Saul and Ananias [Easter 3C - Acts 9:1-20]

 The Rt. Rev. Jeremiah Williamson

Acts 9:1-20

 

Saul and Ananias

Emmanuel, Little Falls

 

He was well within his rights and he was sure he was right.  Saul was a man possessed by a passion for law and order.  The law justified the order he intended to impose upon his world.  It was God’s work.  He was sure of that.  He was convinced that his mission – his mission to hunt down religious deviants and root out their bad theology – was divinely inspired, the commission of an exacting and merciless deity.  And so he marched proudly into the office of the high priest and demanded a blessing.

 

And he received that blessing.  He was formally deputized to rid the world of blasphemy.  This would be Saul’s legacy, how he was going to be remembered, why he would be known throughout the Empire: he was going to end the Way. 

 

And that would make him a hero to both his religious authorities and their civic leaders.  The two groups had conspired to kill Jesus – successfully.  But since Jesus’ death his followers had only multiplied, spread like a disease, spread their heresies like an airborne contagion.  And Saul hoped to be the cure.

 

Saul was breathing threats and murder in the name of God.  It wasn’t a job for him.  It was a passion project.  The passion had burned in him for a long time.  He was there the first time his religious elders killed a follower of Jesus.  He watched them throw the stones at Stephen.  And he was sorry to be holding the coats; he wanted to be holding rocks that day.  He wanted to make a difference too.  And now it was his turn.  He planned to finish the job they started.

 

Saul and his crew thought they were the good guys.  But history tells us that the ones who hunt down innocent people are never the good guys in the story.  And they are certainly not the good guys in the book of Acts – at least not yet.

 

It’s like a light bulb went off.  Epiphanies aren’t always so dramatic.  But I suppose God knew it would take something big to knock the hatred out of Saul’s heart.  It would take a miracle to change his stubborn mind.  And so as Saul journeyed on the road to Damascus, God swept him right off his feet.     

 

He was, as Bruce Springsteen belted out with such force, blinded by the light.  Literally.  Like I said, epiphanies aren’t always so dramatic.  This one was historically dramatic.  Because it takes a lot to convert a zealot.  But I suppose when one finds themselves suddenly on the ground, suddenly without sight, suddenly confronted by the voice of Jesus, they are a bit more willing to listen. 

 

Saul started down that road with convictions so entrenched that he was willing, actually eager, to murder.  Our text tells us he was indiscriminate: hunting both men and women.  He was willing to kill both men and women because he disagreed with their theology; he found it dangerous.  They believed Jesus was divine and Saul did not.  They tried to act like Jesus and follow his teachings – a lot of stuff about love.  But Jesus’ love blurred legal lines and Saul would not stand for that.  These followers of Jesus were making the same errors that Stephen once made. Stephen was caught up in the teachings of Jesus too and he was sentenced to death for blasphemy; Saul reasoned people like Stephen deserved the same sentence.  

 

Down the road from the light show, there was a certain man who was very aware of Saul’s convictions.  And so that man was not interested in meeting Saul.  Because this particular man belonged to the Way – the very Way Saul was trying to end.

 

The man was named Ananias.  And like Saul, Ananias had some entrenched beliefs about God.  As it turns out, some of those beliefs clashed with Saul’s theology.  For example, Ananias believed that Jesus was Lord, that Jesus rose from the dead, and also that those beliefs in Jesus should not get him killed.      

 

So, when God interrupted Ananias’ prayers, and directed him to the doorstep of a murderer, Ananias assumed that either he misheard the Lord or that maybe God was behind on the latest religious happenings.  Perhaps God had not yet heard about Saul and his band of punishers; perhaps God had not yet heard that Saul was granted pass to terrorize, a license to kill.  Perhaps God was simply unaware of the changing circumstances.  Because Ananias could not, and would not, believe that God would knowingly serve him up to a vicious murderer.

 

Giving God the benefit of the doubt, Ananias explains the situation to God, clarifies things.  “Lord, I have heard (perhaps you haven’t) from many about this man, how much evil he has done to your saints in Jerusalem, and here he has authority from the chief priests to bind all who invoke your name.”  Which is to say, like Saul before him, Ananias is going to need some convincing.  Because once again, God is up to something unexpected.

 

Saul could not imagine a God incarnate in Jesus; Ananias could not imagine a God willing to work through an evil person like Saul.

 

No light this time.  Ananias requires only an explanation.  Now, there is no way he could possibly make sense of the explanation, but after God explains, Ananias goes.  His way is one of dangerous discipleship.

 

I wonder what it felt like to make that short journey to the haunted house.  I wonder what Ananias’ pulse rate was as he knocked on the door.  I wonder how many times Ananias double-checked with God before he entered the room.  He must have felt like a lamb led to the slaughter.

 

But still he went.  And he entered the house.  And he saw the very man who came to his town with evil intentions; who came to abuse him and his friends and his family; the same man who famously unleashed evil on so many good people, kind people, loving people.  Ananias should have hated that man; Saul deserved that.  Helpless as Saul was in that moment, Ananias could have punished him, could have wrapped his hands around his neck in anger, could have made sure Saul never hurt anyone ever again. 

 

But instead, Ananias did the most courageous things of all: he reached out his hands to heal the man who caused such great injury.  And he prayed for his enemy.  And because of mercy, his enemy became his brother.  And that brother, known to us as the Apostle Paul, filled the world with the love of Jesus.

 

This is still how our generous God is changing the world into a more heavenly place: through good people who are courageous enough to walk into a violent world armed with only mercy and aligned with only Love.