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| Saint Paul: Evangelizer and founder of evangelizing christian communities |
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| Scritto da Fr. Josaphat Wanyonyi Nabibia, imc | |
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Introduction When I was requested to write two or three pages on evangelization from a Pauline perspective, I found it so ample a theme that it could not be covered in a few lines. I therefore decided to limit my reflection by focusing only on Saint Paul himself as evangelizer and founder of evangelizing communities. The questions which I look forward to answering are: What was the fundamental experience behind the figure of Saint Paul as evangelizer? And, what was the key evangelizing force of the Pauline Christian Communities? 1. Saint Paul the Evangelizer Saint Paul’s missionary activity is linked with his conversion or Christ’s revelation to Him; “For I want you to know, brothers and sisters, that the gospel that was proclaimed by me is not of human origin; for I did not receive it from a human source, nor was I taught it, but I received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ” (Gal 1:11-12) 1 . This revelation came to the Apostle most probably in Damascus’ Christian community which he had gone to persecute. Persecuting the Christians was equivalent to persecuting Christ Himself. This is why Christ did not say, “Why are you persecuting the Christians?” But “Why are you persecuting me?” 2 As such, the consequent conversion of Paul cannot be considered as a strictly individual phenomenon or as a sudden fall from the horse as it is traditionally considered, but rather, as an encounter with the Risen Christ through the testimony of the same Christians that he was persecuting3 . This experience marked a new beginning, a new course and a commitment to a new mission in his life. After encountering the Risen Lord in the life and experience of the Christian community that he was persecuting, Paul became its fervent and dynamic ambassador. He turned out to be a person won over by the community for the community. His conversion marked a clear and decisive option within an alternative community centered on Christ, which became a determining factor throughout his missionary activity. Paul himself makes us note the irresistible force of his call and mission through the experience of his encounter with Christ in the life of a Christian community, which impelled him to be a witness of the gospel. The obedience to his call and mission determined the Apostle’s every day’s life: “To the weak I became weak, so that I might win the weak. I have become all things to all people that I might by all means save some. I do it all for the sake of the gospel, so that I may share in its blessings” (1Cor 9:22-23). These words of Saint Paul are an expression of a real way of life of any person who responds without any hesitation to the mission entrusted to him or her by God. God who calls and is always with those whom he calls, transforms them into people capable of doing anything within their reach for the service of the others in words and deeds, giving a clear testimony of what God is doing in and through them. The Apostle gives witness to the uncontainable urge of the action of the Spirit that is at the centre of his missionary zeal and theology by exclaiming, “If I proclaim the gospel, this gives me no ground for boasting, for an obligation is laid on me and woe to me if I do not proclaim the gospel! For if I do this of my own will, I have a reward; but if not of my own will, I am entrusted with a commission” (1Cor 9:16-17). It is only from this perspective that we can understand the missionary zeal of Saint Paul in his missionary endeavor. 2. Saint Paul the Founder of Evangelizing Christian Communities It is most probable that after his conversion, Paul stayed for a certain period of time in the Damascus’ Christian community. Afterwards, he started inserting himself in the synagogues of the Jewish Diaspora spread all over the Roman Empire. His main motive was to announce the gospel not tied to Jewish prerequisites of the observance of the law and circumcision. The only requirement to embrace the gospel was a generous and unconditional response of the believer to the action of the Spirit. The missionary activity of Saint Paul created some conflict with the Jews who felt betrayed. This prompted the successive expulsion of Christians converted from Judaism from all the synagogues. The Christians had therefore to look for other places where they could continue with