Celebrating 190 years of St Paul’s Anglican Church Rondebosch

Sermon on Paul the Apostle on the feast of the conversion of St Paul

As he neared Damascus on his journey, suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him. 4 He fell to the ground and heard a voice say to him, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?”
5 “Who are you, Lord?” Saul asked.
“I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting,” he replied. 6 “Now get up and go into the city, and you will be told what you must do.”

I am aware that today is a bittersweet day for you.
You seem to have lost all your supporting clergy.
And today you will be saying farewell and thank you to your rector Reeva.
I am not sure why it should be like this. I know that you will be well supported by Stephen.

But may God surprise you pleasantly in the days ahead!

A 190 years of this parish St Paul’s is a massive history.
The only other place I know that does better than this
Is St Francis Simons Town, who a few years back celebrated
200 years- and I was fortunate to guide them through their celebrations.

I know a little bit of your recent history
And was part of 11 happy years of it.

Our stay at St Paul’s in the late 80s and 90s
was important phase of our lives
I seemed to be at the height of my creative powers for
I produced 3 books,
Helped to bring the University Chaplaincy under the umbrella of St Pauls.
Wilmer Jakobsen did a great work with the students.
They were the years of Tommy Munnick, whose ghost I hope still visits you. My daughter did a special painting of him, so he lives on in our lounge.
While here our children moved through school, college, university.
We Celebrated 160 years of St Paul’s – so you can imagine how old I am.
When we won the first Rugby World Cup the
streets of Rondebosch was playground of celebration
Remember Kuzmas restaurant the main road, open 24 hours, where we met for the simpliest meal
After the playreadings we performed.

St Paul – the great Missionary and giant of the Church!

I wonder how you feel about him
People either love him or hate him,
A woman in our complex shook her head when i mentioned his name,

I don’t know that I like him. What do woman say and think of him? He certainly had women friends.
What an amazing energy in one man – you have to admire!

If you put St Matthew and St Paul in the same room would they come out with a reconciled statement of agreement on Christian Faith?
St Matthew 25 tells the parable of the sheep and the goats…
42 For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, 43 I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.’
44 “They also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry …..
45 “He will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’ … harsh words follow
Enter…not a nice place!

For St Paul that is a good work done to another… that won’t get you into the Kingdom, entrance is by Grace alone, not through good works.

Matthew and Peter, knew Jesus, heard his stories.
St Paul approaches the Christian story at the point of the Resurrection of Jesus.
Jesus talks of the Kingdom of God, Paul hardly mentions the kingdom of God.
Paul never picks up on or explains a parable of Jesus. You would think it very obvious that he should or would…

For St Paul a disciple needs to enter into Christ, to die with Christ so that you might rise with Christ through his death and resurrection – that is the journey of Salvation. The Cross, a symbol of death and rejection becomes central with the resurrection.

If your are a budding theologian St Paul gives you the big ideas of the Christian faith, there are the letters to the Romans and Galatians – Justification through Faith, Predestination, The Second Adam…

But here is St Paul the mystic,

He could rise to the heights of the meaning of love….
If I speak in the tongues[a] of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal…

His insight into the mystery of the messiah…
5 In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus:
6 Who, being in very nature[a] God,
did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;
7 rather, he made himself nothing
by taking the very nature[b] of a servant,
being made in human likeness….
becoming obedient to death—
even death on a cross!
9 Therefore God exalted him to the highest place

12 For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.
13 And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

Or that great passage in Roman 8.
8 For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, 39 nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Whipped, persecuted, shipwrecked, brought before the Law of the land many times…what was his achievement?

Through his eloquence, energy, resourcefulness and missionary zeal he propelled Christianity from its lowly beginnings into the centre of the Roman world, taking it into Asia minor, to East and West- Christianity was to become a world religion.

What did he have to discover to do this?

That Christianity was not tied to its Jewish culture.
That those outside Judaism also lived by a moral law and philosophy
That anyone anywhere could become a follower of the Christ through their experience of faith and enter through water, baptism and the Holy Spirit.

“In Christ there is neither Jew nor Greek, neither slave nor free, neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3:28). That is an amazing insight of a non-dual consciousness.
It means that you and I at the tip of Africa can feel that we are part
Of Christian faith and are on your own lowly Christian journey.

I end with a short meditation which I wrote when I was here

Lord, there are moments when I am on the road to
Damascus, all certain and self-confident, espousing a
cause. When others are at the knife edge of my tongue.

Lord, there are moments when I have fallen, when all my
certainty is lost. When my values are threatened and
confidence is gone. When I can hardly see through
swollen eyes.

Lord, there are moments of surrender, when others must
lead me. Smaller people than myself, a foot soldier, an
office worker, a messenger like Ananias.

And because of them, there are moments, Lord, when
things swell together in the refreshing waters of renewal,
as my life is whole once again. Moments when I am being
led by you – when the scales are lifted, and the road to
Damascus becomes my road to freedom.

May the light which shone so blindingly
On the road to Damascus
Shine brightly on the road on which we journey
As pilgrims and citizens,
So that we may rise
From the present,
With God’s vision of the future.
May God surprise you, the parish of St Pauls

• Poem for Grandchildren living far away
• Reflection on the Conversion of St Paul
• Reflection on the Sower
• The Mustard Seed Prose Poem
• Report on the launch of my poetry book, The Dance of Life