“Saul was still spewing out murderous threats against the Lord’s disciples.”
It is interesting when we think about how this starts. Saul of Tarsus was first introduced at the end of Acts 7. He is said to be a young man who is a witness to the killing of Stephen. Stephen was one of the seven that the apostles had set aside to do ministry in the Greek-speaking part of the community. As the Acts 7 ends and Acts 8 begins, we are told that Saul was in full agreement with the killing of Stephen. Following his presence at Stephen’s stoning, we are told that Saul began to travel around the area pulling believers out of their houses and dragging them to prison.
As we can see from these earlier bits and the start of today’s text, Saul is a zealot that due to his deep commitment to his own tradition is completely opposed to all that Jesus taught simply because it doesn’t fit his own understanding of the text. The things that Jesus taught, the way his followers live together supporting one another in their communities, their failure to comply with the rules of the religious leaders has Saul and others angry that those who follow Jesus won’t simply do what they are told.
And yet the early church is growing. The message of love that Jesus taught, the power of the Holy Spirit at work through these small communities is obviously making a difference in the relationships and experiences of the people. And so Saul is full of venom and violent thoughts towards these communities.
However, I can’t help but think about where the story goes next. Which makes me think of the journey of faith that each of us is on. Where did our journey start? As we consider our own path, does the beginning of our journey look more like where Saul started or where he ends up? Where are we in our journeys today?
“As he approached Damascus...a light from heaven encircled him. He...heard a voice asking him, “Saul, Saul, why are you harassing me?”
We are told that Saul had gone to the high priests to get letters authorizing him to take any followers of Jesus that he might find as prisoners back to Jerusalem. Essentially he is given an open warrant to arrest anyone he finds following the Way of Jesus.
And yet what does Jesus say? “Saul, Saul, why are you harassing me?”
Jesus doesn’t ask why he is harassing the community of believers, those who were following his teachings. He asks why Saul is harassing him. If we think about Paul’s later writings about the body of Christ that is the church, this makes so much sense. The community of believers, these communities that Saul is harassing and arresting, they are the body of Christ. Saul may think only of putting a stop to what he sees as heresy, but his attacks against the community are attacks against Jesus.
This is important for us to bear in mind as we think of where we are today. Saul was so certain that his way was the right way. The apostles and those that followed them merely spread the word of all that Jesus had taught them and let people come to their own conclusions. They created their own little communities where they shared with and supported one another in all things. They healed those who were sick and spoke with power of God’s love for all people. But Saul was so threatened by this that he reached out with violence against them.
When we think about our contemporary world, we know how things like this often go. One side thinks they are right and everyone needs to believe as they do. But another side is also certain they are right and everyone should believe their way instead. And then yet another side thinks they are the only ones that have it right. And so on. And then, of course, once violence enters the picture, soon both sides are responding with violence. This is how things often happen in our current world.
But due to the teaching of Jesus, his followers were not offering violence in return.
“Saul...opened his eyes but he couldn’t see. …. For three days he was blind and neither ate nor drank anything.”
Saul had been blind to his own actions, blind to the truth of Jesus, blind to the pain he was causing. And now his blindness becomes physical as well. But where some might think he deserved to be punished for his violent actions, while it is easy perhaps to think he got what he deserved, this is not where the story ends.
As you can see from the scripture reference above, I skipped a few verses to both keep the passage brief and to keep the focus on Saul’s conversion experience. But there is another important part of this story that perhaps we can relate to.
There was a disciple in Damascus named Ananias. Jesus appears to him in a vision and tells him to go to Saul and to lay hands on him to restore his sight. As you can imagine, Ananias knows exactly who Saul is and why he is in town. And as you can imagine, he doesn’t jump right up and rush over to see Saul. His response is more like, “Watchoo talkin’ bout, Jesus?”
I think Ananias’ response is much more relatable to us. This man, Saul, that has been present at stonings, who has arrested many members of the growing community of believers, who is in town to continue his series of arrests, doesn’t deserve his help. And yet, that is exactly what Jesus asks of him. Rather than responding with more violence, rather than returning evil for evil, Jesus sends one of his disciples to lay hands on Saul so that Saul may learn a different way of being in the world.
And as hard as that is, this is exactly what Ananias does. He does what Jesus asked of him.
“...flakes fell from Saul’s eyes and he could see again. He got up and was baptized.”
Ananias came to the house where Saul was staying, he laid hands on him as he had been instructed, and immediately Saul could see again. The restoration of his physical sight is a metaphor for his newly opened eyes -- eyes that now understand the truth of who Jesus is and the power of his love for all people.
