Sermons

 Charting Changes

Roderic Frohman	Third Presbyterian Church
April 19, 2009	Acts 9:1-20

Imagine walking from Rochester to Utica. That is about the same distance, 120 miles, as it is from Jerusalem to Damascus, a seven-day journey by walking in biblical times, to a city dominated by white washed houses glittering in the sun and surrounded by lush green fields, a city characterized by ancient observers as “a handful of pearls in a goblet of emerald.” (William Barclay, Acts of the Apostles)

Saul of Tarsus, a Pharisee, a zealous defender of Judaism, was journeying to that beautiful, ancient city armed with a stack of blank-check arrest warrants and extradition papers given to him by the Jerusalem Sanhedrin and the Roman government to arrest, and extradite back to Jerusalem, selected followers of Jesus. In other words, Saul had picked up where the crucifixion had left off.

Saul walks alone, because religious custom dictated that Saul the Pharisee could not walk in the company of ordinary folk. You see, having the official designation of a “righteous one” is a lonely calling. So Saul was left alone with his thoughts. Saul has cleansing on his mind, a kind of religious and ethnic cleansing focused on a growing number of the “Followers of the Way” who hadn’t, from his perspective, stopped mongrelizing Judaism ever since the death of their leader, a Nazarene rabbi, executed for blasphemy and sedition.

For seven days Saul walks alone, “above” the others. But as he travels, he is beginning to feel vulnerable in his righteous invulnerability. It is getting harder and harder to kick against the goads, to deal with the tension of duty versus conscience. The flashes of insight and regret are growing more and more frequent. It is harder and harder to breathe the breaths of threats and murder. Plus, it is hot! Very hot! Saul is approaching a physical and emotional break down, he is about to snap like a dry twig in the hot, Syrian sun. As his steps become harder and harder, his isolation becomes deeper and deeper. Somehow he finds himself collapsed on the ground, dazzled by the multiple brilliance of the noon day sun—voices—conversations, hallucinations! He has sense of being in, yet out of his body—of being in paradise and hell at the same time. Gaining enough strength to walk, he is led, blinded, into Damascus where he sees neither the handful of pearls nor the goblet of emerald.

We moderns are suspicious of rapid personal change—conversion—a snapping from one lifestyle to another. We are repulsed by the rich and famous who at first are California mellow and then seemingly snap to another personality which is loaded with sociopathy. We are embarrassed by athletes who rapidly switch from cursing, chewing, carousing woman chasers, to those who read the Bible in front of their locker or join others in a public prayer meeting in the middle of the court at the end of the game. We long for moderation or some type of “phase-in” to change. We regard rapid personal change as neurotic, even psychotic because everything in our technological world is to be measured and rational. We like to lay out our options, measure our decisions, look at data, make a report, discuss it thoroughly, list the pros and cons, and vote on it. It is the Presbyterian way.

Yet we are the same people who are vulnerable to decisions made at times of crisis when the sequence of events in our lives gradually works under our skin like a boil and bursts. Consider the smoldering crisis of a Minnesota family friend approaching her 40th birthday. She came home from church one Easter Sunday to a wonderful surprise: balloons, signs on the front of her house and a group of neighbors singing “Happy birthday.” The smoldering fire in her soul erupted, and she tore down all the signs and balloons and stormed into the house and locked herself in her bedroom for 24 hours. Conversion to middle age can be painful, as well as can other crises of adult life.

We all have crisis experiences that make us vulnerable to rapid change. To chart these crises, two University of Washington professors have produced the classic Holmes-Rahe Stress Test, 43 events scored on a scale of 0 to 100, events which have a profound effect in causing a personal or family crisis and rapid change, even illness. For example, the death of a spouse equals a stress value of 100; divorce = 73; marriage = 50; loss of job = 47; addition of a child to a family = 39; son or daughter leaving home = 29; taking a vacation = 13: traffic ticket= 11. (Holmes and Rahe stress scale from Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia.)

These events are dividing lines, conversion experiences in a person's life which are sometime only seen in retrospect. In the light of the Holmes-Rahe Stress Test the sudden conversion of Saul to Paul, from Jew to Christian, becomes more believable.

