Easter III

Acts 9:1-19a
Revelation 5:6-14
John 21:1-14

+ In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Two warships were on maneuvers.1 It was a dark, moonless night, visibility deteriorated, and patchy fog rolled across the sea. The crew on one ship called the captain to the bridge.

One of the lookouts reported, “Light bearing on the starboard bow.” (If you imagine this church a ship, a scriptural image, that light would be off in the direction of the crucifix above the St. Agnes Altar.)

The captain demanded, “Is the light steady or is it moving astern?”

“Steady, captain,” the lookout responded, indicating danger. The other ship was on a collision course with the captain’s ship.

The captain jumped into action, ordering the signal officer: “Signal that ship that we’re on a collision course. Advise it to change course twenty degrees.”

The signal officer followed orders, flashed the message through his signal light, and received a signal back: “Advisable for you to change course twenty degrees.”

The captain barked back: “I’m a captain! Change your course twenty degrees.”

“I’m an ensign,” came the reply. “You still need to change your course twenty degrees.”

The captain went ballistic, outraged to be insulted by an inferior. He shot back: “You change your course twenty degrees. I’m running the show here. I’m the flagship.”

The signal flashed back: “I’m a lighthouse.”

It’s a humbling experience to think that you are in charge, to be determined in your agenda, sure of what the situation is, and then to bump into a larger reality. It’s similar to the story of S. Paul on the Damascus Road. As he headed to Damascus to harass, to intimidate, to arrest, and even to murder Christians there, he thought that he knew it all. He thought that he was serving God. And then he sees the light and has to change his course a full 180 degrees.

The greater truth is that we are all a lot more like the captain, and Paul, than we care to appreciate, but God blesses us if we recognize that we’re often charting our own course – and not his. Every person has a continual need to check and to renew their course. Christian spirituality requires continual conversion. While every adult has to have a moment in our lives when we first purposefully, intentionally commit ourselves to Christ, a moment in which give ourselves to the gospel and make it our guiding light in life, there have to be other moments, many succeeding moments, to re-commit ourselves, to give ourselves more fully to Christ.

Conversion is not only for people who don’t follow Jesus. Conversion is not a one-off, once in a lifetime event where we come to Jesus. Conversion is a continual experience for mature Christians. The story of Paul’s conversion encompasses a second conversion, one that’s usually overlooked – that of Ananias, an ordinary Christian in Damascus. Ananias knows Paul’s coming to town, and he fears him, but he conquers that fear by growing in trust of God. Ananias is already a believer, but his faith grows and strengthens. He becomes the means for God to heal Paul and the means for God to call Paul to his ministry.

We pray for conversion to be a regular part of our lives. In effect, we’re praying for change to be a regular feature of our lives. If we don’t want to change, we’re not going to change, and we’re going to cut ourselves off from God. We’re not going to grow; and our character will shrivel. Change is frightening, and it requires faith and trust and courage to let God be a bigger part of our lives, to let God be different and fuller in our lives, to stop clinging to the past.

The story of Paul and Ananias shows us two fundamental aspects of authentic conversion. First, conversion is about God. It’s not about me. We don’t become Christians solely for self-gain, solely for our own purposes. The world asks of everything, “How does this benefit my life? How does this fulfil me?” I regret that often the Church markets Christianity as if it were the path to prosperity, to a trouble free life, to the solution of all our problems and disappointments. That’s not authentic Christianity.

Authentic Christianity says, “Human beings are not the measure of life. There’s a reality beyond me, bigger than me, prior to me.” On the Damascus Road when Jesus speaks to Paul, he gives Paul something to do. Paul’s conversion is a commissioning, a calling. Becoming a Christian means that we aren’t the measure of life, rather Jesus is. The question is not what he can do for us. It’s what we can do for him. How can we serve him? And it’s the same with Christ’s body, the Church. We don’t ask, “What can the Church do for me?” We ask, “What can I do to help the Church’s ministry?” God has given every person gifts to use for his ministry.

When Paul became a Christian, in ways his life got worse, certainly more difficult and more demanding. Suffering became a regular feature of his life. Instead of being the powerful persecutor, he became the persecuted, and frequently threatened with death. He was repeatedly imprisoned, beaten, whipped, shipwrecked, often – Paul says – “in toil and hardship, through many a sleepless night, in hunger and thirst, often without food, in cold and exposure.” (2 Cor 11:23-27) Paul experienced betrayal and calumny and eventually death for God’s glory – not his own. Conversion changes us so that it’s not about me, but about God; not what I want, but what God wants.

A second mark of authentic conversion: conversion connects us to others. Paul came to Damascus full of violence and fury – “muttering threats and murder.” He came trying to use force in the service of God, but he left Damascus a man of peace. He stopped trying to control and to dictate and began to exercise influence through witness and preaching. Paul learned about the power of meekness on the Damascus Road. Blinded, confused, hungry, helpless, he became utterly dependent upon the very people he was going to persecute. He became as a child to them. As Jesus showed us, Christian holiness begins in humble dependence and powerlessness.

But Paul wasn’t the only one to change, to become more vulnerable and open. Think of Ananias and his fellow Christians in Damascus. Paul was their avowed enemy. They knew that Paul had assisted in the murder of S. Stephen and that he was now turning his attention to them. Paul’s presence among them stretches them; it challenges their faith. Their faith grows so that God’s mercy trumps justice, that love casts out fear. Ananias’ conversion leads him to reach out to Paul, to heal him, to care for him, to welcome him into the community, to support him, to help him discern God’s call to him. Ananias calls his former enemy, “Brother.”

In the reconciliation, forgiveness, and unity of Paul and the Damascus Christians, we see God’s desire for us. Paul changes, but so does the Christian community, which welcomes him. They all grow. They all become more Christ-like, more fully what God wants us to be. Conversion deepens our connection to other people; it removes barriers between us.

True conversion leads us to reach out to people different than us, people who challenge our comfort level. It leads us to form relationships and friendships with people we normally ignore or avoid if left to our own devices. It enlarges our hearts and minds.

Before that flash of light on the Damascus Road, had you asked Paul or Ananias about their future, about their plans, about their agenda, neither could’ve imagined how they would change. God broke through their rigidity, their pre-conceptions, their stubbornness and took them to a new place, a place they wouldn’t have chosen, a place contrary to their expectations, a place to which they didn’t want to go. And as the captain of the ship found out, that’s very good news.

+ In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

1. This story from Anthony B. Robinson and Robert W. Wall, Called to Be Church, Eerdmans (2006), p. 146. I am indebted to them for their discussion of Paul’s conversion and transformation, pp. 139-49.