Meeting the St. Paul You Never Knew. Webcast (1)

Notes from the Webcast February 25, 2014 (1)

(First 30 min. Josefina Fernandez.
Please continue on Gretchen Tucker notes  for the second part of the webcast)

 Fr. Rhor is presenting a Core of ideas about the worldview that St. Paul tries to clarify.
-Paul is the outsider that takes the inside. He is a critic of the religion of Judaism and the new religion of Christianity.
– He is the founder of the Church: Jesus proclaims the reign of God and he comes with a vehicle to communicate this message.
– He talks more about the Christ.
– He took the courage to take the Roman Empire in his quest.
– All his experience started on Damascus where he meets Christ and no Jesus. He meets this Great Spirit on the world and it is the same kind experience we have.
– He writes letters as a way of pastoral teaching and his way is very dialectic. He makes very strong contrast trying to bring higher synthesis. He is leading to a new awareness that he calls the Mystery of Christ.
– He was not one the 12 disciples.
– He did not know Jesus on the flesh.
– He is a Jew that rejected his own traditions in many ways. Jews are monotheist and Paul was talking on his teachings of God the Father, God the Holy Spirit and Jesus as the son of God. He was very comfortable talking with this vocabulary. It took 3 centuries to understand that Paul was talking about the Holy Trinity.
-Where does Paul’s get this authority? He gets it from the encounter of this new kind of God.
– He did not reject Judaism by the contrary he concentrated and went to preach at the synagogues. After 10 years of rejection he started thinking that this message is not for Judaism and it is for everybody.
 
 Universal messages for everybody. He presents a cosmic Christ: Christ is the pre-existing blueprint (Colossian and Ephesians letters). He is the one that identify Christ with humanity at its lowest level, most humiliating state and what he calls the mystery of the cross. Then he states that Christ is the final goal of history and it is what he calls the image of the risen Christ. So Christ is the one that pulls all the meaning of reality together. When Paul talks about Christ he is talking about everything. He is talking about that Christ is the pattern of the universe. We did not understand Paul in this mystical way.

Much later, we put Christ as (privatized) a private ownership and control.

This much-devolved notion of salvation is totally individualistic.

Paul is not an individualistic thinker. He is a cosmic mystical thinker. If you do not have this frame you will misinterpret what he says.

Paul keys phrase by which you can tell that he is talking about this mystical template by which all reality is explained is “In Christ “ .

Paul is a Greek speaking Jew who come from outside Israel . He is from Tarso (Turkey). He did not grow up on the Jewish ghetto so he does not have a ghetto mentality. He is a cosmopolitan person so he decided that his message belongs to all people. When the Jewish people took him in arrest he told them that he was a roman citizen so he had to be judge by roman tribunal.

He wrote most of his letters in Greek and that was the language of the elite at that time. He knew some Hebrew and Aramaic but was not his primary languages.

Paul gives shape and structure to Jesus message.

Jesus is the great proclaimer of the mystery. Jesus did not found the church, as we know it. He was just proclaiming the mysteries at higher level and Paul try to bring them to a practical pastoral level where they can happen. We know now that Paul’s communities in Corinth, Philippians, Ephesus, were not more than 40 to 45 people.

In these pagan communities that were decadent, Paul’s wanted to create small living schools. When these groups started having problems he wrote to them moralistic letters so they did no came a part and be discredit by bad behaviors these groups of people were very important for the transmission of the message and Jesus will not be trusted. When we read his letters, we think that he is talking at a moralistic level.

His letters in general were not moralistic. His concern is you to the picture of the Christ Mystery: God identification with history and humanity at its lowest most humiliating suffering level and that is what Paul’s means with Folly of the Cross or the Mystery of the Cross . So he creates the mystical foundation for Christianity. The other place we found this is in John Gospel.  And it is a Mystery. It is not something that you achieve by performance; it is something that you are already participating in it and you do not know it. And that is true today. This is what is going on.  This is what is happening. This Christ consciousness, this Trinitarian flows of life and love that we all are already flowing in. His job was to tell you that this is already the truth. It is not a new truth. It has been always been truth but we are a living in a time that we can talk about it. We can give words. We can give significance.

Another idea presented in Paul that we are unable to develop in this short lecture is the that he takes the Jesus notion of the reign of God, the kingdom of God, the big picture and he really politicized

Please continue on Gretchen Tucker notes  for the second part of the webcast)

Josefina Fernandez

Meeting the St.Paul You Never Knew Webcast (2)

Notes from the Webcast February 25, 2014 (1)  

By Gretchen Tucker 

Paul met Christ on road to Damascus
                   Cosmopolitan, Roman citizen, spoke and wrote in Greek, Jew
                  Speaks with inner authority and clarity of new kind of God
                  Doesn’t think he is leaving Judaism
                  Ten years later his message is not for Jews but for Gentiles
                 
Saw Christ as cosmic mystical thinker-“In Christo”
                  Universal message
                  Cosmic vision of Christ: pre creation, humanity (cross),
                                  resurrection (return to universe)
                  Gave shape and structure to Christ’s teachings
 
