"Paul: Jewish Mystic and Social Revolutionary"

Rev. Susan Maginn

Wy'east Unitarian Universalist Congregation

May 3, 2009

When most liberal religious people hear 'apostle Paul' we shutter to be reminded of some of the most harmful passages in the bible, especially harmful for women and for the queer community.

In fact, I remember years ago, when I preached a sermon on marriage equality in Missouri, people picketed outside the church carrying signs that simply said Roman 1:26 and 1 Corinthians 6:9 - nothing more.

Just last week, I met with a woman who said that all she knew of the bible were the passages that had been repeatedly recited to her as a teenager when her family members were telling her how sinful she was as a young lesbian.

And then, we have countless biblical passages and centuries of church tradition and doctrine that have seen women's experience as problematic, heretical or simply irrelevant. One passage that is often cited to keep women from church leadership is in 1^st Corinthians: 14 where he tells the women to not speak during worship.

Even when I entered seminary, my knowledge of Paul's letters remained superficial. All I knew about Paul was that he represented the self-righteous bigotry that so frustrates me in human nature and especially in religious life.

In my second year of seminary I freely chose to take an entire course devoted to Paul and his first letter to the Corinthians. The main reason why I took the course was because of the outstanding credentials of the professor, Stephen Patterson, who showed me that there were far more layers to Paul than I had assumed. He also indirectly taught me that I had pre-judged Paul with some self-righteous bigotry of my own.

I could spend our time together offering a lecture on Paul and the Corinthian community, citing the findings of biblical archeology and historical criticism of his controversial texts from renowned feminist and queer biblical scholars.

But instead I'd like to tell you a story.

It all started way back, such a long time back. It was almost 2000 years ago, in the bustling seaport town of Corinth, Greece, in a wealthy neighborhood, in the home of a man we'll call Gaius. As Gaius prepares his home this day, the house smells of baking bread. The candles are being lit and the table is set. Every week, Gaius opens his doors to the small group of Corinthian people who worship Jesus of Nazareth.

The worshippers are modest in number and yet they come from all over town. The one thing they have in common is that they are all subjects of the Roman Empire.

Some are poor - a few are wealthy like Gaius, whose house is big enough to host these gatherings.

Many of the worshippers are Jewish and familiar with the close bonds created in Jewish synagogues. Even the Jewish women come and many of them are worshipping for the first time. In Jewish congregations at this time, the men worship on behalf of the entire household. The women stay at home.

In these days, Jews are familiar with how it feels to be a religious outsider in the Roman Empire. All subjects are expected to be faithful to Rome by worshipping Roman gods, attending sacrifices and paying taxes. Early on in the Roman Empire, Jewish leadership struck a deal with Roman leadership that the Jews could worship the God of Israel and send their money to their one temple, the temple in Jerusalem. That temple paid the Roman Empire nicely and as a result, Jews throughout the Roman Empire were exempt from attending the local worship of Roman gods and paying taxes to the local leaders.

The Jews who come to Gaius' house are those who know about how Torah teaches the coming of a messiah who would usher in the Kingdom of God on earth. These are the Jews who believed that Jesus was the messiah that generations had waited so long for. There were many Jews in Corinth who did not agree that Jesus was 'the one' and probably many more Jews who had never even heard of this person called Jesus.

Many of the worshippers at Gaius' house were Gentiles and this way of worshipping was completely new to them. They had only known the Roman ways of worshipping and sacrificing. They were getting used to coming to this house each week instead of going to town's temple or to the sacrifice in the town's center, but for some it was still a little scary. Their presence at today's Roman sacrifice would be missed. They could be tried for treason and imprisoned or perhaps even worse.

Today, in the center of Corinth, there would be animals sacrificed to the Roman gods. The whole town would come to eat the meat and to be counted among those who pledge their allegiance to the Roman Empire. This is the one time when meat is available to all. The best cuts will go to the aristocrats. The less desirable cuts will go to the lower class.

Regardless of whether they are Jew or Gentile, they enter the home ready to sing their favorite hymns, to talk about how they are preparing for God. They come to pray to Jesus, who was just assassinated 20 years ago. They come to do as he taught by sharing a meal together.

While the animals were being sacrificed and meat was cut and passed throughout the town square according to class, this faithful group of Jews, Gentiles, men, women, slaves and free eat their communion meal. They leave behind the hierarchy of the Roman Empire. They leave the religion of their youth. They leave the duties assigned by their gender. As members of this congregation, they are united by love, as Paul reminds them again and again. And so, there is no animal to be cut and dispensed with along class lines. There is a simple meal and there is a simple loaf of bread, cut equally and passed around the table to all. There is talking, laughing, listening - and most of all, waiting - waiting for the world as they know it to come crashing down.

None of them knew Jesus personally, not even Paul did. After all, Jesus lived and died all the way in Israel. But they heard about his miraculous birth, life and death from Paul. Paul is a highly devout Pharisaic Jew from Tarsus who travels all around Macedonia and Galatia, mostly to coastal cities like Corinth - Thessalonica, Phillippi, Ephesus and even as far into Galatia as the town of Colossae. He energy is as boundless as the sea. He is a humorous and loving man who tells wonderful stories about his own life and the life of Jesus. Paul prepares people for the end of the world as we know it, when God will wipe away all that we know to bring in the Kingdom of God once and for all. Paul reminds these Corinthians to live a faithful life, to prepare for God's imminent return to earth and most of all to love one another.

