Penelope Bridges
The Conversion of St Paul, January 25, 2026 Penelope Bridges We Preach Christ Crucified
Today we celebrate our patron, Paul of Tarsus, a man who arguably has had more influence on Christianity than Jesus Christ himself. There are more of Paul’s words in the New Testament than those of Jesus; Paul took the very localized message of the Gospel from tiny Israel across the Roman Empire, stirring up communities, founding congregations and laying down teachings that still hold immense sway over Christians everywhere. Paul was a man of privilege, highly educated, a Roman citizen. He knew how to get a message across. His courtroom skills as a lawyer are evident in his letters and in the accounts of his confrontations with people in power. From Damascus to Rome and across the globe, Paul was and remains a giant of our faith.
Paul was uncompromising in his activism, first as a Pharisee determined to root out Christianity as a sacrilegious movement within Judaism; and then, after his dramatic conversion and about-face on the road to Damascus, just as fanatical in his promotion and defense of Christianity. He put his life on the line for the Gospel over and over, and in the end he was martyred for his faith, as we see in the last of our series of Pauline windows, in the northeast corner of the nave.
Almost all of us here today, maybe all of us, have spent our entire lives in a place and time when Christianity was both permitted and taken for granted. We have enjoyed a comfortable faith, the worst consequences being perhaps gentle mockery by unbelievers or the inconvenience of our children having sports fixtures on Sunday mornings. We have been able to choose when and how to witness to our faith, without fear of persecution. It’s worth noting that in the original Greek of the New Testament, the word we translate as witness is martyros. I suspect that if St. Paul were to walk into this cathedral today, he would barely recognize the Christianity that he taught, preached, and lived.
Paul’s work changed the known world and planted the Christian church so firmly that it has lasted for 2000 years, through empires, wars, persecutions, and secularization. One historic metaphor for the church describes it as a living entity that has been watered by the blood of martyrs. Yes, I know, it’s a repellent image, but it gets the point across. Only a faith that is compelling enough for its followers to lay down their lives for it has the power to last for millennia. And we continue today to see courageous people put themselves in danger for the sake of the Gospel, speaking truth to power and daring to face down bullies and tyrants. In Minneapolis yesterday, Alex Pretty became the latest martyr in the struggle against federally sanctioned thuggery.
In recent days our Episcopal bishops, among other Christian leaders, have been speaking out, in the wake of the death of Renee Good and the reports of violent and illegal actions by those who are supposed to be keeping us safe. Here’s what the Rt. Rev. Rob Hirschfeld, Bishop of New Hampshire, said at a vigil two weeks ago, as he called on his clergy to set their affairs in order, in case they should be called on to risk life and limb for Jesus.
“We are now engaged in a horrible battle that is eternal, that has gone on for millennia. As soon as the Christian church became linked to the empire by Constantine in the year 325 or so, the church immediately became corrupt. And the message of Jesus’s love, compassion, and commitment to the poor, the outcast, was immediately compromised. And we have lost that voice, and we are now, I believe, entering a time, a new era of martyrdom, Renee Good being the last of note of those martyrs. [Of course, today he would add Alex Pretti].
New Hampshire’s own [Episcopal seminarian] Jonathan Daniels … stood in front of the blast of a sheriff in Haynesville, Alabama, to protect a young black teenager from a shotgun blast. He died and was martyred.
We know of … the Maryknoll sisters, who stood alongside the poor and the oppressed in El Salvador and were brutally raped and murdered in the name of Jesus…
Now is the time for us with our bodies to stand between the powers of this world and the most vulnerable. And it may mean that we are going to have to act in a new way that we have never seen perhaps in our lifetime, except for these remote stories … to put our faith in the God of life, of resurrection, of a love that is stronger than death itself.” End quote (January 9, 2026)
Bishop Rob is asking a lot of us Episcopalians, we who love the middle way, who have historically been part of the privileged majority. We are not used to being asked to put ourselves in danger. After all, we live in a world very different from Paul’s world. Don’t we? And yet, yesterday, hundreds of faith leaders, including a number of my own friends, put themselves in very real danger on the streets of Minneapolis.
The Rt Rev Craig Loya, Bishop of Minnesota, suggests that maybe what we are living through now isn’t so different from what Paul faced in the Roman Empire. Listen to how Bishop Craig brings together the life of the first Christians and our own call to witness. This is from a reflection Craig offered in an online prayer vigil last week.
“At one point in the grand Holy Spirit riff that is the Book of Acts, after Paul and Silas have whirled through town on one of their preaching tours, some local Christians are brought in front of the Roman authorities. The case against them is simple. These people have turned the world upside down.
“They have turned the world upside down. Now we know that those Christians weren’t more numerous than the forces of the empire, they weren’t better armored, they weren’t wealthier, and God knows they weren’t better organized. They didn’t turn the world upside down by being bigger, or stronger, or meaner than the empire. They turned the world upside down by mobilizing for love.
“They embraced those who were pushed aside. They cared for those the empire disregarded with its callous scorn. They put their bodies on the line to stand with those who were targeted. They were immovable in their commitment that not even death can stop the power of God’s love. That’s how they turned the world upside down, by facing the empire’s murderous cruelty with the irresistible force of love.
“We are going to make like our ancient ancestors, and turn the world upside down by mobilizing for love. We are going to disrupt with Jesus’ hope. We are going to agitate with Jesus’ love. Not because we are weak, or [because] we have given up. And for God’s sake not out of some naive wish that everything will be just fine when it is so obviously not.
“We are going to choose to turn the world upside down with love because we know, we know, the cross of Jesus Christ settles forever that love is the most powerful force for healing in the universe. … Our work is to show up, every day, in every place, using all we are to show the world its victory, until God’s love is fully and gloriously done, on earth as it is in heaven.” End quote (January 13, 2026) Amen, Bishop Craig. Amen. May the power of love ultimately win the day.
