A Sermon Based upon Acts 9: 1-16
Charles J. Tomlin
Flat Rock-Zion Baptist Partnership
3rd Sunday of Easter, April 18, 2010
As America entered into its ongoing Economic recession, Japan was trying to come out of its own 10 year-long economic recession, where asset prices were also over-inflated when the bubble burst. Recovery has been as practically impossible in Japan as here, and jobs are still hard come by.
An award-winning Japanese movie, entitled “Departures”, set in hard economic realities, tells of the dissolving of a Tokyo Orchestra. Cellist Diago Kobayashi ends up selling his cello and moves back to his hometown. He goes for a job interview, thinking he is applying for a job with a travel agency assisting departures, and instead discovers the job is to assist the dead in their departures, dressing them and preparing them for "encoffinment".
Daigo needs the money and the president of the “Encoffinment” agency sees promise and sensitivity in this young man and offers him an additional bonus. Daigo takes the job, even though his wife disapproves of him handling the dead and she leaves him for a while. Amazingly, through the ritualistic preparing dead bodies for encoffinment, Daigo ends up finding hope for his own life. A he deals with daily with the heartbreak of suffering and death, he finds a way to embrace his own life. His final conversion to hope is aptly illustrated when he must prepare his own father’s body for encoffinment, from whom he has been estranged since childhood. The miracle of miracle comes when Daigo unfolds his dead father’s hand and finds a stone that he had given him as a child. The love he thought he never had and the one single message he had been waiting for all his life was right there in the hand of own his dead father.
CAN YOU IMAGINE YOURSELF REDEEMED?
How is redemption still waiting for you? This is what today’s text asks us to consider again today. As most of us know, redemption is the major theme of the Bible from Genesis through Revelation. Nowhere is the promise and hope of redemption displayed as dramatically as it is in today’s text from Acts, which retells the conversion of Saul who eventually becomes Paul the apostle of good news to the Gentiles.
Saul was on his way to Damascus, where he was going to arrest Christians for their law-breaking, renegade faith in Jesus, when he is suddenly stuck down by a blinding light out of heaven. The same word which tells of Jesus’ appearing to Saul, is the word used to tell of the Risen Christ’s appearance to the other disciples. What this Jesus says to Saul is even more important than how Jesus appears, because the light contains a voice that challenges Saul’s own life of killing in God’s name to give him a brand new life-giving mission of loving and working to save others in Jesus’ name. You can’t miss the dramatic moment of redemption which suddenly comes to Saul on the Damascus road. What you can miss, however, is how this message of redemption might also be meant for you and for me.
Have you ever been on your own road to Damascus? Have you ever been on a road that you have chosen for your own life and found that is more live-taking, sucking the very life out of you and others whom you love, rather than being a life that is hopeful, full of promise and potential? Anyone can find themselves on the Damascus road of destructive behavior and death. We hear about people traveling down this road all the time, even when they may think they are traveling otherwise. This week in the news CNN's Larry King filled for his 8th divorce. Last week Coal miners lost their lives in West Virginia in a tragic accident due to negligence of their employers. Months before that, the news media has been pre-occupied by Tiger Wood’s own fall from grace through his so called, sexual addiction. Most all of us face the daily destructive results of the greed on Wall Street and the continual and constant decline of American life. “We’re going to take America back!” declares the new up and coming political movements around us. Everyone seems to be in need of redemption these days, not just people, but also our country, our cities, our institutions and even many churches too find themselves facing real decline, facing their own demise and in need of redemption and hope.
But this is not how we remember the Damascus road, is it? We don’t remember the road as a road to death and destruction, but we remember the Damascus road as a road of conversion, salvation, change and hope. Isn’t this is the very road where Saul saw the light? This is where the clear voice of the risen Lord Jesus was heard and heeded. This is where light infused death and destruction with a marvelous, miraculous beam of life saving energy and grace. Is there any hope that we could find that same energy of grace and life that might renew on our own lives when we find ourselves on the same road of death and destruction?
