Reflection for August 14th 2011

Paul was quite extraordinary on many levels. His ethnic culture was colonized by the Roman Empire. Intellectually, he was colonized by Greek thinking. Usually when one is in the colonized position, one feels very much a minority, inadequate, and beholden to the dominant group. But one is also in a unique position to build bridges. Paul is not fearful; he takes on the capital cities of both Rome and Athens. Try to imagine this man. Christianity is unknown. It is nothing. He is nobody. Think of the courage it took to walk into the great intellectual capital of Athens, the great imperial capital of Rome, and to stand up and talk publicly—expecting success!

God had to choose somebody with a really big ego and with a lot of self-confidence. This is probably what threatens and turns people off when they read Paul today. But we have to stay with him to discover he is also a first-rate mystic (his knowledge of God is beyond the rational or the taught). It is the mystical Paul that I have fallen in love with; and yet the mystical Paul is not the Paul who is by and large presented to us through the churches, which is perhaps why so many seem to dislike him and his message. The mystical Paul is the one we must meet! It is the biggest frame in which to understand him, and without it you cannot understand most of what he says.