Of Swords and Books and Nerdy Zealots

Last Sunday we went to church.  Nothing unusual in that, that's what we do on Sunday's.  What was different this time was where we went to church.  I've been a Christian since my mid teens and with the exception of weddings, funerals and special Holiday services I've attended the Church of Christ my entire life. Ok, I did go to a few Sunday night services one summer at The First Christian Church with a friend so that I technically qualified to play on their church softball team. But this past Sunday we went the FIrst Presbyterian Church in North Little Rock.  A couple of things before we get to why we were there.

I like this church, I like the people there, I like what they do in the community and I really like their welcoming before each service I think it does a good job of expressing who they are:
Welcome to First Presbyterian Church in North Little Rock’s downtown Argenta neighborhood
Welcome to young and to old and to all races and ethnicities
Welcome to singles and to couples and to families of all shapes and sizes
Welcome to believers and and to doubters and a special welcome to doubting believers
Welcome if your heart is happy, and welcome if it is weighed down with sadness
Welcome if your entire being is bursting with gratitude, and welcome if it feels as though something is trying to suck the life right out of you
Welcome if you’ve got it all together, and welcome if you are in danger of falling apart at any moment
Whoever you are and whatever brought you here to day, know that this is God’s house
Come and worship just the way you are, because everyone is welcome here.

Stop reading this and go read 1 Corinthians 13: 1-13 and Galations 5:22-25 and then come back.

Good you're back (did you really stop and go read those verses?), the reason we weren't in our regular pew last Sunday was because Natasha (our oldest daughter) was asked to speak at her church, so we were there to hear her preach and I thought I would share what she had to say. Oh one last thing, I know some of y'all might feel compelled to express your disagreement on women speaking in church, DON'T, and tread lightly if you make comments, this is my daughter you'll be talking about.

Of Swords and Books and Nerdy Zealots
A Study of Paul

Today we are talking about Paul, and the verses we read a moment ago were ones he authored, ones with which most of us are probably very familiar- Paul’s Greatest Hits. And oh, we love those verses- 1 Corinthians 13 is poetry, a song written on our hearts, recited at our ceremonies, a beautiful description of what, exactly, it means to be a follower of Jesus. With Galatians, well y’all, I learned the Fruits of the Spirit as a toddler, in Bible Class. I could still sing the memory verse song right here and now. Even if I’ve left (or strayed from, depending on your perspective) the specific Christian tradition in which I was raised in order to eventually band together with you bunch of misfits and malcontents, the heart of my faith was formed in those verses, in those early days, and have guided me even in my wanderings. (In fact, I would say they sparked my wanderings in the first place.) When a writer like Paul talks about how the law and the world order have fallen away, saying things like: “And now these three remain: Faith, Hope, and Love. But the greatest of these is love,” I don’t know about you but I feel rallied to the cause, in tune with God and humanity, my soul recognizes the cosmic and deep truth there, it inspires all the great things that great writers are supposed to inspire.

But Paul ain’t that easy.
As we talk about Paul today, here are the assumptions I am working from: 1) I assume that you know, either from your own formative years, more recent conversion, osmosis, or from actually reading the assigned chapters of The Story this week, ha, that Paul is an apostle, not one of the original 12, but overlapping them time-wise. Paul is recognized by scholars as the uncontested author of 7 books of the New Testament, and the debated author of 6 more. 2) I assume you know that these books of his are what we call epistles, or letters. Paul traveled the ancient world spreading this new religion that was borne out of, but wholly different from, Jewish monotheism. His books are the letters that he wrote to these burgeoning (and often floundering) communities. They were written as encouragement, chastisement, instruction and guidance, and are not without context. Paul didn’t go up on a mountain where God dictated commandments out of a cloud in pretty straightforward, bullet-pointed fashion, is what I’m saying. They were born out of specific problems the churches were having, and generate specific responses. 3) I am assuming that you have struggled with Paul, to some degree. As our friend Cameron said Wednesday night at the Crush wine bar study group, “If you aren’t struggling with Paul, perhaps you are doing it wrong.”
So we heard the hits, now let’s listen to some of Paul’s B-sides, the sentiments we don’t usually trot out at weddings, verses you won’t find in scroll-y print on Christian stationery (sidebar- ugh) at Mardel’s.
Colossians 3:22: Slaves, obey your earthly masters in everything; and do it, not only when their eye is on you and to curry their favor, but with sincerity of heart and reverence for the Lord.
1 Corinthians 14:34-35, Women should remain silent in the churches. They are not allowed to speak, but must be in submission, as the law says. If they want to inquire about something, they should ask their husbands at home, for it is disgraceful for a woman to speak in church.
Whoops.