The other day, on 60 minutes, I saw a kind of Damascus Road experience for British savant Derek Paravincini, who is so mentally impaired that, even though he is 26 years old, he has the mind of a 2 and a half year old. But amazingly, Derek, even though he can’t tie his own shoes or even tell you the colors of the rainbow, he has the astounding musically ability to play any piece of music he hears. He can play even the most difficult and complex music of Mozart, Beethoven and Bach, even though he is blind. All Derek has to do is hear the music one time and he can not only replay it just as he heard it, but he can even improvise on it, change its style and make it an musical work of art right before your eyes and ears. Derek can take all the elements of his debilitation and demise and make the most beautiful music this side of heaven.
I did a little research and discovered that there are many notable savant’s in the world. According to the website which discusses Savant syndrome, one in ten savants are able to develop uncanny abilities which redeem them from their own darkness. Besides developing miraculous musical abilities, other savants develop the ability to make calculations faster than computers, some are sculptures, others carpenters, artists, memory experts or even scientists. They find ways out of their own dungeons of terrible darkness and dying and are able to come into the rather miraculous glow of redeeming light. (Treffert DA (2009). "The savant syndrome: an extraordinary condition. A synopsis: past, present, future". Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci 364 (1522): 1351–7.doi:10.1098/rstb.2008.0326. PMID 19528017. Lay summary – Wisconsin Medical Society.)
Of course, it’s one thing to see redemption taking place in the lives of others, whether it is physical, mental, or spiritual, but what about us? Is this Damascus Road incident just another story too good to be true or can it say something real and relevant to us? Does Saul’s conversion point to any real hope of redemption for our lives, our world, and for our churches, when we too might find ourselves on the dark side of things? Can the Damascus road still happen?
REDEMPTION HAS NOT ONE, BUT TWO ANGLES
As I have studied this great biblical story of conversion and redemption in the life of Saul of Tarsus this week, I see not just one, but two angles of conversion and redemption which might intercept our own lives when things seem to fall apart.
One angle on redemption is very obviously the conversion of Saul from a sinner into a saint. We can all see this angle can’t we, since we all know that there is a “sinner” in all of us? I find it even a little “odd” of God to choose Saul to become the first missionary to the world, who was also a murderer of Christians and against everything they stood for. However you view this story, you can’t miss the drama which redemption brought when Saul encountered the light and heard the voice. It reminds me of a Garson Rice, a man I knew when he was dying, who was once fighting the Japanese as a marine in the pacific, but later came home and opened the first Toyota car franchise in the southeast. Everyone thought he was crazy to forgive the Japanese like he did in those postwar days give their car a chance. Even though he made millions through forgiving them, I guess there are still some people who didn’t like what he did.
One angle on redemption is very obviously the conversion of Saul from a sinner into a saint. We can all see this angle can’t we, since we all know that there is a “sinner” in all of us? I find it even a little “odd” of God to choose Saul to become the first missionary to the world, who was also a murderer of Christians and against everything they stood for. However you view this story, you can’t miss the drama which redemption brought when Saul encountered the light and heard the voice. It reminds me of a Garson Rice, a man I knew when he was dying, who was once fighting the Japanese as a marine in the pacific, but later came home and opened the first Toyota car franchise in the southeast. Everyone thought he was crazy to forgive the Japanese like he did in those postwar days give their car a chance. Even though he made millions through forgiving them, I guess there are still some people who didn’t like what he did.
However you size up what took place, Saul’s conversion, this “appearing” of Jesus to him on this Damascus road of death, was an experience which both challenged and changed his life. All the changes didn’t come at once, but the challenge came and he accepted it, and as a result most the Christian Bible ended up being written by him. But the most important key to this dramatic moment of redemption, was not that Saul was changed into the person he always wanted to be, but rather it was that he was willing to be changed into the person God wanted him to be. I don’t know that we always see this second very important part of conversion and redemption.
