Acts
9:1-20
Back
in the ‘80s, there was a cartoon for kids on TV called, “Transformers”. These clever little doohickeys resembled any
average robot-like alien creature. But,
as the theme song tells us, there is more here than meets the eye for they are
robots in disguise. With a pull, twist,
flip and click, these action figures can be transformed into a car or tank or
flying-killer-attack-weapon. Wheels and wings and guns were cleverly hidden
inside the robot bodies of these toys giving them their dual identity. The Autobots
are good while the Decepticons are
bad. Fascinated by this toy's ability to
change before their very eyes, "Transformers" became enormously
popular with young children.[1]
Back
in the summer of 1991, the second Terminator movie was released, Terminator 2
or T2 as it became known. All the characters from the original futuristic,
sci-fi, run-for-your-life movie were there, but with one important difference.
Schwarzenegger's character, the "terminator," had been transformed -
or in this case re-programmed - into a kind of guardian angel for John Conner
and his mom. Other equally death-dealing villains awaited the protagonists. But
the "good guys" were immeasurably aided by the protection and
guidance of their former enemy. The Schwarzenegger-droid had threateningly
vowed "I'll be back" at the conclusion of the first
"terminator" movie. His promise is fulfilled in this movie, but in a
totally unexpected manner. He returns as a "good guy."[2]
This must have been
what it was like for Paul and Ananias as they experienced the transforming
grace and forgiveness of Christ. If ever
there was a "terminator"-like character in the Bible, it had to be
Saul. Saul was a Pharisee and a fervent,
intense persecutor of the Christians.
His reputation as a harsh, merciless, law-driven man was well
established throughout the ancient world.
He was hunting down members of the “Way” and bringing them to be tried
by the Sanhedrin all in order to end this “heresy” as Saul calls it. I can understand why Ananias reacted with
such strong skepticism to God’s request.
Wouldn’t you? When Ananias hears
that Saul is headed for Damascus, he expects nothing less than the worst - a
nightmare, a horror, a holocaust. Ananias had made up his mind about Saul and
so much so that he is willing to argue with God about it.
Yet
both men are transformed from the inside-out. Saul, through his encounter with
the living Christ on the Damascus road, turns his life around. He went as a changed man. Quite a change indeed; the one who had
intended to enter Damascus like an avenging fury was led by the hand, blind and
helpless. The bitter well of hatred from
which he had been drawing his sustenance is sweetened by Christ's touch and
changed into an eternal spring of love and dedication.[3]
Ananias' fear and loathing of his
persecutor is also changed by Christ's words into openness and acceptance of a
true "brother" in the faith.
Part of what
children love about the "transformers" toys is that the robot-aliens
usually changed from being body-shaped creatures into some kind of vehicle or
weapon. Their transformation was usually into - a tank, a plane, a car - which
was capable of doing all sorts of things they could not perform in their
original form. Christ's transforming
love empowers us in the same way. We
become vehicles for the love of God, and like Saul, we too are charged with
"carrying" the Gospel into the world. It is under the power of
Christ's love that Saul becomes the apostle Paul, from terminator to
transformer, perhaps the single most influential figure in the history of the
church.
The Rev. David
Ostendorf is the director of the Center for New Community based in Chicago.
Ostendorf and his colleagues are tracking a particular kind of anger and hatred
in the United States. They work particularly with rural and small-town
congregations whose members and neighbors are feeling the tremendous pain of
the transformation of rural life in North America. As people lose family farms,
as small-town life becomes increasingly unable to compete with life in the
major metropolitan areas, resentments, anger, depression and hatred mount. The
center is monitoring the rise of hate groups (many of them neo-Nazi),
paramilitary organizations and other movements that can become seedbeds for the
kind of anger that led to the Oklahoma City bombings, for example. The center
does more than track the anger, however. It conducts programs that teach
congregations how to build new patterns of healthy community life transforming
their ministry and transforming the lives of so many. Ostendorf and his group
are helping congregations and their leaders learn that they are on a very
important front line. The center equips them with the skills to listen, to hear
the words of hope in the Bible, and to organize and address the circumstances
that give rise to the anger. There are
lessons in their work for the rest of us on the front lines.[4] We are in the business of making disciples of
Jesus Christ, in order to terminate our old selves and to transform us into new
creations. Conversion experiences are
not about us, but about God. Like in the
conversion of Saul, we are called to enable others to have a powerful encounter
with our risen Lord. We must remain open
to what God is doing in and around us.
