Sermon - The Rev. Dr. Elise A. Feyerherm, Jan. 29th, 2023

The feast of the Conversion of St. Paul is officially celebrated on January 25, which was this past Wednesday. We have transferred the feast to this Sunday, to honor the Apostle Paul as the patron saint of this parish, after whom we are named. Normally we do not commemorate saints on a Sunday, because Sunday worship is always a feast of our Lord Jesus Christ. But on a parish’s patronal feast day, an exception is made.

It is appropriate and fitting that we remember Paul as the one who saw his life’s work as proclaiming not himself but Jesus Christ as Lord (2 Corinthians 4:5). Paul himself would insist that today, and every day, is not about him, but about living into the love of God in Christ Jesus. So that is what we are going to do.

We grumble about the Apostle Paul, sometimes: his infuriating longwindedness, his odd tangents, his conservatism at times about gender relationships. He is the eccentric great-uncle at the holiday dinner table, the one about whom pre-gathering instructions are whispered: “Don’t get him started!” Those who don’t really know St. Paul accuse him of ignoring Jesus’ teachings and emphasizing doctrine, saying, “Jesus preached the Kingdom of God, and Paul preached the institutional Church.” I hope to convince you otherwise; or at least, offer evidence to challenge that caricature.

Today I want to give thanks for St. Paul: apostle, lover of Jesus, and beloved family member of the Body of Christ. I want to thank God for Paul’s energy, and perseverance. I am full of gratitude for Paul’s willingness to lay his soul bare before the community and share his own struggles. Without his witness, we would not be here today. Without St. Paul, most of us Gentiles would not be here, sharing in the Body of Christ. It was Paul who, following God’s call, took the good news to the Gentiles so that they could be grafted onto Israel, not to replace the Jews but to join them in doing justice and walking humbly with God.

Imagine, for a moment, what our prayer and our life together would be without the transformation and testimony of our eccentric uncle Paul of Tarsus. Listen to these words and imagine our worship without them: 

“There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free; there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.” (Galatians 3:28)

“Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it.” (1 Corinthians 12:27)

“Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice. Let your gentleness be known to everyone. The Lord is near.” (Philippians 4:4-5).

“Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.” (I Corinthians 13:4-6)

Or, finally, this: 

“For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 8:38-39)

There are more, but these are enough for now. 

“There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free; there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.” 

“Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it.” 

From the moment Paul encountered Jesus on the road to Damascus, he understood the mysterious reality of our oneness in Christ. We are not just members of a club, but are knit together in body and soul, whether we know or even like each other very much. And that applies not only to us at St. Paul’s, but binds us to every person in the world who in baptism bears the name of Christ. That unity is real. There is no one to whom we can say, “I have no need of you.”

“Rejoice in the Lord always.” 

Last Sunday we got a taste of what it is like to rejoice in the Lord even when our hearts are breaking. We are doing a lot of that these days, with the deaths of beloved community members like George and Leah and Faye still fresh in our experience. Paul knew that rejoicing in the Lord is not just a requirement in times of blessing, but is the medicine that will ease our pain in times of hardship. Our rejoicing opens us up to God’s love in the midst of sorrow; it embodies the hope of resurrection even as we stand at the grave.

“Love is patient; love is kind.” 

We will hear this on Thursday as we gather to mourn the death of Leah Rugen and give thanks for her life. Many of us have heard this chapter of First Corinthians at weddings, but the apostle Paul wrote this primarily in defiance of death rather than as instructions for newlyweds. “Love is patient; love is kind” is a fist shaken at the death-dealing ways of the world. “Love never ends” is the Alleluia we sing at every grave because Jesus’ resurrection has defeated death. Without the Apostle Paul, I would not know this. I might intuit it, perhaps, but I need these words in my life with Christ. I think perhaps we all do.

Paul’s words in the 8th chapter of Romans stands for me as the essence of the good news: 

“For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” 

He has a long list of things that will not separate us from God’s love, but since that list can’t possibly be all-inclusive, he adds, “nor anything else in all creation.” Nothing. Nothing at all can keep us from God, not even our own sins and fears and failings. Once Paul met Jesus on that road, his life would be guided by this conviction. And he wanted to make sure that we knew it too, for ourselves and for everyone around us.

Our oneness in Christ; the medicine of rejoicing in the Lord always; the deep and patient power of love; the powerlessness of death to separate us from God: all this we receive from our brother St. Paul. These are the talismans we carry with us, not only for ourselves, but for the world. They keep our hearts strong in a world of hatred and death. They are balm for the soul, and they are also calls to action. They are meant not to anesthetize us, but to strengthen us to feel the pain of the world and do something about it. 

This is especially important in the face of yet another killing of yet another young black man – Tyre Nichols – at the hands of police. Love is patient and kind, yes. But it is also, Paul knew, a consuming fire. How will our love, our rejoicing, our oneness, our defiance of death, confront the abomination that is racism in our nation, and our idolatry of guns and violence? St. Paul gives us the means to ask these questions and to act.

This is why I am so grateful for the Apostle Paul, and why I celebrate the radical change of life marked on this day. Perhaps you can see now why I cannot imagine our prayer and our faith without him. St. Paul is one of us – cranky, fallible, pompous at times, and a member of the Body of Christ whom we cannot do without. He is willing to tell his story, the whole story, complete with the humiliation of being slapped upside the head and brought to his knees. He allows Christ to strip away everything that keeps him from experiencing the love of God, including his status and his self-righteous rage. 

So in the words of our cranky and loveable uncle in Christ, “thanks be to God, who in Christ always leads us in triumphal procession, and through us spreads in every place the fragrance that comes from knowing him.” (2 Corinthians 2.14). 

“The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit, be with us all evermore.” Amen. (2 Corinthians 13:14).