Conversion of Paul [i]
25 January 2026
Parish of Saint Helen’s West Point Grey
Vancouver BC
Click HERE to listen to the Sermon as preached at the 10.00 Eucharist.
In November of 1860 Abraham Lincoln was elected President of the United States in an election that was fought, in part, over the question of slavery. Lincoln was seen as a moderate who thought that slavery would eventually cease to exist if its expansion into the new western territories of the United States were prohibited. Within a month of his inauguration the American Civil War began when South Carolina militia fired upon Fort Sumpter in Charleston harbour.
By 1862 the Civil War was not going well for the Federal forces, and many voices were raised in demands of an end to the war. But Lincoln’s perspective on the question of slavery had changed. He now favoured the emancipation of all enslaved people and in September of 1862 set forward a proposed proclamation. In his address to the U.S. Congress in December of 1862, Lincoln wrote these words in defence of his plan: “The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise with the occasion. As our case is new, so we must think anew and act anew. We must disenthrall ourselves, and then we shall save our country.” On 1 January 1863 the emancipation proclamation was made.
What Lincoln did was revolutionary. It marked his own conversion to a more radical position than the one he had held when campaigning. But it was also evolutionary. With the emancipation proclamation Lincoln articulated the natural consequences of his belief that slavery was harmful both to the one who was enslaved and to the one who enslaves. Lincoln’s experiences of two years of bloody war gave him a new perspective on both the causes and the remedies necessary to bring the conflict to an end.
What Lincoln had experience was what the Scriptures call metanoia. Metanoia means “a profound transformation in one’s outlook, often involving repentance, conversion or a radical reorientation of life, moving from a previous understanding or state to a new one, sometimes prompted by crisis or a significant (insight).” [ii] On the one hand, metanoia can be revolutionary. But it can also be evolutionary, building upon one’s experience prior to the moment of enlightenment. I think of metanoia as part of the process of becoming more fully the person God created me to be.
Remember last week’s question from Jesus – “Who do you say that I am?” That is the question that Paul faced almost two thousand years ago. My late colleague, Lloyd Gaston, Professor of New Testament at Vancouver School of Theology, immersed himself deeply in the study of Paul. Because of that study, Lloyd was not a fan of the official name for today’s holy day, the Conversion of Paul. Lloyd argued that Paul was not converted; he did not cease to be a Jew. Paul experienced an epiphany which transformed how he answered Jesus’s question. Jesus and those who proclaimed him Messiah were no longer heretics; they were faithful interpreters of the tradition of the Law and the Prophets so central to Paul’s heritage.
Anglicans base our theology in the Scriptures as interpreted by reason and tradition. We do this because we understand that what the Scriptures say is not necessarily what the Scriptures mean. So, we interpret the Scriptures using the resources of human experience. Sometimes we realize that we have tended to listen to the experience of only a select group of people and that we need to listen to more voices. And at other times, we have maintained traditions without questioning their origins and whether there are cultural forces that have limited our understanding of why we have or have not done things in a certain way for generations.
This dynamic and living way of engaging God’s Word as voiced in the words of the Scriptures has led us to make decisions that seem revolutionary to some, evolutionary to others. But whether revolutionary or evolutionary, the result is a change in our perspective on what God is doing for us, in us and through us to bring about the promised reign of justice and peace.
In my almost seventy-three years of life as an Anglican Christian, I have witnessed our tradition change its discipline on marriage to recognize that some marriages die and that those who have experienced such a death can find new life in a new relationship. I have witnessed our tradition realize that the very first apostle was Mary Magdalene and that women played a significant part in the spread of the good news of God in Jesus Christ. This realization has brought me to where I am, a priest married to a priest who was married once before. Some probably think this a revolution and not necessarily a good one, but others see this as a natural evolution from our understanding of the gospel liberty brought to us through Jesus of Nazareth.
This past week in Davos our Prime Minister voiced what many leaders and peoples throughout the world have quietly thought in their hearts. The dogmas on which we built our quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present. The truth is that the storms have been on the horizons for some time, but now we dare to step into an unknown future by disenthralling ourselves from any illusions about the present. I loved the Prime Minister’s phrase: “The old order is not coming back. We should not mourn it. Nostalgia is not a strategy.”
Friends, I know that this congregation has experienced some difficult times in the recent past. We are right to acknowledge our grief and our uncertainty. We are right to ponder what the future shape of our mission and ministries in this place will be. But we are here because God has called us here. We are here because God has a vision for who we can become and what we can achieve. We are here because West Point Grey needs us to be here.
What is happening right now is an invitation to metanoia. We could, as the Prime Minister said, make the mistake of turning to nostalgia as a strategy. Or we can look at our life as a congregation, at God’s mission in this time and place, and our ministries that embody that mission with new eyes. With this new perspective we’re likely to catch a glimpse of who we’re meant to be and to become, and I dare say we’ll like what we see.
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