ANOTHER LOOK AT THE APOSTLE PAUL

by Jennifer Schnayer, Summer Minister

A sermon given August 12, 2001

First Unitarian Church

Portland, Oregon

CALL TO WORSHIP

We come this morning from so many places.  We gather this morning to find a place to honor our pain, to sing out our praises for the blessings of life, find rest in our confusion and anger.  Wherever you are, may we be reminded of our connection with one another—and know that we are companioned on our journey.  Come let us worship together.

When I was 16, the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship I grew up in had an interim minister.  His name was Scotty and in the spring he offered a Bible class.  I decided to sign up.  I took the class because I knew nothing about the Bible.  I had never spent more than five minutes at a time with it, and I wanted to know more about this mysterious book that my mother had such strong and negative feelings toward.

When I got to the first session, I found that there were six other people in the class.  Everyone who signed up was a woman, except Scotty, the minister.

Given my practically non-existent knowledge of the Bible before taking this class, it should come as no surprise to any of you that the first time I ever heard about Paul was in that Bible class.  I think it was about the fifth week of the class.  Scotty was giving us our homework for the following week.  He said, “Okay, now I want you to read something from Paul.  Doesn’t matter what section.  We’ll come back next week and talk about it.  I am sure you ladies will have a lot to say next week.”

What did that mean?  I wondered.  And who was Paul?  I knew about Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.  But when I went through the list of books in the New Testament during the following week, I didn’t find one called “Paul.”  So I didn’t do the reading.  I figured I’d let the other women talk; I didn’t want to look foolish not knowing where to find Paul in the Bible, so I didn’t call the minister and ask.

When I got to class the next week, I discovered that Paul wrote letters, letters that were named for the people and communities he was writing to—there was no book called Paul!  But there were a lot of those letters.  Needless to say, there was a lively discussion the following week.  It seems that Paul had a lot to say about the place of women, and it wasn’t really uplifting—something about man being a reflection of God and woman being a reflection of man . . . man was not made from woman, but woman from man.  And my personal favorite:  Neither was man created for the sake of woman, but woman for the sake of man.  (1 Cor 7-9)  So this is Paul.  I didn’t think I liked him very much.

So if I didn’t like him then, why am I preaching about him now?  Why not spare us all?

There are a few reasons.  Paul’s work influenced, probably more than any other New Testament writer, the development of the Christian Church.  And Paul’s life is one filled with tension and contradiction as he struggles with his religious path, with his role as a leader.  Paul’s life and message are both part of our religious history, and can contain to us some of the complexities of a life of faith.

We Unitarian Universalists come up out of the Judeo-Christian traditions.  We are here because there were church builders like Paul, who worked to spread the Christian message.  And we are here because we have departed from that message to some extent.  We recognize that there are many holy texts from many different religious traditions that can bring us wisdom, understanding and inspiration.  Yet, we remain tied to the Bible in a different way because our Unitarian and Universalist histories are grounded in Biblical study and interpretation, and our forebears grew out of the Protestant tradition.

Williams Ellery Channing, one of the central figures in Unitarian history, preached a sermon in 1819 that explained the Unitarian approach to the Bible.  He wrote:

“We regard the Scriptures as the records of God’s successive revelations to mankind, and particularly of the last and most perfect revelation of his will by Jesus Christ.”

The centrality of Christian scripture is clear.  But then the liberal Unitarian perspective comes in as he continues, “We do not, however, attach equal importance to all the books in this collection . . . We find . . . that the different portions of this book, instead of being confined to general truths, refer perpetually to the times when they were written, to states of society, to modes of thinking, to controversies in the church, to feelings and usages which have passed away, and all without knowledge of which we are constantly in danger of extending to all times, and places, what was of temporary and local application.”

And finally, Channing insisted, “With these views of the Bible, we feel it our bounden duty to exercise our reason upon it perpetually, to compare, to infer, to look beyond the letter to the spirit, to seek in the nature of the subject, and the aim of the writer, his true meaning; and, in general, to make use of what is known, for explaining what is difficult, and for discovering new truths.”

Such a view of scripture was radical and heretical then, and, for some conservative Christians today, it is still a heretical idea—almost 200 years later.

