Text: Acts 9:1-6, 7-10
Revelation 5:11-14 (Series C, 3rd Sunday in Easter) P.30
John 21:1-19
Several centuries ago, the Pope decreed that all the Jews had to convert to Catholicism or leave Italy. There was a huge outcry from the Jewish community, so the Pope offered a deal. He would have a religious debate with the leader of the Jewish community. If the Jews won, they could stay in Italy. If the Pope won, they would have to leave or convert to Christianity.
The Jewish people met and picked an aged, but wise, Rabbi Moshe to represent them in the debate. However, as Moshe spoke no Italian and the Pope spoke no Yiddish, they all agreed that it would be a "silent" debate. On the chosen day, the Pope and Rabbi Moshe sat opposite each other.
The Pope raised his hand and showed three fingers. Rabbi Moshe looked back and raised one finger. Next .... the Pope waved his finger around his head. Rabbi Moshe pointed to the ground where he sat. The Pope then brought out a communion wafer and a chalice of wine. Rabbi Moshe pulled out an apple.
With that, the Pope stood up and declared that he was beaten ... that Rabbi Moshe was too clever and that the Jews could stay in Italy. Later, the Cardinals met with the Pope, asking what had happened.
The Pope said, "First, I held up three fingers to represent the Trinity. He responded by holding up one finger to remind me that there is still only one God common to both our beliefs. Then, I waved my finger around my head to show him that God was all around us.
He responded by pointing to the ground to show that God was also right here with us. I pulled out the wine and wafer to show that God forgives us of all our sins. He pulled out an apple to remind me of the original sin. He had me beaten at my every move and I could not continue.
"Meanwhile ... the Jewish community gathered around Rabbi Moshe. "How did you win the debate?" they asked. "I haven't a clue," said Moshe. "First he said to me that we had three days to get out of Italy, so I gave him the finger!
Then he tells me that the whole country would be cleared of Jews and I said to him we're staying right here." "And then what?" asked a woman. "Who knows? " said Rabbi Moshe, "He took out his lunch so I took out mine."
The story told in our first reading this morning is a great story. The drama and the action of this story are captivating but what is even more amazing is that it is a story of how God chooses the most unlikely people, at the most unexpected times, and in the most unpredictable ways.
Saul was the last person you would have expected God to pick as a proclaimer of the Good News about Jesus. He was enthusiastic about the Jewish faith, in fact he was so enthusiastic that he had made it his personal ambition to harass and persecute as many Christians as he could find. Saul was a powerful, self-confident, influential person. He considered that he was in control of his life. He had a clear purpose. Saul made it his personal ambition in life to inflict the cruellest persecution on all Christians.
Acts records this, "Saul tried to destroy the church; going from house to house, he dragged out the believers, both men and women, and threw them into jail (Acts 8:1,2).
Then, at a most unexpected place and time, while on the road to Damascus, the resurrected Jesus appeared and spoke to Saul. Powerful, self-confident, controlled Saul has fallen on the ground!
A bright light flashed around him, a voice from heaven spoke to him and told him to go to the city and there he would receive instructions what he was to do. The powerful and self-confident Saul is no longer in charge; he is a servant doing what he is told.
He was blinded and was led by the hand, like a little child back to Damascus. For three days he wasn’t able to see, and he ate and drank nothing. His life had been radically disturbed and interrupted by the risen Christ.
Another man whose life was amazingly turned upside down and back to front by God was a ship's captain, by the name of John Newton. John Newton was making a lot of money shipping human cargoes namingly slaves to America. Then God at a most unexpected time dealt with him.
Newton wrote "I can see no reason why the Lord singled me out for mercy unless it was to show, by one astonishing instance, that with him "nothing is impossible". He spent off-duty hours reading the New Testament given to me by his grand mother and praying.
God came to Newton’s cabin and dealt graciously and lovingly with the shameless, and immoral sailor. His life was radically changed and the ship’s cabin became a place of conversion like the Damascus Road.
Later John Newton penned these words that express what happened,
Amazing grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretched like me!
I once was lost but now am found, was blind but now I see.
John Newton is expressing exactly what Paul meant when he said, "For I am the least of all the apostles—I do not even deserve to be called an apostle, because I persecuted God's church. But by God's grace I am what I am" (1 Cor 15:9,10a).
There is no doubt that on that day on the Damascus Road Paul’s life was changed. Unfortunately some people make the conversion of Paul the pattern for all Christians.
