Scripture: Acts 9:1-19
I like to argue a lot and sometimes I tend to argue just for the sake of it. A reasonable person would stop arguing once they got to the point where they realized they weren’t going to win but when I get to this point, I get even more fired up and launch into even more reasons about why I’m right. The most recent time this happened was not too long ago with my roommate. Now, I realize how ridiculous what I am about to say is. I also realize my therapy is paying off because I never would have told this story two years ago because it is so embarrassing. So Jane and I had just moved into a new place and I go into this whole thing about how I don’t understand why we need curtains or why we need to lock our doors. Curtains to me were always for decorative purposes- not to actually keep creepy people from looking in my windows and locks, well locks are just really inconvenient and I’m pretty sure my body has an aversion to them after having went so long without using them. To this she just looked at me like I was crazy and told me “my suburb was showing” which is what she says whenever my privileged childhood is unmistakenly apparent like it was in that statement. And of course she’s right but instead of just giving in to an argument that is painfully clear is not going to go my way, I try to salvage it. Finally, I recant my statement because I do realize how many flaws this argument has. After all, I do not live in the suburbs but a city, and creepy people who will look into your windows do exist and the most valuable thing we own is a TV so we do actually care if that is stolen. I used to hate to admit that I was wrong but now I readily admit I am wrong because well, honestly it just happens so often. All of this to say as we will see in todays scripture- becoming okay with admitting I am wrong was unknowingly one of the best spiritual disciplines I could have practiced.
Our scripture today is one the most well known and radical stories of the Bible. God calls an angry murderer to be His chosen prophet who then ends up being one of the most influential New Testament writers. And then God calls a disciple to go and help this murderer and show him the discipleship ropes. The text ends with the enemy being reconciled to God and to the community. But before this reconciliation happens, there is a transformation that occurs. Today I want to focus on these 2 themes- transformation and reconciliation. The transformation we see happen to Saul and Ananias is a transformation of humbleness. The reconciliation we see happen is a reconciliation of God to his people and His people to one another.
Saul before this story picks up is a Pharisee and he believes he is doing right by his god in killing all those who are worshipping Jesus of Nazareth. I think it is important to look closely at Saul and try and understand his actions – not to take away the awe of this story but to bring some perspective to Saul’s humanity. Saul believed he was doing the will of God. While we are not going around killing people I hope, many of us at some point in our lives have found ourselves working hard to do the right thing only to find out it wasn’t the right thing at all, in fact it was probably harmful. God instead of punishing Saul decides to get involved in a personal way. Transformation takes place when Saul encounters God – the God he thought he knew but didn’t know at all. God reaches out to Saul saying “ Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?” the double reiteration of Saul’s name is symbolic of Abraham, Jacob and Moses’ call from the Lord. So we can assume God has big plans for Saul. God is calling out to Saul as a prophet. Saul is his chosen one. And the way in which he reveals this to Saul is personal and intimate. He asks “why are you persecuting me?” This shows how much God cares. God is not angry but he is hurt. God is a vulnerable God and thus he allows himself to be hurt by his people. I think it’s interesting that he doesn’t make a statement or tell him how wrong he has it but he simply asks a question. The question is all the explanation that is needed. Saul understands that this voice is great and powerful and asks back “who are you, Lord”. With his response that he Jesus, Saul suddenly understands. God didn’t become vengeful in Saul’s rejection of Him when he was killing His people but he wanted to reconcile Saul to himself. In order to do this though, Saul had to become blind and weak and helpless.
According to this scripture transformation happens by strength through weakness, wisdom through ignorance, understanding through humbling oneself. Take your self confidence and independence and trade it in for a childlike dependence because it is then that we most clearly see God. To be humbled to the point of utter dependence is often the way God gets through to us.
So Saul literally gets new sight and he sees the world through new eyes. To me this is the most beautiful part about this radical story. God chooses to change our perspective of the world and each other if we let him. Once we become aware of God we look at the creation through God tinted spectacles or as John Calvin called them biblical eyeglasses. The indwelling of the Holy Spirit allows us to see things differently and thus that reconciliation is possible, granted we rarely achieve it. Part of the reason this reconciliation is so rarely seen is because we think we are done changing. Sometimes we get in this mindset that since we now see clearer than we did before we think we see everything clear. But before we weren’t able to see at all and now we can see “through a mirror dimly” ( 1 cor.13:12) We should not be fooled- our sudden awareness of God does not mean that we too have become all knowing. The call on our lives requires us to continually look at people and situations anew, continually be humbled to the point of weakness so that we can be transformed.
I know in our world today it seems that people’s stubborn ways and views will never change (I’m sure a couple of peoples names just popped into our heads right now) but we let those few instances overshadow all the occurrences of transformation we have experienced. I bet everyone in this room would say that they have changed- that they are not who they were 10 years ago. Transformation takes time and we can’t expect each other to do it so quickly. Saul’s transformation took time- the three days he took to humble himself was most likely a symbolic amount of time.
Most often when we hear this text we focus on Saul and this sexy conversion story but I also want to focus on Ananias because I think most of us are more likely the Ananias in this story. Conversion stories like this are tricky. They are tricky because they are intense and powerful and they make people envious that God hasn’t worked like that in their own life but the reason I want to focus on Ananias is because I don’t think this story is about conversion as much as it is about call. Maybe we don’t all have a dramatic conversion story like Saul but we are all called by God and that call looks unique to each one of us. One of the dangers in romanticizing a conversion experience like Saul’s is that we forget what the rest of the journey looks like.
