I Live, No Longer I

Paul's Spirituality of Suffering, Transformation, and Joy

Hogan

• Publisher: Wipf and Stock
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781532601088
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Religion

How do the dark moments of suffering which we all encounter at some point in our lives connect with the divine? The words of Paul the Apostle offer an answer to this universal question in the vibrant figure and pattern of Jesus Christ, so eloquently expressed in the Philippians Christ Hymn. It is in moments of loss, moments of experience of creation and community, and moments of transformative unity with God that we discover our deep connectedness to God and one another. Laura Hogan weaves the truth of these three facets of divine-human relationship together with Paul's undivided trust in divine effectiveness; that is, that the paradox of the cross reveals that God, no matter how dire the circumstance, is supremely effective to accomplish his will. Paul's words encourage us to express the pattern of Jesus Christ in our words, actions, and very lives, a singular articulation of Christ in our time, place, identity, and circumstances.This daily living of the Christ pattern, which this book explores in lives past and present, gives rise to a true joy in God as we become increasingly aware of our relationship with the divine in all moments, from the darkest to the brightest.

Chapter 1

De-Centering and Divine Presence

What does it mean to not be the center of one’s own life? After all, we are embodied human beings, firmly and concretely rooted within our physical frame, thinking with our own brain, feeling with our own heart, sensing with our own senses, perceiving and interpreting our own experience. Yet we are exquisitely intertwined with others from the moment we come to exist as a human being. Much of what we experience as life is the ebb and flow of relationship—with ourselves, with other human beings, and with the divine. If you think about it, you can probably link every moment of your life to one or more of these relationships. These three relationships form the core of not simply life, but also life lived in accordance with the greatest commandment: “You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your being, with all your strength, and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.”2 You are to love God, your neighbor, and yourself. The theological trick of this threesome is that if you truly and radically love each of these three, the lines dividing the three begin to blur. When the loved self becomes fundamentally reoriented in love toward God and neighbor, the self necessarily shifts and de-centers.

This concept of de-centering absolutely does not mean becoming a doormat to the world or to anyone. It does not mean forgetting to love ourselves along the way. But it does mean expanding our love and our hearts to the breaking point, at which point our divine partner in love steps in to help. It does mean realizing your greatest potential as a human person. It does mean deep and intense participation in a love much bigger than ourselves. It means participation in the divine life.

This radical shift happened in Paul. His encounter with the risen Jesus Christ on the road to Damascus literally knocked him to the ground and re-engineered his sight. In that moment he went from Saul, a man determined to persecute and destroy the followers of Jesus, to a man stripped of his footing, purpose, and vision.

On his journey, as he was nearing Damascus, a light from the sky suddenly flashed around him. He fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to him, “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?” He said, “Who are you, sir?” The reply came, “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting. Now get up and go into the city and you will be told what you must do.” The men who were traveling with him stood speechless, for they heard the voice but could see no one. Saul got up from the ground, but when he opened his eyes he could see nothing; so they led him by the hand and brought him to Damascus. For three days he was unable to see, and he neither ate nor drank.3

An account of this experience is given three times by the author of Acts, each time as describing the pivotal moment of Paul’s conversion.4 Yet all was not accomplished in Paul in that moment. It took time for Paul to fully work through the meaning of Jesus Christ and his cross and how his new orientation to Christ was to be lived.

You may not have been thrown to the ground by a blinding light, but you probably have experienced moments of de-centering. Have you ever realized that you would change your schedule, your plans, or even your life’s ambition because of love? After the birth of my first child, I remember saying to my husband that I was waiting for my life to return to normal. But what took time for me to realize was that I had a new normal. I was no longer a practicing attorney showing up at an office and immersing my mind in legal problems. I was a new mother who, blessed with such an option, had chosen to stay at home with her baby. When I looked at my tiny daughter, my heart wanted to overflow love into her. I wanted to hold her, feed her, change her diapers, read to her, sing and talk to her, and wake up in the middle of the night for her. I counted all that as pure joy, and it was. I had been fundamentally de-centered by the love of another.

