Salvum me fac Deus quoniam intraverunt aquae usque ad animam meam

I recently heard someone say, as if it were a given, that, had we not had the letter to Philemon (in which Paul pleads the case of Onesimus, Philemon’s slave and Paul’s convert) we would never have known that he had a softer, more human – more Christlike – side. This rather shook me.

Paul is unpopular – I wanted to say “nowadays”, but I get the impression that he has been unpopular ever since I remember, and no doubt earlier than that. The reasons that are generally given are (a) that Paul was a legalistic reactionary misogynistic, cantankerous old so-and-so and (b) that he introduced alien Greek philosophical ideas into the simple teachings of an itinerant Rabbi and turned a branch of Jewish thought and practice into a new religion, an offshoot of Stoicism Neo-Platonism Gnosticism and – well, you think up your own insult.

So poor Paul was at once a hidebound Hebrew traditionalist and a dangerous syncretistic progressive. In other words, in twenty-first century Scottish words, he was at once a hardline Calvinist-leaning pillar of the Kirk and a liberal with New-Age and probably Buddhist leanings. A bit Festival of Spirituality and Peace, ken.

Hmm. Well done, Paul. For wasn’t this the man who said “I have become all things to all men so that by all possible means I might save some”?

Well, I like Paul. I can imagine having a stormy but fruitful friendship with him, punctuated by long discussions as to how he saw and understood that Jesus Christ whom he had persecuted, whom he had met on the road to Damascus and with whom he was now deeply in love, so deeply that he could hardly think of anything else. Do you know the folk song “O Waly Waly”? It contains these lines which, especially in the context of today’s reading from Acts, immediately make me think of Paul:

“There is a ship, and she sails the sea;
She’s loaded deep as deep can be;
But not as deep as the love I’m in:
I know not if I sink or swim”.

I think that’s why Paul could be so casual about physical danger, why he could be cheerful in the midst of a shipwreck. The ship might sink, he might be in deep water, but no water could be as deep as his love.

Jesus told us that the two great commandments, love of God and love of neighbour, are one and the same. To see this demonstrated in action, you can look at Jesus himself, or you can look at Paul. And I sometimes think that it is easier for us to look at Paul. He’s just a little less perfect! Do people forget those many passages where he proclaims – no, sings – his love for God, his breathless wonder and worship, or those passages where he pours out his love for his converts: “Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. I thank my God every time I remember you, and in all my prayers for all of you, I always pray with joy”.

If he sometimes spends page upon page discussing and teaching detailed, intellectual doctrine, that is simply what we all do when we are getting to know someone who bowls us over with love. Paul had thought he knew God – and then he met God. As some of you might have thought you knew the person who was to become your spouse or partner during your initial time of acquaintance, until that moment when you suddenly discovered who they really were, and getting to know them as soon, as quickly and as thoroughly as possible became imperative. You get the same thing with Thomas Aquinas and also with Jeremiah: “But if I say, "I will not mention him or speak any more in his name," his word is in my heart like a fire, a fire shut up in my bones. I am weary of holding it in; indeed, I cannot.”

When you are passionate, you are sometimes excessive. We do need passion. Passion for God and passion for God’s people.

Paul was a brave man, that’s evident. But the most striking thing about this passage for me is the way he is permanently turned towards God. God is the constant in his life, his point of reference for everything. When you have been adrift in a storm for 14 days, what do you do? You try to escape surreptitiously, you panic, you despair. Paul? He celebrates a dawn eucharist (well – yes – listen to the phrase: “and when he had said this, he took bread, and giving thanks to God he broke it..” – the word for giving thanks is, of course, eucharistein), having been in such close communication with God that he had total assurance that they would all get safely to land.

If I had never read a single word of this man’s letters, I would know there was something extraordinary about him, not just extraordinarily God-centred, but also something extraordinarily powerful and attractive. He couldn’t still the wind and the waves like Jesus, but he could still 276 terrified people in a half-wrecked boat.
And so we come to the other objection people have to Paul. He wasn’t Jesus, Paul added stuff to the simple teaching of Jesus, turned it into a new religion. full of doctrine and rules. First – are you sure Jesus’ teaching was so simple? I haven’t got time now to detail just how complicated, ground-breaking and often explosive it was, but may I just direct you to the sixth or seventeenth chapter of St John’s gospel?

But you know – I am glad that we have Paul as well as Jesus. Jesus was – is – God; there are things that he simply did not experience. There are things that he simply wouldn’t think of. He did not, for example, experience his own sin; and he did not experience conversion. He did not battle with doctrine; he told it as he had seen it with his Father. We should imitate Jesus; but in many ways we cannot be like him. We are not God made man; we are not the source of Truth, who can neither deceive or be deceived. But we can be like Paul. Inspired he may have been, apostle he may have been, but he could not see as Jesus saw, and neither can we. He had to be precise, to define, to be on the safe side, just as we have to. On a beautiful bright day you may walk right up to a precipice; you will keep a mile away from it in a fog; and the vision and understanding of the greatest saint and doctor of the church is as fog compared with that of God made man.

It would be idle to deny that the godly life taught by Jesus by word and example differs in emphasis and maybe content from the religion preached by Paul. There are many things I wish Paul had not said, which I am sure Jesus would not have said, and which I sometimes suspect he would not have approved of had he heard it said by one of his disciples “while the Bridegroom was with them”. However, Paul was the man hand-picked – warts and all – by the Holy Spirit for the job, and we ignore or deny his teaching at our peril. We may disagree with him sometimes as we may not disagree with Jesus – but only if we are very clear of the risk we are taking and are sure we know what we are doing. I cannot resist quoting a passage from the instructions for my chainsaw at this point; I think it answers that second objection better than a more pious expression ever could:

“We strongly recommend you do not attempt to operate your chainsaw while in a tree, on a ladder, or any other unstable surface. If you decide to do so, be advised that these positions are extremely dangerous”.

Paul, lover of Christ and seeker after his truth, pray for us that, like you, we may walk in the safe way of his commandments, and come at last to the unspeakable joy and glory of his Kingdom. Amen.