josephholubsermons


 

April 26, 2009
Easter 3
Acts 9:1-9,  John 21:4-19 

Wake-up Call!

Peter and Paul are arguably the two dominant figures of the early Christian community.  But they were very different, rooted in diverse backgrounds and distinct religious and social traditions.  However, these stories from Acts and John have one thing in common.  As different as they are, both Paul and Peter had an encounter with the living presence of Jesus and the result of their encounter was nothing short of transformation; a change of heart; a change of mind; a change that had life-long implications.     

But these stories are about much more than merely Paul and Peter the individuals.  The Book of Acts was written by Luke sometime in the '80's over fifty years after Jesus; and John was written in the '90's sixty to seventy years after Jesus.  I believe these stories of Paul and Peter also reflect Luke and John's community experience of the presence of Christ and the impact it had upon them.  So, this morning I will focus on Paul and will briefly bring in Peter and note that that their individual identity also reflects a community identity.

Luke reports that Paul, called Saul before the Damascus Road experience, but I will refer to him as Paul throughout my sermon) encountered the presence of Christ on the road to Damascus in the brilliant light and mysterious voice.  Many of us may have a difficult time accepting that literally – and understandably so!   But let me say that there are a growing number of scholars who have concluded that Paul was a Jewish Christ mystic.  A close study and exploration of Paul's letters reveals that numerous times Paul describes mystical experiences of the presence of Christ.  Mysticism and the mystical experience is something that most of us have not experienced - including me - but that doesn't mean I don't recognize its reality or validity.  Mystics have experiences in which there is a vivid sense of the presence of God, or the Sacred, or the Real, or whatever you wish to call it.  In the throes of this experiential reality the mystic has an experience of union or communion with God.  At that point, the individual doesn't merely believe in God or have faith in God, but experiences God on a level of knowing God. 

William James in his great, timeless classic, "The Varieties of Religious Experience" discusses mystical experiences in great detail, and he says that one common characteristic of the mystical experience is photism, that is, an experience involving light.  It's an experience of light on two levels; the literal level of actual light; and the metaphorical level of enlightenment.  That certainly appears to describe Paul's experience: both light and enlightenment, not only in this story but in experiences he conveyed in his letters.  I believe Paul is best understood as a mystic, and more specifically a Christ mystic. 

I see something in this story that I believe has profound implications for us living 20 centuries later.  It is a perspective of this story you may have never heard before, but here goes. 

The change that occurred in Paul's life was not a change from a non-religious person to a religious person.  And secondly, it was not a change in which Paul ceased being a Jew.  Paul was religious before and after this experience.  Paul considered himself to be a Jew before and after this experience.  So what changed?  What was different?  What changed for Paul was that he went from one way of being a Jew, a Pharisaic Jew - to another of being a Jew, a Christ Jew. 

Metaphorically speaking, before Paul could be changed, he needed to be knocked down and struck blind!   The whole scene drips with metaphor.  It's as if Luke is saying Paul was already blind even before this experience.  The literal blindness that came upon him was merely an outward manifestation of his existing inner blindness. 

Sitting blind in the grimy dirt of the road, gave Paul a whole new perspective.  In his helpless state he began to see things like never before. His state of sudden helplessness and dependence on others gave Paul time to reflect and think about whom he was, what he was doing, where he was going.   It gave Paul the opportunity to contemplate the voice that he heard and the haunting question that came with it, "Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?"  In that voice he heard the call of Christ, and it was a call into a new vocation, and to me that is the dominating point of the story.

Like many of the great prophets of the Old Testament, many of whom were also mystics, who experienced their call to a new vocation in the throes of a mystical experience, so did Paul.  The point of this story is not to get hung up on whether this is a literal description, or that we should strive to become Christ mystics and try have experiences like Paul – no, that’s not the point. 

The point of the story is for us to wrestle with the questions, "What is our call?  What is your call?  What is the Christ vocation?  What is your vocation as a follower of Jesus?"   When you begin to ask yourself questions like that then this story ceases to be ancient history but becomes existentially relevant. 