the proclamation of the gospel. Forced by these circumstances, Saint Paul started to concentrate his missionary activity in pagan families, especially “the God fearing ones” 4 . By shifting his missionary operation centre from synagogues to families, Saint Paul made of the latter his key missionary environment5. He dedicated his time to them, shared his life with them and, as a consequence, the testimony of his own life among them became determinant in the conversion of all the family members and thus making them true milieus of solidarity (domestic churches), open to other domestic churches6. By consolidating the church in the families, an element that characterizes the beginnings of the church, we can understand why the primitive church penetrated so deeply the Greco-roman culture to the point of making it a “Christian Culture” whereby it was possible to live and experiment solidarity and fraternity. Paul preoccupied himself in all his missionary activity with founding Christian communities capable of transforming the key nucleus of the society, that is, the family, which is the best place of formation for solidarity, respect for one another, defense of life and fraternity. Paul’s main objective in founding Christian Communities based on families7 in different parts of the Roman Empire was to make each one of them an essential medium of evangelization in their respective regions: communities capable of evangelizing the people around them through a clear testimony of Christ through their words and deeds, especially through their mutual love and solidarity. It is from this point of view that we can understand the wide coverage of Paul’s missionary activity. The Christian communities that the Apostle Paul was founding were places whereby it was possible to form human beings capable of living in harmony with one another in love, fraternity and solidarity. In this way, Paul did not stay in a region for a long time until he had evangelized it all. Each Christian community had the duty and responsibility of evangelizing the whole region. Thus he himself proceeded to other regions with the aim of founding other Christian communities capable of evangelizing their respective surrounding people. From the mentioned Pauline method of founding small Christian communities with the responsibility of evangelizing their entire respective regions, we can understand the reason why Paul himself says that he had accomplished his missionary work in an entire region or a bigger part of it. We can see an example of this in the following words: “By the power of signs and wonders, by the power of the Spirit of God, so that from Jerusalem and as far around as Illyricum I have fully proclaimed the good news of Christ.” (Cf. Rom 15:19). This expression makes reference to the way of thinking and speaking characteristic of Paul. Going beyond concrete and specific communities already founded, the Apostle used to think immediately of regions, provinces or even the entire empire that the communities were responsible of evangelizing. That is what Paul himself points out in his letters. Philippi represents Macedonia (Ph 4:15), Thessalonica represents Macedonia and Achaia (1Th 1, 7s); Corinth represents Achaia (1Cor 16:15; 2Cor 1:1) and Ephesus represents Asia (Rom 16:5; 1Cor 16:19; 2Cor 1:8)8. This puts us in line with the thought and mission of Saint Paul, in particular, the confidence and the certainty that he had in the evangelizing task of each community he founded. Since his mission consisted precisely in founding small communities of the family type, capable of evangelizing by virtue of what was lived within each one of them, his certainty in the mission that each one of the communities had of announcing the gospel shows that he was convinced that “the Gospel, wherever it is proclaimed and takes root, opens way by itself and that, starting from specific populations, it penetrates in the surrounding regions. It can be compared to a fire which from where it is lit propagates in all directions” (Von Harnarck)9. Although Paul is portrayed as a missionary always on the move, due to the fact that he did not stay long in the communities that he founded for he was in a hurry to proclaim the gospel to the ends of the world, he did not remain indifferent to the communities that he was leaving behind with the responsibility of evangelization. He used to entrust them to his collaborators, and from time to time he accompanied, animated and exhorted them through letters10. Paul’s continuous accompaniment of the communities also shows the interest he in helping them to be always firm in the proclamation of the gospel and not to let themselves fall in their search for egoistic interests which would obscure their real essence, given that they were supposed to be a vivid testimony of the presence of Christ among them. 3. Some implications I would like to conclude my reflection with some implications for the evangelization, based on the missionary activity of Paul and the consequent foundation of evangelizing Christian communities, and inspired by the Encyclical Letter of Pope Paul VI, Evangelii Nuntiandi. 