DATE: April 14th, 2013
SCRIPTURE:
Acts 9:1-20
©Rev. Alison J. Buttrick Patton
Saugatuck Church front lawn
You want me to do what? That’s what I said to the church official who informed me (when I was 18) that documenting human rights abuses in El Salvador wasn’t going to be an option but I could go work for a year with the Pentecostal Church in Chile. You want me to do what? It’s also what I said to the president of Chicago Theological Seminary, when she urged me to apply for the Director of Admissions position there, just as I was looking for my first call to a local church. You want me to do what? And when a colleague here in Connecticut invited me to serve as a dean for a week long summer camp, he led by asking, “What age would you like to work with?” I’d said, “How about fourth graders.” He’d said, “How about teens?” … You want me to do what?
It doesn’t take me long, when I think about it, to generate a whole pile of moments like those, when what I had planned got completely derailed by something I now call the Holy Spirit, though at the time I mostly dismissed as an intruder. They’re the moments when something like a rogue GPS unit recalculates my life’s trajectory, sending me somewhere I had not planned to go. Probably would not have chosen to go, if left to my own devices.
Maybe you’ve experienced moments like that, when you’ve been invited, even urged, to do something unexpected, something clearly not part of your plan. It’s the sudden twist in the road. The summons that pulls you up short, the wind that blows you ‘off course’ or the jolt that propels you out of your comfort zone. Think about it for a minute… Have you been there?
Ananias has. Faithful Ananias, one of the small but growing band of followers who belonged to the Way (they weren’t even called Christians yet). Ananias was filled with the joy and fervor of a new convert, devoted to his journey of faith, praying with the others, pooling their resources, feeding the poor and worshipping in the temple. It all seemed to be going so well. Yes, he had heard word that one faithful apostle, Stephen – a teacher and a healer – had been stoned to death in Jerusalem. So it’s true that their hearts trembled as they gathered in homes to study and pray. But they felt sure that they were on the right path, and their faith gave them courage. Their ranks were swelling every day.
Then the risen Christ, who had set his heart on fire in the first place, tender/fierce/Voice-of-Christ spoke to Ananias in a dream. And asked him to find the man named Saul…to heal him. Heal him. Saul: wasn’t he the man who had stood by and watched as the mob had stoned Stephen? Hadn’t the crowd left a pile of coats at Saul’s feet? And he had not stopped them. Had even approved.
Oh yes. Ananias had heard about that man. Word had traveled all the way to Damascus of the fiery zealot determined to persecute followers of the risen Christ. And the voice in Ananias’ dreams was telling him to lay hands on that man to restore his sight. You want me to do what?
Meanwhile, across town, on a street called Straight, Saul sat in a room, without eating or drinking, blind and baffled by his recent encounter on the road to Damascus. He’d been certain, for his part, that he was doing God’s work, stamping out these absurd decrees about a risen Messiah that had been spreading like tongues of flame through Jerusalem. He didn’t understand it, really: who they were. He just knew that their Way threatened his way of life. What they claimed, how they practiced – it wasn’t in the plan. They preached – but not just in the temple. Rumors spread that they could heal the sick. They claimed authority that belonged with the high priests. Who did they think they were? Rabble-rousers. False teachers. Heretics.
So he’d gotten the proper paperwork to arrest the miscreants and had set out for Damascus. Only something had gone awry. Now: sitting in that room, faint with fear and hunger, Saul struggled to sort it out: the flash of light, the voice. That name, so familiar, so irksome: Jesus. The name echoed in his skull as he sat in the dark and prayed like he’d never prayed before: So, now what? What next? You want me to do…what?
That’s when Ananias arrived, touched Saul and restored his sight.
Now often, when this story is told, the events on the road to Damascus get all the attention. That part of the story has great cinematic potential, what with the flashing light, the disembodied Voice and Saul getting thrown off his ‘high horse’ and into the dust. But for all the histrionics, it seems to me that that moment pales in comparison to another quieter but no less dramatic encounter between two strangers in a house somewhere on Straight Street: two strangers, both afraid, both exceedingly vulnerable, brought together by no choice of their own: Ananias and Saul; the hunted and the blind man. How both their hearts must have pounded as Ananias crossed that threshold.
“Brother Saul,” he said. “Brother Saul.” That’s a greeting usually reserved for other followers of the Way, companions, not adversaries. How long had it taken Ananias to work up to that greeting? Had he rehearsed it as he walked across town? Did he say those words through clenched teeth? Were his knees knocking? Or was he overcome by compassion when he saw Saul on his knees, blind and praying? Who knows. Even then, Ananias might have been murmuring under his breath, “Really, Lord? You want me to do this?”
To his credit, he went with it. Laid his hands on Saul and said, “Brother Saul, the Lord Jesus, who appeared to you on your way here, has sent me so that you may regain your sight and be filled with the Holy Spirit.” It was a kind of commissioning, conclusion of what had begun on the road to Damascus and the beginning of a ministry that would take Saul from Jerusalem to Macedonia and eventually all the way to Rome. There, in a nondescript house somewhere on Straight Street, sweaty palms rested on rigid shoulders. Like two negatively-charged electrons they never should have met, but the risen Christ intervened, reversed the charges and changed their lives.
