Conversion of St. Paul
Acts 9:1-22; Galatians 1:11-24; Luke 21:10-19
Converts are passionate. They are, in many cases, arrogant. They have the truth. Think of the converts you have met. I'm not thinking of just religious converts. We'll take that up in a minute, but first think of those other converts. The smoker who stops smoking . The new apostle of vegetarianism. The disciple of Dr. Atkins. The former Chicago Bear fan who has developed an attraction to things a peculiar combination of green and yellow. Converts are passionate. They have seen the light. They believe they have the truth.
Sociologists have recognized certain characteristics of those who are converted whether it is for reasons of politics or religion or diet or sports allegiance. The one thing that is sure is that the convert changes. Changes who they associate with. Changes their behavior, rituals or actions. Changes how they understand or interpret the events occurring around them. Changes the role they understand themselves to play in the world. The history of conversion experiences stands at the center of the creation of most of the great religious movements . Certainly Paul's conversion in our lessons for today proves to be crucial to the very existence of the Christian faith as we know it. A faith that was further shaped through the conversion experiences of Augustine, Martin Luther and Wesley to name but a few. In each case there came a moment when a truth became clear. The light broke through and the world changed.
Sociologists tell us that most people of faith do not come to that faith through a religious conversion. Most people who are born into a home where both parents are of the same faith tend to stay in that same faith community. The exceptions are homes with multiple faith identities or no faith foundation at all which typically leaves children confused about a faith center and usually results in a rejection of the family religions. A religious conversion is not typically a part of the way most of us came to the faith that we share here at Holy Spirit although many may be here through what sociologists call a "secondary conversion" which is to say you came to this faith community because your spouse or children were here. A dramatic conversion from one faith to another is not so common especially if by conversion experience we expect to be able to describe something like the experience of St. Paul in our lesson for today. Then again. the marks of a conversion and the dramatic experience of coming to enlightenment is part of what every Sunday's worship service and sermon intends. It is also a fitting subject for us in this epiphany season.
I'll be honest. I have always been a bit jealous of those who have had conversion experiences. To hear someone give witness to their journey to faith by describing moments of darkness and self indulgence only to be brought to a moment of enlightenment. It makes such a good story and seems to me to be a much bolder witness than simply saying I was born into a Lutheran home, a Minnesota Lutheran home. Grew up at the other end of the block from the Lutheran church. Always sat in the first pew under the pulpit. And I've never considered that there would be any other way to believe or know God then by being Lutheran. I have always known the truth. Always lived in the light. Never been blinded. At least not that I know of. Of course that was true of Saul also. Not that he was Lutheran or from Minnesota. He was from Tarsus but he definitely knew the truth. He was a religious scholar tested by the strictest standards of his time and proven in his knowledge. He was, in his own words, zealous in the traditions of his ancestors and ahead of many others of his own age in understanding the family beliefs. He was also a Roman citizen which is the source of the two names we know him by. Saul was the Hebrew name for use in the temple and synagogue. Paul was the Greek name that revealed his place up the rungs of the social ladder and the ease with which he could move between the religious and the secular worlds. He had also proven himself to be skilled not just in letters and logic but he also had mastered a trade - tent making, which would provide for his economic well-being as a desirous and marketable skill.
Saul/Paul lived in a competitive world, a world shaped by winners and losers, righteous and sinners. And he had been given full authority to pronounce which was which. While he would repent of his actions later for his so-called persecution of the followers of the teacher called Jesus at the time I suspect he honestly believed he was acting in the name of the good, that he was cleaning up the streets. Making the world safe. Eliminating those ideas that threatened his faith, views and world. It is way too simplistic to suggest that Paul's "problem" was that he was a Jew. Every tradition or political system has its gatekeepers and its prejudices. Those who see it as their calling to keep the established order safe by excluding or attacking that which is different or changing. Each of us also want to believe that we are the right and the true and the just. But this is the season of epiphany. The season after Christmas that began with a star enlightening the wise men. Guiding them to find the Christ child. The Sunday lessons we have had since Jan. 6 have continued this theme of enlightenment with John the Baptist recognizing Jesus as the Son of God so pleasing to his Father and then Peter has a moment of inner illumination and confesses Jesus as God's anointed.
Finally in our lesson for today, Paul on the road at midday sees as he described it later "a light from heaven brighter than the sun shining around me and my companions" and what follows is the reason for this day. The Conversion of St. Paul. It is tempting to think of conversion in terms of the before and after where we have to convince ourselves that the after is better than the before. That's the nature of our experience with conversion. I used to be Moslem but now I'm Christian. I used to eat meat but now I'm a vegen. I used to be Saul the persecutor of Christians but now I'm Paul a follower of Christ. It's just not that simple.
