The sermon text is below the sermon videos…
Video in church…
https://zionepiscopal.com/Sermon%20Videos/third-sunday-of-easter-5-1-2022.html
Video in office…
Sermon preached at Zion Church, Washington, NC; Sunday May 1st 2022
The Reverend Alan Neale; “Your Dasmascus Road”
The questions “Are you saved?”, or “When did you become a Christian” are not actually part of the lingua franca, the common language of Episcopalians during coffee hour; and I think that may count as an unqualified British understatement!
The story is told of Bishop Brooke Foss Westcott, a remarkable New Testament scholar of the 19th century. Once in a train compartment, a Salvation Army Captain (seeing the collar and assuming, of course, an unregenerate) leaned across and asked the Bishop, “Sir, are you saved”. The Bishop replied, “Sir, I have been saved, I am saved, and I will be saved!”. He used St. Paul’s New Testament Greek tenses – I hope he explained them to his confused interrogator.
Again, I once heard someone asked, “When were you saved?” – the response… “On Calvary’s Cross around AD 33”.
Such questions, such desire to put a date and a place when we gave our lives to Christ all probably find their energy in today’s first reading from Acts chapter 9 – the famous Dasmascus Road experience of St. Paul (though then known as Saul, but that’s another story!).
Some of our brothers in sisters in Christ in other denominations expect of their members a facility to give time, date and place of their conversion to Christ, their own Damascus Road experience.
Though I honor and respect such an expectation, I find it neither validated in human experience nor in today’s Scripture from Acts 9.
I have, for instance, discovered in AA that there are those whose freedom from addiction was immediate, irreversible but also many others whose pilgrimage of recovery is a journey, with “ups and downs” but mostly forward by the grace of God.
Paul’s experience on the Damascus road was spectacular and seminal but not simply an experience of the moment.
We know that Paul was well versed in the Hebrew Scriptures and, as Jesus tells us, those very Scriptures foretold the coming of the Messiah; all this was percolating in Paul far earlier than the Damascus Road event. We know that in Acts 7, Paul was an eye-witness of Stephen’s martyrdom; v.58 into his care the stone-throwers laid their coats for safe care. Paul witnessed Stephen being stoned to death but, as that stoning took place, he replicated the attitude and words of his Master as he said, (v.60) “Lord, do not charge them with this sin”; all this was percolating in Paul far earlier than the Dasmascus Road event.
And in today’s reading, we learn it was after three days that Paul was baptized and made that colossal commitment to Christ.
If like me, your turning to Christ has been gradual, intermittent, challenging then we find a greater friend in Paul than some would have us imagine! So take heart, I do.
The Damascus Road event is told three times in the Book of Acts, and never once exactly the same.
Acts 9 – Paul is blinded by the light, falls and hears Jesus. His companions do not see the light but hear Jesus.
Acts 22 – Paul says he was blinded, fell and heard Jesus. His companions see the light but are not blinded and… they do not hear Jesus.
And in Acts 26 – Paul sees the light, is not blinded, falls and hears Jesus. His companions neither see the light, hear the voice but fall down in awe.
One event, three accounts… but this is constant. Saul hears his name spoken by Jesus. He asks for the identity of the voice and the answer is given “I am Jesus whom you are persecuting”.
The voice that called Saul months before it called Mary by the tomb. The voice called him with authority but also compassion. To this day He calls each of us by name – with authority (He is the Lord) but also compassion (He loves us deeply).
“I am Jesus whom you are persecuting.”
“I am…” – and here the Lord reminds the Hebrew Saul of the ancient name of Yahweh, “I am who I am”. Remember the seven “I am” statements in John’s Gospel?
“I am Jesus” – the Jesus that was crucified, dead and buried is alive. This is the resurrection appearance of which Paul speaks, the resurrection appearance that partners him with the apostles.
“I am Jesus whom you are persecuting” – at this moment the seed is sown, and upon it Paul later reflects, that to be part of the Body of Christ is to be part of Jesus, to suffer as the Body of Christ is to cause Jesus to suffer. Here the great apostle to the Gentiles finds the very core of his “Body of Christ” theology outlined in Romans and Corinthians.
Soon, very soon, Paul’s spiritual eyes would be opened and he would begin ministry as the great Apostle to the Gentiles.
In today’s Gospel, Peter is radically reminded of this three-fold denial as Jesus asks him three times, “Do you love me?’. Peter absorbs this truth that love conquers all, embraces all, transforms all.
And so it was with Paul!
Never before, in preaching on this passage, have I ever mentioned Paul’s companions. Surely these men were in step with Paul’s fury against the Church, “as he breathed threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord”? These companions, anonymous I think even to this day, are transformed sufficiently to lead him to Damascus, for three days to sit with him in his blindness, as he neither ate nor drank.
And then… the men disappear, are mentioned never again (maybe in some Christians legends that I have yet to discover?). In one account they see the light but are not blinded, they do not hear the voice; in the second, they do not see the light, but they hear Jesus; and in the third, they neither see nor hear but fall to the ground.
Saw a light, heard a voice, felt a presence – like them, we cannot demand how the Lord will make Himself known but, also like them, we can be open to change, ready to serve and willing to sit with those in pain, loss and confusion.
Martin Luther King once said, “Love is the only force capable of transforming an enemy into a friend” – a blinding vision from heaven seems to work pretty well too. AMEN