July 29 2007 Lectionary Reading: 2 Corinthians 6.1-10

Text: “We seem to have nothing, yet we really possess everything.”

2 Corinthians 6.10

I’ve been reading the autobiography of Gabriel Marcel, the French playwright and thinker for the past few days. Occasionally, when the mood overtakes you, it’s always refreshing to read someone’s autobiography. My father always liked to get autobiographies out of the local library, and I suppose I follow in his footsteps.

Gabriel Marcel writes a little fragment from his very early life. At the age of four, he tells us, he had gone with his father and mother to Stockholm in Sweden. His father went to take up a high ranking post in the French Embassy. The years that followed were happy year for little Gabriel – “I remember at the harbour, watching the ships which were going to leave for Hernosand and for Lulea… I remember the names of the places…. I remember the landscape of water, stones and birches but then, he writes, “one summer day in 1899 I learned we were going to leave Stockholm and return to Paris. How can I ever forget my heavy heart … ?”

Autobiography, a little fragment, a memory of times gone by remembered………a memory of loss.

The passage in 2 Corinthians, though the apostle Paul is speaking both of himself and Timothy, could be included as a little fragment of Paul’s autobiography. You see, there are other passages in the New Testament that tell us about Paul’s life, so we can fit some of these words we read here in 2 Corinthians into Paul’s autobiography, the story of his life.

What is that story ? Well, according to what we read in Galatians and other letters, Paul was born around AD 5 or 6 in the city of Tarsus which is now in Eastern Turkey, into a strict religious background. He was brought up as a Jew, he was taught the Law from the moment he could walk – learning to speak Hebrew and in Greek. He grew up through his teens and early twenties to become a leading member of a sect called the Pharisees – who put religious commitment to God’s law above everything else.

By the time he reached the prime of life in his thirties, Paul had a great deal going for him – status, security, and he was on a fast track to an important career as a Jewish leader, as he was well known for his thoroughness and zeal in religious matters. In fact, his zeal was so strong for purity and obedience to the law as a Pharisee, that the first time we see him in the book of Acts, he is a leader in the persecution of the Church, searching out Christians in the city of Jerusalem, and throughout the Middle East to scatter them or imprison them. We even catch a glimpse of Paul at the execution in Jerusalem of a Christian man called Stephen.

Now, compare this to the little section here of autobiography in 2 Corinthians 6. In absolute contrast – Paul is no longer speaking of his status, or of the honour that is his due, nor of wealth accumulated over the years – but of his poverty. As a matter of fact, he says, we seem to have nothing. He lists as part and parcel of his daily life, troubles, hardship, trials and court cases – and imprisonment.

But most significant of all, though he has few possessions, Paul tells us, he has found the secret of joy, the source of real life, he has everything he needs.

So between that early very promising work he had, and the point where he writes this letter to the Church at Corinth what has happened ? Here is a human being, a man who knows joy, life, deep and real life, richness in spirit, mind – what has happened ?

What has happened is this.

At the age of 35 or so, just outside the city of Damascus in Syria – Paul encountered Jesus Christ – just outside the city of Damascus, Jesus Christ stopped Paul in his tracks. And the life he had planned, the status, the power, the influence fell away. In the light of Jesus Christ, as Paul says in so many different ways, that past was as nothing, no longer, for Paul, of central importance.

So what we discover along with all of this, is that:

We cannot write of Paul’s life without speaking of Jesus Christ - Christ who met Paul at Damascus.

We cannot tell the story of Paul’s life without speaking of Christ, in whom Paul found forgiveness (for Paul knew that all his sin was laid on Christ).

We cannot tell the story of Paul’s life without speaking of Christ whose gift to Paul was truth and wisdom, power, love and joy.

If we want to write Paul’s life story, his autobiography, then we have to include these words:

Circumcised on the eighth day of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews, a Pharisee, persecuting the Church, in righteousness faultless… whatever, I now consider all this loss for the sake of Christ…… compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord… that I may gain Christ and be found in Him.

That old life of Paul’s had been dealt with at the cross, in the remedy that God has provided for sin - Paul’s old self was crucified with Christ !

So that, when we gather together the fragments that are there in the New Testament, whether they are biography, or autobiography, we can never simply speak of Paul, the man, the human being – we have to speak of Jesus Christ. For the story of Paul’s life shows us Jesus Christ. And as the light of Jesus Christ unfolds in Paul’s life, so Paul’s life unfolds. So that Paul, in Galatians can write, of his own life ‘Not I, but Christ who lives in me’! And so Paul can speak of purity, patience and holiness, sincere love, truth, the power of God, life in the Holy Spirit at work in his own life, through Jesus Christ.

So, you might think we can snap the book shut there, the story of Paul’s life. Not so, for the record of Paul’s life in Christ, while it is the story of just one man, is the record, the story of our own lives. Of every man and woman whose life Jesus has touched.

It might not have been on a road to Damascus, but Christ has come to us. Our experience may not be as dramatic as Paul’s but we too find forgiveness in Jesus, for He has conquered sin in the power of His holiness and righteousness. Our own lives might be unspectacular but the gift of Jesus to us – is life, a life of truth, and peace, and love has begun in us, for we walk in the light that He gives. So that as the story of our lives unfolds, these words will be ours too – Not I but Christ who lives in me !

AMEN.