Reflections on Paul

Number 6

A short quote from Simone Weil that is relevant to the Philippians hymn - Phil 2:4-11:

"An imaginary divinity has been given to man so that he may strip himself of it like Christ did of his real divinity" (Gravity and Grace, 30)

When it comes to learning about our faith, I feel as if I am standing on a beach trying to drink down the entire ocean one coffee cup full at a time. There is so much to swallow and so little time to swallow it. At moment I am trying to drink in so much so quickly that most of water of knowledge is spilling off my chin onto my previously clean white dress shirt.

Anyway, I have spent some time sharing space with the concept of a grant of imaginary divinity. The connection to the hymn, I suspect, comes from the use of the word form. Jesus was in the form of God but he emptied himself to take the form of a slave that was human in likeness and appearance. We tend to describe things has having both form and substance.  Jesus was in the form of God and then also became in the form of man but he was also in the substance of God and man through the mystery of homeostatic union. His divinity and humanity were not imaginary in and sense.

So what of imaginary divinity? Humans are created in the image of God. In order to be visible or understandable the image must have a form that we can grasp. The form, however, does not have the substance of God. We are promised we that through the promised glorification of the second coming, we will be of the same substance as the risen Christ but for now our divinity has form but no real substance. It is imaginary.

What is the invisible divinity we strip away? Our freedom to choose, to make our decisions, to act on our initiative, to attempt to create what something new. We have to use our God granted free will to empty ourselves of our drive to rule our lives as we wish to chose to be obedient. Like God we have the ability to choose. Unlike God we are not free to determine his will. We have to strip away this notion of freedom in order to find the true freedom of eternal life by becoming obedient.

Peace.

Reflections on Paul

Number 5

Paul uses imagery that remains powerful to us today even though we live in very different times. The use of the word libation can, however, lead to a little confusion since the term is not seen in the same perspective as it was then. There is a popular tavern here in my home town called the Libation Station and it is just like any tavern – people gather in social atmosphere to share some alcoholic beverages. We think of libations as being nothing more than just of drinks.

Paul, however, was referring to something completely different than just pouring out a bottle of the good stuff. Typical of Paul, he was likely connecting two different concepts. Take a peek at Genesis 35:14. Here find Jacob pouring out a libation of oil on a sacred pillar. The Greet root of libation, liebein,  refers to sacrifice. Jacob made a sacrifice of oil to God. There is an even large perspective to consider. The practice of libation was very wide spread through antiquity particularly in ancient Greece. Our Phillipian friends might not catch the Old Testament reference but they would surely catch the inference that Paul was pouring his life blood out as a sacrifice to God. To them the practice of libation would be as commonplace as making a toast at a wedding is to us.

Peace

Reflections on Paul

Number 4

The question is this: what is it of Jesus that Paul wants us to imitate. What has resonated with me can be found in Philippians 2:3 where we are called to not act out of sense of selfishness or vanity but to put others first. We are to avoid self-interest. 

We see in Philippians 3:7-11 Paul put aside his own sense of importance and turned away from a position of respect and esteem to become a humble servant who suffers many trial and tribulations. He remained ever faithful to his call to spread the word of the sacrificial death, resurrection and salvic return of Christ and to live life as called. 

There is a specific reference in 4:2 to two people to stop bickering and to come a common understanding. I can easily change the names from those of the ladies cited to Rick and (fill in the blank). Is that not the first lesson from our new Holy Father – to focus on service of others rather than matters that divide us? Gulp. That is me being talked to here. The lesson we can learn from the Philippians is to do just as Paul states in 4:9 when he urges the community to keep doing what they have learned from him in his example to them.

Reflections on Paul 

Number 3

The third “Psalm” of Sunday Evening Prayer 1 which falls on 4th Saturday of the 4 week Psalter is the hymn from Philippians. That means, taking other factors into account which dictate the contents of Liturgy of the Hours, we pray the Hymn 9 or 10 times a year. That would include, by coincidence, last night. I am, therefore, familiar with the Hymn and have spent some time reflecting on it.

Still, I have never considered it in the manner suggested by the Father Neyrey. Prior reflections have led me to think of verse 6, which points out that Jesus did not regard equality with God something to be grasped, to mean that Jesus, though divine, wanted us to see him in human form and that all expressions of his divine power were strictly related to service of others.