1. For the Church, the first means of evangelization is the witness of an authentically Christian life, given over to God in a communion that nothing should destroy and at the same time given to one's neighbor with limitless zeal. Modern man listens more willingly to witnesses than to teachers, and if he does listen to teachers, it is because they are witnesses11. St. Peter expressed this well when he held up the example of a reverent and chaste life that wins over even without a word those who refuse to obey the word (Cf. 1Pt 3:1) It is therefore primarily by her conduct and by her life that the Church will evangelize the world, in other words, by her living witness of fidelity to the Lord Jesus -- the witness of poverty and detachment, of freedom in the face of the powers of this world, in short, the witness of sanctity. 2. Side by side with the collective proclamation of the Gospel, the other form of transmission, person-to-person, remains valid and important. The Lord often used it (for example, with Nicodemus, Zacchaeus, the Samaritan woman, Simon the Pharisee), and so did the apostles. In the long run, is there any other way of handing on the Gospel than by transmitting to another person one's personal experience of faith? It must not happen that the pressing need to proclaim the Good News to the multitudes should cause us to forget this form of proclamation whereby an individual's personal conscience is reached and touched by an entirely unique word that he receives from someone else. We can never sufficiently praise those priests who through the sacrament of Penance or through pastoral dialogue show their readiness to guide people in the ways of the Gospel, to support them in their efforts, to raise them up if they have fallen, and always assist them with discernment and availability. 3. As evangelizers, we must offer Christ's faithful not the image of people divided and separated by unedifying quarrels, but the image of people who are mature in faith and capable of finding a meeting-point beyond the real tensions, thanks to a shared, sincere and disinterested search for truth. Yes, the destiny of evangelization is certainly bound up with the witness of unity given by the Church. This is a source of responsibility and also of comfort. At this point it is worth emphasizing the sign of unity among all Christians as the way and instrument of evangelization. The division among Christians is a serious reality which impedes the very work of Christ. The Second Vatican Council states clearly and emphatically that this division “damages the most holy cause of preaching the Gospel to all men, and it impedes many from embracing the faith”12. 4. The work of evangelization presupposes in the evangelizer an ever increasing love for those whom he is evangelizing. That model evangelizer, the Apostle Paul, wrote these words to the Thessalonians, and they are a program for us all: “With such yearning love we chose to impart to you not only the gospel of God but our very selves, so dear had you become to us”13. What is this love? It is much more than that of a teacher; it is the love of a father; and again, it is the love of a mother14. It is this love that the Lord expects from every preacher of the Gospel, from every builder of the Church. A sign of love will be the concern to give the truth and to bring people into unity. Another sign of love will be a devotion to the proclamation of Jesus Christ, without reservation or turning back. 4. Some useful literature BANKS, R. Paul’s Idea of Community, The Early House Churches in their Cultural Setting, Revised Edition (Peabody, Massachusetts Hendrickson Publishers, 1994). BORNKAMM, G. Pablo de Tarso, 5ª Ed. (Salamanca, Ediciones Sígueme, 1997). BRANICK, V. A Igreja Doméstica nos Escritos de Paulo (São Paulo, Paulus, 1994). HUARTE, J. Evangelio y comunidad, Estudio de teología paulina (Salamanca, Ediciones San Esteban, 1983). MCDONALD, MARGARET, Y. Las Comunidades Paulinas: Estudio Socio-histórico de la institucionalización en los escritos paulinos y deutero-paulinos, (Salamanca, Ediciones Sígueme, 1994). MEEKS, W. A. Los Primeros Cristianos Urbanos, El Mundo Social del Apóstol Pablo (Salamanca, 1988). _____________. The First Urban Christians and the Social World of the Apostle Paul, (London, Yale University Press, 1983). 