No Superheroes Here
“Now, as he was going along and approaching Damascus, suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him. He fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to him, ‘Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?’”[i]
You will remember from Sunday school that we first met Saul in chapter seven of the Book of Acts, where Saint Luke tells us Saul was the person who watched over the garments of those who were stoning Stephen. Saul may not have thrown a rock at Stephen, but this scene would be the event that moved Saul from observer to Enemy-Number-One of the church.
Luke writes, “Saul was ravaging the church by entering house after house; dragging off both men and women, he committed them to prison.”[ii]
We meet up with Saul today as he secured arrest warrants for followers of The Way residing in Damascus.
Saul’s plan?
Arrest followers of The Way and take them before the same religious leaders in Jerusalem who colluded with Judas and insisted that Jesus be crucified.
So, with official letters in hand from the synagogue, Saul is ready to stamp out the church in Damascus and then throughout Israel.
“Suddenly, a light from heaven flashed around him. He fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to him, ‘Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?’”[iii]
Bam!
Saul does not know who or what has knocked him to the ground.
“Who are you, Lord?” Saul asks.
This voice has intruded on and devastated Saul’s self-righteous journey to stamp out followers of the crucified and risen Jesus. Until this moment, Saul, it seemed, knew more about religion, and learned more about God than God. Saul was sure of who he was, who God was, and what he was to do in God’s name once he arrived in Damascus.
“Who is this?” he asks.
“I am Jesus, the one you are persecuting.”
Bam!
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Luke tells us Ananias, a follower of The Way in Damascus, had a vision.
While Saul had intended to lay hands of persecution on Ananias and his friends, the Lord instructed Ananias to lay hands on healing on Saul.
Ananias needed to be convinced of this by Jesus, as I imagined many of us would need to be.
“That Saul, of Tarsus? Are you sure?”
Saul’s conversion and the work of Ananias make for stories used in the church to point to how individuals shape the church. Without the conversion of Saul, we do not have the letters of Paul. Maybe you have been told that you need to see the light, just as Paul did – a life-altering encounter that if you do not have it, you cannot be a “true follower” of Jesus.
Or, perhaps you have been told to be obedient just as Ananias was, caring for someone who had it out for you without the proper theological context.
This conversion is full of material that can easily be used to pressure, persuade, or manipulate us to act or move in certain ways.
This past Thursday, Pastor Ed and I, along with our Arlington and Alexandria clergy colleagues, filled the sanctuary at Floris United Methodist Church for what I like to call “required clergy fun.” During this meeting, we were invited to consider our superpower for ministry. If I were to have a superpower it might be my ability to properly use the word “awesome” as many times as possible, walking the fine line of irritating Pastor Ed’s last nerve.
Maybe it is because being contrary is a hobby of mine but the more I thought about the question, “what is your superpower for ministry?” I became uncomfortable. While I understood the point of the question, the reality is that the question edged on the ways the Church can pressure, persuade, or manipulate us to have stories like Saul or Ananias.
So, I’m outing myself. I have no superpowers for ministry. While this may disappoint a few of you, I will not be leaping over the church steeple in a spandex bodysuit holding a Bible in one hand and communion elements in the other.
As a pastor, I do have things I favor doing and one of those things is listening to you as have shared your stories with me over the past five years, and together we have looked for where God has been at work in your lives. And every time I hear one of your stories and together we see where God is at work, I think to myself, “Wow, now that is awesome!
Your stories of coming to faith and God’s movement in your lives are special because they have not been stories of pressure, persuasion, or manipulation. If anything, these stories have been examples of how to push back against the pressure, persuasion, or manipulation many feel at the hands of the Church.
Over the past five years, your stories of coming to faith and God’s movement in your lives are special to me because, like Saul and even Ananias, your experiences point to the movement and work of God.
Our stories of encountering the risen Lord are how we bear witness to Mary’s Easter morning discovery of the empty tomb.
We are witnesses to the very voice that knocked Saul on his behind, who spoke to Ananias, who overcame the power of Sin and Death, and who continues to speak to us today.
Luke tells us Saul was completely changed – from Enemy-Number-One to being the person who would carry the Good News of God in Jesus Christ to the Gentile world. To people like you and me.
We stand today as witnesses to the awesome work of God along the Damascus Road.
It would have been easy, maybe even justified, for God to write off Saul. After all, Saul was Enemy-Number-One of the Church. But as we read each year on Good Friday, God is not in the business of writing people off. When Jesus was nailed to the cross, he prayed for the forgiveness of the very people who killed him.
And that is Grace – the nothing you can do to earn or lose it love and forgiveness of God.
Right now, it is yours, just as it is Saul’s and Ananias’.
Right now, it is yours, just as it was extended to the soldiers who put the nails in Jesus’ hands and who mocked him.
Right now, this amazing Grace is yours just as it is for the person you might believe deserves it the least.
The conversion of Saul is a story of God’s Grace before it is the story of Saul being converted or changed. A story of the work of God in the people and times we least expect.
As resurrection people, this is what we bear witness to – the work of God.
To one another.
To the world.
[i] Acts 9:2-3
[ii] Acts 8:3
[iii] Acts 9:3-4