion of St. Paul is a Feast Day in the Roman Catholic Church.  Our parish is honoring our Patron Saint by remembering this event as well.   The Year of St. Paul was declared jointly by the Patriarch of Constantinople Bartholomew and Pope Benedict of Rome and runs from 29 June 2008- 29 June 2009.   All Christians – Orthodox, Catholic and Protestant are indebted to St. Paul the Apostle to the Nations for receiving the Gospel.  In the 4^th Century, St. John Chrysostom wrote regarding the conversion of St. Paul, that Apostle to the nations:

The blessed Paul, the one who brought us together today, and illuminated the world, this man was blinded at the time of his call. But his blinding has become the enlightenment of the world! For since he saw badly, God rightly blinded him, so that he might see again usefully. In that one stroke God both provided Paul a proof of his own power, and prefigured his future in suffering. In this way God taught him the manner in which the gospel was to be preached: that it was necessary for Paul to cast off all that was his own, shut his eyes and follow him everywhere…In fact, it is not possible to see again rightly if one has not formerly been well blinded, cast off the reasonings that were troubling him, and turned completely to the faith. But let no one on hearing these things think that this call was a matter of compulsion, for he was able to return again to the way from which he had come. Indeed many, after seeing other, greater marvels, turned back again…But not Paul. He, after gazing upon the undefiled light, intensified his course and flew toward heaven.  And if you want to know the  reason he was blinded, listen to him saying, “For you have heard about my behavior then in Judaism, that I was persecuting the church to the highest degree and trying to lay it waste, and I was advancing in Judaism above many of the peers in my race, being exceedingly zealous for my ancestral traditions” (Gal 1:13-14).  Since, therefore, Paul was so severe and unapproachable, he stood in need of a bit that was even more severe, lest, led by the strength of his will, he might misunderstand what was said. That is why, forestalling Paul’s mania, God first calms the waves of his ferocious wrath by blinding, and then speaks to him. In this way he demonstrates the unapproachability of his wisdom, and the superiority of his knowledge. God did this so that Paul might learn who it was he was fighting against-a God whom he could not withstand, not only in punishments, but even in kindnesses. For darkness did not blind Paul, but the superabundance of light cast him into darkness.  (Margaret Mitchell, The Heavenly Trumpet: John Chrysostom and the Art of Pauline Interpretation)

Leadership Lessons from the Apostle Paul

I’ve decided to read a little more about the Apostle Paul during this Year of St. Paul . 

I would encourage everyone to take a look at the information about St. Paul available at http://www.stpaulsirvine.org/html/saintpaul.html.

 From the book PASSIONATE VISIONARY: LEADERSHIP LESSONS FROM THE APOSTLE PAUL by R. S. Ascough and C. Cotton, I gleaned the following:

“…transactional managers – people in authority who have the power and influence to keep the status quo afloat into the future.  In times of change, we want transformational leaders rather than transactional managers.” 

The notion that the world constantly undergoes change is a truth recognized in Orthodoxy which affirms that God alone is changeless.  But Orthodoxy by its nature is conservative and traditionalist.   It resists the whirlwinds of change that sweep human society.  Nevertheless it needs leaders who can cope with the changing demands of the world in which the Church exists.   It is painfully obvious that at many points in its history the leadership of the Orthodox church was almost petrified as the world went through tremendous change and upheaval.  Unlike the early apostles, missionaries and apologists of Christianity, modern Orthodox bishops certainly have been far more transactional managers than transformational leaders.  While this helps preserve the faith in times of upheaval, sometimes, as in the case of the current OCA scandal, the episcopal leadership has been preserved like a mummy – preserving even its problems in perpetuity.  Admittedly the book embraces constant change as both always normative and always good,  but this is a modern American assumption.  Some change can be change for the worse.  But the condition of no change better describes a corpse than the Body of Christ.

“Transformational leaders such as Paul challenge people to change and grow, to look at the world in new ways.  This is rarely a smooth journey, since the status quo tends to have a stronger hold on the imagination and heart than any exciting vision of the future.”

Unfortunately, bishops are by office and by personality conservative and preserving people.  They are not the creative people who can bring about needed change or who can help others appropriately deal with change.  The OCA is undergoing a transformation, and needs to, but the bishops are least suited to lead this task.

“That is why leaders who talk about new ways of seeing, being and doing must adopt an encouraging leadership style if they care about their followers. (The alternative is to manipulate people based on their fears and anxieties.)  … Transformational leaders do not offer inducements or manipulative tokens; rather, they seek to energize and inspire others through passion, vision, personal values and reciprocal commitments.  In short, they seek to transform others.  This sounds a lot like Paul.”

The book says that there are “Four Competencies” of leadership:

• 1) To understand and practice appreciation of others.
• 2) To remind others of what is important.
• 3) To generate and sustain trust.
• 4) To form an intimate alliance between leaders and led.

St. Paul Parish Icon Project

St. Paul Orthodox Church, Dayton, OH, which is celebrating with all of Christianity The Year of St. Paul in honor of the 2000th Birthday of St. Paul the Apostle to the Nations is also preparing for its 25th Anniversary as a parish community in 2010.  As part of the celebration, the community is adding some icons to the sanctuary.  You can view the Icon Project.   Your prayers for our community are always appreciated.   If you would like to contribute to the Icon Fund go to the Icon Project Web Page for information about where to send your donation.

