Sermons from St Faith's
The Perils of Paul(ine)
Fr Dennis Smith, Sunday,
January 25th, 2015
In 1914, just before the First World War, a
silent movie was issued in 20 episodes entitled
“The Perils of Pauline”.
The heroine, played by Pearl White, survived a
different threat to her life in each episode:
assaulted by sundry melodramatic villains, tied
to a railway track, hanging from a balloon,
clutching a ticking bomb, attacked by pirates
and “Native Americans”.
Viewed by thousands of soldiers on leave from
the war, “The Perils of Pauline” became a
legend. But what about the equally threatening
perils of St Paul, whose Feast Day Conversion we
celebrate today?
St Paul, then called Saul, who had persecuted
the Christians, had a vision of the Risen Christ
on the road to Damascus. He became blind, but a
brave Christian called Ananias was sent to heal
him.
The Lord said to Ananias: “Go, for Saul is an
instrument whom I have chosen to bring my name
before Gentiles and kings and before the people
of Israel; he must suffer for the sake of my
name.”
It is to his credit that each time a new peril
happened to Saul, now called Paul, he never
turned back, but was strengthened in his resolve
to carry the good news about Jesus right across
the Roman Empire.
St Paul lists some of the things which had
happened to him, when writing to his friends in
Corinth.
Christians had come from Jerusalem claiming to
be more important than Paul. They were dividing
the Church by contradicting his teaching, and
forcing his converts to follow Jewish customs
before they could call themselves Christians.
Paul claimed to be their equal, not from his
achievements, but because of his sufferings:
“Are they ministers of Christ? I am talking like
a madman – I am a better one: with far greater
labours, far more imprisonments, with countless
floggings, and often near death.
Five times I have received from the Jews the
forty lashes minus one. Three times I was beaten
with rods. Once I received a stoning. Three
times I was shipwrecked; for a night and a day I
was adrift at sea; on frequent journeys, in
danger from rivers, danger from bandits, danger
from my own people, danger from Gentiles, danger
in the city, danger in the wilderness, danger at
sea, danger from false brothers and sisters; in
toil and hardship, through many a sleepless
night, hungry and thirsty, often without food,
cold and naked. And besides other things, I am
under daily pressure because of my anxiety for
all the churches.
In Damascus, the governor guarded the city in
order to seize me, but I was let down in a
basket through a window in the wall, and escaped
from his hands.”
What an amazing story of “The Perils of St Pau!”
And this was written before his arrest in
Jerusalem, and another shipwreck at Malta on his
way to death in Rome. They are comparable to the
sufferings of saints and martyrs down the ages,
and Christians today who are being persecuted in
many countries.
Whipping people is, of course, not permitted
here in Britain, but in St Paul’s day the whip
was the cat-o-nine-tails”, with chips of bone or
metal inserted through its strands.
The first lash would cut through the skin and
cause profuse bleeding, and soon all the flesh
on the back was hanging loose. Forty lashes
would kill a man, so the limit was set at 39:
it’s amazing that anyone survived this
punishment even once, let alone five times. And
still St Paul continued to preach the gospel;
and it was because he did so, that the Christian
faith came to our shores and we are Christians
today.
When pain comes into our lives in the many
different ways in which it can – physical,
mental, emotional or whatever, we often complain
that it’s unfair or unmerited. By contrast, St
Paul, for whom we give thanks today, actually
rejoiced in his suffering, because he saw it as
a privilege to share the suffering of Christ
crucified.
He underwent these tortures so that Christ’s
divided Church might be one. Let us, then,
appropriately at the end of this annual Week of
Prayer for Christian Unity, thank God for Paul’s
courage, and strive to be united, and brave when
hard times come, as he was – and, in our daily
witness to the Risen Lord, let us seek to be
faithful ambassadors of the Gospel which has
been entrusted to us.
Some words preached at the inauguration of the
Province of Central Africa, before Bishop
Kenneth Skelton’s episcopate, in 1955, by the
Archbishop of Cape Town, Geoffrey Clayton, were
these: “Socrates said he believed himself to be
a gadfly fastened on the back of the Athenian
people. They didn’t like it and they sentenced
him to death. That might happen to you. It is
not your duty to be popular. It is your duty to
be faithful. It is your duty to give expression
to the truth as taught by Christ.”
These potent and prophetic words also illuminate
St Paul’s life, ministry and Apostleship, whose
motivating force was “Hold to Christ, and for
the rest be totally uncommitted”.
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