With this new truth within him, Saul begins to eat again and spends several days with the disciples in Damascus learning all that he can from them.
And then he returned to the road, but with a new mission. He began to proclaim in the synagogues that Jesus is the Son of God.
Most of us know where things go next. Saul, now more commonly known by the Greek version of his name, Paul, travels throughout the Mediterranean proclaiming the love of Jesus and inspiring others to recognize themselves as the body of Christ when they gather together. He wrote numerous letters to the churches he started and to others, including Corinth, Galatia, Ephesus, and Rome. He sent out others to these communities and others, including Silas, Timothy, and Phoebe. He argued with the other early Christian leaders in Jerusalem about the inclusion of believers who did not follow the Jewish customs. The zeal he had previously shown was transformed by the love of Jesus and converted into something positive.
I am really struck by the good news of this message. Jesus’ love for us does not stop because of what we have done. There is always room for love to work a change in our lives. And for that I am so very thankful. Jesus doesn’t wait for us to be perfect before he calls us. He doesn’t wait for us to decide what is right and what is wrong on our own. Jesus is always reaching out to us, calling to us, offering us love and forgiveness.
As I reflected on this passage this week and the change that came over Saul, also known as Paul, I was reminded of a story the seminary intern at our church in Chicago shared with us one week. During children’s church, they had been discussing the conversion of Paul and how this conversion is at least partially indicated by a change in name in the text. While it does not occur right away, Paul is always referred to as Saul before his conversion and then is gradually referred to as Paul, the Greek transliteration of his Hebrew name. And it is his Greek name by which Paul is known throughout his travels.
While he was talking about this name change as an indicator of the change in his life, one of my sons piped up to say, “Like Finn in Star Wars.” You see, FN2187 had been a stormtrooper with the First Order at the beginning of The Force Awakens, one of the recent Star Wars films. As he comes to realize how evil the First Order is, he decides to run away. In the process he is given the name Finn as an indication of his new life, and he eventually finds himself joining in the resistance to fight against the First Order.
I was so proud of my son for the way he was able to make this connection between faith and everyday life.
But at the same time, as with many metaphors, we must be careful in how we interpret them. While Finn recognized the evil of the group he had been a part of and made a conscious choice to reject it, Saul had an experience of Jesus’ love that showed him a better way to live and move in the world. He doesn’t denounce the Jewish people as evil, but instead moves to raise up the teachings and love of Jesus.
This is actually summed up well by a different Star Wars character, Rose, in the more recent Star Wars movie The Last Jedi. During a battle, Finn is trying to sacrifice himself in an attempt to maybe save others. Instead Rose swoops in, knocking him out of the way moments before he would have died. When he asks her why, she says, “That’s how we’re gonna win. Not fighting what we hate, saving what we love.”
This almost perfectly summarizes the remainder of Paul’s ministry. He went from fighting what he hated -- arresting and even killing the followers of Jesus -- to saving what he loves -- rejecting violence and preaching about Jesus’ love for all.
The love that Jesus showed to him, even in the midst of the violence and hate that Saul was showing, had a profound impact on Saul and on the church even to this day.
God’s work in the world through Jesus and through the Holy Spirit still today is to seek out and save the lost, the broken, the sinful; to offer us forgiveness rather than punishment. “The Easter miracle proves that God loves and forgives friends, betrayers, doubters, skeptics...even God’s own enemies.”
[Cathy Caldwell Hoop, “3rd Sunday of Easter Acts 9:1-20 - Commentary 2: Connecting the Reading with the World,” in Connections: A Lectionary Commentary for Preaching and Worship: Year C, Volume 2, ed. Joel Green, Thomas G. Long, Luke A. Powery, and Cynthia Rigby, 220 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2018), 191. https://wjkbooks.com/Pages/Default.aspx?ContentID=59349&Title=Connections]
As we consider the meaning of this story for our lives, I want to leave you with a bit of proof of the power of God’s love for us. We have had a brief look today at what Saul was known for as he first become known to the community of believers, and many of us know the depth of commitment that Paul came to have for spreading the love of Jesus throughout the world he knew. In the longest of his letters included in the Bible, his letter to the Romans, Paul has this to say, “I’m convinced that nothing can separate us from God’s love in Christ Jesus our Lord: not death or life, not angels or rulers, not present things or future things, not powers or height or depth, or any other thing that is created” (Romans 8:38-39).
Paul knew this first hand. He knew the things he had done in his life, knew where his journey started, and yet he could still say beyond a shadow of a doubt that God’s love can never be taken from us.
If Jesus can love and call this man, there is truly hope for us all.
