Rev. Betsy Aldrich Garland
Acts 9:1-20
April 18, 2010

The Road Less Traveled

Saul was a bully. He had approved the stoning of Stephen, one of the early Christians who had testified about Jesus of Nazareth before the religious authorities, calling them “stiff-necked people” and “uncircumcised in heart and ears.” The death of Stephen – and the persecution that followed – terrified the Christians in Jerusalem, and they scattered across the countryside.

In the passage from Acts we read this morning, Saul set out after them, breathing threats and murder against the People of the Way, that is, members of the synagogues who were both Jews, followers of the Law of Moses, and followers of Christ. Saul was hell-bent on hunting them down and wiping them out, putting an end to this heresy. And he set off for Damascus.

God had a different idea. While Saul was on the road, suddenly a light in the sky flashed around him, and he heard the voice of Jesus, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?” “Who are you, Lord?” Jesus tells him to get up, go to Damascus, and wait for instructions. So Saul gets up and dusts himself off and, when he opens his eyes, discovers he’s blind. God has a way of turning the tables. Saul’s companions take his hand and lead him into Damascus, and for three days he cannot see and refuses food and drink.

This is a fairly familiar Biblical story of the conversion of Saul, whom we later know as Paul, but it’s not the only conversion that takes place in Damascus. There’s another man that God has chosen for a holy errand: Ananias, one of the disciples who had heard about this Saul and all the evil doings in Jerusalem.
Ananias has a vision that God calls him to go to Saul and to lay his hands on him so that Saul might regain his sight, and he is dubious, to say the least. “You must be kidding, God!”

But God has a way of insisting: “Go, for he is an instrument whom I have chosen to bring my name before Gentiles and kings and before the people of Israel.” So Ananias goes to the house where Saul is staying and lays his hands on him and tells him that Jesus has sent him so that he may regain his sight and be filled with the Holy Spirit. “And immediately,” scripture tells us, “something like scales fell from [Saul’s] eyes, and his sight was restored.” Saul rises and was baptized, a new man. He is changed from being one who is a witness against the followers of Jesus to becoming one who is a powerful witness for Christ. And Ananias, the one who was hiding from Saul, becomes the one who anoints him for his mission.

Two men are converted in this story. You have heard me preach before, as recently as Easter Sunday, about turning, about conversion. In Hebrew, the word for “turn” is shub, meaning to turn back, to return. In Greek, it is metanoia, meaning a turning around of 180 degrees, not just of the heart but also of the mind. For both Saul and Ananias, they come to a fork in the road of life – and take the one less traveled.
Saul’s conversion is dramatic. Writer Flannery O’Connor once wrote of Paul, “I reckon the Lord knew that the only way to make a Christian out of that one was to knock him off his horse.” The text doesn’t say Saul was riding a horse, but her point is well taken.

Not all of us need to be knocked off our horses – but we all could do with a conversion: from our proclivity to thinking we always are right and not listening to all sides of an issue; from living on the surface and hiding our feelings to the extent that we can’t show our family and friends we love them – or know even how to love them; from seeking revenge instead of reconciliation with those who have hurt us or someone we love; from shirking our responsibility for the environment and wasting valuable resources; from preoccupation with ourselves and our own success; from loving ourselves more than our neighbor when Jesus says we are to love our neighbor as [much as] we love ourselves.

We all are in need of a conversion. Saul is turned from one who breathes threats and murder to one who proclaims the way of love. Ananias is turned from one who holds back and hides out to one who steps forward to do what God needs to have done.

What are we waiting for? Perhaps to be knocked off our horses! But I’ll bet, if I were to ask you about your conversion stories, many of you would have them. Perhaps not as dramatic as Saul’s, but you could point to a time when you felt the grace of God and something changed in your life. Maybe it was when you were having a difficult discussion with your spouse, or when you held your newborn for the first time, or when you were floating in your kayak on a perfect day and something about the light was just so, and you realized the presence of God. Perhaps it was when you agreed to do something that was scary, or that you didn’t think you were qualified to do, or that interrupted your life in a way that made you uncomfortable – and afterwards, you realized that you had made the right choice.

God touches the lives of unlikely people like you and me to change the world. We have all been on the wrong path; we have all been stubborn or afraid; we have all been closed-minded and racist; we have all been addicted to something that is not good for us – substances, too much work, insisting on perfection, you name it.... And then there is this blinding light – or at least a gradual coming of the dawn.... We see the world differently. God is at work in us.

What changed your mind, your perspective, your behavior? Was it a friend’s persistent question? Was it an illness that knocked you on your backside? Or was it your soul’s restlessness that cried out in the middle of the night? For me, it was when Conference Minister Chuck Barnes asked me if I’d ever considered the ministry – something I’d been avoiding for 50 years. And here I am. We think that our scriptures are archaic and have little to do with our lives, but in truth, we all are walking on the road to Damascus, and we all need to see the light.

My partner and I have a close friend who is very successful in her work; she has a responsible job and earns by herself what Kim and I earn together, but she’s not happy, and not too long ago she said, “I never thought my life would be like this.” Often our disenchantment comes not from our failure but from our success.

What happens when we see the light? We are converted, we are turned around, we turn toward the life for which God has made us. Robert Frost says it this way, “Two roads diverged in a wood, and I, I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference.”

I was intrigued that Saul, after the laying on of hands by Ananias, was baptized – a visible and outward sign of his conversion and his welcome into the Christian church. Kim has written a poem about baptism, and I share it with you now, in ending:

If I Could Be Baptized Again

Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life? Mary Oliver

If I could be baptized again,
I would first be immersed in fiery verse,
in poetic language of rebirth,
then doused with the ineffable affection
of God and my parents
dripping affirmations of the glory
of my one uniquely extraordinary self.

If I could be baptized again,
I would select a hectic time
in my ordinary life, when strife and stress
compress my patience
and confidence and compassion,
then I would lean my head beneath
the redeeming drops of All Shall Be Well.

If I could be baptized again,
I would draw all my loved ones
around the font of my essence,
each saturating me with stories
of what it means to be alive
in a community striving to rise
to the occasion of their human grace.

Come. Be baptized with me again,
lay down at the gentle river of rebirth,
bow to the sacredness of every seed
and mountain and shadow, float
along the surface of fear knowing
all of us are near, saints of our one
wild and precious life, and drown with me

forever in God’s love.

Amen.