Our faith experience is not a private affair. It is for spreading the Gospel and building
up the church community. We are called
to stand on the front lines fulfilling the needs of our community.
Theologian
and author Reinhold Niebuhr tells of a wealthy man he knew who set out one day
to improve a public image that had been badly tarnished in his rise to wealth
and power. He began to give liberally to various philanthropic foundations,
agreed to serve on committees promoting one good cause or another, and started
treating his employees in a somewhat more humane fashion than had been his
custom. His motive in all this, Niebuhr would point out, was quite cynical. He
wanted to improve his IMAGE in the public mind, NOT his way of life.
But
then a strange thing happened.
The
man discovered to his own surprise that he enjoyed his new role in the
community. It was pleasant to have people think well of him, and the civic work
that he was doing gave him genuine satisfaction. The upshot of the whole
process, Niebuhr concluded, was a profound, not a superficial transformation of
the man's character.
Now
clearly this experience was a manifestation of grace and the strange ways in
which it moves in life. But it was grace mediated through judgment. Niebuhr's
friend did not undergo some mysterious warming of the heart while reading the
Bible. Nor was he stirred to love by a poignant encounter with some dramatic
human need. Grace reached him through the judgment of God mediated by the
disapproval of his neighbors. The indictment of his way of life by the
community wrought changes more profound than any he contemplated. It was no longer about me, myself and I. It was about God in Christ Jesus. Up until this moment the rich man had been
doing what HE liked, what HE thought best, what HIS will dictated.
It
is true with Saul, now Paul. Christ said
to him, “Go into the city, and you will be told what to do.” From this time forward HE would be told what
to do. The Christian is the one who has
ceased to do what he or she want to do and who has begun to what Christ wants
that person to do.
Are
there "terminators" in our church?
They are the ones who live to disrupt any spontaneous outbreaks of
Christian love and harmony that might crop up.
You know the type - they always have statistics on declining church
membership right at hand, they can come up with a dozen reasons why the new
evangelism program won't work, and they will let you know that the church has
just installed the ugliest carpet they've ever seen in the new sanctuary. Can
we go to them like Ananias, buoyed by a new boldness in Christ, and offer them
transforming love and acceptance?
Transforming
terminators is the legacy of the church includes Paul, Constantine, and Augustine. There is also Zaccheus, Matthew the Tax
Collector, Nicodemus, the Arnold Schwarzenegger droid, Charles Colson, and John
Newton. Are these terminators among us willing
to be transformed by an experience of Christ so powerful that it completely
turns their lives around and right side up?
The prescribed representation of what God would do with each person
stands as a reminder that God would deal with each of us according to who we
are. In Paul’s case, his fierce
energies, which had been expended in persecuting Christians, are now redirected
so that they are employed in winning women and men to Christ.
And
such an intense, extraordinary conversion for such an intense, extraordinary
man! It wouldn’t have worked any other
way for Saul. All of us will not have
such a blinding, going- kicking-and-screaming fight with God. I never personally experienced any
extraordinary conversion experience to the Christian faith like what happened
to Saul. It’s always been a part of my
life and an important part at that.
Perhaps some of you can recall an extraordinary moment when your life
was turned right side up by Christ. It
doesn’t matter how it gets done, just as long as the Holy Spirit is the one
getting it done.
Our
text today declares that God’s love knows our personal needs and steps forth to
meet them, even if it does not always knock us to the ground and blind us in
the process. When God is the agent of
change, all things are possible. Amen.
[1] Bob Kaylor, Senior Writer for Homileticsonline.com, and Senior Minister of the Park City United
Methodist Church in Park City, Utah.
[2]
Ibid.
[3] Bob Kaylor, Senior Writer for Homileticsonline.com, and Senior
Minister of the Park City United Methodist Church in Park City, Utah.
[4] James P.
Wind, On the Front Lines Against Violence, CONGREGATIONS: The Alban Journal,
September-October 1998, 3.
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