Paul has his own particularities, contradictions and faults, but his visits to Corinth are the highlight of the community's life. Another favorite time is when Paul sends a letter to comfort, counsel and correct the faithful Corinthians. These letters are precious to them because they do not have a sacred text about Jesus. No gospels have been written to unify all the Jesus communities, no one story of Jesus' life and death. They have the Torah to look to as they seek to understand Jesus' place within Judaism and a collection of the Jesus' sayings. So Paul's rare letters are the most authoritative text they have to guide their daily religious lives - as individuals and as a community.

Today a new letter has arrived. The worshippers are brimming with excitement to hear Paul's words shared with all who sit around the communion table.

Paul first came to the city of Corinth a couple years ago. When he came, he talked about how the God of Israel had changed. This was no longer a God concerned only with the future of Israel and the Jews, but this God was now ready to bring hope, love and justice to all people of the world, especially those who suffer. The God of Israel was no longer an aloof, transcendent God - judging and loving from a distance. As it was prophesied in the ancient prophetic scriptures, God came to earth in the form of a human being. Not an emperor, but someone named Jesus - someone like millions of other anonymous lives before and after him - those who are born into less than ideal circumstances, live and work and love, only to die in less than ideal circumstances. God came through a poor unwed woman, through a carpenter to declare that the Kingdom of God is at hand and open to each and all.

They had heard that, in some congregations in the Jesus movement, circumcision was required for the men. Thankfully for the Gentiles, this was different in Corinth and in all of Paul's congregations. Paul met with the brother of Jesus named James and with the other teachers in Jerusalem to ask that uncircumcised Gentiles be welcomed into the Jesus movement. He said that God's love and blessing is with someone regardless of whether they are circumcised or not. The leadership in Jerusalem - Peter, John, James and Barnabus all of whom agreed that according to Jewish law, associating with the uncircumcised was unacceptable. But for Paul, demanding circumcision in the Hellenistic world is just not welcoming, to say the least. It is demanding diversity on the host's terms. It is demanding no change for the Jews, only for the gentiles. So Paul says that gentiles do not need to have circumcision just to have trust in what the spirit of God is doing in their lives and in the face of adversity. Just as Paul saw that Abraham had faith and was in covenant with God without the law, before the law even existed. Admittedly such diversity is pure foolishness, but as Paul said, so it is with the Kingdom of God.

In recent months, the leadership of the congregation is worried because there are many divisions in the congregation that they do not know what to do with: one concern is about sex, one about women, and one about people having mystical experiences. And so in their desperation, the leadership wrote to Paul, asking him to settle these matters from a great distance by letter.

Paul heard that there were some members of the community who were interested in getting married, even though Paul explicitly said that there wasn't time for procreation or sexual relationships of any kind when God's Kingdom will come to earth in the next year or two. Even though the Roman Empire required marriage and childbirth for women, Paul said that the best way to be ready for God's return was to be celibate, independent and free of family obligations, just like him.

One problem in the Corinthian community was that many women in the community were interrupting the worship services. Many of these women were Jewish. They had never been welcomed in worship services before and so they were often confused about what was happening and they would interrupt the flow of the service to ask a question. What should they do? Stop for questions? Ask the women to be quiet during worship and wait until later?

Believe or not, another major concern was hair. There were men and women who were drawing attention to them selves and to the congregation because they were wearing their hair long and loose, which traditionally was the public sign of adulteration and being unfaithful to family life.

But the leadership felt that the biggest threat to the congregation were the people who were channeling the Holy Spirit and claiming that they were more special to God than others. This was their greatest concern, not because of the mystical experiences. After all, Paul himself talked about having mystical experiences. Rather, there was a concern with the division that can happen in a community if some people think that their gifts make them superior to others. This could threaten the future of the community over something trivial. The leaders knew that unifying the congregation in love was the most important thing to Paul.

And around the table, when the time is right, the long letter from their beloved teacher and pastor is read aloudÉ

Here are a few slices of what they heard that day:

2 To the church of God that is in Corinth, to those who are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints, together with all those who in every place call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, both their Lord* and ours:

3 Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

10 Now I appeal to you, brothers and sisters, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you should be in agreement and that there should be no divisions among you, but that you should be united in the same mind and the same purpose. For it has been reported to me by Chloe's people that there are quarrels among you, my brothers and sisters.

13

If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give away all my possessions, and if I hand over my body so that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.

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.

Love never ends. But as for prophecies, they will come to an end; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will come to an end. For we know only in part, and we prophesy only in part; but when the complete comes, the partial will come to an end. When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways. For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known. And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.

Our prayer today come from Victoria Weinstein and is entitled 'Being the Resurrection'.

The stone has got to be rolled back from the tomb again and again every year.

Roll up your sleeves.

He is not coming back, you know.

He is not coming back unless it is we who rise for him

We who lay healing hands on the reviled and rejected like he did

on his behalf --

We who rage for righteousness in his insistent voice

We who love the sinner, even knowing that "the sinner" is no farther off than our own heartbeat

He will not be back to join us at the table

To share God's extravagant banquet

God's love feast, all are invited, come as you are

And so it is you and I who must feast for him

Must say the grace and break the bread and pass it to the left

and dish up the broiled fish (or pour the wine) and pass it to the right.

And treat each one so tenderly

as though just this morning she or he made the personal effort

to make it back from heaven, or from hell

but certainly from death

to be by our side.

Because if by some miracle (and why not a miracle?)

He did come back

Wouldn't he want to see us like this?

Wouldn't it be a miracle to live for just one day

So that if he did, by some amazing feat

come riding into town

He could take a look around and say

"This is what I meant!"

And we could say

it took us a long time...

but we finally figured it out.

Oh, let us live to make it so.

You are the resurrection and the life.