Founder of Church
                  Established “living schools” of 40 “stars” in middle of pagans 
                   throughout Mediterranean area
                  Not a moralist but a mystic                 
                  Tries to correct to keep living schools alive
                  Taught that we are already participating in the mystery
                                    Saw Trinitarian life as already the truth
 
Paul believed Jesus brought the reign of God, the Kingdom of God                 
                  Made political statement “Jesus is Lord”
 
Paul took on two systems of world with opposing ideas–dualism                 
                  Pius: Jews and others of conservative belief
                  Greeks: Hellenistic  and intellectual liberals
                  Paul was a mystic-has a higher level of thinking
                                    Need to struggle with two sides
                                                  – either is off balance
                                    Must reconcile them
                                               Pattern of the soul, history,  Bible
                                                  – progress marked by 3 steps forward
                                                    and 2 backward
                                              God leads us back to the center
 
1. Dualistic Problem of One and Many
We are either a hand, an eye, etc. yet participating in the whole
                    body of Christ
 2. Dualistic Problem of Jews and Greeks
Conservative Thinkers and Liberal Thinkers
Folly of the Cross-God identified with humanity
                  Became problem so that we would not……
Problem of injustice in obeying laws-God accepts absurdity
                    of full obedience                 
                  Our imperfection is forgiven
Problem of suffering and woundedness
                  God is happening in me, with me
                  Concern: child of God; rejection on earth;
                                 resurrection = optimistic message                 
3. Dualistic Problem of Tradition and Freedom
                  We can’t create freedom by trying
                  Law created to teach that we can’t do it
                  We then fall into mystery of Christ
                  Find ourselves in God by grace
4. Dualistic Problem of Flesh and Spirit: Part and whole
                  Flesh is not body or sex, but ego,
                                id—trapped self, imprisoned…,false…,small…, petty…
                  Invites into world of spirit; not achieved by
                                trying harder or surrendering more
                  Realize we are sons of God, daughters of the
                               Lord-get back to identity
                  God loves so be moral
                  Transformed heart does not see others as immoral
5. When I am weak, I am strong
                  Spirituality of imperfection
                  St. Therese: My Little Way-come to God by being weak;
                                 also Francis
                  Not taught by Church—instead climbing performance                 
                                   Priests trained in Cannon Law
                  Paul in Romans and Galatians oppose:
                                  cannot get there by obeying
                                  Theologian of Grace: unconditional love
                  Martin Luther tried but Lutherans turned to law
6. Christ and Adam
                  Inclusive of Jews and Greeks, conservative and liberals
                                     Covered in Colossians and Philippians
7. Matter and Spirit
                  Covered in Romans 8 and 1Corinthians 2
                  Eucharist-matter and spirit: we are what we eat and drink
                  Mystery of transformation-struggle with idea but we eat it
                                    Moves you beyond words
                                    Can be experienced but not understood
8. Creation and Salvation
                  Romans 8: All creation is on tiptoe
                  All creation being saved
9. Turn upside down
                  New understanding in society : undo class systems
                  Come together in Eucharist
                                    Meal is transformational ritual
                                    Bread and wine-priests in charge
                                    Potluck supper (bread and fish)-revolution of social order
                  Probably the dualism is Foolishness and Wisdom
10. Old covenant and new covenant is dualism
                                    Split with Judaism lasted until today

Master teacher of non-violence
His writings are underpinnings

Mysticism is key
                  Corinthians, Colossians, Ephesians-written between 57-67AD
                  Hebrews and 1st Timothy-not written by Paul

                                    Paul did 1st editing and someone else took over

 Church became dualistic after 1200
                   Result of people being able to read
                   Priests concerned about their career
                   Monks began going to monasteries in 317 AD: mystics
 
Mystical gift
                    Communicated experience
                    See in wholes and not in parts
 
Kenosis–Philippians: God “emptied himself” of his own will
 
Nature of God-God can only love, God as stingy, cannot be 

Folly of Cross-descent or letting go rather than climbing and performing

Only appeals to wounded

Death and Resurrection-have to be lost and be re-found
                   Crucified and resurrected at the same time

 

Paul’s Theology
                       We came from God and will return to God
                        Our job is to bring this creation to fulfillment, i.e., resurrection
                        God will resurrect and transform what man kills
                        All saved by mercy, by grace of God

 

Alpha and Omega-Christ mystery

Cosmic Christ gives theater of hope
                      Life is worth living
                      In hands of God
                      Loss and renewal pattern
                      Trust as Jesus did
                      Live in safety, not meaningless
                     Long for wisdom and purpose
 
In Christ no distinction between male and female
                    Church has given too much authority to these negative passages
 

Meeting St. Paul You Never Knew

Our St. Matthew group is planning to watch this event  on February 25th at 7 pm.

 

Meeting the St. Paul You Never Knew ~ Single Webcast

Part Number WC-2014SP-I
Meeting the St. Paul You Never Knew ~ Single Webcast

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