May 1, 2022: May God’s words be spoken, may God’s words be heard. Amen.
I saw a picture of a church sign somebody Tweeted– I won’t say the denomination – but it said “Pretend it’s still Easter and come to church this Sunday!” Pretend? Folks – we all know it is still Easter! It always is for us really. Easter is who we are as a people – we are a resurrection people – and with resurrection comes transformation. The movement from death into new life is the spiritual grace given to us at baptism, but if we think the work of God in us is done at that point, well… maybe we need to hear again the story we get from the Acts of the Apostles today.
Now, in the first scripture reading from Acts, Saul from Tarsus is merrily going about his way – doing all he can to persecute the followers of Jesus. In fact, in the previous chapters to what we heard today, Saul stands and guards the coats of the folks stoning our first martyr – the Deacon Stephen, and then, because well, that wasn’t enough blood letting, seeks out more folks he can persecute. Acts 8:3 says “…Saul was ravaging the church by entering house after house; dragging off both men and women, he committed them to prison.” What a guy!
Now, as I have mentioned before whenever this guy comes up, Saul was no ordinary Jew, but a Pharisee, of the tribe of Benjamin, a man of zealous faith – and by his own admission later in his letters – a persecutor of those who followed Jesus. He believed deep in his heart that anyone who would challenge the temple authorities or break the laws of God, as Jesus had done, cannot be good, and his followers must be rooted out to keep the faith on the right track. So, he was trying to do what he thought was the work of God. But he was not on the right path. His view of how to live his faith was inspiring him to hate others – and as we all know, hate of any part of creation isn’t about God, but about the arrogance of humanity.
So, the risen Lord, quite literally stops Saul in his tracks. It is a story of transformation and call. And even today, when people experience a major turning point in their lives, it is often referred to as a “road to Damascus experience.” But, while it is often thought that this was a conversion story of Saul to Christianity – that is not true at all. Saul was born, lived and died a Jew…just as Jesus was a Jew. “The Way” was not Christianity, but a movement within Judaism that, through Saul’s encounter with the risen Christ, broadened out beyond the bounds of the Jewish faith. But regardless of what the movement was at that time, it was a profound transformation, and it changed not only Saul, and his name, but the Jesus movement itself.
One of the things about this encounter Saul has with Jesus, is that it has similarities to the story of Moses and the burning bush.[1] At first there are the obvious comparisons – both were stopped in their tracks by the divine presence, but unable to see anything but fire or light, there is the desire of both to know who it is that is speaking to them, and so on. But it is why the encounters happen, and to whom, that is really important.
In the Exodus story, God hears the cries of the oppressed, and stops Moses in his tracks in a fiery spectacle to call him as God’s agent to free the people from slavery in Egypt leading them beyond Egypt to places unknown. Jesus hears the cries of the oppressed, and throws Saul to the ground in a burst of light to call him as his agent to free his people from Saul’s own oppression. Time and time again, God sides with the oppressed, and chooses flawed agents of earth, to bring humanity another step closer to God’s dream for us all. God sees something in us, something perhaps we do not see in ourselves, and meets us where we are to invite us, challenge us really, to live the true life we were born to live.
Yet what makes this story in Acts unique, is that the one that is called is the very one doing the oppressing. This isn’t a story about a people under an evil empire. This isn’t a call to change another’s heart. Jesus tells Saul to stop persecuting him! Jesus, in blinding Saul for a time, is helping him to truly see the divine in the eyes of the other – to recognize that he was crucifying Jesus by his actions in the world. Jesus is offering Saul, the very one who is persecuting him, redemption and new life. This is Saul’s resurrection moment – when he dies to what he thought he knew, and rises to new life in Christ Jesus as Paul, the evangelist to the Gentiles.
Now, I want to be very clear about something – this story is NOT a condemnation of Judaism. Remember – everyone in the scriptures are Jewish! Jesus isn’t telling Saul to leave his Jewish faith, but to abandon his hate. To make this about the Jewish people and to turn our hearts against them is to commit the very persecution Jesus was trying to stop in Saul.