He did not throw himself off a high precipice when tempted by Satan just to prove his power. Instead he resisted temptation which was something he calls all of to do on a daily basis. Even though he had the power to pull down the walls of the temple in the same manner that Joshua brought down walls of Jericho he stuck to the message of his gospels that center on matters of heaven and eternity. I was close but I did not see the even bigger picture – Jesus is the new Adam but where Adam and Eve thought themselves equal to God when they grasped the fruit and ate it, Jesus remained perfectly obedient. 

Cool stuff. 

Peace.

Reflections on Paul 

Number 2

Sitting back and reflecting on the Letter to Philemon, a number of gospel-driven themes come to mind which clearly warrant canonical status given the book.

The first impression is one of freedom, not just freedom as in the opposite of slavery but freedom in terms of being able to make a morale choice consistent with a new morale framework that comes with the Christian message. Slavery was as much a part of everyday life in the 1^st century AD as pet ownership is in our time. Being either a slaveholder or a slave was no barrier to professing Christianity as far forward in time as the US Civil War.

In modern times, embracing a Christian faith would bring with it an abhorrence to slavery in any manner. Paul does not condemn Philemon nor does he condemn the practice. He just very simply and casually appeals to Philemon to do the right thing of his (Philemon’s) free will. We know from what we experience in other texts Paul is perfectly capable of bringing on the heavy stuff. Think about the pan of hot gravy he spilled on the Galatians – (Gal. 6:6 ). He makes a specific point of not being heavy handed in his discourse in this letter which, of course, contradicts his efforts to be light handed.

Paul surely wanted Philemon to come to his own decision about slavery for reasons not fully articulated. Perhaps Philemon owned other slaves and Paul’s ultimate goal would be the freedom of all of Philomon’s holdings. The point is that if Philemon were to find his way to free one slave, he might also rise to freeing all his slaves and to become an example for others. 

Reflections on St. Paul

Number 1 

My understanding of Paul has changed over the years and, with study, I have come to greatly appreciate Paul. Clearly he would not be the kind of person who would be easy to be around. There would be little patience with anyone suffering from even the slightest passing bout with acedia. I suspect the intensity of his personality could be positively withering to encounter. There is good reason he kept on the move and his reasons for moving on were not always related to the need to move to a new area to spread the gospel.

Paul’s great gift to the world beyond the Jewish culture is how he focused on spreading Christianity to Gentiles. Would it be too simplistic to say that anyone us of would be Christian today if his arguments at the Council of Jerusalem had not carried the day? Just today we heard how Paul and Barnabas turned from the non-listening Jewish community to preach to the gentiles who were far more receptive to the Gospel.

My greatest appreciation of Paul is that he was a convert to Christianity. The other disciples knew Jesus personally and traveled with him during the period of his human ministry. Paul presumably did not know Jesus prior to the Crucifixion but he certainly came to know Jesus as a result of his encounter on the road to Damascus.

Paul was a passionate and ardent enemy of the church and suddenly and dramatically became the single greatest force of evangelization in history. I am of English descent and was raised a Methodist in a community that was overwhelmingly Irish and Catholic. I was, therefore, in no particular hurry to convert. Fortunately, I met my Catholic wife who eventually won me over. I don’t mean to say that my Protestant upbringing made me hostile to the Catholic Church nor did I spend much time waging war on the church. I am pretty sure I never threw any rocks at anyone because they were Catholic but I was a very reluctant convert. I was skeptical about many facets of church doctrine until circumstance led to a re-conversion/re-evangelization experience that changed the direction of my life. My point is that Paul is the guiding light for all converts, including me.

Paul teaches us – and me- how to live the message we learn about from the Gospels and what implications that has in how we behave and how we see the world.

Mercy and Chaos

I briefly made eye contact with him as I entered the store just like I would anyone else I did not know when entering a convenience store. He was standing with his back to the fountain drink dispenser with a flip-style cell phone in his right hand. The phone was open and he held it in front of him like a microphone and he was speaking into it, confidently and loudly. At first I assumed he was talking to someone on the phone but I could not have been more wrong. My first hint something was askew was when I glanced back at him and realized that his gaze was fixed firmly on me. He did not look away quickly as you expect someone you did not know to do after making eye contact. Normal people just don’t stare at strangers unless they are on fire.

