Scripture can be found here...
“The
Way.” It’s a phrase we’ve been hearing for a while. We first heard it on the
lips of John the Baptist, quoting the prophet Isaiah: “I am the voice of one
crying out in the wilderness, ‘Make straight the way of the Lord’” [John1:23].
Later Jesus will say, “I am the way”
[John14.6]. And now in the Acts of the Apostles, we find that people are
persecuting followers of “the Way.” One of those people is Saul.
We
meet Saul for the first time at the end of chapter 7, when he looks on as angry
religious leaders kill Stephen, one of the first deacons and a brilliant
preacher in his own right. Stephen was the first martyr of the church, the
first to die as a witness to his faith. And Saul? He is a young man looking on,
nodding his head, probably. He approves of the killing. He is an enemy of the
Way. We learn that Saul has been devastating, making havoc with Jesus-followers
by ‘entering house after house, dragging off both men and women,’ and throwing
them in prison [Acts 8:3].
The
next time we meet Saul is here, in this passage. What can we say about a young
man who is ‘breathing threats and murder’? I am always skeptical of faith-based
calls to violence, and so, I wonder: was there an economic downturn in Judea in
the year 40 CE or so? Scholars believe there is a direct correlation between
economic hardship and the incidence of terrorist suicide attacks in the Middle
East. Young men who are trying to find meaning in an economy with an
unemployment rate of 25% or higher are fodder for extremist ideologies. I
wonder whether there is a connection between our own recent economic downturn
and increasingly violent political rhetoric in this country. Or maybe Saul was
simply full of zeal for the Lord, a zeal that had him participating in violent
acts? I am always skeptical of faith-based calls to violence. I always tend to
believe there is something else operating, some other force playing into
it. But we don’t have Saul here to ask,
or to submit himself to psychological testing, so we only know what we know:
Saul was breathing threats and murder against followers of the Way, and getting
the equivalent of search warrants for the synagogues of Damascus. He had every
intention of continuing dragging people off to prison.
When
we meet Saul he is on the way to Damascus. But God is preparing to show him
another Way.
Have
you noticed that sometimes God has to do something fairly dramatic to get our
attention? That God will occasionally stage a grand intervention, or an interruption
of our plans, in order to persuade us to change course? It is hard to imagine a
more dramatic interruption than flashes of what seems to be lightning, followed
a fall, followed by Jesus speaking directly to you, followed by blindness. God
pulls out all the stops to get Saul’s attention. And it is only then, lying on
the ground, that Saul is able to hear God’s voice.
“Saul,
Saul, why do you persecute me?” [Acts 9:4].
And
now we are in that strange theological territory in which Jesus reminds us again
that what we do to one another, we are really doing to him. “When I was hungry,
you gave me food; when I was thirsty, you gave me a drink…each time you did it
to the least of these, you did it to me” [Matthew 25:31-46]. Apparently, this
holds true for the negatives as well. Persecute Jesus’ people, you persecute him.
Harm Jesus’ people, and do harm to him. Breathe threats and murder against Jesus’
people… you get the idea.
Saul
truly doesn’t know what is happening to him, or whose voice is addressing him,
and so he asks: “Who are you, Lord?” And the reply: “I am Jesus, whom you are
persecuting. But get up and enter the city, and you will be told what you are
to do.”
Saul
was on his way to do what he saw as good in the eyes of God, only have the
Divine GPS interrupt and re-calculate his route. His traveling companions take
him by the hand, and lead him to the city, where spiritually speaking, Saul
experiences his own three days in the tomb. The old Saul, the one breathing
threats and murder, has died. And the new Saul has yet to be born. He lies
there, not eating. Later, we will learn he has been praying. But this is Saul’s
in-between time, his neither-here-nor-there time, his tomb-time.
Somewhere
else in the city of Damascus, Jesus calls upon a follower of the Way named
Ananias. Imagine this conversation:
“Ananias,
Jesus here. I have an important job for you.”
“Here
I am, Lord.”
“Go
to such-and-such a place, and find Saul of Tarsus.”
It’s
your classic “good news, bad news” kind of situation. The good news! Ananias is
a faithful follower of Jesus, of the Way. And Ananias is ready, willing and
able to do as the Lord asks. And Jesus asks Ananias to go to find someone, and
lay hands on him, and heal him of his blindness. Which means, God has given
Ananias the gift of healing. All, very, very good news.