I can feel everyone’s discomfort. My own discomfort. These are the verses we would prefer weren’t in there. To get ticky, Colossians is one of the books that is hotly contested as to whether or not Paul actually wrote it. But whether Paul specifically wrote them or not, these are words in our holy, sacred book. The world knows Christians, whether we like it or not, as the owners of this language. Love is patient, love is kind, slavery’s ok, and women need to shut their mouths.
What do we do with that? Seriously, I’m asking. I don’t know the answer. And verses like these, that have been used as weapons for centuries to wound and oppress and exclude, they are why so many of us that have washed up on the steps of this church were at sea in the first place. I’m pretty sure Anne knows the answer, so it’s very unfortunate that she isn’t here today.
Anne asked me to preach on Paul Day because she knows that of all of the Very Important Pauls, I prefer McCartney to The Apostle. The apostle and I don’t always get along, and I have spent a lot of time just flat out angry with him. She felt it may be helpful to others who have felt the same way (when it isn’t okay to feel that way in a lot of Christian communities) that it is okay here, to be conflicted. To know how Paul and I have made our uneasy peace with each other, so that if you are one of the people who have exacto-knifed your New Testament so as to avoid him, perhaps things can get better for you, too.
So, understanding that I don’t know the answers, I propose to you that I do maybe know some helpful things, and it seems that all of you do, too. I mean, I’m here, you’re here. Even though the Bible, and specifically Paul-authored verses of that Bible, have been used against a lot of you by Christians in the past, you felt that there is something in this Jesus thing that is worth the trouble of wrestling with this stuff. I wholeheartedly agree. So in no particular order, here are some things that have helped me and Paul to this point.

1)  I stopped trying to come up with a single cohesive theory about the Bible that accounted for every single word in it and how I should explicitly interpret it.
Some Christians believe that the Bible is the direct word of God, sent directly, word for word, from God’s mouth to your ears via messengers like Paul who did no more than transcribe the sessions. A set of instructions for living that addresses every possible situation known to man and a prescription for how to act accordingly. Forgive me, but that is some crazy absolutism. Not only do the verses about slavery and women and sexuality present difficulties in this worldview, but then you have to figure out what to do with verses like this:
Galatians 6:11 See what large letters I use as I write to you with my own hand!
I mean, we know what this means in context- its Paul reassuring people that it really is him writing the letter. But I am surprised there aren’t denominations predicated on the belief that large penmanship is the way God intended us to write, and those who disagree be damned.
Even of those that think they interpret scripture this way, they ignore some verses just as much as we do- men praying with their heads uncovered, people eating shrimp and wearing polyblends all over the place.
So clearly, this type of interpretation is not an option for me. But neither is the opposite very encouraging- if God had nothing to do with the Bible and it is purely just the thoughts and ideas of men (and it was men, no ladies getting a byline in there), then what is the point of all this? Why not just form a philosophy club, meet at the library once a week, and call it a day?
In the end, I’ve dismissed the Slippery Slope Brigade on both sides, with their rejection of critical thinking and their extreme hypotheticals. There might be an All Encompassing algorithm out there, but I don’t know it, and it isn’t even the part I’m searching for anymore. Down that path is a bench where you can’t see the forest for the trees. Which brings me to:
2)  When in doubt, I defer to the Big Picture.
And when I say big picture what I mean is- Jesus said: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind, this is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it, Love your neighbor as yourself. All the law and all the prophets hang on these two commandments.”
We so often miss the big picture because we are so anxious about the details. The verse in 1 Peter, the one that says “Love covers a multitude of sins,” I picture people hearing that verse for the first time and being so happy- “Love covers a multitude of sins! How nice! That really takes the pressure off, you know?” And within seconds they’re talking among themselves: “Did he say how many sins love covers, exactly? Big or little sins? Do you think I could trade three little sins for one big one?” We are constantly, eternally missing the point. And it would be too kind to say that we are missing the point because we are trying so hard to be good and do right. No, we miss the point because we want to get as close to that line as possible without going over.
Early on in my days at this church Anne said offhand at a bible study one night that Presbyterians interpret scripture through the lens of Jesus’ teachings, and I loved that. While this doesn’t offer the explicit comfort of telling us exactly what each verse means and why in the world it got canonized, it’s a good reminder of what our purpose is, and anything that’s driving us away from that purpose is, essentially, fluff.
Which leads me to:
3)  The Big Picture about Paul has some stuff I can totally, unashamedly and without internal conflict, get behind.
My sister was telling me the other day about a Rachel Held Evans article she had read, addressing the whole women-submitting-to-their-husbands thing. The point of the article was this: the important part of what Paul was saying was not “Women, submit to your husbands.” That was the order of the day already. The revolutionary part was when he turned to the men and told them to be kind to their wives. Kindness to women was not the standard. Women were owned, was the standard. In context, Paul was a feminist. (Ahhahha, I know that’s a stretch.) Yes, the language is icky. It’s talking to the people of the day and in their language. Some would argue that this means Paul had insight into God’s Grand Truth of the Universe and purposefully couched his argument in terms the people would understand. That he was some sort of incrementalist who knew the real truth but met people where they were. I mean, Paul is also the guy who wrote in Galatians that divisions between man and woman, slave and free, Jew and Gentile, none of that mattered anymore because everyone was equal before God. THAT was revolutionary and man, sign me up for that kind of revolution.