In a second I realized that what he was saying did not making any sense. Continuing to speak into the phone like he was addressing a crowd he repeated over and over again that the solution to the unemployment problem was to round up all unemployed veterans and give them a two-day training course in counseling and they could solve all mental health problems and restore the nation to full employment. I was in a store just down the street from a homeless shelter and other places that cater to homeless and disadvantaged. It is not a store I frequent often because I don’t smoke unless I am fishing and I don’t drink so I don’t have much reason to visit convenience stores that sell beer, tobacco and snack foods. When I do shop there, it is not unusual to see one of the people who have for one reason or another landed in a tough situation. Such people are typically easy to spot because of the way they look or are dressed. This guy was different. He was middle aged with neatly combed hair and was clean shaven. He wore a causal jacket with an LL Bean logo, khaki slacks, and slip-on dress shoes. He was, in fact, dressed like me.

As I crossed the short distance across the store to the aisle where the sunflower seeds I came to purchase were located, I passed within a few feet of him and that was when the smell hit me. He clearly had not taken a shower or washed his clothes for week. In an instant I was almost gagging and my eyes watering from the acrid stench. In that moment I realized that I had encountered someone that our society does not want to admit exists. The forceful stare I could feel even when I had my back turned continued the whole time I searched for the seeds I prefer. When I grabbed the bag I was looking for, I turned back toward the front counter and he quickly moved forward and blocked the aisle in front of me.

“Do you like seeds,” he asked? Yes,” I said. “I eat too many of them sometimes because once you have a couple it is hard to stop.”

“I know what you mean,” he responded.” I used to eat them all the time until the Secret Service blamed me for being out of touch when the disaster in Rhode Island went down.” I looked him in the eye thinking I had heard him wrong. He kept staring at me with no change of expression.

Without waiting for me to respond he continued. “I have had to carry two cell phones ever since then just to make sure they can reach me to verify my whereabouts or they will lock me up again.” I was dumbstruck and could not think of a thing to say to him. My usual practice is to just speak to people who speak to me by making small talk. Usually people can find some common point of reference to make small talk even if it is meaningless.

In the empty space between us that seemed to be planets apart, he just kept talking. “Mrs. Clinton,” he said, “blamed me for the Monica thing and she had me bounced of the detail and then she me hospitalized for the rest of the time they were in Whitehouse. Pretty soon they started drugging me, so I could not tell what was happening. The New York Times and NBC were trying to find me so the agency kept moving me from hospital to hospital. My favorite place in Georgia because they had good barbeque there.” I could not think how to best respond so I just edged around him and went the check stand. The clerk pleasantly greeted me and we completed the purchase and both of us pretended the 800-pound gorilla that was that poor guy who kept yammering about Clinton era conspiracies did not exist. The lady behind me line remained silent and motionless in an effort to draw the man’s attention. It worked for because the guy talked to my back all the way out the store.

When I got home I read a column written by Maureen Dowd of the New York Times my cousin posted on her Facebook page in which Dowd included a letter from a Catholic priest she had asked to comment on the shootings in New England. The priest, Kevin O’Neil, quoted a contemporary theologian, James F. Keenan, SJ who said: “Comforting the afflicted is a response in charity to the neighbor who is suffering. More specifically, it is an act of mercy, of entering into the chaos of another so as to respond to the person in need.“

After reading that phrase I was both comforted and discomforted. At a relatively late stage in my life, I have come to realize a consequence of my baptism and the calling of my faith is I am compelled to be merciful. While I have begun to reach out to others to respond to their needs, I was not even close to ready to be merciful to the stranger in the store beyond being pleasant.

His chaos was real, it was up front and it was more than I could handle. There is an axiom that applies to the business of mercy and that is that if you cannot bring calm into the chaos, don’t go there. In the hours that have passed since the encounter I have tried to come to an understanding of how to bring merciful calm into a place that is totally outside my comfort zone. As yet I don’t have an answer so all can do is to pray for God to care for the man in whatever way God knows he needs care. I will also pray that if God plans to work through me to provide mercy, that God will send the Holy Spirit to enlighten me. 

Our world needs God’s mercy and God's mercy enters the world through humans. We share that mercy with each other through and with His grace. Without the grace that comes from a loving God who wants us to make a difference, we will accomplish nothing regardless of how passionately we desire to be effective.
This thing we are encountering is more than about gun control. It is bigger than having a mental health care policy that allows clearly delusional humans to exist without a stable, comforting environment. It is not new. Our struggles have existed throughout our existence. It is not just about having free choice which allows us to choose between right and wrong. It is about understanding how evil exists and only God is big enough to overcome evil. We can’t do it alone.

For me, right now all I can do is pray for the calm that will allow me to step into the chaos of others and that others who also desire to serve God through acts of mercy will find the calm they also need.


God have mercy.

Christ have mercy.

God have mercy.

Amen.