From Jesus To Christ
A Sermon Given
by Rev. Roger Fritts
April 12, 1998
at Cedar Lane Unitarian Universalist Church
Bethesda, Maryland
My name is Paul. I was an organizer, a leader in a small band of
people two thousand years ago. Today, the religious organization I
helped to establish spreads across the world. Scholars have translated
my writings into two hundred languages. Clergy quote me in
thousands of churches, from the posh marble pulpits of New York
and Cape Town, to simple wooden lecterns in Asia and Appalachia.
In millions of weddings ministers quote my words: "And now abideth
faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love."
But who am I? Who is Paul? From where did I come? What did I
do? What did I believe? Please take a moment to hear my story. It
is the season for stories.
I was born sometime around the date that today you would call A.D.
10 in the city of Tarsus, on the south coast of what you now call
Turkey. My father and mother gave me the name not of Paul but of
Saul.
I was a strong-willed child, and my goal in life was to please my
parents and become a teacher of the Jewish religion. In my 20s, about
two years after the death of Jesus, I traveled to Jerusalem. A true
believer, I spoke eloquently against all Jews who did not follow the
laws. One day my friends invited me to join in on the punishment of
a Jew who had become a follower of the rebel Jesus. They had tied
a man named Stephen to a post. My friends gathered stones, making
piles at their feet. When they stripped off their coats and shirts so
they would be unencumbered as they threw their stones, I helped by
standing guard over their garments. I watched the stoning -- dozens
of eager young men throwing stones at one poor screaming man tied
to a stake, killing him before my eyes.
Shortly after this stoning, my teachers sent me to Damascus. As I
walked along the dusty road, something happened which changed my
life. I know a little about you rational Unitarians, and I know that you
will be skeptical about what I am going to say. You may interpret my
experience any way you wish. On the road to Damascus I had a
vision of a human figure. It said to me: "Saul, Saul, why do you
persecute me?" I asked the vision, "Who are you, Lord?" It said, "I
am Jesus, whom you are persecuting." I saw before me the rebel Jew
who had died two years before at the hands of the Romans.
That was all. The vision disappeared. However, it changed my life.
I was no longer solely a Jew, I was a Jew who believed that Jesus was
the Messiah. Changing my name from Saul to Paul, I began to preach
to my fellow Jews.
For about fifteen years after the crucifixion, most followers of Jesus
were also devoted Jews. We were sure that Jesus was the Messiah
predicted in the Scripture. Within days or weeks or months we
expected that Jesus would reappear as the Messiah. We did not try to
establish our own religious organization or to record any history of
the life of Jesus, or any history of our religious movement. Our
religious organization was the Jewish temple. Meeting in each other's
homes, certain members of the group assumed positions of leadership
James was a leader because he was Jesus' brother. Peter was another
leader, because he was one of Jesus' first disciples, and the leader of
the disciples. I became a leader because of my education and
training.
I was fluent in Greek. Therefore, I spread the word to Jews in Greek-speaking towns. I explained that the Messiah had come and would be
returning shortly. Although most Jews dismissed my teaching as
nonsense, some of the non-Jewish, Greek-speaking people to whom
I spoke found the story of Jesus captivating.
In Greek the word for Messiah is Christ. As I traveled I talked in
Greek about Jesus the Messiah, that is Jesus the Christ. Slowly the
Greek word "Christ" began to be used to refer to Jesus. In villages
and towns I set up small communities based on teachings about
Christ. I helped train non-Jews in the tradition of the Passover Seder,
and this meal of breaking bread together became a weekly activity of
each community. We called it the Lord's Supper.
After several years of travel, the Jewish leadership called me back to
Jerusalem for a special meeting. We had a long, vigorous discussion
about the fact that many of these new converts were not following the
strict dietary laws of the Jewish faith. Furthermore, most of the males
had not undergone circumcision. I argued that the Messiah's arrival
and his crucifixion had superseded the old laws. I knew that if we
insisted on upholding the dietary laws and the law requiring circumcision we would lose many of the new non-Jewish, Greek-speaking
converts. After much debate we agreed not to require non-Jewish
converts to submit to dietary laws and circumcision.
Following this meeting, we began to use the word church to describe
our small gatherings. Church is a Greek word that means "of God."
Our "churches" were gatherings of people of God. This language was
a sign that we represented a new religious movement.
After A.D. 50, our new religion spread rapidly across the Mediterranean area. Many groups were growing and travel was difficult.
Therefore, I began to develop a new way of keeping in contact with
the churches. I began to write letters on large sheets of papyrus
addressed to each congregation. In these letters I tried to answer
questions about proper conduct of our membership. I often had to
deal with the issue of circumcision and dietary laws. Another issue
that required my attention was the sexual behavior of our members.
Still, other letters dealt with the organization and structure of the
church. The letters were not about the life of Jesus, since the people
already knew the story of Jesus' life and crucifixion.
In some of these letters I explained what later became known as the
idea of justification by faith. I was trying to say that circumcision
was not necessary to finding salvation. Salvation required the
acceptance that Jesus was the Messiah, that he died on the cross and
that he will return. This faith would lead us to live our lives according to the teachings of Jesus. I was certain that the return of Jesus
was just months away.
