Text: Acts 9:1-19
Acts is the story of the gospel spreading throughout the
Mediterranean world. There are some key
moments in that story, hinge points that dramatically affect the future of the
fledgling church. And perhaps none is bigger
than the conversion of Saul on the road to Damascus.
You probably know the story. Saul was a Pharisee, scrupulous in following
the law. He was concerned about this
sectarian movement within Judaism that followed a would-be messiah named Jesus. This growing movement was seen by many as a
threat to orthodox faith. Saul’s job was
to combat this movement, and he did his job very well. A couple of weeks ago, we read the story of
the stoning of Stephen, the first Christian martyr, and learned that a young
man named Saul was there, watching everybody’s coats. Later we read that “Saul was ravaging the
church by entering house after house; dragging off both men and women, committing
them to prison.”
That brings us to this morning’s scripture. Saul has gotten the OK from the high priest
to go to the synagogues in Damascus, looking for followers of the Way, as
followers of Jesus were called, so that he could arrest them and bring them
back to Jerusalem.
But Saul’s plans are suddenly turned upside down. On the way to Damascus, he is knocked to the
ground and blinded by a flash of light.
There is a voice from heaven: “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?” Saul asks who is speaking and the answer is,
“I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting.”
Saul is suddenly and dramatically met by Jesus on the road
to Damascus, and nothing was ever the same again. Saul went from being the great persecutor of
the church to the great missionary of the church who brought the gospel to the
Gentiles. We know him better as Paul,
the name he was known by in those Gentile and Greek-speaking lands.
It is an amazing, dramatic conversion. And I’ve got to admit: my experience is light
years away from Saul’s. Faith came
slowly and gradually for me, not all at once.
There was no blinding light or voice from heaven. I had not been a persecutor of the church or
lived a terrible life. I really didn’t
have a chance – I mean, I was nine years old when I made a profession of faith
and was baptized.
We may find Saul’s conversion to be fascinating, powerful,
miraculous, we might find it to be a lot of things, but chances are, we have a
hard time relating to it personally. For
most of us, meeting Jesus does not involve being blinded on the road to Des
Moines. However, there is another
conversion taking place in this story, one that may be closer to what often happens
in our lives.
Saul had been knocked to the ground by what had
happened. Jesus told him to get up and
go into the city. He rose to his feet
but could not see. His traveling
companions helped him along. He went to
Damascus and for three days he did not eat or drink. Saul might have figured that it was all over
for him.
Then Ananias enters the story. We really don’t know anything about him
except that he was a disciple in Damascus.
He is only mentioned in the Bible in this passage and in Acts 22, when
Paul retells the story of his conversion.
He may have been a resident of Damascus, but it is very possible that he
was in Damascus as a refugee. Perhaps he
had left Jerusalem because of the persecution that Saul himself was leading.
Ananias has a vision.
God tells him to go to Saul of Tarsus and lay hands on him so that he
might regain his sight. And Ananias says
to God, “Say what? You have got to be
kidding! Saul wants to see people like
me dead!”
Ananias is trying to his best to steer clear of Saul, and
God wants him to go see Saul! “But the
Lord said to (Ananias), ‘Go, for he is an instrument whom I have chosen to
bring my name before Gentiles and kings and before the people of Israel.’”
Maybe the biggest miracle in this story is that Ananias
listens to God and goes to Saul. He has serious
doubts. But he went in faith, and maybe the most
amazing words in this passage are these: “Brother Saul.” “Ananias went and entered the house. He laid his hands on Saul and said, ‘Brother
Saul, the Lord Jesus, who appeared to you on your way here, has sent me so that
you may regain your sight and be filled with the Holy Spirit.’”
Ananias shows an incredible amount of faith and grace. He is a model of welcome and hospitality.
Paul became the great missionary of the church, establishing
and encouraging churches and spreading the faith throughout the Mediterranean
world. He wrote a good bit of the New
Testament. We all know about Paul. But where would Paul be without Ananias?
Without one to be God’s instrument of healing?
Without one to welcome him and introduce him to the Christian community?
People come to Christ in many ways. Sometimes in dramatic fashion, like
Paul. For most of us, it is in much
quieter, less flashy ways. But we all
have opportunities like Ananias – to offer God’s welcome and grace to others.
