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The Conversion of St. Paul, 01/25/2015
Sermon on Luke 21:10-19, by David Zersen
When some were speaking about the temple, how it was adorned with beautiful stones and gifts dedicated to God, he said, “As for these things that you see, the days will come when not one stone will be left upon another; all will be thrown down.” They asked him, “Teacher, when will this be, and what will be the sign that this is about to take place?” And he said, “Beware that you are not led astray; for many will come in my name and say, ‘I am he!’ and, ‘The time is near!’ Do not go after them “When you hear of wars and insurrections, do not be terrified; for these things must take place first, but the end will not follow immediately.” Then he said to them, “Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom; there will be great earthquakes, and in various places famines and plagues; and there will be dreadful portents and great signs from heaven. “But before all this occurs, they will arrest you and persecute you; they will hand you over to synagogues and prisons, and you will be brought before kings and governors because of my name. This will give you an opportunity to testify. So make up your minds not to prepare your defense in advance; for I will give you words and a wisdom that none of your opponents will be able to withstand or contradict. You will be betrayed even by parents and brothers, by relatives and friends; and they will put some of you to death. You will be hated by all because of my name. But not a hair of your head will perish. By your endurance you will gain your souls.
It was a dinner party with friends, six of us enjoying a Polish ethnic feast prepared by the host, Galumpki (stuffed cabbage rolls) and all the trimmings. The conversations ranged from remodeling projects and foods to activities in our respective churches and items given to panhandlers on the street corners. We wondered together about the plight of the panhandlers. I mentioned that I had read in the newspaper that morning that 50% of all children in the U.S. were now below the poverty level. Some questioned whether this could ever be turned around? I recalled the woman who always said when we met at the church door after the worship service, “Pastor, all I want to know is it going to get worse before it gets better!” One of the women at the table then said, “Do you think it’s a sign of the end times?”
It was a shocking question. She had introduced serious religious debate, normally translated as gloom, into an otherwise chatty conversation around a gracious meal. End times! How can anyone know about such things or whether such things are intended as real and not just as metaphor? End times! Will all that we count dear suddenly be brought to a halt? Is the future nothing more than a dead end?
Was it perhaps any different in Jesus’ day? Some in today’s text were chatting about beautiful stones around the temple mount with dedicatory plaques erected as grateful memorials. They were going about their business and taking so much for granted. Then Jesus has to get serious and say, “Nation will rise up against nation,… there will be earthquakes.. famines and plagues… but the end will not follow immediately!” And those who had been just chatting, unable to make sense of such serious introductions, said, “When will this be?” In other words, “We don’t want any dead ends soon!”
Deep inside me there is a need to utter that slang stupidity, “Duuuh!” Don’t you get it? No, of course they didn’t. And we don’t either. They were afraid of instant change, horrific alterations, the end of all they treasured. However, Jesus was talking about an end that introduces new beginnings. The Kingdom of God is coming. The doors are opening to eternal future. And blessed are they who let Jesus open the doors for them.
Such insights come slowly. It is a conversion process. How fortuitous that today we remember the minor feast, The Conversion of St. Paul. How happy for us to consider this today because we too are people in process. There is no dead end before us as Christians, but rather a long, sometimes anguished, and often blissful journey to the Promised Land. Many years ago, I was on a trip in northern Israel and our group came to the road in the Golan Heights that led to Damascus. We couldn’t travel the road because of political constrictions, but I gazed down it and wondered where Saul in the process of becoming Paul had his experience. And I wonder with you today, as we look at life’s challenges and the immensities of the world’s problems, at what point we will grasp more fully “the wisdom,” as the text says, that no one will be able to “withstand or contradict?”
