Preparing for the Passion - Lent and the Apostle Paul
Seekers Class, March 23, 20014 - Rev. Ryan Steitz, facilitator
Notes prepared by Rev. Tom Eggebeen.
First Congregational Church of Los Angeles
Climbed to the roof of my home to adjust the TV antenna …
Fixed my 8-track tape deck …
Recorded a TV show on my VCR …
Bought a new 33 ⅓ record album featuring Bing Crosby …
Took my car in to repair the floorboard dimmer switch …
Transitions …
Share transitions we’ve made …
Paul’s transition: began on the Damascus Road … it took time to work it out, and he’s still working it out in his correspondence … and we are, too (but that’s for later).
Paul …
From specific location (the land promised to Abraham) to the world … the larger promise of God to Abraham … from a physical center in Jerusalem, the Temple, to a spiritual center en Christo … in Christ … (this is what the Book of Hebrews is all about) … remember: Greek Christos means Messiah, Anointed One.
From practices to ideas …
From circumcision, dietary laws, social restrictions and Temple
To …
Great theological ideas of Judaism: monotheism, election, eschatology.
Reworking Jewish beliefs about God around Messiah and Spirit …
From survival to mission … from inward to outward bound ...
Crossing all kinds of boundaries … building bridges ...
Daring in his thought and work …
Willing to endure hardship (2 Corinthians 11.22ff) ...
Keep in mind … whenever we read Paul, read something from the Gospels, too … when we’re well-anchored in the Gospels, then we can read Paul with success, without getting trapped in an all-too-common cul-de-sac, taking our eyes off of Jesus and trying to figure out what Paul meant - mostly leading to dogmatism and bitter debates. Churches divide and families splinter, not on what Jesus said, but what they think Paul said.
We read Paul best when we read Paul in the light of Jesus and Gospels …
Know the Gospels through and through … when we have a sense of Jesus and his world … and why Rome and the Jerusalem establishment decided to forgo their differences and collude with one another to arrest Jesus, try him and publicly execute him … then we make our move to Paul … and why Paul was willing to throw his life into the ring, to proclaim that Jesus is, indeed, the Messiah who proclaims the original promise of God, to make all things new, to reconcile the world to God and the peoples to one another … and how Paul’s proclamation changed the world as its spread throughout the Mediterranean world, and challenged the powers-that-be - both religious and political - ultimately costing Paul his life.
With that, to keep in mind: the biggest questions we can frame? The bigger the question, the more fun we have with Jesus and Paul … and I mean fun, as in delight, discovery, joy and wonderment.
The Gospel is, after all, Good News … as Paul says in Romans 5.1 - We have peace with God!
Herein is God’s purpose - that humankind might have peace with God, and flowing from this divine-human reconciliation, peace with one another. For this Jesus came to be one with us, as like us, and to proclaim the love and will of God … and of this, crucial pieces: the Beatitudes and Jesus and the Temple … grasp these two pieces of Jesus, and we have a good hold on him, and how all of this came to be worked out for Paul.
Let’s read some of Paul’s correspondence … Romans 4.1-5 (6-12), 13-17
Romans 5.1-11; 12-19 (20-21) … key question: What does “faith” mean here?
