Acts 9:1-20

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

Now there was a disciple in Damascus named Ananias. The Lord said to him in a vision, “Ananias.” He answered, “Here I am, Lord.” The 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, and 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.” But Ananias answered, “Lord, I have heard from many about this man, how much evil he has done to your saints in Jerusalem; and here he has authority from the chief priests to bind all who invoke your name.” But 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; I myself will show him how much he must suffer for the sake of my name.” 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, and after taking some food, he regained his strength. For several days he was with the disciples in Damascus, and immediately he began to proclaim Jesus in the synagogues, saying, “He is the Son of God.”

Don’t you just wish you could hear the voice from heaven? Just once? For God to say something to you that clearly, so you don’t have to wonder what in the world it is that you’re supposed to do, especially in a time of question or doubt? Really it wouldn’t have to actually be a voice. A billboard, an email, a private message via Facebook—just some clarity, please.

In this story from Acts, a lectionary text for this Sunday, the holy voice speaks to Paul and Ananias and calls them to do some really hard things. Clarity indeed. Be careful what you ask for. Each one hears a word from Jesus and a call to do something different, something risky, something that challenges what they think they know and believe. Paul, you’ve gone far enough with the persecution, and I’m taking you out. Ananias, go check on Paul. Touch him, and heal his sight.

Very interestingly, the voice from heaven speaks to these two opposing persons and turns them toward each other, for the sake of a greater mission. When I think about where we are as a church this Easter season, the parallels with this text are intriguing. I don’t want to assign a direct correlation between characters in the story and sides or interests in our current debate as a denomination; to do so would be facile and misleading. Instead I wonder about the emotional positions of Paul and Ananias and how, whoever we are, we might find ourselves in them.

Paul, in his bold certainty and cockiness, cannot and will not hear the truth about the crucified and risen Christ or his followers. He cannot and will not see the truth until something jars him, pops him, hard. He thinks he knows what his life is for, what God

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wants from him. Or perhaps, as we do, he has conflated what he wants with what he thinks God wants. Because “breathing threats and murder”? He didn’t hear that from a voice out of heaven or learn that from Judaism. The Torah doesn’t teach threats and murder against anyone as a focus for a faithful life. Paul by some other path had decided he knew what he knew. He was single-minded, and as it turned out, as these things do, God made good use of that mind and that persistence. He just needed a dramatic reset, on his backside in the dirt, a radical reorientation of his purpose. His personal introduction to the Lord Jesus Christ. Nice to meet you.

Ananias appears as a more clear and open spirit. He knows both the truth about Christ and the truth about Paul—what he has done and the threat he poses to the fledgling Christian community. It’s a big risk to do what the voice is telling him. Maybe it’s even a trap; maybe Ananias himself will be the next one bound and dragged to Jerusalem by Paul. So he states his concern, and then he listens and trusts Christ’s response. “Go anyway. Don’t worry about him. I’ve got plans for him that will contribute to your same purpose. Do not worry. I’ve got this.” Said Jesus. So Ananias goes and risks and does as he is told.

The mystery of this story is that it took the courage and faithfulness and obedience of Ananias for Paul to become able to see. It wasn’t something Paul had to do, though Jesus does say Paul was praying, so he was open and listening. But it was the task of Ananias to embody the message and healing and transforming power of Christ in a risky, conflicted situation. Jesus surely could have just reached out and healed Paul, but think about the connection that happened instead, Paul’s vulnerability and reliance on someone whom he had seen as an enemy. As Christ said to Ananias, Paul too would have his share of risky, painful situations where he would have to bear the gospel. “I

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myself will show him how much he must suffer for the sake of my name.” But the fruitful future of Paul, which would literally change the course of history, hinged on the present courage of Ananias.

We are so polarized right now—maybe y’all are immune to that, maybe in here there’s just one side, Wespath’s side! And I’m not sure exactly who needs to talk or reach out to whom. But this image of people risking themselves for the sake of the movement, this way God shifts people and transforms the world, not by big booming pronouncements from on high, but through people touching other people—this is powerful. While there is a lot we do not know or understand, we can know this. God seeks to use each of us in this way, in this moment in the life of our church and our world, to advance the agenda of life-giving love.

I hope you can find a part of yourself in both these characters. Maybe you’ll have the privilege of an actual voice speaking to you; maybe you won’t. But God is calling you all the same, and if you’ll listen, you’ll hear it. You might get knocked to the ground, or you might have to find courage to speak love and healing where you don’t want to. Maybe scales will fall from your eyes, or maybe you’ll list all your objections, just to have them wiped away by the gracious hand of Christ.

I don’t know what lies ahead for us as a church. But I do believe that our need for conversion and Christ’s call to courage and obedience in joy is what will guide us. And in that we can trust.

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