"Double Vision"

April 14, 2013

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ACTS 9:1-20

Saul, still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord, went to the high priest ²and 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. ³Now as he was going along and approaching Damascus, suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him. ⁴He fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to him, "Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?" ⁵He asked, "Who are you, Lord?" The reply came, "I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting. ⁶But get up and enter the city, and you will be told what you are to do."⁷The men who were traveling with him stood speechless because they heard the voice but saw no one. ⁸Saul 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. ⁹For three days he was without sight, and neither ate nor drank.

¹⁰Now there was a disciple in Damascus named Ananias. The Lord said to him in a vision, "Ananias." He answered, "Here I am, Lord." ¹¹The 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, ¹²and 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." ¹³But Ananias answered, "Lord, I have heard from many about this man, how much evil he has done to your saints in Jerusalem; ¹⁴and here he has authority from the chief priests to bind all who invoke your name." ¹⁵But 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; ¹⁶I myself will show him how much he must suffer for the sake of my name." ¹⁷So 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." ¹⁸And immediately something like scales fell from his eyes, and his sight was restored. Then he got up and was baptized, ¹⁹and after taking some food, he regained his strength.

For several days he was with the disciples in Damascus, ²⁰and immediately he began to proclaim Jesus in the synagogues, saying, "He is the Son of God."

Sermon: “Double Vision”

When I was a teenager I got "saved" several times.  Many of my friends were “accepting Jesus” at these massive Christian concerts with rock bands heavy on gestures (pointing up to heaven) and hair gel, so I went along with it.  There was a lot of crying and going down to the front to pray, but for me, I never left feeling any closer to God.

I did love talking about God, though, and so when one of those friends invited me to a Baptist youth Bible study, I went.  At one point the pastor singled me out.  He got right in my face and said, voice booming with biblical authority, “Are you SAVED?”  I just kind of stared at him, and then slowly responded, “I’m Presbyterian,” I said.  “We don’t always do these big moments of ‘accepting Jesus’…God’s been a part of my life for as long as I can remember.”  “But do you feel it in your heart??” he boomed.  (This is called evangelical bullying, y’all.) 

I began to get irritated at this point.  With all the snark of a teenage girl, I sighed and said, “Of course I feel it in my heart.”  “But what MOMENT did you accept Jesus??”  Again I responded, “I’m Presbyterian” (as if that meant anything to him at all).  I explained, “We rededicate ourselves to God all the time…each Sunday in worship, at confirmation, any time.”  And then I got really sarcastic, y’all.  I looked up right into his face and asked, “So, do you want my most memorable experience of accepting Jesus or what?”

He did not bother me anymore. 

As frustrating as I found that pastor to be, he did have a point.  You see the core of his theology about salvation is here, in our text this morning: the conversion of Saul on the road to Damascus.  This story is often heralded as the epitome of the “conversion moment.”  You are walking down a road, sinning in all sorts of terrible ways.  But then, bam!  Jesus calls to you, and your life is never the same again.  Many Christians have taken this text as the blueprint for the “salvation formula”:

1.    Admit your sin.

2.    Pray a little prayer to accept Jesus into your heart.

3.    Make sure you really got #1 & 2 right.

Perhaps I still have some of that snarky teenager within me, because I can’t help but question that interpretation of this text.   You see, I can’t find any place in this passage where Saul admits his sin.  Jesus tells him that he is guilty of persecuting his followers, but we never hear Saul say, “Yep, Jesus, I have done that.  I’m sorry.”  Saul should have, of course, but Jesus saved him anyway. 

Moving on to number 2 of that formula, we are told to pray a little prayer to accept Jesus.  But that doesn’t happen here either.  In fact, this story seems to be a lot more about Jesus accepting Saul than Saul accepting him.

But the biggest issue I have with the traditional salvation “formula” that I was so forcibly taught, is that it seems to me to be fiercely individualistic.  God is a relational God, and of course our relationship with God is, in a way, personal, just as our relationship with a sibling or friend is personal.  But salvation?  That is not personal at all.  At least not in this story. 

You see, if Paul’s salvation was a “personal” experience, he would have spent the rest of his days wandering blind alone on that road to Damascus.  Because salvation is a communal activity, God used the people traveling with him to lead him by the hand into Damascus.   Saul then had a vision of a man named Ananias coming to bring him new sight, and at the exact same time Ananias had a vision as well.  Jesus sent Ananias to go lay hands on Saul, that he might regain his sight.  If salvation is a private, personal activity, why did God send Ananias to be a part of it?  Why didn’t God just magically make those scales fall from Saul’s eyes? 

Ananias slightly-reluctantly meets Saul the persecutor and something miraculous happens.  I’m not talking about blindness being cured.  The miracle is that Ananias calls his fiercest enemy, “brother.”  It would seem he had his own conversion experience in our story, too.  In an act of forgiveness, the Holy Spirit heals.  Saul became part of the Way of Jesus, saying “He is the Son of God.”

And we know much of the rest of the story…that Saul became Paul and that Paul became one of the greatest instruments of the good news who ever lived. 

I wonder what Paul would say if we were to ask, like that intense preacher of my youth, “When were you saved, Paul??”  I like to think he would say, “On the road to Damascus.”  But I don’t think he would stop talking then.  I think he would also say that he was saved when Ananias lovingly touched his eyes in an act of grace, showing him how hatred had blinded him all of his life.

I think he would mention that community of disciples who called him “brother” and baptized, fed and taught him. 

He might describe that day in Antioch when the newly formed church commissioned him as a leader.  He might tell us about his time in prison when God used a guard to save him, or how the Spirit was with him as he traveled through danger and hardship to tell the good news to lands far and near.

I think Paul would tell us that salvation is real, and that it is a matter of life and death.  But I don’t think he would have described it as “personal.” 

God brings salvation through unlikely people to show us how fear, pride and regret have kept us from seeing our brother or sister clearly.  How we have simplified salvation into a formula to tame the wildness of our gracious God, or to simply tame our own insecurity.  How we as the church universal have often spent our energy breathing threats instead of joyfully declaring, “Jesus is the Son of God” in humble service and authentic words.

Striving to be quite different than that intimidating pastor who bullied me into salvation, I will not ask y’all when you were saved, because I believe God never stops saving us.  But I will ask you this:

When have you participated in the salvation of another, whether it be the promise of life eternal or the promise of food for today and justice for tomorrow? 

When was the last time you gave God thanks for saving you?  When was the last time you thanked someone else for their role in your ongoing story of salvation? 

Thanks be to the God who opens our eyes to those around us, to the Spirit who stirs community in the most unlikely of places and to the Savior who never ever stops saving us.  Alleluia!  Amen.