It is one thing to want to have redemption in our lives, but it’s quite another thing to surrender ourselves to what God wants and what God needs for us to become in His great purpose. But true redemption is never just redemption only for ourselves, but true redemption is always a redemption by which God redeems our lives for the bigger purposes for which we are chosen, called or saved. I guess you could say that we are always redeemed on purpose, and never by accident.
It is one thing to want to have redemption in our lives, but it’s quite another thing to surrender ourselves to what God wants and what God needs for us to become in His great purpose. But true redemption is never just redemption only for ourselves, but true redemption is always a redemption by which God redeems our lives for the bigger purposes for which we are chosen, called or saved. I guess you could say that we are always redeemed on purpose, and never by accident.
Do you know the story of the Buddha? I was reminded of this recently in a T.V. special. The Buddha, the founder of one of the worlds great religions, was once a prince named Siddhartha who lived over 2500 years ago, 500 years before Jesus. Until he was 29 years old his Father, protected the young prince from the real suffering and pains of the world. He was not only sheltered by his Father, but because he was financially secure, he was protected from the pains and struggles most people encounter in life and while under this illusion that nothing could happen to him, he was able to indulge in ever pleasure and desire he wanted.
But one day, Siddhartha went outside the royal compound and began to encounter people who were sick, poor, old and suffering. This was something he had never seen before, since his life had been so overly protected by this parents and their wealth. The revelations of reality so impacted him, that he became completely obsessed with the problem of suffering, which eventually became the fundamental approach of the way of enlightenment he discovered. Siddhartha became the enlightened one, when he realized that life involves finding a way of redemption to deal suffering and death. He discovered that the only way to live in any kind of peace was to find a way to accept, redeem or escape from this suffering and death in his own heart and mind, even though no one can escape in in their body.
But one day, Siddhartha went outside the royal compound and began to encounter people who were sick, poor, old and suffering. This was something he had never seen before, since his life had been so overly protected by this parents and their wealth. The revelations of reality so impacted him, that he became completely obsessed with the problem of suffering, which eventually became the fundamental approach of the way of enlightenment he discovered. Siddhartha became the enlightened one, when he realized that life involves finding a way of redemption to deal suffering and death. He discovered that the only way to live in any kind of peace was to find a way to accept, redeem or escape from this suffering and death in his own heart and mind, even though no one can escape in in their body.
Though Buddha never attempted to be a god nor to start a religion, his wisdom did establish the religion we know as Buddhism today. This great religion does reflects upon a great truth of all religion and all life, which is even more fully revealed in Jesus' suffering on the cross. Suffering is part of our lives and any hope of redemption must come to cope with pain and hurt. We can even see this in the conversion of Saul too. Notice how our text concludes that the Lord will show Saul his redemption by also showing him “how he will suffer for my name’s sake” (9:16).
There is an amazing difference between the salvation offered through Buddhism and the redemption through the cross as Jesus suffers for us and we are called to suffer with Jesus. While Buddha’s main result was to find a way to “escape” from suffering by dealing with desire through meditation and self-denial, Jesus way of redemption, promises salvation through pain and suffering, by seeing God’s light, and by hearing and responding to God’s call upon our lives, and learning from Jesus how to give ourselves for God’s greater glory and purposes in this world. While Buddhism offers redemption through escape, Christianity primarily offers redemption by engagement into the pains and problems of the world. These days, however, I think there are many more Christian people looking for Jesus as their personal “Buddha” to help them escape the pain and suffering rather than looking for Jesus to be the Savoir who leads us to “take up the cross” to find His higher purpose and calling for our lives. We still want Jesus to be like Buddha, helping us escape suffering, more rather than finding true redemption through suffering for doing what it right.
But we can understand how people can miss this can’t we? Even when the light is shinning very brightly around and in us, it is difficult to realize that redemption only comes through the pain and suffering instead of coming by finding our way around it. This is why Jesus says He is the way, the truth and the life. The way on comes when we accept and live the truth. By accepting the truth, even when it hurts, we just have to trust the voice and go where God is leading whether we want to go or not. Salvation and redemption comes by hearing our calling, realizing what is real and most needed for us to do, not finding a way to escape our responsibilities to the light we see.
