Homily delivered by the Very Rev. Archimandrite Daniel of the Holy Resurrection Orthodox Church in Singapore

25th January 2006 in Trinity Theological College Chapel

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In the Orthodox tradition it is rare to find an icon of either S. Peter or S. Paul separately. They stand together, side by side, holding & supporting the Church between them. And The Acts of the Apostles from which we heard read the account of the conversion of S. Paul - which Feast is celebrated in the Western Church today – has been called the warp and weft of the ministries of Peter & Paul in the building of our Saviour's Church. The Church which is founded on Christ Himself, and built with the Faith of the Apostles and nurtured and nourished by the blood of the Martyrs and the witness of the Saints; as we read in the Gospel according to S. Matthew (16:18):

"…and on this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it."

Ss Peter and Paul - co-builders of the Church at Antioch, and throughout the world ...their backgrounds could hardly have been more different. The ways in which they came to know Jesus were certainly in stark contrast; without the guidance, and the in-dwelling, of the Holy Spirit the only feelings they would probably have held for each other - even after they ended up on the same 'side' - would have been a mixture of distrust and contempt. They were not men to stand side by side with anyone.

Peter, the Galilean fisherman, portrayed in Scripture as something of a 'rough diamond', given to outbursts of temper and prey to what – today- might be described as setting his mouth in motion before putting his brain into gear. In the Gospels, S. Peter does not always seem to be able to handle his own emotions and rarely understands what our Saviour is saying. At one point, after his three-fold denial of our Saviour, he even appears to be outside the Church. As the Angel tells the Myrrh-bearing Women at the Tomb ~

"…But go, tell His disciples – and Peter – that He is going before you into Galilee…" (S. Mark 16:7)

And yet; and yet, after the Ascension of our Saviour, we see a very different Peter recorded in the Acts of the Apostles. Peter is now very much in charge; he preaches and teaches in the Temple, he heals the sick, he declares the Gospel of Christ before all nations (Acts 2-5). Clement of Alexandria claimed that Our Saviour had entrusted Peter, James and John with a form of higher knowledge; perhaps this explains the change.

Then there is Paul, the Roman citizen, the urbane cosmopolitan man of Tarsus in Asia Minor, trained as a Pharisee in the school of Gamaliel. Josephus, the Romano-Jewish historian, records that Gamaliel had urged his pupils not to persecute the Christians, reasoning that if there was nothing in what they preached it would all too soon come to nothing, but if there was then it should be listened to. Gamaliel's words fell on deaf ears where Paul was concerned. So zealous was he for the ideals of Jewish purity, in the best traditions of Judas Maccabeus and all the other Jewish folk heroes who followed him, that he saw Christianity as something which had arisen as yet another breakaway sect, diluting that same purity, which must be exterminated at all costs. Even as a young man he was present at the martyrdom of the Proto-martyr & Archdeacon Stephen ~

"…And the witnesses laid down their clothes at the feet of a young man named Saul." (Acts 7:58)

There, do you see him? – right there, as S. Stephen dies, with "Lord, do not charge them with this sin" (Acts 7:60) on his lips, the great persecutor of The Way makes his first appearance. Too young to engage in the stoning himself, he is left to look after the coats of those who need to loosen up a little to get in a good throw. There he is, our first glimpse of a youngster moving at the fringes of the anti-Christian zealot movement.

And within a short while Saul has set about leading the persecution, little knowing what was to happen next. Peter's call from Jesus happened one still day by the Sea of Galilee, when he obeyed the Lord's call and gave his life to His service. Paul's came in a blinding flash on the road to Damascus when Jesus asked him why he was persecuting his Lord. After Paul's sight was restored, following his baptism, he went off to Arabia - to be guided by the Holy Spirit - communing with no man. After that he returned to Damascus and spent three years there before going up to Jerusalem to meet not only S. Peter but also – most significantly - the local Bishop S. James, the Lord’s brother. (Galatians 1: 17-19) who will later chair the Council of Jerusalem (Acts 15).

Let us look, then, at this blinding flash on the Damascus road, when S. Paul says

"…it pleased God, who separated me from my mother’s womb and called me through His grace, to reveal His son in me..." (Galatians 1: 15-16)

He went to the high priest. He acts officially, within the legal structure of Judaism & Jewish Law. His purpose is to arrest and prosecute Jewish Christians, for he has no authority over Gentile Christians who are, any way, very few at this time. After his conversion he

"…immediately [he] preached Christ in the synagogues, that He is the Son of God." (Acts 9: 20)

Saul – Paul - operates within his cultural and spiritual context & heritage: those for whom he worked, he preaches to; those whom he turned against, turn against him; the persecutor becomes the persecuted ~ and so, almost immediately:

"…the Jews plotted to kill him." (Acts 9: 24)

To persecute the Church, the Way, is to persecute Christ Himself:

"Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these My brethren, you did it to me." (S. Matthew 25: 40)

and Saul is the great persecutor – breathing threats and slaughter (Acts 9:1) it says. It’s a phrase familiar to the Greeks, all the way back to Aeschylus. So consumed with hatred is he, that his very pulse, breath, life, is of desire to destroy. And yet at this moment our Saviour comes to him. We know that by the Incarnation our Saviour, the Second Person of the Trinity, comes to us in our humanity; but it is true also that, individually, He comes to us where we are. No wonder S. Paul later writes ~

