Readings (click here for full text of the readings):
   Acts 9:1-19a; Psalm 33; Revelation 5:6-14; John 21:1-14

“Bald-headed, bowlegged, strongly built, a man small in size, with meeting eyebrows, and a rather large nose.”  That’s how Paul is described in the apocryphal book, The Acts of Paul and Thecla, written in the 2^nd century.  We know that he was raised to be a fervent defender of the Jewish faith, which often took the form of violent persecution of Christians. And you get the impression Paul really liked inflicting punishment on Christians.  Given his weak physical disposition, his unattractive appearance, and his enthusiasm for bringing pain (if not death) to those who threatened his religious beliefs, it’s easy to imagine him as a zealot with a screw loose, or even two.  Maybe he had nothing else, so religion became his life.  It gave him meaning, and a mission.

But then came the blinding light on the road to Damascus, when his life was turned on its ear, and he made about as big an about-face as there ever was.  He joined the very cult that he had tried to hammer out of existence; he spent years off doing we-know-not-what in preparation for his life as a Christian; and when that was over, he brought the same fervency to proclaiming the Gospel of Jesus Christ as he previously had to destroying it.  In the end he became the Bible’s great theologian, and next to Jesus Himself, its biggest character.

To be honest, though, I’ve never been a huge fan of Saint Paul. Sure, back in my fundamentalist days, all the rules and the emphasis on conversion seemed to make sense.  But gradually, as I became less conservative, all of his talk about staying true to the Gospel, never falling away, bringing people back into line, and so on – all of that began to feel very insular, as if he was saying that not only were Christians the only people who were saved, but also they were the only ones who were worth hanging around with.  Add in all the snippets that have been attributed to Paul that seem to say that the only people worth listening to are Christian men, well, that about did it for me.

How curious it is, then, that I’ve been on the staff of five Episcopal churches, and three of them were named after this guy Paul. And as I’ve spent more time with his writings, I’ve been reminded of important things that I tend to overlook – that Paul brought the Gospel to people who even Peter and his cronies thought shouldn’t be getting it (the Gentiles), so the whole exclusivity thing might not hold too well; that many of the misogynistic statements often attributed to Paul weren’t really his, as we’ve seen in prior sermons; and so on.

In the end, though, I keep coming back to the scene on that road that day.  Paul had probably thought that it was going to be a day like any other – prayers in the morning, kosher meals, and some defending of the faith.  But then as he was going about his business, a blinding light came upon him, and the God whose existence he’d denied and whose cult he’d persecuted for so long called out to him, by name.  And in that moment, he began to see that his whole life would change, and eventually he came to direct his passion toward the spread of the Gospel, rather than toward its demise.

The only thing that might be more fascinating and powerful than Paul’s experience of Jesus is the reverse – Jesus’s experience of Paul.  Think about it – if you were the head of a big company and you were looking for a spokesman to convince others that your product was the best, would you choose someone who resembled Harrison Ford who might already be a customer, or would you choose someone who looked and acted a lot like Don Rickles, and who was currently working for the competition?  We usually look for the best and the brightest and the most attractive, people who have proved themselves and with whom we have a good relationship.  Paul was none of those.

Paul was a fanatic.  He was Christian-hating Jew, obsessed with his mission, not very easy on the eyes, weak of constitution – need I go on?  And he was the person that Jesus chose to bring the Gospel to all the non-Jews of the world.

I love that.  I love that God chose an ordinary joe for the biggest job in the world.  A guy whose greatest skill – maybe his only skill – was a willingness to do everything he possibly could to achieve his goal.  Frederick Buechner describes Paul this way:  “He bullied.  He coaxed. He comforted.  He cursed.  He bared his soul.  He reminisced.  He complained.  He theologized.  He inspired. He exulted.”[1]

“God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God’s weakness is stronger than human strength” (1 Corinthians 1:25).  Those are Paul’s words, and he was their living proof, because in the eyes of the world he was weak – short, unattractive, one-dimensional – but in the eyes of God, he was strong where it counted – in faith.  It’s fitting, then, that the author of The Acts of Paul and Thecla, after going on about Paul’s bow-legs, bald head, and mono-brow, concludes the description with these words: “At times he looked like a man, and at times he had the face of an angel.”

Amen.

[1] Frederick Buechner, Peculiar Treasures:  A Biblical Who’s Who (New York: HarperSanFrancisco, 1979): 146.

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