A Heart Set Free

The Call of Saul, art-glass window, First Presbyterian Church Edwardsville, photo by jch

Sermon Series “Through the Bible,” № 62, Acts of the Apostles 9:1-22

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.”

–Acts of the Apostles 9:17-18

In our sermon series through the Bible, this is the third and final sermon from the Acts of the Apostles. Two weeks ago, in an overview, I told you how some argue that the book might more properly be titled “The Acts of the Holy Spirit.” This past week, I focused on a passage in which God revealed a vision of something new to the Apostle Peter. Today, we back up to the story of the Call of Saul.

Saul of Tarsus is better known to us as Paul the apostle. While we may associate the name change with his conversion, Bible scholars tell us that’s probably not the best way to look at it. Saul’s parents were Hebrew, but his father also was a Roman citizen. In that time, dual names were common: He was “Saul” as far as his Jewish community was concerned, but “Paul” in the Latinized speech of the larger Roman culture. Since he ended up as a missionary to areas dominated by Roman culture, we know him mostly by the Latinized version of his name.

While Peter is often thought of as the “chief” of the apostles, a good argument could be made that Paul’s accomplishments exceeded Peter’s. His three missionary journeys took the good news of Jesus Christ to many places. The congregations he founded were the first seeds of a church that would grow and thrive centuries later.

Paul’s teaching looks more substantial to us than Peter’s. Thirteen of the 27 books in the New Testament are attributed to Paul, though there is debate about six them. Paul’s life and journey dominates more than half of the Acts of the Apostles.

The story that Kalyn and I have read for you today is what we might call the archetypal story of conversion that has set the standard for all others.  Perhaps you’re not even sure what “conversion” actually is. There’s an old preacher’s joke – I know it’s old because I put it in my files in the late 1980s, and it was old then – about the boy who wasn’t paying attention to the Sunday school lesson, and was asked by his teacher, “What is a conversion?” He replied, “It’s the extra point that is kicked after a touchdown.”[1]  If that’s the best definition of conversion you have, then a brief reminder is in order.

When we try to define conversion in a biblical sense, then we might consider:

· The Hebrew word transliterated “shubh” meaning “to return” or “turn back” from a wrong direction into a right one;

· In Greek, we have “epistrepho” and “metanoeo,” both of which also have to do with a change in direction.

When you are inspired to make a change in the direction of your life’s path, and when you can define that change in terms of God at work to change you, then you might properly label that experience of God correcting your course as a “conversion.”

Many conversion stories we hear from other Christians are like Paul’s. There is a “before Christ” period, a meeting-Christ moment, and an “after Christ” period during which the nature and purpose of life has changed.  But if you don’t have a conversion story, it doesn’t necessarily mean that Christ hasn’t been at work in your life. 

Back in the nineteenth century, a pastor by the name of Horace Bushnell argued against the stress that some were placing on spectacular conversion experiences. He wrote a book about it, saying that true conversion usually required a long period of training and Christian nurture.[2] Careful preparation through the years provided the context for the moment in which conversion could take place.  For several generations, Bushnell influenced the model for Christian education in our Presbyterian Church, with its emphasis on Sunday school attendance and a well-defined curriculum from childhood to adulthood.

Today, it would be difficult to find a candidate for the “perfect attendance” ribbons once presented in Sunday schools.  If we discussed it, then I’m not sure we could even agree on what it means to attend regularly. How often does one have to participate in Christian community to have the relationships and foundation of knowledge to live as a Christian in today’s world?  Is it 26 Sundays of attendance, or 20, or 12? 

Former Methodist bishop Will Willimon has said it’s time to re-emphasize the language of conversion. “We are no longer growing a seedling in the warm, hospitable soil of Christian culture,” he says. “That world is over for the church.” “Now we are rescuing, detoxifying, saving people from a corrupt … though alluring world …. Therefore, stories like Paul’s conversion make new sense ….”[3] What will it take to convert people from active disdain or passive neglect of life together in Christian community?

I found one clue, perhaps, as I reviewed my files and books about Paul. I read a wonderful overview of new directions in scholarly research. I looked back at a textbook that was my first introduction to Pauline studies in 1983. 

My favorite new insight came not from a somber scholar, but from someone who was a flutist, a song writer, and Presbyterian preacher, before eventually teaching about the art of preaching. His name was Thomas Troeger, and he is responsible for the text of nine hymns in our “Glory to God” hymn book.

Years ago, I took notes while he spoke about today’s text. He was trying to take his listeners to the root of Saul’s conversion.  Just what was it about the event that God used to change him? When exactly did the moment come that he was changed, and his previously hard and rage-filled heart set free? 

Like Bushnell, Troeger argued that all true conversions take place in steps through time. He said that Saul’s conversion began on the road to Damascus. But it wasn’t completed there. He still had to be led by hand to a home, and he still had to endure three days of blindness, fasting, and worrying. Troeger observes that the pivotal moment of this conversion process occurred later, in verse 17, when Ananias, his enemy, entered the house. Contrary to natural expectation, the enemy who Saul had sworn to arrest, whose friend Stephen Saul had participated in murdering, this enemy laid hands on him, touching him that he might be healed.[4]

Of all that I read this week, Troeger’s analysis of Saul’s life felt the most beautifully profound. He is interpreting the text not so much through a cold analytical lens, but with sensitivity to Paul’s situation, and to the emotions we all would feel in such a moment of confusion and vulnerability. He suggests that what began for Paul in an experience of blinding light was completed in a caring and loving touch when least expected. 

If we look deeply into our personal stories, perhaps we will remember something similar that happened to us. Maybe by holding that memory in reflective prayer, God will teach and inspire us to do the same for others. In such moments, conversion is completed from whatever has been to what will be in Christ. And hearts are set free.

NOTES

[1] from a sermon “A Real Solution for Real Problems,” sample mailing from Pastor’s Professional Research Service, circa 1988.

[2] Horace Bushnell, “On Christian Nurture.”

[3] William H. Willimon, “Proclaiming the Text,” Pulpit Resource, 29 Apr. 2001

[4] Personal Notes: a lecture delivered by Thomas Troeger, Festival of Homiletics, Central Lutheran ECLA, Minneapolis, 20 May 2011.

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