For Paul, it meant a call to a new religious vocation as a Christ Jew.  For Paul, it meant moving from a religious life that was extraordinarily narrow, exclusive, judgmental, condescending and violent; and moving into a spiritual life that was very much the opposite that was much more inclusive, broad, non-judgmental, and non-violent.  It was a new kind of life and vocation that Paul described in profound ways in his authentic letters:

·        "If anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; everything has become new."  (2 Cor. 5:17)   Paul is not spewing doctrine to believe in a passage like that, but it is a description of his inclusive existential experience and an invitation to others into a new spiritual vocation to create such an inclusive community.

·        "There is no longer Jew or Greek; there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male or female; for all are one in Christ." (Gal. 3:28)  Again Paul is not churning out doctrine here, but describing what life is looks like in the Kingdom of God which was the foundation of his new vocation.

·        "I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live but Christ who lives within me." (Gal 2:19b-20)  Again, his words are a description of his new reality and vocation.  For Paul, the spiritual life was now a process of letting go of old, narrow, rigid, parochial ideas of God and religion and embracing new realities of God and the Kingdom of God that were embodied and articulated in the person of Jesus.

For me, this passage is best described as a wake-up call.  It is certainly portrayed as a wake-up call for Paul, but it is also a wake-up call for us.  It's a challenge for us to wake-up to the nature and spirit of our vocation as followers of Jesus. 

When we look at the history of Christianity we tragically see a religion that more resembles the vocation of Saul the persecutor than Jesus the bringer of the Kingdom of God.  We see an appalling and dreadful landscape littered with the victims of an oppressive and persecuting faith in the name of God and Jesus.  People have been distorted and dehumanized with guilt, bigotry, intolerance, anger and violence.   In God's name Christians have justified slavery, defended segregation, and approved lynching.  In God's name children have been abused, women diminished, homosexuals hated, wars waged, the unrepentant condemned, even tortured and executed, Jews have been persecuted, doubters excommunicated, and violence used to achieve conversion – all seemingly without care or conscience – often in the name of Jesus.   Christian history is punctuated with distorted images of Jesus – and shocking injustice has followed in its wake.   Mahatma Gandhi once said, “I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.”

PETER - For Peter, and of course we include John's community, it was a different thing. Peter didn't need to be knocked down like Paul. Peter needed to be picked up!  Peter was already down, and for that matter, almost out. Peter had done it to himself!  Remember the story?  Peter denied his Lord and best friend Jesus at his most desperate hour when Jesus was on trial for his life. Overcome by fear, Peter denied he even knew Jesus, not just once, but three times!   Three times he denied their friendship when just hours before he had so confidently declared to Jesus he would be willing to die for him. Down-and-almost out Peter was wallowing in the mire of his guilt, shame and self-deprecation.  He was as low as one could get, and what he needed was someone to pick him up! 

And that’s exactly what happened.  Peter experienced Jesus as one who would not allow him to wallow in his negative mindset, but lifted him up and out of it into a new mind-set and hence into a new vocation of living and embodying God's love.

Tom Harpur, Anglican priest, journalist and Rhodes Scholar discusses in an essay entitled "New Creeds"  how Christianity has contributed enormously to a cultural sense of negative self-esteem and low sense of self-worth by preaching a message, both explicitly and implicitly, that "roasts people over the fires of literal hell and are told how fully unworthy (we are) of God's grace."[1]  

For Peter, like for Paul, his encounter was a wake-up call into a new mind-set and new vocation; a call out of an old way of being and doing, thinking and living into a new way of being and doing, thinking and living.  It’s a vocation founded on the solid rock of God's lavish grace and empowering cherishing love that would not let Peter remain wallowing in the mud-hole of religiously cultivated negative self-perceptions.

Paul on the Road to Damascus and Peter on the beach; both wake-up calls into a new vocation.  These stories can be wake-up calls for us modern day followers of Jesus as well as we reflect on how we live out and capture the essence of Jesus as we practice our faith in today’s world.