This type of de-centering takes place within us on a much more profound level when we feel love for the divine awake within us. When we experience that we are deeply loved, and that we can love in return, we are forever changed. We are no longer the person we once were, with the concerns and goals of an individual untouched by another. We are radically converted into a person empowered and charged by relationship. We share the sufferings, goals, and joys of the one we love, God, and our neighbor, be it spouse, child, parent, friend, teacher, pupil, caregiver, patient, and so on. The parent-child relationship serves as an excellent example of shared concerns. What parent doesn’t suffer along with their child undergoing bullying, sickness, loss, or even death? What parent doesn’t feel the satisfaction of their child when she gives her balloon to the girl who just lost hers to the wind? What parent doesn’t share the joy of their child when they learn to tie their shoelaces, master the violin, or graduate from college? The divine relationship is perhaps less tangible, but no less intense an experience of union; in fact, it is much more intense. Teresa of Avila, a sixteenth-century Carmelite saint, described her experience of spiritual union with Jesus Christ as a total exchange of cares: in a vision Christ “told her that it was time she took upon her His affairs as if they were her own and that He would take her affairs upon Himself.”5

Paul undoubtedly became de-centered in his moment of conversion, yet something else happened after that initial encounter on the road to Damascus. The totality of the experience of de-centering came in and through subsequent experiences of love. In the years that followed his conversion, Paul’s writings attest to a developing relationship with Jesus Christ, an overwhelmingly intimate, loving, and growing relationship. The letters which Paul wrote to his emergent communities overflow with this love for, in, and through Jesus Christ. But Paul’s words reflect more than a simple affection of the heart. The text aches for deep union with the divine, for an entanglement so profound that the two are one in all things, in sorrow and in joy, in death and in life. Paul’s new sense of self connected so closely with his experience of the crucified Christ that he wrote to the Galatians: “I have been crucified with Christ; yet I live, no longer I, but Christ lives in me; insofar as I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God who has loved me and given himself up for me.”6 Paul’s experience and expression of de-centered identity in his letters arises not only from his loving relationship with Jesus Christ, but also his understanding of the meaning of the cross.

Paul wanted his communities to know about this drastic de-centering experience.7 He desired the people in his communities to experience the love of Jesus Christ in the same de-centering way. So he goes to great lengths to describe his own experience. The Letter to the Philippians provides an excellent example of his effort to communicate the experience of becoming de-centered through relationship with Jesus Christ. In Philippians, Paul makes a point of contrasting his former life as a Pharisee with his current life in Christ (Phil 3:5–9). Whereas Paul before had “grounds for confidence even in the flesh” (3:4) given his status as a Pharisee, he now in contrast does not put his confidence in flesh, but in the spirit of God and Jesus Christ (3:3). Paul’s language also points to the totality of his experience of transformation in Christ—he considers “everything” a loss, he has accepted “the loss of all things” (3:8); in contrast the good of knowing the Lord Jesus Christ is “supreme” or “surpassing” (3:8), his only objective is to “gain Christ and be found in him” (3:8–9). We can detect Paul’s own awareness of his fundamental shift in perspective regarding what is of value. He considers all the things of his past “so much rubbish” in comparison with the “supreme good” and “gain” of Christ (3:8). Finally, Paul reveals in this passage a clear reorientation of self to Christ: he accepts the loss of all things in favor of knowing Christ (3:8), he wishes to “gain Christ and to be found in him” (3:8–9), and he depends upon Christ for such fundamental elements as righteousness (3:9) and resurrection (3:10–11). In particular, Paul indicates the method by which he will attain Christ and the resurrection: through the “sharing of his sufferings” and “being conformed” to the death of Christ (3:10). Paul discloses that not only has his sense of self shifted toward Christ, but his fundamental identity is centered on participation in the life of Christ.

So we can identify at least some of the characteristics of Pa...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Foreword
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction: Paul in Prison
• Chapter 1: De-Centering and Divine Presence
• Chapter 2: Perspective Adjustment, or the Paradox of the Cross
• Chapter 3: A Map Left Behind
• Chapter 4: Mark of the Messiah
• Chapter 5: Messiah, Expressed
• Chapter 6: Targets to Arrows
• Chapter 7: Fitted to the Bow
• Conclusion: I Live, No Longer I
• Bibliography