THE END IS BEHIND US AND THE FUTURE IS OURS
Because of the brief readings piled on top of one another in our lectionaries, we tend to think of Paul’s conversion experience as rather immediate. There was this fire-breathing hater of the Jesus movement, and on the Damascus road he had this experience, falling off the horse, being blinded, and then restored to full vision and new full-Gospel comprehension within days. As it were, almost, Saul became Paul overnight! Almost like an action movie too fast for a real plot! However, we forget Paul’s reflection in Galatians One where he tells us that he spent three years after his baptism in Arabia preparing for the visit to Jerusalem, a visit that seems so immediate in Acts Nine. And I suspect that in discussions and debates, in travails and trials, Paul grew in wisdom and stature somewhat like Jesus himself grew when according to Luke 2 he returned to Nazareth after the temple encounter at twelve in Jerusalem. Conversion, a gradual turning toward God, is a process that can gradually embrace us so completely that we know just as we are known (1 Cor. 13). Grand theological terms like Sanctification and Divination describe the complete process through which we are united with God, but conversion in itself is a process through we God allows us to take him at his word and move us ever so gradually into the certainty that we are loved and accepted.
Paul falls and rises
Knowing that we belong to God completely is not a one-time, one-directional experience. Along the way, we flounder and falter, often returning to the very failures and doubts from which God’s grace has sought to free us. So it was with Paul. Although he at times introduced his letters with great psychological sensitivity, he could also be arrogant and aggressive, creating tensions between him and Jewish Christians or Roman authorities. He himself tells us (Rom. 7:19) that what he really wants to do he doesn’t end up doing, and the very things he doesn’t want to do, he does. Like us, he was a person in process. He struggled to rise up to the full stature of Christ’s loving and forgiving lifestyle, and encouraged us to follow his struggle (Ep. 4).
Despite his failures, Paul knows that in many ways the end has already come for him, and is set behind him. In baptism, a Christian puts to death the dead ends of life that could have been ours and raises us with Christ to new possibilities. When we look forward, therefore, we don’t see a dead end (like the barricade I saw down the way on the Damascus road), or an end at all, but a life that lasts forever. In Romans 8: 38-38, Paul tells us what triumphs await those who are always in the process of growing. Nothing in all creation can separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord.
We daily fall and rise
Martin Luther’s theology of baptism helps us as people in process to cling to God’s promises and to know that the end is behind us, not something that awaits us. Sometimes when feeling particularly despondent, whether grieving over a sin that should never have been committed or a loss that seems to point to doom, Luther would write in the dust on the table with his fingertip, “I am baptized.” This assured him that even if it seemed like it was going to get worse before it got better, he was nevertheless embraced by the everlasting love of God in Christ. I read recently that one pastor had Luther’s Latin expression, baptizatus sum, printed on refrigerator magnets and distributed to congregation members during a sermon. I can do that only symbolically with this online sermon, but I encourage readers to make their own reminders for their wallets, for their dashboards, for their brandy glass, for their bookmarks, etc. There are so many times we need to be reminded of St. Paul’s insight that even though we fall, or seem to be going backwards, we are Christ’s own forever.
Recently, late at night, I was reflecting in my room on the failures of the day and wondering what kind of despair I should allow myself. I began to watch an old classic on TCM, Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment. As often happens with all of us, a man, Raskolnikov, had committed a crime (in his case a murder), and then was spending his life trying to ignore the consequences of his action or rationalize the evil involved. At some point, a woman helps him to see that the only way out, the only way to achieve freedom from the guilt that had separated him from society and was giving him a living dead-end, was the admission that he was at fault, that he was sorry, and that would accept the consequences. He went to the Inspector’s office, the door opened, and the Inspector smiled and said, “I’ve been waiting for you.” Dostoyevsky was a profoundly committed Orthodox Christian and he understood that the future is open to us only when we set our dead ends behind us and accept the forgiveness and freedom that comes with Grace’s open door.
As today we seek to appreciate the life and message of St. Paul, we remember with him that we are people in process, that although we have been baptized and have entered a life-long road of discipleship, we will often blunder and flounder along our Damascus road. Conversion is a process and we need not fear that if we cannot preach like Peter, if we cannot pray like Paul (from the hymn, “There is a Balm in Gilead”), we will yet be given many precious opportunities for faithful service. Like the conversion of St. Paul, it is a mark of hope to remember that all Christians are people in process. What we seek along our Damascus roads, dark as they sometimes will be, is the assurance that the destination is not a dead-end, but a concrete testimony to the promise that “the Lord is our light and salvation” (Ps.27:1). Also, along the troubled journeys, interrupted by cat-calls from those who have no hope, we have a right to expect the “wisdom” which will be our witness before “kings and governors,” spouses and in-laws, colleagues and disputers, enemies and friends.