Thanks be to God.
It is interesting when we think about how this starts. Saul of Tarsus was first introduced at the end of Acts 7. He is said to be a young man who is a witness to the killing of Stephen. Stephen was one of the seven that the apostles had set aside to do ministry in the Greek-speaking part of the community. As the Acts 7 ends and Acts 8 begins, we are told that Saul was in full agreement with the killing of Stephen. Following his presence at Stephen’s stoning, we are told that Saul began to travel around the area pulling believers out of their houses and dragging them to prison.
As we can see from these earlier bits and the start of today’s text, Saul is a zealot that due to his deep commitment to his own tradition is completely opposed to all that Jesus taught simply because it doesn’t fit his own understanding of the text. The things that Jesus taught, the way his followers live together supporting one another in their communities, their failure to comply with the rules of the religious leaders has Saul and others angry that those who follow Jesus won’t simply do what they are told.
And yet the early church is growing. The message of love that Jesus taught, the power of the Holy Spirit at work through these small communities is obviously making a difference in the relationships and experiences of the people. And so Saul is full of venom and violent thoughts towards these communities.
However, I can’t help but think about where the story goes next. Which makes me think of the journey of faith that each of us is on. Where did our journey start? As we consider our own path, does the beginning of our journey look more like where Saul started or where he ends up? Where are we in our journeys today?
“As he approached Damascus...a light from heaven encircled him. He...heard a voice asking him, “Saul, Saul, why are you harassing me?”
We are told that Saul had gone to the high priests to get letters authorizing him to take any followers of Jesus that he might find as prisoners back to Jerusalem. Essentially he is given an open warrant to arrest anyone he finds following the Way of Jesus.
And yet what does Jesus say? “Saul, Saul, why are you harassing me?”
Jesus doesn’t ask why he is harassing the community of believers, those who were following his teachings. He asks why Saul is harassing him. If we think about Paul’s later writings about the body of Christ that is the church, this makes so much sense. The community of believers, these communities that Saul is harassing and arresting, they are the body of Christ. Saul may think only of putting a stop to what he sees as heresy, but his attacks against the community are attacks against Jesus.
This is important for us to bear in mind as we think of where we are today. Saul was so certain that his way was the right way. The apostles and those that followed them merely spread the word of all that Jesus had taught them and let people come to their own conclusions. They created their own little communities where they shared with and supported one another in all things. They healed those who were sick and spoke with power of God’s love for all people. But Saul was so threatened by this that he reached out with violence against them.
When we think about our contemporary world, we know how things like this often go. One side thinks they are right and everyone needs to believe as they do. But another side is also certain they are right and everyone should believe their way instead. And then yet another side thinks they are the only ones that have it right. And so on. And then, of course, once violence enters the picture, soon both sides are responding with violence. This is how things often happen in our current world.
But due to the teaching of Jesus, his followers were not offering violence in return.
“Saul...opened his eyes but he couldn’t see. …. For three days he was blind and neither ate nor drank anything.”
Saul had been blind to his own actions, blind to the truth of Jesus, blind to the pain he was causing. And now his blindness becomes physical as well. But where some might think he deserved to be punished for his violent actions, while it is easy perhaps to think he got what he deserved, this is not where the story ends.
As you can see from the scripture reference above, I skipped a few verses to both keep the passage brief and to keep the focus on Saul’s conversion experience. But there is another important part of this story that perhaps we can relate to.
There was a disciple in Damascus named Ananias. Jesus appears to him in a vision and tells him to go to Saul and to lay hands on him to restore his sight. As you can imagine, Ananias knows exactly who Saul is and why he is in town. And as you can imagine, he doesn’t jump right up and rush over to see Saul. His response is more like, “Watchoo talkin’ bout, Jesus?”
I think Ananias’ response is much more relatable to us. This man, Saul, that has been present at stonings, who has arrested many members of the growing community of believers, who is in town to continue his series of arrests, doesn’t deserve his help. And yet, that is exactly what Jesus asks of him. Rather than responding with more violence, rather than returning evil for evil, Jesus sends one of his disciples to lay hands on Saul so that Saul may learn a different way of being in the world.
And as hard as that is, this is exactly what Ananias does. He does what Jesus asked of him.
“...flakes fell from Saul’s eyes and he could see again. He got up and was baptized.”
Ananias came to the house where Saul was staying, he laid hands on him as he had been instructed, and immediately Saul could see again. The restoration of his physical sight is a metaphor for his newly opened eyes -- eyes that now understand the truth of who Jesus is and the power of his love for all people.
