A sermon on Acts 9: 1-20 by Jan Coates, 18 April 2010

Message

We may try to turn away from God in the course of our lives, but he is there waiting for us to realise that his forgiveness and love will always be there for us to take, whether we deserve it or not .

Sermon

About this time two years ago, Garry and I, with Nathan’s assistance, were planning a memorial service for our daughters. I had asked a friend to suggest some Bible verses suitable for the occasion: her knowledge of the Bible being definitely superior to mine. One of her suggestions was Psalm 121. I read it and thought it was nice, and probably appropriate, but it just didn’t ‘grab’ me as something I wanted to include. As I was about to close my Bible, the last three lines of Psalm 119 caught my eye.

1. ‘I have gone astray like a lost sheep:
   

2. Seek your servant,
   

3. For I do not forget your statutes.’
   

I went back and read the whole Psalm – I think it is the longest one in the Bible - and decided that perhaps the last 8 verses might be appropriate for what I was feeling; certainly this last verse encapsulated my emotions.  During the course of discussions about the content of the service, these last verses were read aloud to me, and they suddenly had new meaning. I unthinkingly prayed aloud that God would take my heart and lead me back to the light, back into life. I have since referred to this as my ‘Road to Damascus’ moment – the time I realised that I had tried very hard to turn my back on God, but it just wasn’t going to be – I wasn’t going to be allowed to avoid the truth any longer. I wasn’t quite like Paul, in that I did not violently persecute Christians, though there was enough cynicism and criticism of ‘religion’ in my life until then for me to feel like a hypocrite in asking God to take me back for the fifth or sixth time. The difference this time was no-one was pushing me to do it. In fact, if anything, there were a number of times when my decision was questioned and suggestions made that I should take my time and really think about what it was I was committing myself to. After all the years I had denied the existence of God, and decried the attitude of the churches in general, now I found myself drawn to a God that I had never really encountered before, or maybe I’d just never understood what I had encountered. 

I was once told ‘A change of mind, on the basis of new experience and understanding, is not hypocrisy. Sometimes it is only in a new context, where things are experienced a little differently, that we can recognise the value of something we had previously dismissed.’  That statement made me feel a little better about my conversion. And in a way, it kind of sums up the experience that many people would refer to as ‘their conversion’. A whole new world opens up - a world of wonder and excitement, of dreams and passions, of darkness and disillusionment, of fear and foreboding: a world which consists of opposites, tensions, doubts, peace and love. A world which offers so much, and demands so little in comparison.

Paul’s conversion impresses me. To go from one ‘extreme’ to another in one’s belief system is incredible: to totally change your life to suit your new belief is almost – well - unbelievable. It’s not unheard of, even today, for people to reject the lifestyle they appear to love for something else entirely. But for Paul, it wasn’t just a change of lifestyle. He gave up a job which he obviously relished, with all the safety factors involved of being one of the ‘in crowd’ with his religious and political governors, and took the ‘other side’ – the side he had sought to persecute so zealously just days before. He went from being the persecutor to being the persecuted in the space of three days. He was willing to pay the price demanded of him: loss of friends and material possessions, imprisonment, and possible death. How many of us would be prepared to do the same thing? To give up our current materialistic lifestyles would be hard enough, but would we really be game to put our lives on the line – literally – the way Paul did? I’d like to think so, but I’d be lying if I said I think I could right here, right now. But slowly, I can see changes in myself, in the way I perceive things, in my reactions to situations, even in the attitudes and opinions I hold. Some of it is old age: I’m mellowing, and don’t have the energy to get all worked up about things like I used to. But some of the things I used to get upset about don’t bother me anymore, and some of the things I didn’t really worry about once, now have deep significance for me. Am I prepared to take on the authority of the governing body of our society though? In minor ways, yes I am. I will write to my local member of parliament and express my opinion politely to him. Am I prepared to contravene what I see as unjust laws, to stand against what I recognise as unfair treatment, or take part in law-breaking exercises to highlight the presence of unethical practices? Not yet.  Would I be prepared to go to prison for my beliefs?  Well, if it meant peace and quiet and no housework… maybe – but probably not. I do admire those who do such things; although I also worry that they are putting themselves in danger, sometimes unnecessarily in my book. But they are standing up for what they believe in, just as we are every week here, when we stand at the table and declare our association with the crucified and risen Christ. Just as Paul found life that day he met and accepted Christ on the road, so we find life here in Christ, represented by the bread and the wine which we accept as food and drink for our journey on the road of our life. We accept the demands Christ makes on us, for though ‘his yoke is easy, his burden light’ there is no escaping that there is a price to pay for being one with Christ, for we not only  share in his glorious priesthood, but we also share in his pain for the state of our world.

In my opinion, conversion isn’t limited to a onetime event. It happens every day when we look at something we may have seen a thousand times before, or hear something that we hear so often it is just part of the ‘background noise’ and it suddenly takes on a new meaning, adds new colour to our lives. A time when we can look past the pain, and see the beauty: a period when the darkness gives way to the light. God opens our eyes to new opportunities every day, just like Ananias opened Paul’s eyes, and continues our conversion to discipleship with each opportunity we heed.

It is this constant reawakening, this challenge to truly open our eyes each day which has begun to fascinate me. I have gone from accepting that there is a world out there that has some nice things, some not so nice things, and a few really crappy things most of which are not my concern, don’t affect me and have no bearing on my life, to genuinely being concerned about my world. Each day, I look with, I hope, new insight into my world.  I look for God in things around me. I try to work out what God is asking me to do in situations I find myself in. I try not to obsess about it, but at the end of the day, I do a bit of a quick check of how I think I went. Did I seriously look for the grace and love of God in those I met or thought about today? Did I offer love and compassion to the people I spoke to? Have I helped the Kingdom of God come a little closer in what I said and did? Have I lived my covenant, my prayer? I know God doesn’t keep score, so I try not to beat myself up if I feel like I’ve failed somehow, and instead try to remember that tomorrow is another day, another set of challenges, another opportunity to have my eyes opened, another chance to thank God for all I have. Most days, I figure I haven’t got it right and I despair of ever getting it anywhere near right. I often wonder just why God would take me back after all I’ve said and done. I wonder why he still accepts me when I stuff things up. But that is the miracle of grace: the forgiveness, mercy and love that is there for the taking, not for the earning. I think that is the one thing we need to open our eyes to most:  that we may not deserve it, but we get it anyway. Conversion may be the acceptance of God into our lives, but we have never been anything but accepted by the God in whose image we are created.

Psalm 30 could well have been written by, or for, Paul. I know it feels like it applies to me as well. To combine parts of two of Nathan’s paraphrases of this Psalm:

1. I realised how much I needed you, LORD,
   and in my panic I begged you for mercy.
   

2. 
   

3. “Give me another chance, LORD.
   Please, LORD, bail me out one more time.”
   
   And sure enough, you did, LORD.
   You changed my anguish into this joyful dance,
   

4. pulled off my sackcloth, gave me bright new robes,
   

5. that my life might sing your glory,
   

6. never silent in your praise.
   

The last two lines of the Psalm are especially poignant to me since I experienced God’s grace: 

1. You are my God, LORD
   

2. and I’m eternally grateful.
   

Amen.