So, let’s set aside Saul now, for a moment, and consider the other character in this story, the one we often forget about – Ananias. He wasn’t persecuting Jesus, but was a good and faithful follower. Yet he too was converted in this story – he also was called – and it was as scary as anything Saul experienced. Ananias knew this guy Saul (everyone who was a follower of Jesus feared him). Jesus does something with his sight too – he comes to him in a vision – and calls him to heal Saul’s now closed eyes.
Now, you gotta think about this from his point of view, sorry for the pun. I mean, imagine if you are, say, Pres. Zelensky, and God calls you to go to Pres. Putin to help him out. I mean, seriously? I think we might respond like Ananias – “So, Jesus…let me get this straight…you want me to just walk on over there, right into the proverbial lion’s den smelling like a piece of raw meat? Are you insane?” I mean, that’s crazy! Saul is essentially a terrorist, and Ananias is asked to make a pastoral call on him. Ananias is likely thinking a bit about Moses having to go face Pharoah. Yet that is exactly what he did do – he went to where Saul was staying, healed him by God’s grace, and in that act, enabled Paul in his ministry in the world in Christ’s name.
Living this call of Jesus, walking the way of Christ, will sometimes be difficult, and take us to unexpected people and unexpected places – emotionally, spiritually, and perhaps physically – Lord knows (and he did) it brought Saul into lots of different places, and even a new name, Paul, and it sure as heck brought Ananias where he did not ever think he would go too.
And…now, we are the ones Christ calls, despite our own failings, and beyond what we may think we can do. That is what our baptism is all about – we are resurrected into new life in relationship with the risen Jesus that is never ending. Jesus never gives up on us. Jesus will always forgive us, and Jesus will always re-commission us for ministry within these walls, and far beyond them.
And the thing is, all of this is great news for us and for the world, because today children of God are crying out for freedom from the chains that bind them, and the road to Damascus awaits each of us. Okay, we might not be knocked to the ground like Saul, or see a bush burst into flames (and if we do – I suggest calling the fire department), but Jesus is nevertheless standing before us – present with us – calling us – in no less a way – to free God’s creation from the harm we and others have done.
It is also true, or so I hope, that we may not be hauling folks out of their homes and stoning them… but today Jesus is being crucified, and sometimes, we, through our actions or inactions, are the ones nailing him bit by bit to the cross. For we know that Christ is in both friend – and stranger. He is in the ones we love, and the ones that drive us nuts. In the rich, and in the poor. In women and men. In Democrats and Republicans. In the citizen and in the undocumented. In gay, straight, and transgendered people. In people of all races, cultures, and languages. In Ukrainians and Russians. In the addicted, the sick, the imprisoned, and the lost. And Christ is also in the mirror.
When any child of God is in chains, chains we have laid on them – forged by our racism, our sexism and misogyny, our heterosexism, our greed when others are hungry, our love of country over compassion for the stranger – God will hear their cry and call us to account, call us to love and to serve, transforming us that we might transform the world. And make no mistake about it…God also hears the groans of all of creation from the abuse and neglect we have wrought upon it, and will respond in no less a way, calling us to be agents of change, that one day, as we heard in the passage from Revelation today, “…every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and in the sea, and all that is in them, [will sing].”
It is Easter – and we are a resurrection people called to die to all the ways we have been Saul – to the children of God or to any part of God’s creation – and rise to walk “The Way” of Christ in the world. Let us not wait for divine spectacles, before we are able to see the Jesus standing in our midst calling us to change, calling us to see in a new way, calling us to free him from persecution by serving him in the world.
We are a resurrection people, an Easter people, and because Christ is risen, we the imperfect, are renewed to be the people of The Way – a way of love that will transform our own lives, and change the world too, one seemingly crazy act at a time!
Thanks be to God!
Amen.
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[1] Indebted to Dr. Raj Nadella’s commentary on this topic.
The Rev. Diana L. Wilcox
Christ Church in Bloomfield & Glen Ridge
May 1, 2022
Third Sunday in Easter – Year C
1st Reading – Acts 9:1-6, (7-20)
Psalm 30
2nd Reading – Revelation 5:11-14
Gospel – John 21:1-19