What has happened since?  It is clear that a liberal, reasoned and open interpretation of the Bible is no longer what unifies us as a religious people.  But, I believe we are unified by a liberal and open interpretation of religious wisdom, which includes our own historical scripture, the Bible.  And we continue to be committed to the use of reason in religious inquiry.  And we also recognize the way of the spirit.  A full religious life contains much that is beyond reason—the soul can be fed in mysterious ways.  Our Unitarian Universalist religious life springs from our engagement with both experiences and ideas.  It is an active, inquiring revelation.

It is with this spirit that I come to read Paul.  What do his writings have to teach me?  I learn both from where I agree with his message and from what I find to be just plain wrong.  I learn from his life, from the history of the places he addressed, from my joy and anger as I read his words.  Every life story carries both wisdom and warning.  We all get some things right and we also make terrible mistakes; the one certainty of the human condition is that we are imperfect.

So what was Paul’s life like?  Paul was a complicated, zealously religious man.  He was born to Jewish parents in Greece and lived as a Pharisee, the most conservative Jewish sect in his region; he was committed to strict adherence to Jewish Law.

Therefore, the message of Jesus and the beliefs of Christians were abhorrent to Paul.  Jesus was not as concerned with Jewish Law, and his aim was to show the primacy of God’s love over God’s judgment.  This point of view undermined the centrality and purpose of Jewish Law and, in his religious zeal, Paul was active in persecuting Christians.

Then an amazing thing happened to Paul.  He was visited by the resurrected Jesus and was converted on the road to Damascus.  This experience transformed him from persecutor to apostle.  From this point forward he became a dramatic proponent of the Christian faith and with the same religious zeal he began to spread the gospel of Christianity.  But, he believed that Christ’s message was for all people, not just the Jews, so he went to the Gentiles and preached about Christianity, gathering and supporting Christian communities throughout the Mediterranean.  He would travel to a city, establish a Christian community, give some basic instruction and then move on.  He would keep in touch somehow and when he learned of problems that arose in those congregations he would send a letter to admonish or encourage, to congratulate or instruct.

These letters are what we find in the New Testament—his responses to some sort of activity that was taking place with groups of Christians in different places at different times.  Perhaps this is why there are countless contradictions in Paul’s writings; what was right for one group was not for another.  What would work in Rome would not work in Greece.  The cultures he addressed varied widely, and so his instructions to them varied widely.

Paul even says in Corinthians, “I have become all things to all people, that I might by all means save some.”  (1 Cor 9:22)

Paul transformed himself to meet the needs of each community.  He tried to mold the Christian message so that it could be practiced in a variety of different cultures by a variety of different classes and ethnicities of people.  Salvation was available to everyone in Paul’s view, Jew and Gentile alike.  Both were equal.  Paul moved Christianity beyond Judaism out into the wider world.  This represents part of the greatness of his message—all people have value and deserve to be saved.

It is a vital message for us today, as we face a global world, with cultures and ethnic groups coming together as never before.  Conflicts among different people have global ramifications now.  How can we find a way to honor our differences?  How can we discover a uniting gospel to honor life, to bring peace, both in our own lives and in the common life that we share?

This kind of consideration is central to my ability to get along with other people.  When Stuart and I got married one of the things I realized quickly was how much of a gift and a sacrifice it is to promise to live as a family with another person.  His world and mine were going to share the same orbit, if you will.

Here’s a frivolous example.  I had particularly frilly sheer curtains with floral swags—pink floral swags—hanging from them.  Nice for my house, but when we moved to Portland those floral swags went in my study and we left the windows in the living room free of trimmings for a while.  A year later, Stuart chose what would go up.  We are learning to be welcoming of each other, from the superficial ways we trim our home to the ways we fight and care for each other.

While I think it is vital for us to consider things from another person’s perspective, I am not suggesting that we strive to become all things to all people.  I find that to be a dangerous pursuit.  We need to retain a sense of ourselves and our own boundaries.  Knowing ourselves and our limits does not mean we never compromise those limits—it means we know when our limits are being crossed and we understand why.

Trying to be open to how others might see me helps me to understand myself better, to remember that what I do effects the people around me, and reminds me of how we are all connected in life.

Fifteen years ago, in that Bible class, probably the most difficult passage for us to swallow was in Paul’s letter to Timothy.  In Chapter 2, Paul advises men and women on their role and behavior in church.  He writes, “Let a woman learn in silence with full submission.  I permit no woman to teach or have authority over a man, she is to keep silent.”

