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Home Page
The Rector's Welcome
Worship
Sermons
Music & the Organ
Newsletter
Schedule & Events
History
Programs & Ministries
Tour the Building
Links
Map & Directions
Monthly Calendar
Home Page
The Rector's Welcome
Worship
Sermons
Music & the Organ
Newsletter
Schedule & Events
History
Programs & Ministries
Tour the Building
Links
Map & Directions
Monthly Calendar
Fr. J. D. Ousley
25 April 2004“A Bolt From the Blue”
In the Name of God: Creator, Redeemer, and Sanctifier. Amen.
One could write a book about all the different ways people come to have faith.
Some people identify themselves with Christianity after years of thought and prayer. Others are born into a church family and they naturally adopt the faith of their parents as they grow up.
Still others linger on the boundaries of religion. They become what one theologian calls, "half-believers" -- they possess a faith of sorts, but they don't fully identifying themselves as Christians.
Others still-and I would estimate that they are a tiny minority -- come to faith suddenly. Unpredictably. Unexpectedly. Faith comes to them like a bolt out of the blue.
Into the latter category we must definitely put St. Paul. Paul's conversion experience is described in great detail in today's First Lesson from the Acts of the Apostles.
Paul or "Saul" as he was then known, was a professional religious bigot. He persecuted Christians for a living. At the time of his conversion, he is traveling to Damascus to look for some Jewish Christians to abuse; they were called, at this time, "Followers of the Way."
No one, then, would seem to be a less likely candidate to become a Christian than Saul. Yet as he was riding along to Jerusalem -- the text says he was"breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord," -- "suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him."
And he heard a voice say, "Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?" The voice is revealed to be the voice of Jesus.
Though the story then gets a bit complicated -- because Saul is blinded by the vision -- still he soon connects with Christians in Damascus, is healed and baptized -- and the rest is history. "Saul" -- renamed, "Paul" -- becomes the greatest missionary and the greatest theologian of the Early Church.
Now this story has been retold through the ages; the story is repeated twice just in the Book of Acts. There is even a major feast day in the church calendar called "the Feast of the Conversion of St. Paul."
One reason the story has been told so often is because it was unique. Paul was exceptional; his abrupt change of heart was equally exceptional.
Yet even so, we ordinary folk can learn from this story. We may find, for example, that changes in our own life directions can come unexpected and unasked for -- out of the blue.
Paul had no conscious wish to change what he was doing; you have to be pretty sure of yourself to go around persecuting others who don't believe what you believe. So we may find that God pushes us in new directions not when we expect them -- not at those times when we are praying for guidance -- but when we're perfectly content with our lives as they are.
For some people, the new divine calling may -- like Paul's -- entail costly sacrifice. Business people in mid-career feel called to give up their comfortable incomes and work for non-profit groups. People who have been going happily through life "religions-free" suddenly find they need more prayer and a personal relationship with God.
And while most of us don't have such dramatic experiences, there are other ways we can find ourselves pushed. We may find that God speaks to us not in flashes of lightning but more like static electricity.
That is to say, the Spirit of God prickles and nudges. You don't get overwhelming signs; you're not blinded by lighting on a clear day. But there is something in the atmosphere around you that insists that maybe you should be going in a different direction.
You don't, like Paul, get knocked off your horse, yet you have that uneasy feeling that you could be making some different choices, that God is calling you to do better in your work, in your relationships, in your prayer. You know you need to look at the world differently.
Paul's vision of the world was corrupted by prejudice. His capacity to see the truth was so crippled that he needed to be blinded physically before he could perceive the ignorance and hatred inside his soul.
In the course of Paul's conversion, the flash of light that knocked him off his horse created a strange coating on his eyes that blinded him. Only when he connected with the Christian community did the coating disappear, like "scales" falling from Paul's eyes.
Again, this is a unique case -- so far from normal experience that it's hard to tell exactly what happened. But many of us may find ourselves going through a the two-stage experience like St. Paul.
First, we will be blinded to what we thought we saw so clearly. This is the phase of spiritual growth described by the mystics as "the dark night of the soul" -- when former certainties are shaken.
An example would be: when life loses its lustre. Life loses its spark.
Like one of the many dull, rainy days this spring, grayness is all around us. The job is just a job. The chores are just chores. Things you normally do for fun don't provide the same zip.
Now when you feel spiritually dull, the solution isn't necessarily to do something different. Rather, like Paul, you have to see differently.
"Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?" Up to that moment, Saul felt he had very good reasons to destroy the followers of Christ: They were heretics.
Saul held his belief quite strongly; otherwise, he wouldn't have gone around inflicting misery on people he didn't know. False beliefs can be held just as fervently as true beliefs.
So Saul had to learn that the strength of his belief was irrelevant to its truth. He had to endure blindness in order to see. In effect, his former false beliefs had to be blocked out, so that the scales would fall from his eyes.
Reading church history is often painful because you're confronted again and again with all the false beliefs Christians held -- about slavery, about women, about science, and so on. Historical study should remind us that it is very likely that right now, today, we are still holding fast to bad ideas!
That realization can be sobering. It should be sobering! It should remind us that everyone has prejudices.
We all have something to learn about the Way of God for us. If we don't get sudden illuminations from the sky, we can at least profit from the subtle proddings of the Spirit. And those proddings toward honesty and truth are usually there -- right there in our lives -- whether we pay attention to them or not!
So we can all offer the prayer assigned for this Sunday, "O God, whose blessed Son made himself known to his disciples in the breaking of bread: Open the eyes of our faith, that we may behold him in all his redeeming work."
Amen.