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             It has been said that the founder of Christianity was not Jesus but Paul.  Jesus remained a devout Jew throughout his life, but although Paul never thought of founding a new religion, his conversion, which we are observing today, led him to proclaim to the Gentiles a gospel apart from the works of the law, and this was the wedge which would, in time, separate Christianity from the mother faith. 
            Paul’s conversion, as we see from the text from Philippians, was a complete reversal of his values: what he had viewed positively before the encounter on the Damascus Road—circumcision, membership in the tribe of Benjamin, the Pharisaic zeal which led him to persecute the church (vv.5-6)—all these things he now views as “dung” (v. 8, in the KJV).
            There are many examples in Christian history of this sort of sudden conversion, the account that St. Augustine gives in his Confessions being perhaps the most famous.  But, as I remarked last week, conversion can also be a gradual process, that constant renewal to which scripture calls each one of us every day of our lives. 
            Human life is the sacrifice of the merely natural man whose tragic career began in the Garden of Eden.  A positive outcome of this tragic beginning can only be hoped for when we have ventured into the darkness of inner division and emerged again.  Even Paul was left with a thorn in the flesh (2 Corinthians 12:7).  The serious problems in life are never fully solved. 
            But as we grow older, our values, like Paul’s, tend to change into their opposites—only gradually.  We cannot live the afternoon of life according to the programme of life’s morning.  As we grow older we need to give serious attention to ourselves.  In primitive tribes the old people are the guardians of the mysteries and the laws.  All the great religions hold out the promise of a life which makes it possible to live the second half of life with as much purpose as the first. 
            St. Paul did not live to reach old age: according to tradition, he was martyred in Rome, together with St. Peter, around the year 60, under the emperor Nero.  For the elderly, old age can be a type of martyrdom; a relative of mine used to say, “Old age is not for sissies.” 
            But contrary to those who see the end of life as nothing but a tragic decline, religious persons can see it as an essential part of our conversion, as we grow into God.

January 25, 2009

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