So Ananias- the other main character. God calls to Ananias and Ananias, already a convert chooses to listen to Gods call on his life. God calls him by name and he responds saying, “ Here I am Lord” reminiscent of the response other prophets have given when God has called upon them. When he hears what God is asking, he protests that God can’t be serious. Could he really be asking Ananias to go and help someone who was out to kill him. Not only does God say, I want you to help him but says and I am going to elevate him higher than you because I have chosen him as my instrument. Talk about being humbled. Despite his protests he listens to God and goes and lays hands on him filling him with the Holy Spirit. With this, Ananias and Saul become a part of the same mission, serving the same purpose. Both are humbled to the point of having to rediscover who they are and who God is. I wonder if we are not constantly being humbled, if we are really listening to the will of God in our lives. Isn’t this the picture of what God desires for our world? As I was reading this passage for today I kept thinking, “No wonder I am so intrigued by this God, this God that I will never understand.” His will for us and this world is utterly radical.
Ananias never gets much face time in this text but I think his role in this story is important because this is all of our stories- God asking us to do things that feel impossible and even sometimes unjust. Ananias I’m sure didn’t think that welcoming Saul, who was trying to kill his people was a just thing to do but God asked him to do it anyway. Justice in this case looked like taking one who was committing injustices and making him into a person who spent the rest of his days teaching others how to love one another. God’s justice is bigger than our justice. I think we need to remember this when we are refusing to admit that we are wrong or that we know the right ways to do something. True transformation and reconciliation is more just than being right. The beauty is not in being right but in accomplishing something with those who are different than you.
Saul had to humble himself and admit he was wrong- Ananias had to humble himself and admit he was wrong. When both had done this- Ananias calls Saul Brother- an intimate claim on this new relationship they have. Its an acknowledgement of their common humanity and their awareness that they are loved by the same God.
When I was in Mexico, they would address us as brother and sister- Hermano y Hermana. And I kept thinking about how we are much more the same than we are different. One of the days, I slipped out of the construction site to go explore the village and get to know the women- okay this happened multiple days but after awhile watching 6 year olds out lift me in how much dirt they could shovel got the best of my pride and I moved on to something I was good at- hence finding people I could talk to. There was a woman named Blanca who I bonded with because she was a 28 year old single woman, educated and clearly a leader of her community. I was able to ask her (with the help of jean cox) about her life and what it was like living in her society. Despite living in what feels like two completely different worlds, we realized that we felt some of the same pressures and we encountered the same universal experiences such as the struggles of dating, being a female in the workplace and wanting to do things that our respective cultures viewed as non-traditional. Getting to spend time with Blanca and humbling ourselves to admit we were wrong about our stereotypes of each other broadened my perspective and helped me see the world differently even if just slightly. We believe many different things and I am sure our view of God is very different but we got the chance to teach each other about these things. She taught me about her fathers strict guidelines on who she could marry and I taught her that just because we have tattoos doesn’t mean we are crazy rebellious people (I’ll just speak for myself on that). Most importantly though, I began to understand her world and she mine. We encountered God in each other in a way that I will always be grateful for. I believe in transformation because of this encounter- because God is still in the process of transforming me.
And I believe in reconciliation because I have experienced it. With my sister. When I was in high school lets just say I was…judgmental. I could use a lot of other words here but we are in church so we will stick with judgmental. I was judgmental because she wasn’t into the whole God thing or at least not the way I thought she should be. So our relationship those later years of high school was rough. I went off to college though and I remember thinking that it didn’t feel right to have this broken relationship with my sister, so I started praying about it. Eventually, I reached a point where I cared more about the relationship with her than I did about being right. This wasn’t an easy transition. There were plenty of times that I had to bite my tongue or that I still felt really distant but soon the fact that my sister trusted me and could confide in me outweighed any judgment that had previously been there. This, I realized is what it looked like to have communion with God- to have communion with my sister.
We’ve been best friends ever since and she calls me most days on her way to work. When I was in Mexico last week, I got a text from her that said, “I miss our morning phone calls” and I just smiled because I had been thinking the exact same thing and I was reminded once again about how God worked in that situation. Trust me when I say this relationship was not salvaged by my own will- because my will was to be right whereas God’s will was reconciliation. Like Ananias and Saul, I had to humble myself and admit I was wrong in order to follow God’s call on my life.
With that being said, I recognize that the story we read this morning is a radical story and it’s a little far fetched but at its core, it shows us that God has enabled us to change and reconcile with one another. I have been called out for being naive in thinking that radical hospitality, forgiveness, reconciliation and love are all possible on this earth and sure its an optimistic view but our text today shows us that it is possible, it’s the goal and its achievable if even in the smallest of ways in Jesus Christ. This optimistic view is rooted in truth not naiveté. Maybe this hasn’t been your experience thus far and maybe you wont see this type of transformation often or experience these redemptive relationships but knowing that it’s a potential is where the hope lies. Knowing something is possible is where our energy to achieve these things stems from. And it’s a hope we can count on because the hope is not in what we can accomplish as humans but in what God has already accomplished in Jesus.
So like Ananias, where can we humble ourselves in our lives? Where are we accomplishing our own will instead of God’s will? For me, I have had to humble myself and learn to admit that I am wrong. I do not have much trust in myself but I do trust that God can do something with my mess of a life. This week, I want to challenge myself to humble myself in just one thing- I know anything more than that is just unrealistic. I want to encourage you to do the same. Find one way to humble yourself in a way that helps prepare you to say yes to God’s will in your life. I feel like it’s the least we can do if God is going to choose us to bring about his redemptive purposes in this world.
Amen.
Floundering With A Purpose 