But I don’t believe that even Paul understood the specific way his words would be revolutionary for the world. He was pretty obsessed with the idea that Jesus was coming back LITERALLY ANY MINUTE. See, Paul was an intellectual AND a zealot. The way my family (and Deann’s family, I’m pretty sure) love shows like Firefly or Harry Potter or comic books, and we learn every single thing there is to know about them and try to make everyone around us obsessed with it, too? Come on, you know nerds like this. We are the nerdy zealots. Well, Paul was totally a nerdy zealot, and his zealotry was about this idea that Jesus changed everything, and He was coming back speedy quick, so you better get ready. He wasn’t interested in modifying society, because society wasn’t going to be around much longer. He had no time for rallies on equal rights. He would have been shocked if someone had told him we would still be kicking 2,000 years down the road. So I don’t think he even fully understood what a concept like “everyone is equal before God” would mean once it fully took root. (And to speak truth, it hasn’t fully taken root, yet. There’s still work to do.)

I tend to believe that Paul was just a man who grabbed hold of a giant Truth bigger than even his great intellect could handle, and with the prejudices of his day deeply embedded in him the way you and I hold things to be true that decent society of the future will judge to be ridiculous. What will stay true? God loves you no matter your identity. And be kind to one another. These will always stay true.

Here’s the final big picture thing about Paul: without him, there would be no us. Or, if there was an Us, we would look very, very different. Paul joined the band when the rest of the guys were dreaming too small. Peter and the guys wanted to tour close to home. They were playing small venues, mainly in Jerusalem, talking about maybe releasing a mixtape. Paul was talking about selling out stadiums across the world and putting out an album every few months. If it weren’t for Paul and the sack of Jerusalem in 70 A.D., Christianity would be much closer to Messianic Judaism, and much harder to access. (If you think it is hard to sell Christianity to jaded postmoderns now, imagine if adult circumcision was part of that deal.)

I got the title for this sermon as I was researching Paul’s representations in religious culture. If Paul is to be found in a painting, he will likely be holding a sword and a book. Turns out St. Paul is the patron saint for writers and publishers since he consistently churned out bestsellers, and the sword is because he supposedly died by one, martyred for his faith. But, not knowing the traditional symbolism when I first started looking at them, the paintings struck me as perfect representations of Paul, because of the contradictions inherent in holding those tools- swords and books, warriors and scholars, opposites and difficult to reconcile. That was so fitting, to me, as I contemplated my relationship with his work.

We have brokered a peace, Paul and I have, in part because in general, the people I am close to in my life and those I choose to worship with let me and Paul be. They are never trying to force us into counseling to hash out our differences, and slowly we have come around a little, agreeing to not talk about certain things in the presence of company. I wish for you the same peace in discomfort, and a willingness to struggle with the difficult but important things. Amen.