I’ve met people who say that if you can’t name the hour and the day and the place where you were converted to Christ, then how can you know if you are really a Christian. We might be led to feel inferior even doubt our Christian faith because we don’t have a dramatic story about our conversion – like being a rebel, involved in crime, spent time in jail – then finding Jesus. Most of our stories are far less dramatic than that. Maybe your journey of faith hasn’t included a blinding light, a voice speaking to you and telling you what to do, a dramatic conversion to faith on a certain day and at a certain place.
Maybe your faith journey has been a gradual process, or a gradual awareness that God loves you and has plans for your life. Maybe your faith has grown through your parents, teachers, friends and pastors who have slowly and steadily enabled your faith to grow without the bright lights of a sudden conversion.
It doesn’t matter finally how, when and where and how you came to believe in Jesus. There are three points that come from our text:
1. This story is about God’s grace. It is not about us, it is all about God- Paul is a Christian, not by his own decision, discovery, or desire. Paul is called, chosen by the action of the living Christ. His relationship to Christ was Christ’s idea long before it was Paul’s. So is ours. Jesus once said, "You didn’t choose me, I chose you" (John 15:16). We are here today, as his disciples, because, for some strange, surprising wonderful reason, he wants us to be a member of his kingdom, to enjoy knowing about God’s undeserved love and forgiveness for us. Salvation is all about God, and we can’t take credit for it.
Paul didn’t decide for Jesus. On the Damascus Road Jesus decided for Paul. In whatever way you have come into God’s kingdom, maybe at the baptismal font, maybe a gradual coming to faith, or maybe a dramatic conversion. It was God’s idea long before it was yours.
“ I sought the Lord, and afterward I knew He moved my soul to seek him, seeking me ; It was not I that found thee, O Saviour true, No I was found of thee”
My relationship to God does not depend on what I do, it is something that God has done and is doing for me. And thank God for that! My responsibility is to trust God.
2. The story of Paul’s conversion is about new beginnings. Paul was a ruthless, influential, self-confident persecutor of Christianity. On the Damascus Road, he changed from a persecutor of Jesus to a proclaimer of the Good News.
It is true that God takes you and me "just as we are without plea". But he doesn’t leave us just as we are. He changes us and keeps on changing us. It’s a continual process as long as we live on this earth. A lifelong process of change:
The church is the community of those being converted, being born again, and again, and again" (Source unknown). Likewise Martin Luther emphasizes the ongoing changing process when he says, "Because we are baptized we should keep on drowning the old nature we are born with; everything sinful and selfish in us has to die. … And the new nature God has given us in baptism should come to life day after day. We should live as new people… . (Small Catechism 1996 Openbook Publishers page 27)
3. This story about Paul’s conversion clearly tells us that his transition from darkness to light, from evil to God’s kingdom was for a purpose. Paul wasn’t converted to Christ to sit and do nothing. He was Called, Converted and then Sent to bring God’s Good News to people in his known world.
It wasn’t easy. Paul suffered the same things that we do – he was ridiculed for his faith, thrown into prison, endured storms and shipwrecks, was beaten, stoned – in fact you name it. Life wasn’t easy as a follower of Jesus but he used none of it as an excuse for giving up.
It’s easy to give an overabundance of reasons and excuses – I’m too busy, too old, too young, too new, too whatever. The Bible is full of people who were dragged, kicking and screaming into the work of the Church. No way was Peter going to allow the Gospel to be spread among the Gentiles. But that idea was soon changed.
During the Second World War, a church in Strasbourg was destroyed. After the bombing, the members of this particular church went to see what was left and found that the entire roof had fallen in, leaving a heap of rubble and broken glass.
Much to their surprise, however, a statue of Christ with outstretched hands that had been carved centuries before by a great artist was still standing. It was virtually unharmed except that a falling beam had sheered off both hands.
The people hurried to a sculptor in town and asked if he could replace the hands of the statue. He was willing, and he even offered to do it for nothing. The church council met to consider the sculptor's proposition – but decided not to accept his offer.
Why? Because they felt that the statue without hands would be the greatest illustration possible that God calls his people to be his hands in this world to do the work he has given. And not only our hands, but also our feet, our lips, our eyes, our ears, our intellect, our abilities, our money – God has given all of these to us to carry out his work.
Have you ever thought of yourself this way? Have you ever thought of yourself as the hands of Jesus? Jesus chooses to do his work through human hands. Sometimes they seem to be the frailest of hands, the least potentially successful hands, or the least qualified hands — but those are the hands God uses.
If God can use Saul who seemed to be the least qualified to be an apostle, he can also use you and I. If Saul can be his chosen servant, then so can you as well as those around you. Just as Saul was called, and converted, changed and sent so also have you and I been called and changed and sent to do the work of God.
The choice is really ours, to how we respond.
Amen.
Rev. Samuel King-Kabu
April 22, 2007