Do you find this a little “odd of God?” Jesus still calls sinners like Saul, and like us to find our the meaningful redemption and hope through surrendering to God’s will, God’s purposes and giving ourselves to God’s higher calling and claim upon our lives, even by being willing to go through suffering and pain . I don’t know about you, but I still think this is a strangely “odd”, if not wonderfully “odd” way for God to work. Our God is not the God who prevents us from being sinners in the first place, nor is the God who comes to show us how to escape our pain and suffering, but our God saves us through our suffering, by transforming the pain we all have in life, by calling us to suffer not just for our own sakes, but for the sake of righteousness. While you nor I may never understand fully why God works through our sinfulness and suffering, rather than preventing it, this is indeed the way God works in the real world. God redeems, God converts, and God changes us from darkness to light, from despair to hope, from deeds of evil to deeds of light and goodness when we find his calling see the light right in the middle of our darkness, in our despair, and even in our waywardness. This is the way the gospel works. We have to realize and grasp this “bad news” before we can be come to fully grasp the redemption God offers through good news. This is still the only way God changes sinners into saints.
STILL RELUCTANT TO TRUST GOD’S SAVING GRACE
But there is still one other angle on redemption we need to see in this story. Not only is Saul being converted from being a sinner to saint and to suffer for Jesus, but Ananias, who is a disciple of Jesus is also being converted to realizing that a saint is still a sinner who is struggling to trust and follow God in suffering and risking himself for God’s greater purpose. Do you see this other need for conversion, not just of the sinner, but also of the saint? It may not be as evident in the story, but it is just as essential and may even become more important for us church folks.
When the Lord spoke to Ananias asking him to risk himself and go and seek out this “sinner” named Saul to help him recover from his blindness, Ananias gives a protest. “Lord, I have heard from many about this man, how much evil he has done to your saints in Jerusalem” (Act 9:13 NRS). Isn’t it ironic, even humorous, that this Saul who once hated saints, who didn’t believe in the true Lord of love is suddenly and miraculously filled with love for them and is trusting of Jesus, but it is one of Jesus own disciples, this “saint” named Ananias, is the one having trouble believing that Jesus can change anybody he wants to. I don’t know about you, but some days my spiritual need for redemption is closer to the need of Ananias than the needs of Saul. While I take for granted that I’m a sinner who needs salvation, I’m sometimes very unaware that I’m also a saint who is still a sinner, still not fully trusting that God has the very power to save, change, and redeem people and the even to redeem the world around me. It might even be harder to be an Ananias who still trusts that people can change, than to be a Saul who knows he needs to change.
Most of us were shocked when that lady in Tennessee, sent her troubled adopted child back to Russia week or so ago. I, one who has adopted a troubled child understands very well the fears, the frustrations and her motivation for what this mother did. While many in the media have been hard on her for abandoning the boy, I’ve also had a lot of sympathy for her and her situation. Though I am disappointed and saddened that she felt she had to put the child on the plane and ship him back to Russia as the only option she had, none of us can understand her feelings and fears unless we’ve had been there with that very difficult child, in that impossible situation feeling so very hopeless and helpless.
Perhaps what makes us most mad at her, though is that we’d all like to do that with some of our problem’s wouldn’t we? Sometimes the only hope we think we have is find a way to escape or to avoid the challenge we have rather than face and engage it. I’ve told my wife, if she ever feels she is ready to leave me, just let me know, I’ll go too. What I mean is that we all can feel like life has us at a dead end. We can even be believing saints and still feeling like untrusting, unbelieving sinners. The possibilities of a Saul conversion is real, but just as real is that some days we find ourselves to be reluctant witnesses like Ananias, still struggling in the middle of the moment, fearing nothing has really changed and fearing that there is no promise, no hope, and no real options other than to walk even deeper into the dark. When I read this story, I too find my own spirituality often closer to what Ananias felt as he still struggled, rather than with Saul who saw the unadulterated light and was blinded by it. Isn’t this part of the story for you? Redemption comes, yes. But sometimes we still wonder if it really comes.
