P.S. There’s More: From Right to Relationship (MPLS)

Acts 9:1-19

Meanwhile Saul, still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord, went to the high priest and asked him for letters to the synagogues at Damascus, so that if he found any who belonged to the Way, men or women, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem. 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?” He asked, “Who are you, Lord?”

The reply came, “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting. But get up and enter the city, and you will be told what you are to do.” The men who were travelling with him stood speechless because they heard the voice but saw no one. Saul got up from the ground, and though his eyes were open, he could see nothing; so they led him by the hand and brought him into Damascus. For three days he was without sight, and neither ate nor drank.

Now there was a disciple in Damascus named Ananias. The Lord said to him in a vision, “Ananias.” He answered, “Here I am, Lord.” The Lord said to him, “Get up and go to the street called Straight, and at the house of Judas look for a man of Tarsus named Saul. At this moment he is praying, and he has seen in a vision a man named Ananias come in and lay his hands on him so that he might regain his sight.” But Ananias answered, “Lord, I have heard from many about this man, how much evil he has done to your saints in Jerusalem; and here he has authority from the chief priests to bind all who invoke your name.”

But the Lord said to him, “Go, for he is an instrument whom I have chosen to bring my name before Gentiles and kings and before the people of Israel; I myself will show him how much he must suffer for the sake of my name.”

So Ananias went and entered the house. He 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.” And immediately something like scales fell from his eyes, and his sight was restored. Then he got up and was baptized, and after taking some food, he regained his strength.

For several days he was with the disciples in Damascus.

Dear beloved of God, grace and peace to you from our Lord and Savior Jesus who the Christ. Amen.

I’ve always been a little envious of Saul’s story. His conversion or transformation or calling, whatever language you want to put around it, just feels so big and dramatic. Everything seems so obvious. Saul is quite literally stopped in his tracks, told what he is doing is wrong, and sent to be about something entirely different. And it happens because Jesus speaks to him directly. Like out loud. 

I want that, you know? That lack of ambiguity. That clarity. You were doing this. You thought it was the right direction. It’s not. It seems pretty great. Look, I have plenty of people who are happy to tell me when they think I’m doing the wrong thing. It comes with the job, both as pastor and parent, there’s an almost continual feedback loop. But it’s usually conflicting. And it doesn’t lead to obvious next steps. Saul gets direct speech from the crucified and risen Jesus. I get emails and eye rolls. 

And look I’m not complaining. I’m not sure I’m ready for the kind of consequence that comes from Jesus speaking directly into your ear, but there’s a part of me that feels like a little memo from Jesus would help. 

Dear Ben. In light of how the last few months have unfolded for you, I’m going to recommend a few rounds of mediation as an opportunity for some mid year course correction. Nothing to be alarmed about, it’s not as though you’re breathing threats and murder, but I feel like a few afternoons spent with one of my heavenly court appointed intermediaries would help straighten a few things out.

Then again, we’re super suspicious of any who purports to have a direct line of communication with the divine. If God’s talking to you, I mean directly communicating with you, most of us are gonna be pretty suspicious. 

So what do we do with this story? I mean on the one hand, it points to a powerful transformation in Saul’s life. And so there’s an, if Jesus can do this with someone like Saul, who was breathing threats and murder against those that followed Jesus, then Jesus can use just about anyone.

Which is a good and faithful reading of scripture. Right? Remember, this happens all the time in the bible where God elects the unexpected and unlikely to be the instruments of God’s work and God’s message of mercy and grace. Whether it’s old Abraham and Sarah or the youngest shepherd boy David. The teenage Mary being chosen to be the mother of Jesus. The rag tag bunch of disciples that Jesus calls to follow him and work with him aren’t the folks you or I would have chosen. God’s team is a really unlikely cast of characters.

So there’s that element to Saul’s story.

But there’s more. And that’s the piece I’ve been struggling with. Saul is so convinced that he’s right. He’s so right, he’s so orthodox, he’s so correct. He’s certain. He knows what he knows and is firm in those convictions. That’s why he’s breathing threats and murder. He’s right.

I mean just listen to how Paul describes himself in the letter he wrote to the church at Phillippi:

“If anyone else has reason to be confident in the flesh, I have more: circumcised on the eighth day, a member of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew born of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless.”

Blameless. I mean you can’t get any more right than that. And he’s not wrong. He is right. Saul is doing everything like he’s supposed to do it. He’s following the letter of the law, the rulebook as it was handed down to him. Saul is the guardian, the steward of the tradition.

And he’s standing in the way of what Jesus is doing, of what God is doing. In fact, Saul’s working against the purposes of the God that Saul is fighting to protect. It’s not that Saul’s wrong, it’s that his right is too narrow. Saul’s right is too restrictive. His right doesn’t encompass the fullness of God’s love, God’s mercy and God’s grace that have been emptied into this world in life, death and a resurrection of Jesus.

Saul’s right is too small, and Jesus transforms that rightness into relationship through Ananias. And that’s where the encounter, the power of this story is. Very few of us will ever be knocked to the ground and blinded by the light and the voice of Christ. But all of us will be drawn into a relationship that breaks open what we know to be right, that invites us to consider anew the boundaries of God’s love and God’s life made known to us by Jesus.

This weekend the Sierra Pacific Synod of the ELCA elected Pastor Megan Rohrer to be bishop of that synod. Megan was the first openly transgender person to be rostered as a pastor in the ELCA. They are now the first transgender bishop to be called to serve Christ’s church.

There are plenty of people both within the ELCA and within the church more broadly who will be quick to claim that this isn’t right. They will be defending centuries of tradition and practice. They will use Saul/Paul’s own writing to bolster their claims. They will say that the church is in danger and has lost its way.

I haven’t had the privilege to meet Megan in person. But I’ve been reading a bit about their work and I’ve watched some videos they’ve been in. And to listen to Megan, to hear them speak about God’s love and grace tirelessly in the face of the hate and violence that they have experienced in their life sounds like the gospel. It sounds like good news. It sounds like liberation and freedom and the grace that is promised to all of God’s children. 

Over the past few months, the staff and some of the congregational leadership has been doing some intercultural competency work. It’s been really helpful to reexamine the things that we assume to be norms, things we assume that everyone does, but are really a part of the cultural waters that we swim in as individuals as a result of where we grew up, what our family was like, how we engage with the world around us, etc.

Joayne Larson, who’s a Bethlehem member, has been helping to coach and facilitate this work. One of the things she shared with me, during a one-on-one session where we were processing my own learning, was that oftentimes we can choose to be right or choose to be effective.

I’ve been living with that for the past few months. There are so many times when I choose to be right. There are so many times when I cling tightly to what I know to be true. There are so many time when I breath threats and murder because I feel under attack and I need to preserve and guard and protect.

But time and again God sends me people like Ananias, who help the scales fall from my eyes, who help me to see things differently, who enable me to be more than right, people who help me to be in relationship.

The God who became one of us, who lived as one of us, who died as one of us, didn’t do it so we could be right. Jesus loved us so that we could be restored to relationship with the God who made heaven and earth and all that is in it. God loved us so that we can keep becoming the church that God is calling us to be, together. Amen.