Paul had to seem like the least likely person to become a
follower of Jesus. It did not even seem
in the realm of possibility. But the
core of our faith is the idea that change is possible, right? - that God can
bring about new life. We may want to
give up on others, but God never gives up on anyone. If Saul could change, anybody can change.
Saul’s background helped make him the great apostle of the
early church. He was learned and
well-versed in the scriptures. He moved
easily in Jewish circles and in academic circles. He had the gifts necessary to lead the
church. God called him and transformed
his heart, and the skills he had used to persecute the church were now used to
build up the church.
The conversion of Saul helps us to see that conversion is
not simply a private matter. It wasn’t
simply between Saul and God, or even Saul and God and Ananias. The entire community at Damascus is
apparently as accepting and trusting of Saul as was Ananias. This former enemy is immediately baptized
into the family of faith and then sits down to eat a meal with them. After being nurtured by this remarkable
Damascus community for only a few days, Saul is ready to begin his ministry for
Jesus.
Like Ananias, God calls us to extend God’s
welcome to the stranger, to invite into the family of faith those who may be on the outside, realizing
that in one way or another that includes all of us. It may mean taking the initiative in going to
those who are difficult to call brother or sister.
And conversion is not a one-time deal. It is a continuing journey. We continue to learn, to grow, to be
surprised by life and surprised by God, as Ananias was. You might even say that despite having seen
the amazing work of the Spirit in the life of the church, Ananias himself was a
little bit blind to the ways that God might work, and that this was a
conversion of sorts for him as well.
I have actually been thinking about this idea of blindness and
being able to see lately – the notion that this pandemic and all that has
happened over these past months has in a sense helped us to see what we did not
see before. You migth think of this as an apocalyptic time, and in a sense it really is. The word apocalypse literally means revealing. Things are being revealed.
Millions of people live paycheck to paycheck, and the
disparities of income are only widening.
The pandemic has shown a spotlight on that. Have you seen on the news the lines of people
in their vehicles, lined up for miles and waiting for hours for food to be
distributed? Or folks lined up outside on
the sidewalk waiting 6 or 7 hours to have a chance to sign up in person for
unemployment benefits? And all of this
was before the moratorium on evictions was lifted. The need will only grow.
Pervasive racial injustice has come into full view. People of color have suffered far more from
the pandemic, and then so many instances of brutality toward black people,
including but extending far beyond the killing of George Floyd, have made the
issue impossible to ignore.
I went to what I would consider good schools. I consider myself a well-informed
person. Yet in the past few months, I
have time and again realized how little I knew.
Somehow I did not know that following the Civil War and well into the
twentieth century, peonage systems existed in many southern states. Black men could be arrested for minor
offenses, even things like not holding down a steady job, and sent to prison
where they would be leased out to landowners to work the fields – essentially a
continuation of slavery. How did I not
know that?
I had heard the term redlining, and had a general idea of
what it was, but did not know how pervasive or how awful it was, destroying
entire communities. Why did I not learn these
things in school? It might be because
our whole culture has been wearing blinders.
I just learned a few weeks ago that people who can’t afford bail and
have to stay in jail until trial are charged jail fees, and along with court
costs and fines and interest, indigent people with no ability to pay can easily
rack up 15 or $20,000 in debt – sometimes even if they are innocent. Iowa is one of the worst states for this.
This has been an eye-opening time. We may not have been struck down on the road
to Damascus, but all of this is to say that we can be blind about a lot of
things. And we all need humility,
because we don’t know what we don’t know and we cannot see what we can’t see.
Saul was blinded so that he might come to truly see. There may be a lot that we do not see. We can be blind to the people around us,
blind to the way our actions affect others, sometimes blind to family members,
blind even to the truth about ourselves.
We are imperfect people. We have
blind spots, all of us. And we are all deeply
loved by Christ, who offers us amazing grace and leads us to new life and helps
us to see. As the hymn says, “I once was
blind but now am found, was blind but now I see.”
God comes to us in our blindness, in our need, perhaps
sending someone like Ananias to help us.
So that we can see. And so that
we may be instruments of Christ’s hope and healing. Amen.