What kind of spiritual insight does Saul’s conversion and Ananias’ hesitation finally bring to us? Does it bring anything for our own struggle with light and darkness, with hopeless days and sleepless nights, with both our sin and our reluctance to be God’s saints who follow the light in our lives? Maybe the great good news of redemption in this text, from both Saul and Ananias, is that God is still calling and using, both sinning sinners and sinful saints for his purposes, even thought we both have our warts and flaws. If we will forget trying to figure out exactly where God is taking us, and start trusting and following this odd God is choosing for his work. If would be more willing to surrender to where the light might take us, redemption still can come even to the most remote, stubborn darkness.
This last week on the news brought an amazing example of God’s voice still speaking, didn’t it? If you didn’t see it on the news, those of us watching the news from Florida about this rescue worker who claimed to have been listening to God’s voice calling him to go in another direction, can’t miss the impact of what happened. The authorities couldn’t miss it either. When James King (sounds like King James, doesn’t it) claims that he went in the opposite direction because God told him too, and he walked two hours straight to the place where little Nadia was waiting (she has Asperger’s syndrome) the authorities just had to take him into questioning either because he prayed in tongues and was hearing voices or also because they were almost certain that there was no way God actually spoke to him and told him where to go. At least that was how it seemed, until they questioned him and couldn’t find any other answer to this strange moment of salvation and redemption. Even CNN was convinced that something incredibly redemptive happened when he listened to the voice. You can’t argue with voice or the light, when it works. You just see for your eyes, even if you can’t hear with your ears.
Saul too had to trust that God would speak to Ananias who would come and lead him, and Ananias too, had to trust that there was a light and a voice that Saul had seen and heard. Both reveal the barriers and the keys to our own redemption in these days. We don’t find ourselves simply waiting on a miracle, but God is waiting to see if we trust that the miracle of grace that still breaks into our lives as light in darkness. Can we still trust the light? Can we hear the voice that still speaks?
When I was getting a haircut, my barber who is also a small group leader in a large church in southern Iredell county, was asked by his pastor to take a young drug addict under his wing and give him a place to stay so he might have a chance to deal with his addiction and find recovery. He and his wife decided to take the young man in, but it wasn’t long until the man broke his promise and was taking drugs again. But instead of throwing the young man out back to the streets, he told me that he decided to give him grace instead of “law”. Only grace was going to save him, the law never would”, he said. He was still learning about grace in his life, and had come to believed that this young needed to find the light of hope through grace, because only “grace” can really change you from the inside out. He even joked, that the situation even caused his Methodist wife to lay hands on him and pray over him instead of laying hands on him another way. Can you believe my Methodist wife did that? He said. As I heard that, I wonder where these people got this very odd idea that “grace” is the only way people can be truly be redeemed?
Maybe this is the ultimate “oddness of God”. It is not only “odd” that God chose the Jews, or chose a sinner like Saul, but it is also “odd” that God still calls reluctant, untrusting, unbelieving saints to do his work in this world. So we can read this Bible story and still wonder? Will Saul’s light be more than just a blinding moment in time? Will Ananias see where God is calling him to give a real sinner grace? We know what happened to them, but what matters now is what will happen with us? Do we still dare to trust and believe that God can bring light to sinners and call reluctant saints to really dare to listen for God’s voice and trust God’s grace? That is the Damascus road question still confronting most of us in these days. There are always plenty of people who believe in death and destruction and are ready to get us on that bandwagon, but our very odd God still waits and works through the very few of us who get on the bandwagon to bend our own ears to hear the voice and open our blinded eyes to see the very light of his of his amazing grace still shinning into this world. Which frequency are you tuned onto? Do you see still see the light and hear the voice? I hope so, because He is still the only true light that can light the only true voice worth following. Amen.
© 2010 All rights reserved Charles J. Tomlin, B.A., M.Div. D.Min.
© 2010 All rights reserved Charles J. Tomlin, B.A., M.Div. D.Min.
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