Paul & the Way

I grew up going to church. All my life I’ve known that the Apostle Paul was imprisoned multiple times for preaching the gospel. But is that the whole story?

This morning, I read chapters 21 through 28 of the book of Acts, and I realized that there is more to the story than “Paul was persecuted for preaching about Jesus.”

Paul was arrested in Jerusalem by the Jews. They were angry that Paul had a reputation for preaching to Gentiles, and there was a rumor that he’d even brought a Greek Gentile into the temple. Paul was dragged out of the temple, and the Jewish men began beating him. A confused, angry mob formed, and some of the people screaming and chanting and joining in the mayhem actually thought Paul was a Greek man who was yanked from the temple.

It’s easy to imagine, right? Crowds were shouting about a Greek man being in the temple. Men were pummeling Paul. Onlookers automatically assumed that Paul was the Greek man who had sneaked into the temple. People joined in and piled on based on the snippets they were hearing, inflamed by their own prejudices.

After the Roman soldiers rescued Paul from the hands of the Jews, Paul began shouting in Hebrew. Aaahh, what? This guy wasn’t a Greek after all? So the crowd began to listen. Paul told them his own personal conversion story, how he had been a Zealot, persecuting members of the Way (Jesus followers), then how he had experienced an encounter with Jesus on the road to Damascus. The crowd listened intently.

Then Paul told how Jesus appeared to him again and sent him to preach to the Gentiles. To the Gentiles? Well, that was it! The crowd began shouting again about killing Paul. “He shouldn't be allowed to live! Away with him from the earth!”

Long story short - Paul claimed the privilege of his Roman citizenship in order to keep himself safe from the Jews. He was imprisoned, yet appealed higher and higher up the chain of both Jewish and Roman command. At each level, the judge or government official couldn’t find any real fault with Paul. They all seemed to ascertain that Paul just had theological differences with other Jews. King Herod Agrippa even said Paul didn’t deserve to die and that if Paul hadn’t appealed all the way to the Emperor, he could have been set free.

After an arduous sea journey, complete with storms and shipwreck, Paul arrived in Rome. Once there, Paul was permitted to live under house arrest in a rented home with only one guard. He wrote letters, received guests, preached, and continued his ministry under house arrest for two years while he awaited a trial before Nero, the Emperor. (By the way Nero declared Paul innocent and let him go, but - Spoiler Alert - he would later be falsely accused, imprisoned, found guilty, and put to death.)

What started all the animosity toward Paul? Was it only preaching the Gospel? No. Initially, that wasn’t the big complaint. The Jewish leaders had a problem that Paul preached the Gospel TO GENTILES.

Paul thought and taught that God’s love and grace extends beyond the Jewish “chosen people” to everyone else: the Greeks, the Gentiles, the whole world. Paul preached about Jesus breaking down barriers and opening up God’s Kingdom to every ethnicity and nationality and culture. Paul proclaimed the message of an internal transformation which supersedes any external rituals and customs.

Paul offended those Jews who had the notion that they were special, above everyone else.

Paul risked his life to remain steadfast in the Way of Jesus. The Way that teaches every nation of people is valuable to God and God’s love and life is lavished upon all people. Jesus, then Paul, consistently dismantled the idea that one group or nation or ethnicity is more beloved than any other.

This incensed the Jewish leaders. And for this, they wanted Paul dead.

Today, the crowds who have somehow convinced themselves that some “chosen people” status offers God’s blessing on Israel’s annihilation of the people of Gaza aren’t following in the Way of Jesus. The same is true for those who have somehow convinced themselves that God’s favor rests on the United States and some sort of nationalism permits us to snatch up brown and black immigrants and imprison them in concentration camps. This isn’t the Way of Jesus. This isn’t the Way Paul risked, and eventually gave up, his life for.

I’m sad to say that a lot of congregations who read the book of Acts and regard Paul as some hero martyr are, in reality, more closely aligned with the angry mobs chanting for Paul’s death. Like those Jewish crowds, these Christian Nationalists want to gatekeep grace and mercy for themselves and people with similar beliefs, similar skin colors, and similar cultures. Truly, their god is a god of scarcity and smallness with only enough love and light for them and theirs.

Jesus (and Paul) proclaimed a vast God who loves the entire world and breathed the image of God into every human being, a God whose love extends to the deepest oceans, the highest mountains, and the farthest reaches of space. Jesus (and Paul) preached a God who senses the frightened touch of an outcast woman, who distracts from the disgrace of a humiliated woman used by men, who touches the unclean lepers. Jesus (and Paul) declared God’s love and grace available to a Gentile woman seeking whatever crumbs she could gather, an Ethiopian eunuch looking for answers, and a Roman Centurion searching for healing.

Are we, like Paul, following the Way of Jesus? Or are we like the Jewish mobs who became enraged with Paul for dismantling barriers? Do we look at others and see God’s image in them? Or have we crafted a God in our own image, a God who shows preference for us and people like us?

As Anne Lamott bluntly states, “You can safely assume you've created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do.”