In the year A.D. 58, my life took a turn for the worse. While visiting
Jerusalem, a group of Jews attacked me. They accused me of
advocating the violation of the Jewish Law and of having defiled the
sanctity of the temple. They dragged me from the temple and tried to
kill me. Some Roman guards saved me and put me under protective
arrest. The Romans held me in Jerusalem for two years. Finally, they
transported me to Rome for trial. In Rome guards kept me under
house arrest for several years. Under arrest I had visitors from the
church in Rome.
Several years after my arrival in Rome (it was about 64 years after the
birth of Jesus), Emperor Nero ordered that I be put to death. I did not
live to see the second coming of Jesus, which I had preached about
for all my adult life.
Now, today, I look back. I see that I played a key role in creating the
Christian Church. Jesus was the inspiration, the spirit, the religious
leader. I was an organizer, an institution builder. Because I started
churches, some historians call me the "founder of Christianity" and
"the First Christian."
I thought I was preparing people for the second coming of the
Messiah. I believed that Jesus was soon going to reappear on earth.
I thought it was only months away. I traveled the land. I spread the
word. I wrote letters. I created churches (what I thought would be
temporary churches). Jesus would return soon. So I thought.
Now look at it. We once met in small homes. Today churches are
magnificent cathedrals, filled with bells, organs, paintings, stained
glass and candles. My letters, my simple letters, intended to serve as
guides to individual churches for a few months or a few years until
Jesus arrived, are today 2,000-year-old scriptures!
Today some blame me for all that is wrong with the Christian Church.
People today compare my writings with the words of Mark, Matthew
and Luke, all of which were written years after my death. They say
I transformed the Jewish religion of Jesus into something different
from the religion described in these Gospels. People say I spoiled the
simple religion of Jesus. They say that the Christian church based on
my misinterpretation of Jesus.
As I look over the events of the past 2,000 years I see that my letters
have justified many things. I wrote, "Women are to pray with their
heads covered, that they are to be silent in church and that they are
not to exercise teaching authority over men." Over the centuries men
who want power over women have used these words. This is not
what I intended. I valued women as equal to men. I wrote "For just
as woman came from man, so man comes through woman; but all
things come from God."
I wrote "Slaves, obey your earthly masters with fear and trembling."
Over the centuries some have used these words to keep others
enslaved. This was not what I intended. Two thousand years ago
slavery was not a permanent condition, slaves had legal rights, slaves
could own property, slaves could have normal family lives. The
slavery of my time was not like the slavery of Africans in this
country.
I wrote "The Jews killed both the Lord Jesus and the prophets." Over
the centuries some people have used my words to support the hatred
of the Jewish people. This was not what I intended. I was speaking
as a Jew. I was speaking like the prophets of the Old Testament,
critical of the actions of my fellow Jews. I did not hate Jews. Quite
the opposite. I said repeatedly that I was proud of my own Jewish
background. I said repeatedly that I believed in the equality of Jews
and Gentiles.
Much of what people have done in the name of Christ is frightening
and horrible. Some of you blame me for starting it all. In reply, I can
only say that I did the best I could. I thought that Jesus would be back
in my lifetime. I had no idea I was starting something that would last
two thousand years and grow to include hundreds of millions of
people.
In every human situation things are never totally good or totally bad.
Like Jesus, I taught that all people are equal in the eyes of God, men
and women, Jew and Gentile, rich and poor. And I taught that we
should love each other. As a result the church attracted the poor. It
attracted slaves. It attracted women. It attracted Greeks and Romans,
Semitics, and Egyptians. I would like to think that this message of
radical equality made the world a better place.
This is the message that I hope you still remember today, Easter
Sunday nineteen thousand ninety-eight years after the birth of Jesus.
I will end my story with what I believe are the best words I wrote.
These words, I think, have stood the test of time. I take them from a
letter I wrote two thousand years ago. When you remember me, I
hope they are the words you think of:
The Commandments, "Do not commit adultery; do
not commit murder; do not steal; do not desire what
belongs to someone else" all these, and any others
besides, are summed up in the one command, "Love
your neighbor as you love yourself." (Rom. 13:9) Amen.
Primary Sources
Modern scholars accept only the following list of writings as being
Paul's: First Thessalonians ( written about 51 C.E.), First Corinthians (about 55 C.E.), Second Corinthians (56 C.E.), Philippians
(between 52 and 55 C.E.), Philemon (between 52 and 55 or after
58 C.E.) Galatians (about 54 C.E.) , Romans (about 57 C.E.)
Acts was part of a two volume work, Luke-Acts, written by the
same Greek who wrote Luke. Luke-Acts was written about 85
C.E. The information that Acts tells us about Paul contradicts
Paul's own statements in crucial ways. Thus scholars make only
limited use of Acts in attempting to reconstruct historical knowledge of the life and work of Paul.
Secondary Sources
My favorite introduction to the life of Paul is chapter five (pages
89-117) in Norman Perrin's The New Testament, An Introduction,
Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1974. The estimated dates above for
Paul's letters are from Perrin.
The title of the sermon is taken from Paula Fredriksen's excellent
book From Jesus To Christ, The Origins of the New Testament
Images of Jesus, Yale University Press, New Haven, 1988.
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