Mid-week mini-reflection

The Way...
Christ Jesus has made me his own’ (Philippians 3 v.12)
Paul was not a convert from one religion to another, but from religion to faith. He remained a Jew until the day he died, but a Jew who followed ‘the Way’ . He had moved from the desire to belong to an in-group, whose boundaries were to be zealously policed, into a love relationship with the Lord who breaks all such boundaries down.
   The human desire to be in with the in-crowd is an aspect of what the New Testament writers call ‘the flesh’. This desire has a way of infiltrating all religions, including Christianity, and feeds on marks of identity and status such as clothing, title and position (Matthew 23.5-7). Paul appears to have liked being with his particular religious in-crowd (the Pharisees), and he had several reasons to be well in. 
   Then he met Jesus. Paul came to see – probably quite suddenly in an epiphany moment – that there was another way, the way of an out-group whose members were not defined by the usual markers of identity. These folk were not a social club but a living organic body, reflecting the love of Christ and made alive through the Spirit. They reflected the openness of Christ.
   They offered a welcome to all who trusted Christ, including their former persecutor, Paul himself. Once Paul found this, or, more correctly, found that he had himself been found, there was no going back; the Way was onwards and upwards.
Revd Steve

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