St. Paul the Apostle to the Nations

Sermon for Sts. Peter and Paul  2008

I heard this morning that the Pope of Rome and the Patriarch of Constantinople declared the next 12 months to be “the year of St. Paul.”   This will mark the 2000^th Anniversary of the birth of St. Paul the Apostle to the Nations.

I think as a parish we should find out if there are ways we can participate in the Year of St. Paul.    

St. Paul is thought to have been born in the year 10AD in the city of Tarsus.  A sobering thought for all of us, both as members of St. Paul Parish and as Orthodox Christians, is that today, there are no (0 – zero) Christians living in Tarsus.  Though St. Paul became the Apostle to the Nations and made it possible for hundreds of millions of people worldwide and throughout history to be disciples of Christ, not one Christian remains in his hometown.   And the ancient church building in Tarsus is now a museum.

St. Paul was a special apostle.   He was not among the original 12 disciples that Jesus picked.  In fact St. Paul as far as we know never met Jesus during Jesus’ life time.  St. Paul was specially picked by Christ to become an apostle, sometime after the Resurrection of Christ.  Paul was not present with the disciples on the day of Pentecost.  He also was not evangelized or catechized by the apostles, but received a special direct revelation from Christ which changed him from persecutor of the church to evangelist for the Church. 

St. Paul is therefore in the second generation of Christians.  He was recruited by Christ to evangelize the Gentiles.  And in this sense he represents a new kind of leadership in the church – not one in the direct descent of the apostles, but one called out especially by Christ.   And because of this St. Paul was not at first warmly received by the original apostle’s of Christ.  But eventually they do offer him the right hand of fellowship and do appointment him to be the Apostle to the Gentiles. 

But St. Paul remained a challenge to the authority of the original apostles.  Remember they were the ones who argued which one of them was the greatest when Christ talked to them about his upcoming crucifixion, and they jostled to see which one of them would be sitting at Christ’s right hand in the kingdom, and they tried to forbid others from doing miracles in Jesus’ name because these others didn’t follow the disciples.   So they were not men who took kindly to threats to their sacred position in the Christian hierarchy.

But God had His own plan, and He chose from outside the original group of apostles to really push evangelism among the Gentiles.  Perhaps Christ did this to help prevent a despotic hierarchy from trying to control His church!

And Paul had a pugnacious personality, and go into several serious fights with other Church leaders.  One of the most famous Paul himself describes in his Letter to the Galatians.  There St. Paul confronted St. Peter to his face about Peter’s hypocrisy.   Paul says “I opposed him to his face!”   Them’s fighten’ words! (Look at the icon of Sts. Peter & Paul – are they embracing, or wrestling, or both?)

St. Paul argued adamantly with the original apostles that the mission to the Gentiles means for all Christians including Jews that the following of the Torah laws is no longer mandatory and that Christian Jews must no longer separate themselves from Gentile Christians when it comes to meals and other functions in which Jews generally would not participate with Gentiles.  St. Paul argued the dividing wall (=The Torah) has been torn down and now the righteousness of everyone comes from Christ, not from one’s diligently keeping Torah.  It made St. Paul angry to see the hypocrisy of St. Peter who  was sometimes tempted to please his fellow Jewish Christians by excluding the Gentile ones.

St. Paul argued that it is not necessary for Gentiles to become Jews in order to become Christian.   And St. Paul’s teaching is affirmed by all of the apostles at the Council in Jerusalem described in Acts 15.

The decision of that Council had broad precedence for all Orthodox mission work.  In the same way that it is not necessary for converts to become Jews in order to become Christian, it is not necessary for converts to become Greek, or Russian or American in order to be Christian.  It is not the language, customs, dress, food, or rituals of these people that can make them or us Christian.   In Christ means that Torah and legalistic traditions are of limited value.  This is a lesson we Orthodox have not always embraced even though we often like to give lip service to allowing every Orthodox people to worship God in their own language.  I believe St. Paul would embrace and bless the vision and design of the Orthodox Church in America as the Church to embrace Americans into the Orthodox Tradition and Faith.

St. Paul has shown us that sometimes it is good, necessary and right to have to argue and fight for what is right within the Church.   He shows us that the established hierarchy sometimes has to be challenged in order for the Church to remain faithful to Christ’s command to teach the Gospel to all nations.  He shows us that controversy and disagreement and debate are not always wrong in the Church, and sometimes really do help Christians to discern God’s will.

And through the Council at Jerusalem which St. Paul attended and gave witness to his work, we have learned of the importance for assemblies or councils to take up the hard task of discerning God’s will.   Everyone of our meetings in this parish, whether it is Parish Council or the Outreach Committee or the Annual Parish Meeting, and every Church meeting – Diocesan Council, Diocesan Assembly, Metropolitan Council or All American Council all exist for the purpose of discerning God’s will.   And to make that discernment we do need to have debate and sometimes harsh disagreement among the Saints of the Church, and among Church leaders, and even challenging the established leaders at times.

May we embrace this spirit of St. Paul to discern God’s will in every meeting we hold or attend as Church.  And may God bless each of you with the determination of St. Paul to see God’s will accomplished in the Church.

The Year of St. Paul

Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew and Pope Benedict of Rome have declared 29 June 2008 to 29 June 2009 to be THE YEAR OF ST. PAUL.   St. Paul the Apostle Church, Dayton, Ohio, will be also honoring this year.  2010 marks the 25th Anniversary of our parish.  God willing we will have installed by then some special icons revealing the life of St. Paul.  These icons will offer a history from St. Paul to St. Paul’s (Dayton).