But what exactly is Christian conversion? Ohhh, we Presbyterians tend not to talk about this, do we? Christian conversion means that a person has stopped doing what he or she wants to do and has begun doing what Christ wants him or her to do. It is the experience of recognizing where we are in relation to those dividing line events. It is the difference between seeing someone swim and swimming. It is the difference between wanting to love someone and risking love. It means going from spectator to participant, from blindness to sight.

Conversion can happen to someone who has spent years and years in Church as a spectator. Then they go through a crisis event and recognize that a new vital center of their self has been clarified. Christian conversion means stopping what we want to do and beginning to do what Christ wants us to do.

Are we currently doing what Christ wants us to do? How do we know what Christ wants us to do? Like Saul, we need an Ananias, an interpreter of crisis.

He is easily ignored in the story of Saul's conversion, but Ananias of Damascus, an anonymous Christian emerges for one brief shinning moment on the stage of the New Testament, a cameo appearance. We know only a little about him. He is a first generation Christian who lived in Damascus, the city of the handful of pearls in a goblet of emerald. Only things are not very glittering now. Ananias is supposed to go and pay a pastoral call on Saul and he doesn't want to go.

“Lord,” he says, “I have heard from many about this man, how much evil he has done to the saints in Jerusalem...”

But he went anyway. Imagine what Ananias could have done. He had within his grasp the chief opponent of the faith who is blind and weak! Imagine what he could have done.

“I've got you, you blood thirsty terrorist! I’m going to do us all favor and waste you here and now.” Ananias could have plunged a dagger into the heart of the blind persecutor.

Or else he could have stood over him and chastised him, deservedly so, about his heinous actions.

“Do you realize what you have done? Do you realize what heartache and terror you have cause in my life and in the lives of thousands of Christians?”

Or else he could have used a more modern weapon, the therapeutic dagger.

“Saul, you must be feeling pretty vulnerable now, being blind an all. Would you care to tell me about your sense of isolation?”

Ananias did none of that. He just touched him and said, “Brother Saul.”

In the risk of touch and words of equality, sworn enemies are reconciled. The chasm of Saul’s crisis is bridged. The dark night of Saul's soul is lifted; the agony of Saul’s bewilderment is interpreted. His sight is restored. Then Ananias slips back into the anonymity of Damascus and he never re-appears in the Christian story again; a cameo appearance for one brief shining moment.

Have you ever had an Ananias in your life? Someone who was there for you when you really needed them, whose name and face has all but faded? I have. A public school teacher, Mrs. Taylor. I can still see her standing patiently over me in second grade in Eaton Colorado, trying to get me to print more neatly. A Sunday school teacher, Mrs. Hendrixson, with her hair braided in the back of her head like a Swedish school marm. A grand parent, Otto Rodman, my only recollection of him is his coffin, yet his bizarre charts about Biblical prophecy piqued my interest in the Bible. A friend, Craig Erickson, a person who introduced me to the riches of the Christian (liturgical) year thus helping me fuse my story with Christ's story and entirely re-focusing the direction of my career. An uncle—Robert J.S. Larson, jeweler and watch maker, with his office at 210 Post Street in San Francisco, who first introduced me to the romance of the city. The girl next door in Richmond, California, Oline Floe, friend from grade 4 through 12, who died last month of complications due to Parkinson’s disease. Oline taught me how to think politically as we worked together on our 11th grade American history project.

These are the almost forgotten souls, the Ananiases who had the courage to speak the truth to us in love, who had the courage to risk embarrassment or rejection when we were in crisis. These are the people who over the years have had the courage to say to us things like;

“You drink too much.”

“You would make an excellent musician.”

“Keep the day job. Try baseball as a hobby.”

“You’ve followed a number of paths; why not follow Christ for a change?

We are all on the road to Damascus. What happens on that road can make a difference, if we are willing to listen to the still small voice and feel the stab of conscience amidst the heat and noise of our life's journey. There can be a difference if we are willing to listen to an Ananias, to hear the interpreter of our crisis.

What has happened to them, the Ananiases of our lives? After they were done helping, they tended to slip back into the brilliant anonymity of the handful of pearls in the goblet of emerald.