On April 17th I had the joy of being in Connecticut as Ian Douglas, one of my seminary professors began his ministry as the new bishop of Connecticut. The preacher for this wonderful occasion was Bishop Desmond Tutu. He started his sermon with this joke. So there was a curate, who always preached the same sermon. His supervising priest tried coaxing and coaching, and just plain telling him to cut it out. No matter what he did, no the earnest young priest always found a way to focus on the sacrament of confession. It didn’t matter what the season was. It didn’t matter what the lessons were. Confession seemed to be the only theme the curate could speak about. So the wise old priest assigned the young man to preach on the feast of St. Joseph. A very important celebration in the Roman calendar. So the earnest young priest got up and started his sermon. St. Joseph was a working man. He worked with his hands. He was a carpenter. And he probably built some confessionals ….
And then Bishop Tutu began his own theme, the homily God has given him to preach day in and day out, which is very much the theme of today’s lessons God does not give up on the people God loves. God has been about the work of healing the world ever since things fell apart at the beginning of history. God’s dream is that we humans will God’s loving embrace, and live in peace and joy with our brothers and sisters. God’s dream is that we will become the family God longs for.Bishop Tutu reminded us of God calling out to particular people, and the whole people of Israel to live beloved lives, to be salt and light to the world. Bishop Tutu traced God’s persistent love for us misfit sinners throughout history, until the time that God came among us in the particular life of Jesus. There were thousands of people who knew Jesus and knew people who knew Jesus. Most of them were ordinary folk, merchants and civil servants, people who worked with their hands to produce commodities others needed. Some of them tended the children and made clothing and grew a garden. Some of them were wealthy. A few provided from their means for the growing group of followers of the Way Jesus showed them.
Very soon after the death and resurrection of Jesus this group of followers expanded. We know this because the Book of Acts tells us that they were persecuted. They were growing in numbers and in boldness. They were living into God’s Promise that the world is being made new. And they were part of making it new. We know that they were growing because they became a threat to the established order. A dead church is no threat to anyone. A church that is alive and growing and full of Loving Boldness gets into trouble.
The names of most of the people who followed the Way were not recorded. Most of our ordinary lives only appear in print when we score a lacrosse goal, or win the lottery or die. But the stories of the early church record mostly the leaders of households, and the missionaries who went out from Jerusalem carrying the Good News of Jesus’ Resurrection. Peter and Saul or Paul get a lot of ink, and today we hear the pivotal stories in their lives, and Paul’s story told three different times in the Book of Acts demands our attention.
Breathing fire, Saul is hot on the of a group of extremists who threatened the Jewish way of life. He apparently has a tip about a cell that is operating in Damascus. He gets approval and probably some expense money, and heads off with his posse to Syria. He is on a mission to round up, bind up, and drag back those Jews who have begun to believe that Jesus is the Messiah.
On the way a blaze of light stops him dead in his tracks. He is has done his homework. He knows the story of Elijah, and Moses to whom God appeared in a Bolt of Light. He recognizes the presence of God. Saul fell to the ground, just as the women did when they went to the tomb and met the Messengers. Saul recognizes that God has a message for him “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?” As God so often does, God calls his name. This is personal. This is big.
Saul wants to understand this message. He wants to know “who are you Lord?” He recognizes the Divine presence, and wants to know God’s name. “I am Jesus.” The Great I AM is Jesus. This is an encounter with the living Christ, the Christ he has been calling a lie, a delusion, a scandalous heresy.
Saul feels the stunning heat of surprise and shame. He has devoted his whole life to God, a straight arrow, thinking he was righteous and faithful, but in fact he was completely in the dark. Saul must have had doubts, must have had an inkling that those he was so effectively putting to death might be closer to God that he was. And now his most desperate fear is confirmed: he has spent his whole life persecuting the God he loves. And that persecuted, wounded God never the less redeems and claims him, the betrayer and persecutor. The Voice says “but get up, and go into the city and you will be told what to do.” Stunned, blinded by grief, he can do no other than what his God commands. He gets up, and the men he had been leading to the city with violence in their hearts take him by the hand, and lead him to a house that would take him in on the Street called Straight.
The arrival of the most feared man from Jerusalem was duly noted by the Believers in Damascus. They know that the bounty hunter had arrived with his minions. But God is always doing a new thing. God had redeemed even Saul. God calls Ananias to go to the one whom God has loved, and God called to witness to the power of God’s insistence on forgiveness and loving kindness across the known world. God commands Ananias to befriend the enemy. Summoning up enough trust, Ananias goes to the house, and claims Saul as his brother. Not a neighbor. Not a fellow Jew down on his luck. Not a potential convert or someone who might be useful to the Church. Ananias claims Saul the erstwhile destroyer as his kindred. The family has a new member, a member with the same claim on the affection and support and protection as all the other members of the family. Saul is made welcome in a deep act of radical hospitality. One among many brothers and sisters. Through Ananias Saul receives the light of the Holy Spirit, and is reborn in baptism.
This moment when brothers turn to each other in trust is a moment in which the profound Shalom of God breaks in. Ananias is an agent of God’s mission to make a new family from antagonists. Saul’s willingness to receive a new truth, his willingness to go deeper into life with God begins to repair a breach in the peaceable kingdom. Together these two demonstrate that God does not give up on us. We can count on God’s grace whenever grieving hearts are broken open by failure, infusing energy and intention to lead a new life as we turn once more for our true home. We can count on God’s grace whenever we muster up the courage to give each other another (or a third or fourth) chance to try to live a new life on Straight Street.
Bishop Tutu’s message for our siblings in the Diocese of Connecticut, and for us in this great and faithful Episcopal Church is this: We are One Family. One with those whose lives are shaken apart in Haiti. One with those whose ideas we find peculiar or frightening. One with those who know God by other names. We who are Christian all pray to OUR Father. We are held in God’s unbreakable embrace, each precious. We who know we are Children of this passionate loving God are sent on Mission, are commissioned, to Go and tell our brothers and sisters that God embraces us in a unity that intends to crumble every division, and heal every scar, every wound, every betrayal and heartbreak.
Jesus, still bearing the marks of the nails, appeared to the ones who deserted him. Jesus, out of the tomb, called to the women: go tell my Brothers I am risen. The Persecuted and Executed Jesus appeared to Saul, and commissioned him and those who came after him to Go and Tell everyone the amazing story of God’s unstoppable love. Church, we are One family; Go and spread that Good News. AMEN
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