Acts 9:1-19a
5/1/22
Today
we heard about Saul/Paul’s conversion, and his being filled with the Spirit
rather than persecuting those who would follow Jesus. We have all heard this story before: it is a
very familiar story. It is so familiar
that when people talk about great changes in their lives they sometimes refer
to them as “Damascus Road experiences”.
But what I want to focus on today is that, while we in the extremely
individualistic United States always hear this story as being a story about Saul
and Saul alone, that Christianity is, in actuality, a very communal faith. Our scriptures are not speaking to us as
individuals, they speak to us as communities.
This story about Saul is no exception.
This is a story to a community of people, and the change that Paul
experienced was a change that affected a great number of people. But also, Paul did not experience this in
isolation. There were other players in
this story who had very important roles to play. We are told he was traveling with a group who
also heard the voice. We are told that
he stayed with the disciples. We are
told that Ananias was the one who laid hands on him and healed him in Jesus’
name and then baptized him. These are
communal events. And after all of this
takes place, his call, and what he does from this point out, is to build
communities of believers, entering synagogues, talking about Jesus, building up
communities, groups of followers. He is
not about converting individuals, he is about building communities of
believers.
Christianity
is very, very communal. A commitment to
the faith is a commitment to spend time in Christian community, caring for and serving
God’s people, also in community. I
realize this is a foreign concept to many people. Perhaps this is especially true of our
younger generations at this point in time.
There is a myth at large, for example, among many young adults that
religion is a private thing and does not require being in a community of
faith. But if you read the scriptures
with intentionality, it becomes very clear that they have something very, very
different to say. Jesus, himself, was never
a “lone ranger” but a person with a community not only of disciples but of many
others as well, including women who were not counted among the twelve. In Matthew 18:20 Jesus tells us, “For where
two or three gather in my name, there am I with them.” This is a strong statement, a strong, strong
statement that it is not just that God stands beside us when we are alone and
praying, but that Jesus is actually tangibly present, here in this place, in
this room, when we are gathered in his name.
We do not experience Christ, God-among-us, Emmanuel, when we are
alone. It is an impossibility to do
so. Christ is to be found in
community. God might be experienced
alone, but CHRIST, God with us cannot be.
We, together, are the body of Christ – but not alone, not in our own
individual practices. We are the body of
Christ as a community of faith.
It
goes even deeper than that. In today’s
passage from Acts, when Jesus speaks to Saul, he does not say, “Why are you
persecuting my people?” I want you to
think about that for a minute. Those
were not the words that Saul heard. Remember
that according the book of Acts, Saul was hunting down people who were followers
of Christ. As the passage we just read
put it, “Meanwhile, Saul was still spewing out murderous
threats against the Lord’s disciples. He went to the high priest, seeking letters to the synagogues in Damascus. If he found persons
who belonged to the Way, whether men or women, these letters would authorize
him to take them as prisoners to Jerusalem.”
But Jesus, speaking to Saul does not say, “Why are you persecuting my
people?” Instead he says, “Why
are you persecuting ME?” When we injure
God’s people, we are injuring God, God-self.
This, of course, mirrors Matthew 25: “Whatever you do to the least of
these you do to me.”
This
story here, and Jesus’ words to Saul: these were not the exception. This was the whole point. We are deeply interconnected. And when we try to separate ourselves from
one another, walling off parts of our beings as “private” and “personal”,
especially something as big as our faith, the people we harm are
ourselves. Our connections to others are
our deepest connections to God. Our
faith conversations led us to a deeper understanding and therefore a deeper
connection with God. The sharing of our
faith experiences also rounds out our vision and understanding of God.
When
we are worshiping together, God is with us.
When we are feeding God’s sheep, God is with us. When we are serving God’s people, God is with
us. When we connect with others in
kindness, in care, in grace, God is with us.
And when we fail to connect with love and kindness towards others, we
are failing to connect with God in those moments. I think that part of the reason why meanness,
why tearing, why estrangement and disconnection from others is so very painful
for us is that it is not just a disconnecting from someone else. It is a disconnecting from our very selves
and a severing, in those moments, from God.