The
bad news: Jesus is sending Ananias to Saul of Tarsus. The Saul who stood by
while Stephen was being killed and all but applauded. The Saul who has been throwing
Jesus-followers in prison, and has been eager to do more than that.
Threat-and-murder-breathing Saul, who, himself, might have been described as
bad news. THAT Saul.
This
is the equivalent of a Jew being sent to provide care to Hitler or Eichmann in
Nazi Germany. This is a death row inmate being sent to heal the executioner.
This is the slave being commissioned to heal the brutal master. Or so Ananias
believes.
You
are Ananias. What do you do?
Well,
first, because you hope to live another day to spread the good news of the
gospel, you try to talk Jesus out of it.
“You
do know who we are talking about, Lord. Right? This Saul who has done all kinds
of evil against followers of yours?”
And
Jesus replies, “Go. I have work for him to do. He will join you in showing
people the Way. And, by the way”—(could this be the part that got Ananias on
board?)—“I will show him how much he will suffer for the sake of my name.”
I
am going to choose not to be cynical about this, and I’ll tell you,
specifically, why. Because in the next moment, Ananias has gone to Saul to lay
hands upon him, to restore his vision, and he calls him “Brother.”
“Brother
Saul,” he says, “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” [Acts
9:17].
And
that is what “the Way” means. It means, God sends us places, to do things, and
we say yes, even when it’s hard. In your bulletin is a quote from Luther
Seminary Professor Eric Barreto, and I’m going to read it now.
“The Way” is a powerful metaphor for
Christian identity. Instead of being identified by a set of beliefs, these
faithful communities were known by their character in the world. Christian
faith was a way of life and one that impelled individuals and communities to
leave the safe confines of home and church to walk on the road God had set out.
“The Way” suggests that faith is a living, active way of life.[i]
Many
people, in Ananias’ position, would have used this inside information to warn
others of Saul’s whereabouts, or worse—perhaps they would have done him harm.
But Ananias is a follower of the Way of Jesus Christ. And because of that
simple fact, Ananias leaves the safe confines of his home, and goes out to the
place he will find his former persecutor, calls that man his “brother,” and
reaches out with a gentle touch to heal him. To be a follower of Jesus is to refuse
to use violent solutions, even to violent problems. To be a follower of Jesus is
to trust when God is leading you to reconciliation, even with someone you have
regarded as an enemy. To be a follower of Jesus is to extend welcome to even
the ultimate outsiders: those who have meant you harm.
There
is an exception to this last mandate: the situation of abuse. God never calls
us to submit ourselves to those who make us unsafe in our homes or in our
personal relationships. That is not the abundant life promised to us by the
gospel. But does God call us to be peacemakers between warring factions, or
between warring worldviews? Yes, I believe that is very much what God calls us
to do. This is the Way of Jesus.
I
am not going to pretend it is not a tall order, following this Way. It is. It
is walking the walk. It is putting your
faith in action. It is letting yourself be filled with the Holy Spirit.
Did
I mention that the Acts of the Apostles is the story of the early church as pulled
along by the Holy Spirit? And the Holy Spirit has one distinct feature in all
these stories: the Spirit gets way out in front of people. We think we know what
it is to love God, and the Spirit spins us around and shows us new people to
love. We think we know who are friends and who are enemies, and the Spirit strips
away all the old, familiar categories. We think we know what it is to be a
follower of the Way, and even that gets redefined and reconfigured.
And
that is the gift that God gives to Saul: the Holy Spirit to open his eyes and
help him find his way. Not Saul’s way. Not even Ananias’ way. Not my way or
your way, but God’s way.
God
seeks him out. God stages a grand intervention, interrupting his plans, and
re-routes Saul’s entire life. God sends him a companion and healer for the
journey, and gives him work to do that changes the world forever.
And
this is still the call of Jesus today. God seeks us out. God stages
interventions and interruptions in our plans to re-orient and re-route us. God
sends kind messengers to teach us lessons in healing and forgiveness. God gives
us work to do, whether that work is teaching, or feeding, or encouraging, or
praying, or preaching. God finds us where we are, and fills us with the Holy
Spirit, and sets us on our way—God’s way—again. Thanks be to God. Amen.
[i] Eric Barreto, “Commentary on Acts 9:1-6 [7-20], Working Preacher, http://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=1624.
No comments:
Post a Comment