I felt something like that happen during my year in Chile, that reversal of polarity, and in my work at the seminary, and at summer camp. That moment when resistance dissolves into connection. It’s rarely an easy transition. Precisely because it requires that we let go of our own best laid plans, cross our own carefully drawn boundaries, become vulnerable… as vulnerable as a person suddenly struck blind. Did you notice the contrast? At the beginning of the story, Saul is charging ahead. But he arrives in Damascus led by the hand, no longer able to find his own way. Who wants that, really? Who among us would choose to be so exposed? Which is exactly why so many of us (or I, anyway) make every effort to chart the course and control the journey. But researcher/storyteller Brene Brown says we should, “Lean into the discomfort.” Embrace vulnerability, recognizing that we may be led to places – and into relationships – we’d never imagined possible.
That blindness, Saul’s blindness, may be a way of reminding us that we don’t know the way forward, even when we’re certain we do. Forget what you think you know. Let go of assumptions about the world and your place in it. Suspend your definitions of friend and foe. We are not always the ones programming the GPS. Sometimes, that task belongs to the author of this story, and its protagonist. Because really, this is a story about Christ, the one who arranged the encounters, conjured visions, twisted arms and rattled nerves, all to get Saul and Ananias into a room together. Once they did, well, the rest is history.
Two millennia later, we are still surrounded by women and men who have mustered the courage to answer Christ’s call, crossing thresholds and taking chances: I think of Pope Francis, who visited a prison on Good Friday and washed the feet of a Muslim woman; or a clergy colleague who finally resolved to tell his church council that he is gay; I think of Israeli and Palestinian children brought together through a peace-building initiative; or gun owners, manufacturers and victims of gun violence working together to pass gun control legislation in CT… I think of all of us: diverse faithful folks, all at different places on the journey, drawn together in this room, to learn from each other and grow together.
As I consider that list, here’s what I realize: Those unexpected summons, the ones that mess with our plans? They may be Christ’s way of calling us together, so that together we can build up of Christ’s church and care for God’s world. We don’t manage it on our own; we may stumble along the way or bump up against our own resistance. But the blindness is temporary. There is One who leads us into new sight. As we trust that tender/fierce/Voice of Christ, the scales fall away, and we see one another all the more clearly, recognize one another as beloved children of God, all called to serve and to share the Good News. Then, courageous and clear-eyed, we can say together: You want us to do what? Here we are, Lord. Send us.
Scripture Texts
Introduction to scripture reading:
Today we continue reading from the book of Acts, stories from the early church. Paul, the same Paul who wrote all those letters (or what we sometimes called epistles), started out life with the name Saul. He was a devout Jew, defender of the faith and of the temple. When a small band of Jews, followers of the crucified rabbi Jesus, started a movement called the Way, Saul was convinced that they were heretics and needed to be stopped. When the movement spread north from Jerusalem to the thriving Roman city of Damascus, Saul pursued them:
Acts 9:1-20
In the meantime Saul kept up his violent threats of murder against the followers of the Lord. He went to the High Priest and asked for letters of introduction to the synagogues in Damascus, so that if he should find there any followers of the Way of the Lord, he would be able to arrest them, both men and women, and bring them back to Jerusalem. As Saul was coming near the city of Damascus, suddenly a light from the sky flashed around him. He fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to him,
“Saul, Saul! Why do you persecute me?”
“Who are you, Lord?” he asked.
“I am Jesus, whom you persecute,” the voice said. “But get up and go into the city, where you will be told what you must do.”
The men who were traveling with Saul had stopped, not saying a word; they heard the voice but could not see anyone. Saul got up from the ground and opened his eyes, but could not see a thing. So they took him by the hand and led him into Damascus. For three days he was not able to see, and during that time he did not eat or drink anything. There was a believer in Damascus named Ananias. He had a vision, in which the Lord said to him,
“Ananias!”
“Here I am, Lord,” he answered.
The Lord said to him, “Get ready and go to Straight Street, and at the house of Judas ask for a man from Tarsus named Saul. He is praying, and in a vision he has seen a man named Ananias come in and place his hands on him so that he might see again.”
Ananias answered, “Lord, many people have told me about this man and about all the terrible things he has done to your people in Jerusalem. And he has come to Damascus with authority from the chief priests to arrest all who worship you.”
The Lord said to him, “Go, because I have chosen him to serve me, to make my name known to Gentiles and kings and to the people of Israel. And I myself will show him all that he must suffer for my sake.”
So Ananias went, entered the house where Saul was, and placed his hands on him. “Brother Saul,” he said, “the Lord has sent me – Jesus himself, who appeared to you on the road as you were coming here. He sent me so that you might see again and be filled with the Holy Spirit.” At once something like fish scales fell from Saul’s eyes, and he was able to see again. He stood up and was baptized; and after he had eaten, his strength came back.
Saul stayed for a few days with the believers in Damascus. He went straight to the synagogues and began to preach that Jesus was the Son of God.