I think about when Pope Benedict
made his decision to resign from his job as Pope. That had not happened since 1294. It was unheard of by many, and others saw it
as unacceptable. He made a very brave
decision to do what he believed was best not only for himself, but for the
church, since he could no longer serve as well due to failing health
conditions. In many, many ways he put
the needs of the church and of the world above himself. It was a brave and compassionate decision
that recognized our deep interconnections and the need for wholeness and
strength in leadership roles.
There is a story about a hospital
volunteer who shared about a little girl named Liz who was suffering from a
rare & serious disease. Her only
chance of recovery appeared to be a blood transfusion from her 5-year old
brother, who had miraculously survived the same disease and had developed the
antibodies needed to combat the illness.
The doctor explained the situation to the girl’s little brother, and
asked the little boy if he would be willing to give his blood to his sister. The
hospital volunteer share that she saw him hesitate for only a moment before
taking a deep breath and saying, "Yes I'll do it if it will save her." As the transfusion progressed, he lay in bed
next to his sister and smiled, as we all did, seeing the color returning to her
cheek. Then his face grew pale and his smile faded. He looked up at the doctor
and asked with a trembling voice, "Will I start to die right away?"
Being young, the little boy had misunderstood the doctor; he thought he was
going to have to give his sister all of his blood in order to save her. But the point is: he did it anyway.
Another story shares about a
professor who gave a pop quiz. The
student wrote, “I was a conscientious student and had breezed through the
questions until I read the last one: "What is the first name of the woman
who cleans the school?" Surely this was some kind of joke. I had seen the cleaning
woman several times. She was tall, dark-haired and in her 50's, but how would I
know her name? I handed in my paper, leaving the last question blank. Just
before class ended, one student asked if the last question would count toward
our quiz grade. "Absolutely, " said the professor. "In your careers, you will meet many
people. All are significant. They deserve
your attention and care, even if all you do Is smile and say
"hello.." I learned that her name was Dorothy.”
These are stories that remember
our connection. These are stories that
remind us of the importance of each person but more, the importance of our
relationships with those we encounter.
Those connections are vital in every day life, but even more vital for
those of us who believe in God, who believe that God is the connection between
all of us, is the love that we share between one another. The more that we can love, the more that we
can connect, the deeper our relationships with God.
A
member of a certain church, who previously had been attending services
regularly, stopped going. After a few
weeks, the pastor decided to visit him.
It was a chilly evening. The pastor found the man at home alone, sitting
before a blazing fire. Guessing the reason for his pastor's visit, the man welcomed
him, led him to a comfortable chair near the fireplace and waited. The pastor made himself at home but said
nothing. In the grave silence, he
contemplated the dance of the flames around the burning logs. After some minutes, the pastor took the fire
tongs, carefully picked up a brightly burning ember and placed it to one side
of the hearth all alone then he sat back in his chair, still silent. The host
watched all this in quiet contemplation.
As the one lone ember's flame flickered and diminished, there was a
momentary glow and then its fire was no more.
Soon it was cold and dead. Not a word had been spoken since the initial
greeting. The pastor glanced at his
watch and realized it was time to leave.
He slowly stood up, picked up the cold, dead ember and placed it back in
the middle of the fire. Immediately it
began to glow, once more with the light and warmth of the burning coals around
it. As the pastor reached the door to leave, his host said with a tear running
down his cheek, 'Thank you so much for your visit and especially for the firey
sermon. I will be back in church next
Sunday'.
It is essential that we remember
this. That when people are dying in
wars, that we are lessened, that when people are hungry, we are hungry. When people are angry and vengeful, we are
suffering too. If we want to be the
people of Christ, we have to remember our connections, our unity, that we need
each other and are deeply connected to one another. Paul’s conversion did not happen to just one
person. It affected all who interacted with him. Those who traveled with him when it happened,
those who were with him with Ananias came to heal him, and all the rest of
those with whom he interacted afterwards.
Similarly, everything we do, everything we choose, the words we use, the
attitudes we have: all of these have an affect.
It’s the butterfly affect, it’s the quasar affect: everything we do interacts
with everything else. It all matters. Let us, in all things, remember our deep
connections and choose actions therefore that reflect love, grace, and caring
for one another. Amen.
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