"…Christ came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the chief." (1 Timothy 1:15)

His eyes closed, surrounded by the light, fallen to the ground – confused, alarmed, amazed – not knowing what or, rather, who he has encountered, (unlike Ananias, later on) Saul still recognises that he is in the presence of authority ~ "Who are you, Lord?" (Acts 9:5)

Saul is temporarily blinded by the light of the risen Christ; He Who has destroyed death by death. In darkness he is led into the Church where he sees Christ by the grace of the Holy Spirit. Notice it is temporary – this is not a physically blind in order to become intellectually sighted conundrum as with Tiresius in ancient Greece. Saul is blinded for three days - three days! that should get us thinking! – as the Venerable Bede explains to us:

By no means would he [Saul] have been able to see well again unless he had first been fully blinded. Also, when he had rejected his own wisdom, which was confusing him, he could commit himself totally to faith. Since he had not believed that the Lord had conquered death by rising on the third day, he was now taught by his own experience of the replacement of three days of darkness by the return of the light. (Commentary on the Acts of the Apostles)

In this way, Saul, even prior to his baptism at the hands of Ananias, participates in, and experiences, the Death and Resurrection of our Lord and God and Saviour Jesus Christ, as we do in going down into the waters and coming out again at our Baptism.

"Rise up, and enter into the city, and you will be told what you must do." (Acts 9:6)

And Saul does so. Blinded, he has to be led – but he obeys. He fasts, he prays, he is granted a vision. And he waits. In a street which is called Straight.

"One named Saul, a man from Tarsus..." (Acts 9:11) is transformed – transfigured – through the presence and light of Christ. Nothing will be the same again, and with S. Peter, he will be able to say,

"Behold, we have left everything, and followed you." (S. Matthew 19: 27)

So we see in this encounter – between Saul/Paul & his Lord – the Mystery of the Christian life; The Way for you and me. Christ comes to us, where we are – whatever our background, our culture, our education, our abilities. He comes to us where we are – whatever our lifestyle, our temptations, our sins. He comes to us where we are – and He comes to who we are. Not to encourage us to love & accept ourselves as we are (as modern psychology would have it) but to become who we truly are meant to be.

In the great Parable, the Prodigal Son comes to himself (S. Luke 15: 17) – this is metanoia, in Greek – repentance. He could have stayed with the pigs and the husks and the guilt and the self-pity, but he comes to himself and he gets up and he goes to his Father. "Rise up and enter into the city" Saul is told. And listen once again to these familiar words ~

"But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him." (S. Luke 15: 20)

While he was still a long way off. He is waiting for us to come to ourselves. And when we arise, He will come running to us, not the other way round. And we will be transformed and energised and sanctified.

But this encounter is not the end, or even the beginning of the end – it is the real beginning. What follows is obedience, prayer, fasting, patience, love, fellowship. They are all there – in those three days in the dark. And they point the way for us, too.

We must be obedient ~ for Christ is the Way & the Truth & the Life. We must listen to the teachings of the Church, not made in our image, or remodelled for our comfort zone but, as S. Vincent of Lerins tells us, understand that the Christian Faith is that which has been taught in every place and at every time.

We must fast and pray, for to do both those things are according to the teachings of Christ Himself – "When you pray", He says; "When you fast", He says.

We are called to be those, who,

"...hearing the word, hold it fast in an honest and good heart, and bring forth fruit with patience." (S. Luke 8: 15)

And we are called to be those who love God, and our neighbour as ourselves. Let me just give one example of this loving as ourselves, especially within a community such as this one. When we behave badly - miss the mark, sin – we know within ourselves how we might be tired, stressed, misunderstood; how things came out the wrong way; how sorely we were tempted. When we see our neighbour (our family, our friends, our class-mates, our teachers) we see only the sin & we rush to judgement. We need to love – and try and understand - our neighbour as ourselves. And never judge – lest we too be judged. In the Orthodox Church, a prayer we say at every service in Lent, ends ~

For Blessed art Thou to the ages of ages. Amen." (Prayer of S. Ephrem the Syrian)

It is a good prayer.

It has become quite trendy to decry S. Paul; arguing that he somehow hijacked the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth - a folksy faith, a Gnostic sect - and created a hierarchical religion, Christianity. We see elements of this in the Liberal Protestant search for the Historical Jesus, and we see its fulminating God-hating climax in the blasphemy and spiritual and historical nonsense of The Da Vinci Code and its ilk. So, now, you will find on the shelves at Borders and elsewhere serious studies and theology of other world religions and then – turning the corner – coming to the Christianity section, volume after volume of debunking, undercutting, revisionist, popularist, offence to our Lord and God and Saviour Jesus Christ.

The truth is far from the case. The writings of S. Paul ~ the 14 Letters ~ are absolutely consistent with the teachings of the Gospels and the writings of the Old Testament, every one of which points directly to the Incarnational ministry of our Saviour. He left everything for Christ’s sake, and followed Him. Let us listen to him; let us be guided and instructed by him; let us love him ~ and through him come to have a closer understanding of our Saviour and His Church.

May Christ our True God have mercy on us.