With this new truth within him, Saul begins to eat again and spends several days with the disciples in Damascus learning all that he can from them.
And then he returned to the road, but with a new mission. He began to proclaim in the synagogues that Jesus is the Son of God.
Most of us know where things go next. Saul, now more commonly known by the Greek version of his name, Paul, travels throughout the Mediterranean proclaiming the love of Jesus and inspiring others to recognize themselves as the body of Christ when they gather together. He wrote numerous letters to the churches he started and to others, including Corinth, Galatia, Ephesus, and Rome. He sent out others to these communities and others, including Silas, Timothy, and Phoebe. He argued with the other early Christian leaders in Jerusalem about the inclusion of believers who did not follow the Jewish customs. The zeal he had previously shown was transformed by the love of Jesus and converted into something positive.
I am really struck by the good news of this message. Jesus’ love for us does not stop because of what we have done. There is always room for love to work a change in our lives. And for that I am so very thankful. Jesus doesn’t wait for us to be perfect before he calls us. He doesn’t wait for us to decide what is right and what is wrong on our own. Jesus is always reaching out to us, calling to us, offering us love and forgiveness.
As I reflected on this passage this week and the change that came over Saul, also known as Paul, I was reminded of a story the seminary intern at our church in Chicago shared with us one week. During children’s church, they had been discussing the conversion of Paul and how this conversion is at least partially indicated by a change in name in the text. While it does not occur right away, Paul is always referred to as Saul before his conversion and then is gradually referred to as Paul, the Greek transliteration of his Hebrew name. And it is his Greek name by which Paul is known throughout his travels.
While he was talking about this name change as an indicator of the change in his life, one of my sons piped up to say, “Like Finn in Star Wars.” You see, FN2187 had been a stormtrooper with the First Order at the beginning of The Force Awakens, one of the recent Star Wars films. As he comes to realize how evil the First Order is, he decides to run away. In the process he is given the name Finn as an indication of his new life, and he eventually finds himself joining in the resistance to fight against the First Order.
I was so proud of my son for the way he was able to make this connection between faith and everyday life.
But at the same time, as with many metaphors, we must be careful in how we interpret them. While Finn recognized the evil of the group he had been a part of and made a conscious choice to reject it, Saul had an experience of Jesus’ love that showed him a better way to live and move in the world. He doesn’t denounce the Jewish people as evil, but instead moves to raise up the teachings and love of Jesus.
This is actually summed up well by a different Star Wars character, Rose, in the more recent Star Wars movie The Last Jedi. During a battle, Finn is trying to sacrifice himself in an attempt to maybe save others. Instead Rose swoops in, knocking him out of the way moments before he would have died. When he asks her why, she says, “That’s how we’re gonna win. Not fighting what we hate, saving what we love.”
This almost perfectly summarizes the remainder of Paul’s ministry. He went from fighting what he hated -- arresting and even killing the followers of Jesus -- to saving what he loves -- rejecting violence and preaching about Jesus’ love for all.
The love that Jesus showed to him, even in the midst of the violence and hate that Saul was showing, had a profound impact on Saul and on the church even to this day.
God’s work in the world through Jesus and through the Holy Spirit still today is to seek out and save the lost, the broken, the sinful; to offer us forgiveness rather than punishment. “The Easter miracle proves that God loves and forgives friends, betrayers, doubters, skeptics...even God’s own enemies.”
[Cathy Caldwell Hoop, “3rd Sunday of Easter Acts 9:1-20 - Commentary 2: Connecting the Reading with the World,” in Connections: A Lectionary Commentary for Preaching and Worship: Year C, Volume 2, ed. Joel Green, Thomas G. Long, Luke A. Powery, and Cynthia Rigby, 220 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2018), 191. https://wjkbooks.com/Pages/Default.aspx?ContentID=59349&Title=Connections]
As we consider the meaning of this story for our lives, I want to leave you with a bit of proof of the power of God’s love for us. We have had a brief look today at what Saul was known for as he first become known to the community of believers, and many of us know the depth of commitment that Paul came to have for spreading the love of Jesus throughout the world he knew. In the longest of his letters included in the Bible, his letter to the Romans, Paul has this to say, “I’m convinced that nothing can separate us from God’s love in Christ Jesus our Lord: not death or life, not angels or rulers, not present things or future things, not powers or height or depth, or any other thing that is created” (Romans 8:38-39).
Paul knew this first hand. He knew the things he had done in his life, knew where his journey started, and yet he could still say beyond a shadow of a doubt that God’s love can never be taken from us.
If Jesus can love and call this man, there is truly hope for us all.
Thanks be to God.