Sermons for the Month
God's Surprising Grace
DATE: April 25th, 2004
SERVICE: Third Sunday of Easter
TEXT: Acts 9:1-6“To all of you Saints here this morning, grace and peace to you from God our Father, from His Son, Jesus Christ and His Holy Spirit. AMEN The story of the conversion of Saul is yet another example of how one can never tell what the God who raised Jesus from the dead might do. I mean, really … this event is about as miraculous as the resurrection when you consider all the details.
Saul, who became known as the Apostle Paul, was a man who was intent on making Christians extinct. He was a devout Hellenistic Jew and a member of the Pharisees who, about five years after Jesus had ascended into heaven, sought the arrest, trial, conviction and punishment - he hoped by death - of the Christians in Jerusalem.
But his hate of Christians extended beyond the Holy City. He wanted to rid the earth of the followers of Jesus. So, to that end, he traveled 150 miles north of Jerusalem to Damascus in order to arrest Christians.
I wonder if the followers of Jesus there, who were acquainted with his persecution of their sisters and brothers in the faith, had heard he was coming and were locating their hiding places. What if they had decided to pray about the dire situation? What would they have asked of God? Perhaps their prayer would have been that Saul be waylaid by robbers or struck down by illness, or that the Christian leaders would not be discovered.
But do you suppose anyone prayed that Saul be saved, that he would become a follower of Jesus? I doubt it; that would have seemed to be a foolish prayer. Saul, the pursuer of Christians, could become one of them? Ha! No doubt that would have seemed more unlikely than the resurrection of Jesus.
Yet, you never know what sort of thing the God who raised Jesus from the dead might do so that the Good News is kept alive.
Last week we read how the proclamation about Jesus survived because his followers were released from prison by an angel and given the ability to rejoice in the midst of abuse.
This week the one person who posed the greatest threat to the church became its greatest asset when he encountered Jesus on the road and was blinded. His healing came through Ananias, a follower of Jesus, who was instructed by the Lord to go and pray for Saul. He protested about doing so, having heard how evil Saul was, but he went. And the next thing you know Saul is a baptized believer proclaiming Jesus in the synagogues.
So, a powerful enemy of Christians became an empowered missionary. This is a reminder never to be too sure about what God will, or will not, do. The grace of God can surprise us.
Barbara Brown Taylor, a writer and preacher, tells about the time she spent on a seminary admissions committee. They turned a particular student down, a student who obviously had few academic qualifications for theological study. But he wrote them from his jail cell to tell them that the parole board would let him out if they would let him in. So, they invited him to plead his case before them.
She described how this big guy came in and told them that, as a young teenager, he had held up a convenience store. All he remembered was brandishing this unloaded gun at the clerk. An off-duty police officer spotted him and shots rang out.
Then, before the oak table of the seminary admissions committee, he pulled up his shirt to show them where the policeman's bullet got him in the stomach, and went out the other side. "That was my Damascus road…", he said.
Of course, said the author, we did not want to admit him into seminary. But, what could we do? We knew Acts 9! If God could make an apostle out of Saul the murderer, what might God do with a guy with a gun?
You see, it is just the sort of thing the God who raised Jesus from the dead might do.
More than once I've heard people say, "I did not think I would ever…and then they talk about leading a Bible study, or visiting patients in a hospice, or going on a mission trip to Argentina. They could not have imagined themselves doing these things any more than the Christians in Damascus could have fathomed Saul becoming a follower of Jesus, yet somehow it was what God led them to do.
Or, a church member may say, "Our congregation would never…and then he or she would note that change is unwelcome or that people just are too busy to be involved in the ministry. Then, the next thing you know, the church has moved to a new location or opened a medical clinic or taken a whole new direction in reaching out with the Gospel because it was as clear to them as it was to Saul what God had big, new plans for them.
God can't be boxed in. If God really wants to get our attention, as was the case with Saul, God will do so. Saul was wise enough to get the point. He could have stubbornly held onto his old ways and walked through life blind and bitter, wondering why his situation did not improve and why those Christians had not been wiped out. And, if Saul had done that, it would have been his loss because I absolutely believe that God would have found another way for the good news of the grace that comes to us in Jesus Christ to be proclaimed.
It seems to me to be a better thing to be used by God than to be stumbling around in the dark.
William Willimon, Dean of the Duke Chapel, also has a story about a young man's Damascus Road experience. He was a student who revealed to Pastor Willimon that he had a wild past. This was not your garden variety speeding tickets and skipping school. This young man had gone from a mental institution to life on the streets to prison. There, an older prisoner looked out for him. And, he read the young man a chapter of the Gospel of Luke every night. The older prisoner was not a good reader; he stumbled and sweated, taking forever to complete the chapter. One night as he listened to the stories of the lost sheep and the prodigal son, the student said it was like a hand reached into the cell, grabbed him by the throat, shook him up and down and said, "I've got plans for you." So, the young man said, "Here I am. I am your proof of Easter."
It's true, God can't be boxed in. You cannot keep God in a tomb nor can you keep the Good News quiet; it will be proclaimed. If a persecutor of the church can become its greatest proclaimer, then it is not too hard to imagine that God could work through gun shot wounds and a halting reading of the Gospel of Luke. As I said when I began this sermon, these are just the sort of things that the God who raised Jesus from the dead would do.
So, my friends in Faith, do not get too comfortable. God may surprise us on the road as well!
AMEN