Sermon 13th Sunday after Trinity
Readings: Exodus 32. 7-14; 1 Timothy 1. 12-17; Luke 15. 1-10
Theme: ‘Poacher turned gamekeeper’.
Saint Paul is a foundational figure for Christianity. It was Paul, who together with other apostles and evangelists, such as Peter and Luke, was responsible for taking a small sectarian group within Judaism, and growing it to include the whole of the Mediterranean world. The churches that Paul left behind, were prototypes of what would eventually become the worldwide church. So, in order to understand just how Christianity grew, and, mutatis mutandis, by implication how we can grow, it is necessary to understand just how Paul launched one of the greatest Christian missionary expansions of human history.
Understanding the origins of this missionary expansion reveals something about how the Holy Spirit empowers us to do the same. So, how was Paul empowered to do it?
The answer, of course, is that Paul was called by Jesus to do it. He was doing exactly the opposite of this when Jesus entered his life forcefully and turned him completely around on that famous ‘road to Damascus’ event. Exactly what happened that day, we shall only probably learn in heaven, please God, but what scripture tells us, is that a bright light from heaven shone on Paul and caused him to fall to the ground. It was at that point, he heard the voice saying, “Saul, Saul”, why are you persecuting me?” (Acts 22. 6-7). Following a time of recuperation with the very people he had formerly been persecuting, Saul/Paul sets out on an extraordinary journey. The once persecutor of Christians will now become the one who proclaims that “Jesus is Lord”. And, that means, Jesus is God. Paul really is the archetypal ‘poacher turned gamekeeper’. Blasphemy to the Jews and complete madness to the Greeks! So, it is no wonder much of Paul’s work went down like a lead balloon! Yet, despite the challenges that Paul faced there was a growth of Jewish and some pagan (Greek) communities who began to accept the message that Jesus was indeed Lord.
So, how did it happen?
As a well-trained Rabbi, Paul knew his scriptures, and so he knew that they had foretold the coming of the messiah. Jesus was this messiah and it was to the Jews that he first came. But, following his conversion, Paul has an intuition, given to him by God, that though Jesus had come first as the Jewish messiah, he was also the saviour of the whole world. That is to say, the gentiles, or the pagans, were also to be included in this fulfilled promise of God in Jesus, to visit his people and to redeem them.
This overcoming of a certain form of what we might call ‘religious-nationalism’ was epochal in the first century. The notion that Jesus had come for all peoples and not only for the Jews upturned the self-understanding of the community of Israel as the chosen people. Paul is the first theologian, to wrestle with these complex issues. The answer that he gives, particularly in the Letter to the Romans, but elsewhere as well, is that God has no favourites. So that, while God has indeed chosen the Jewish people to be the communal home of the messiah, and the first to hear his message, this messiah is to be a light to the nations through this chosen people. So, Israel remains special for Paul, but special in its service, its singular vocation, and not in its ethnicity. The vocation of Israel to the whole world is to proclaim that God has visited his people, and though starting this visitation with the Jews, God intends the message of this visitation to be proclaimed to all nations, tribes and peoples. The God of Paul really is the universal God who calls all to conversion and repentance.
Each of the three readings for this Thirteenth Sunday after Trinity pick up this notion of the call to conversion and repentance that is so powerfully portrayed in the story of St Paul. They each depict various stages in typical journeys which pass through sin, conversion, and repentance. It is the gospel, which really intimates that this message is to spread beyond the boundaries of the Jewish people.
In the first reading, it is the first stage, the period of the infidelity of the whole community of Israel, which is narrated in the famous ‘golden-calf’ incident. This takes place during the exodus-journey through the desert. Moses is told by Yahweh to go down the mountain at once because the Israelites were worshipping an idol, a golden statue of a young bull, which was a symbol of divinity in the Ancient Near East. The biblical message here should challenge us to consider whether we may have grown accustomed to following modern-day idols in place of the one true God.
The gospel, on the other hand, reveals that the repentance of each and every sinner is the source of great joy in the presence of the angels of God. The notion that it is the ‘lost sheep’ or the ‘lost drachma’ which is the source of great joy, is Luke’s way of intimating that all peoples, not simply those who were seen to be ritually clean by Jewish standards, are to be included in this message of salvation.
So, perhaps the deeper message of this Sunday’s readings is that the lost sheep and the lost drachma is really us. It is you and me who are lost, because each and everyone one of us is a sinner. The real question is; do we know this? Or do we think we are fine and have no need of God’s salvation. The realization that one is a sinner is not meant to make us feel, poor me, how helpless am I! Or indeed, that I thought having once accepted Jesus then “I’m alright Jack!” No, understanding what it means for us to be a sinner is that we are always a lost sheep, but nevertheless called by God’s grace to work for his kingdom. We never earn our salvation; it is always freely given to us by the grace of God.
This is why we really can share in Paul’s missionary endeavours, here and now, because each and every one of us can say, I too am a sinner. When we know this, really know it deep down, then God can work through us to accomplish infinitely more that we could ever ask for or imagine. So, like Paul, let us turn from our ‘poaching’ ways and become ‘gamekeepers’ for God’s kingdom.