The Saul we meet on the road to Damascus believed that his was the only way and he held onto that way for dear life. His was a perfect reflection of the insecurities of his times. He lived in a dualism between Good and Evil, the world was ordered in terms of black and white with no gray areas. Dominant and subordinate, power made right and he knew he had the authority to declare himself right. He rode toward Damascus "breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord' . He burned with a fire of conviction. and no compassion. He was blinded by his own belief that he knew what was right for others. He could not possibly see or conceive that others might know what was right for him, that there was any other way to see the world then the one that he had embraced. Saul's is an unsettling story.
I have always been a Lutheran . I have always known the truth. but conversion comes in many forms. You don't necessarily have to leave your faith to find a true faith. Saul/Paul was unable to see or hear anything about Jesus until he was blinded by the light. Sometimes that's how it is. Our problem is not the darkness but the brightness of it all. Everything seems to be so clear, so good, so right that we can't believe that there is anything else we need to hear or see or feel or do. And then comes a brighter light, the conversion moment. Paul would never say he left his Jewish faith. The vision that called Paul was not a breaking with his past but a fulfillment of his past into God's future. Paul understands an unbroken continuity between the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and the God who acted in Jesus Christ. Paul sees that God has fulfilled his covenant promises even though Israel did not.
While my Lutheran core wants to proclaim that Paul got it all so right when he taught that we are "justified by grace through faith alone" I also have to recognize that Paul saw things in a much larger picture then I usually do or want to. Our faith doesn't belong to us. Faith calls us to something larger. Paul knew ultimately that everything we do or do not do matters in ways that we ourselves cannot begin to comprehend. Paul discovered that we cannot know ourselves except as we live in relationship to others. Blinded by the light Paul found the grace of God in the terrified prayer of Aninias, a disciple of Christ who was tapped by God to go to Paul and pray for him. Paul discerned in this simple healing act the meaning of servanthood, the risking of self even in the face of persecution and arrest. To touch one who thinks of themselves as your enemy, and yet to trust God to bring light to that moment.
My first call as a pastor was to serve a congregation on Chicago's southside. I was a white male from Minnesota who could count on one hand the number of African Americans he was on a first name basis with, but I was a life long Lutheran well trained at one of the best seminaries in the country. I was skilled in Biblical exegesis. knowledgeable of systematic theology. Trained in pastoral counseling, and I had the truth. It was after about three years of living and working on the southside that there came a day when the church council president and I had quite an argument about the future of that church's ministry . And as our words were exchanged more and more rapidly he finally said to me, "You know what your problem is, Pastor, you're a racist." I was stunned. I challenged him saying how dare he say that. I had lived in the community, suffered the break-ins to my office, dealt with the stolen cars being stripped in front of the church, handled a seemingly endless stream of street people knocking at my door and yet I stayed and preached and worked with the young people and... -And he looked at me and said, "And you're proud of it. aren't you." And he was right . I was proud of and even bragged of it to everyone back in Minnesota. And a light came on. I was and am a racist . It is one of the sins I carry as a white male. And from that moment on I think Hayward and I became friends. No, I know we were friends until the day he died.
That's what Paul saw in the light. the blinding light of God's universal love. A love that forgives our failings and brings to us moments of true reconciliation. The conversion doesn't make us better, but it does help us to see the world differently. It does bring us into new relationships. It redefines for us who we are. Conversion. Real conversion changes the way we live. Psychologists debate whether conversion comes from a change in ones beliefs that changes the way a person acts or if a person changes the way they act and then embraces the beliefs that support that behavior. What is clear is that true conversion means belief and action. I cannot believe in Christ and not worship him. I cannot be a part of the body of Christ and not believe. Each day that I set out thinking I know what my plans are for this day and where I expect this day to be headed because I have the truth, and know the truth.
That's when I find that I am again joining Saul on the road to Damascus and I have learned that somewhere down that road there is a light waiting to guide me or if need be, blind me. Conversion is not a one time event. It is a daily beginning. Each day I need to be brought to the light once more. Each day I need a moment of God's grace to blind me. To turn me toward another person so that I may be healed of my self centered focus and ego and opened to the community of faith that God has created all around. Conversion is a daily, an hourly, a minute by minute and second by second encounter with Jesus that empowers my life, empowers each of our lives. Conversion does not mean that I have found the truth but rather that the truth has found me, and that is something to be passionate about.
Amen.