1 Cf. Gal 1:15-17: “But when God, who had set me apart from the time when I was in my mother's womb, called me through his grace and chose to reveal his Son in me, so that I should preach him to the gentiles, I was in no hurry to confer with any human being, or to go up to Jerusalem to see those who were already apostles before me. Instead, I went off to Arabia, and later I came back to Damascus”. 2 Cf. Act 9:3-5: “Now as he was going along and approaching Damascus, suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him. He fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to him, ‘Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?’ He asked, ‘Who are you, Lord?’ The reply came, ‘I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting’.” 3 “Pablo no describe nunca la visión que tuvo; no tiene palabras para expresar lo que fue aquel Apocalipsis (Gal 1:12). El acontecimiento teológico no entrega por sí mismo su sentido, sino que está en el corazón de una historia significativa: el hombre que ha sido transformado radicalmente por el encuentro. La cristofanía de Damasco fue una revelación que transformó la fe y esperanza mesiánicas de Pablo. No fue el fin de una crisis moral, sino la experiencia de Dios que se revela en su Hijo y cuya revelación compete ahora su evangelio.” HUARTE, J. Evangelio y comunidad, Estudio de teología paulina (Salamanca, Ediciones San Esteban, 1983) pp. 45-46 4 Bornkamm nos hace notar dicha consecuencia de la actividad misional de Pablo, de modo especial con referencia a la comunidad de Corinto cuando dice que desembocó en un conflicto abierto con los judíos, de modo que el apóstol se vio obligado a trasladar su centro de operaciones de la sinagoga a la casa particular de un “temeroso de Dios”, llamado Ticio Justo. Así experimenta un rápido crecimiento aquella comunidad integrada de judíos y, sobre todo, de gentiles. Cf. BORNKAMM, G. Pablo de Tarso, 5ª Ed. (Salamanca, Ediciones Sígueme, 1997) p. 112 5 “É muito provável que a conversâo de uma familia e a conseqüente formaçâo de uma igreja doméstica constituissem o elemento chave no plano estratégico de Paulo para propagar o Evangelho no mundo. Se seguirmos Atos nesse assunto, veremos que Paulo teve pouco sucesso pregando nas sinagogas. Seo método entâo, fora mudado para establecer-se como uma familia proeminente, e assim criar sua base de operações en determinada cidade (Cf. At 16:13-34; 17:2-9; 18: 1-11).” BRANICK, V. Op. Cit. p. 16. Cf. Ibid. pp. 16-17 “A fim de realizar sua missâo ele dependia de uma extensa rede de trabalho de relacionamientos sociais centralizada nas famílias. Para Paulo, a hospitalidade significava nâo só apoio material, mas também ligaçâo com seu Evangelho. Significava compartilhar seu trabalho. Tal apoio ideológico aparece especialmente na reflexâo dele sobre a subvençâo financeira dos Filipenses ao seu trabalho (Fl 4:14-18; 2Cor 8:1-5).” 6 Cf. MEEKS, W. A. Los Primeros Cristianos Urbanos, El Mundo Social del Apóstol Pablo (Salamanca, 1988) pp. 132-136, citado por BAENA, G. Apuntes, Op. Cit. p. 41 7 “The meeting places of the Pauline groups, and probably of most other early Christian groups, were private houses. In four places in the Pauline letters, specific congregations are designated by the phrase, “hë kat’ oikon (+ possessive pronoun) ekklësia”, which may tentatively translate “the assembly at N.’s household.” An intimate connection with existing households is also suggested by 1 Cor 1:16, where Paul says he baptised the “house (oikos) of Stephanas”, and later in the same letter (1 Cor 16:15-16) where he commends the Stephanas household (oikia) as the “first fruits of Achaia”, who have devoted themselves to the service of the saints. MEEKS, W. A. The First Urban Christians and the Social World of the Apostle Paul, (London, Yale University Press, 1983). p. 78 8 Cf. BORNKAMM, G. Op. Cit. p. 94 9 Ibid. 10 Cf. Ibid. p. 95 11 Pope Paul VI, Address to the Members of the Consilium de Laicis (2 October 1974): AAS 66 (1974), p. 568, quoted in Evangelii Nuntiandi, Nº41 12 Decree on the Church's Missionary Activity Ad Gentes, 6: AAS 58 (1966), pp. 954-955; cf. Decree on Ecumenism Unitatis Redintegratio, 1: AAS 57 (1965), pp. 90-91, quoted in Evangelii Nuntiandi, Nº 77 13 1Thess 2:8; cf. Phil 1:8 14 Cf. 1Thess 2:7-11; 1Cor 4:15; Gal 4:19 |
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