PAST SERMON 2010
by Reverend Judith Alltree, delivered on Sunday April 18, 2010,
at the Church of the Holy Spirit.
EASTER 3 – THE CONVERSION OF ST. PAUL
18 APRIL, 2010
Acts 9:1-20
There are times in our lives when we must be pushed down in order to stand again; we must lose our sight in order to see; we must accept our actions as sinful in order to repent; and we must suffer and die to the old ways in our lives in order to be born into the new.
In Galatians Paul describes his past actions in the following manner: “You have heard, no doubt, of my earlier life in Judaism. I was violently persecuting the church of God and was trying to destroy it. I advanced in Judaism beyond many among my people of the same age, for I was far more zealous for the traditions of my ancestors.” (Gal. 1:13-14) This is certainly far more explicit than Luke’s passive, understated description of Saul’s mission to “find and bind” those members of The Way, as the first Christians were known. Saul, who became known as Paul after his conversion, was out to destroy Christianity, and Christians, not just to arrest its members.
With the full authority of the Jewish leadership in Jerusalem, Saul set out that day with a ‘blanket warrant’ for the arrest of anyone he could find who belonged to “The Way”. And he believed, with all his heart, that this was the correct thing to do: that it was his responsibility under the law to be a zealous defender of Judaism. Under the law anyone who believed that Jesus of Nazareth, the recently crucifed criminal, former rabbi and teacher, was actually the Messiah, the Anointed One of God, was a blasphemer, which was considered a heinous crime, and must therefore be arrested and put to death, and it was his, Saul’s responsibility to see to it that that was done.
So, you might imagine that someone on this kind of a mission, believing that he was doing God’s work is going to have to come smack up against God himself before he is going to change his direction in life. And that, literally, is what Luke described happened that day on the road to Damascus: according to the witnesses, there was a blinding light, Saul ‘fell’ from his horse, a disembodied voice spoke to him, and when he stood up, he was blind.
I doubt that subtle gestures would have had any affect in encouraging this man to change his mind – a zealot of any kind is not easily persuaded to change their minds for any reason. Nothing less than the appearance of Jesus Christ would have had the affect on Saul that God intended: that instead of persecuting the Christians, he would become Paul, apostle by the grace of God, proclaimer of the Gospel of Jesus Christ; and in the words of the Lord to Ananias: “I myself will show him how much he must suffer for the sake of my name.” (Acts 20:16)
I prefer to think that Jesus gave him an enormous shove off his horse, no gentle slip from the saddle, in order to get his attention, before calling, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?” The final blow to his dignity would be to take Saul’s sight away from him, and then send him into Damascus, a haven for Christians, to ‘await the Lord’s orders’. This would not only have been frightening but very humiliating: remember, all infirmities of the body were considered to be the result of sin; so to go from sighted to blind in a moment would have had enormous implications spiritually as well as physically for Saul. But God knew that it was only when Saul lost his sight that he would be able to see more clearly, that not until he was completely at the mercy of the unknown would he learn to trust God and his faith in the truly Holy.
The final irony of this story is that it will be a member of The Way, a Christian, one of those whom Saul set out to arrest and murder who will be the one to pray over him for the restoration of his sight. We might think the contrast between the two men could not be greater: Saul, the all powerful political and religious figure, and Ananias, a member of an outlawed group without political or religious power. Yet, there is a great deal of similarity between the two: both are weak and powerless; both must rely on their faith in the Lord and learn to trust each other in order to survive. It’s a very unique position that both find themselves in, a position that God placed them in, but the best possible place for Saul to begin his new ministry, to learn how much suffering he will endure for the sake of the name of Jesus Christ.
But it is clear from Saul’s response to the ministrations of Ananias and the resulting healing he experiences that his encounter with the Lord has had a profound affect on his life. More than just his sight has been restored. Saul is baptized immediately, and, after he regains his strength from a three day fast, he begins to proclaim Jesus as the Son of God in the synagogues, doing the very thing he was sent to prevent by the Jewish authorities of the Temple in Jerusalem. Anyone who knew Saul at this point must have thought he had suffered more than blindness from that fall off his horse. As I said, however, it was clear that subtle gestures would be lost on this man, that nothing short of the presence of Jesus Christ himself would have induced Saul to repent in the manner in which he did, to turn and find a new direction for his life.
In his letter to the Philippian Church, Paul wrote of himself: “If anyone else has reason to be confident in the flesh, I have more: circumcised on the eighth day, a member of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew born of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless. Yet whatever gains I had, these I have come to regard as loss because of Christ. More than that, I regard everything as loss because of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and I regard them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ” (Phil. 3:4b-8)
It will be with the same passion and fervour that he formerly persecuted the Christians that Saul – as Paul -will begin to serve the Lord Jesus and proclaim his Gospel. It is through this same passion and fervour that he will suffer the many losses – including his own life – for the sake of his relationship with Jesus, which will take second place to nothing from this moment on. It will be through his encounter with Jesus that Saul will lose his old life and gain a new relationship in God through Jesus Christ; it is through his blindness that God will enable him to see clearly; it will be through his dying to misguided righteousness that he will rise, through his baptism, to life in Jesus Christ. AMEN.