We wouldn’t get very far this morning if I wanted to follow this particular teaching of Paul’s to the letter.  It is a passage that made me and the other women in the Bible class angry.  And it is a passage that continues to do grave harm to many women, both in church and at home with their families.

What is so hurtful about it?  For me it is that I do not want to be silenced.  I want my voice to be heard, my concerns to be honored.

There are many ways to approach Scripture:  some literal, some intellectual, some from the heart.  When I consider that passage, there are two main ways I approach it, the way of the mind and the way of the spirit.  The way of the mind might simply reject the passage.  It’s wrong.  It’s outdated.  Or I might consider the context in which Paul wrote—there are other passages where Paul wrote about women being prophets and men and women being equal.  If silenced women were so central to his message, wouldn’t he have been consistent in this area?  Seeing Scripture in this light enlivens the mind.

But there is another way to approach Scripture and that is the way of the spirit.  How does my heart come to this passage?

Maybe what this passage has to teach me has to do with silence.  Who do I silence?  What voices am I not hearing?  There are countless people whose voices are silenced every day.  There are extreme cases, where the voices speaking out against oppression are silenced by murder.  And there are complicated cases.  Do we hear the plight of the undocumented worker who lives with unheard of working conditions for next to no income?  Have we ever responded to that story by flaming the worker:  they are here illegally, what do they expect?  It’s so easy to rationalize their very real pain.

And in our day-to-day lives, whom do we choose to ignore?  How do we silence our family members, our neighbors, co-workers, friends?

My best friend in high school and I kept in touch against all the odds.  She went to a different school and we kept our friendship going on the phone, with letters and with visits our parents would help us accomplish.  When I went to college, we kept it up.  Best friends through thick and thin.  Then I started dating someone.  Over and over again his needs and wishes came before hers.  I ignored her during that relationship.  She decided, after being hurt by me more than a few times, that she was ending our friendship.  I had silenced her.  But, she wasn’t hearing the pain I was in during that relationship—I was in so much confusion and pain during that period.  I tried to make amends with her.  I apologized for what I had done.  But she would not hear me.  So, in the end, we silenced each other.  And I live with the regret that an important friendship in my life ended like that.

Our task as liberal religious believers is to be open to the other voices, those we hear and those we do not hear.  It doesn’t mean that we should be all things to all people.  But we should be able to hear the stories, to listen openly and with empathy.  We need to be willing to look critically at our own assumptions and see whether or not they are ones we will continue to hold or not.  And finally, we need to be flexible:  to be able to discern when we are going to change our minds, let a boundary be crossed or make an exception to a “rule.”  And we also need to know when we are going to hold fast to our course.  When we come to life with an open mind and heart, we end up with renewed conviction in the choices that we do make.

I hope that as Unitarian Universalists we find ways to be involved in the conversations, that we strive to be agents of connection in the world.  There is something about the best nature of a free faith that can call us to these places.  Paul’s message reminds me of how I want to be a force that gives voice to those who are silenced.  And he reminds me that sometimes there is a time and a place for silence.  Wonderful things can be born with our silence as well as with our words.  Perhaps it is not what Paul intended, but there are as many ways to be with Scripture as there are people living on this planet.  This is my way.

I like to think of all Scripture as a work of art, a Divinely inspired creation of an all too human being.  Scripture is our struggle to capture with words the Mystery of life; to capture with words the Mystery of death; to express some of what lies so far beyond our understanding—it takes everything we have to sustain a life of faith—from what we can reason, to what we trust in the life of the spirit.  May it be so.

PRAYER

Holy One, help us to know ourselves as best we can, and help us to grow in our understanding of others.  Help our spirit of compassion to be strong, that we may hear and honor another’s story.  We know we can only ever know some of what is true.  Be with us that we may find peace with that even as we challenge ourselves to hear the voices that are still silent to our ears.

BENEDICTION

Go now, and may you hear your own voice, and the voices of those around you.  Go in love and go in peace.

Conrad Wright, ed.  Three Prophets of Religious Liberalism:  Channing – Emerson – Parker (Boston:  Beacon Press, 1961) 48.

Ibid 40-51.

Ibid.

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Copyright 2001, Jennifer Schnayer.  All rights reserved.