H. Stephen Shoemaker
Myers Park Baptist Church
Charlotte, North Carolina
April 25, 2004
AND HE APPEARED ALSO TO ME:
THE CONVERSION AND CALL OF THE APOSTLE PAUL
Text: Acts 9:1-20
“And he appeared also to me.” Paul was describing what happened on the road to
Damascus, and he called it a resurrection appearance:
And he appeared, last of all, to me
as one untimely born. For I
am the least of the apostles,
unfit to be called an apostle
because I persecuted the church
of God.
(I Corinthians 15:8-9)
It was the pivotal event of his conversion, a conversion which changed him from a
perpetrator of sacred violence, a murderous zealot, against the young church into an apostle of
Christ, a missionary theologian more responsible than anyone else for the spread of Christianity
through the Mediterranean world. One day Osama bin Laden, the next day Billy Graham.
Though he did not look much like Billy Graham: One ancient document describes him as short,
bowlegged, bald with a large crooked nose and eyebrows that meet in the middle. Talk about the
need of an extreme make over! It was said of him in scripture: His physical appearance is not
much but his letters are powerful!
Paul called what happened an “apocalypse” of Jesus, a revelation, an unveiling of Jesus to
him. And he named it a resurrection appearance , though it happened two-three years after
Easter. Maybe Jesus is still making resurrection appearances.
I
Paul began one letter: “Paul an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God.” It was
certainly not by his will. His own will was the fitful willfulness of the false self – which sent him
“breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord.”
Then amid blinding light the Risen Lord appeared to him and called him to be one of his
apostles – his apostle to the Gentiles. Called by blinding light and amazing grace.
But I’m getting ahead of myself. The transformation of Saul of Tarsus had already
begun. (Parenthetically, Saul was his Hebrew name and Paul his Greek name. It was his
fluency, his identity, in two cultures, Hebrew and Hellenistic, which uniquely equipped him for
his mission.)
But there would have been no mission without a life transformation, a conversion. And
his conversion, like most of ours, was a drama with several acts. It happened over a period of
time, and the first act was Paul’s involvement in the lynching death of Stephen.
II
Stephen was a dynamic leader in the Hellenist wing of the new Christian movement.
Warned to stop preaching, he kept on preaching and one day was stoned to his death by a
religious lynching party. The leader of the party and authorizer of his death was Paul. The text
says that the people who killed Stephen laid their cloaks at Paul’s feet while they hurled their
rocks.
What Paul observed that day in the dying Stephen must have been seared into his heart
and mind. As he was being stoned to death Stephen prayed two prayers which were the echo of
Jesus’ own prayers from the cross.
Jesus prayed, “Abba, into your hands I commit my spirit.” And he prayed, “Abba,
forgive them for they know not what they do.”
Stephen prayed aloud, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.” And he prayed “Lord, do not hold
this sin against them.”
Two prayers, one of trust and relinquishment into the hands of God, the other forgiveness
for one’s killers. These had to make a huge impact on Saul. Saul first saw the face of the Risen
Christ on the face of the dying Stephen.
III
Now we go to the Damascus Road experience. “Breathing threats and murder,” Paul was
headed to Damascus ready for a new round of assaults on the young Christian movement.
Then it happened. Light flashed from heaven. Paul fell to the ground. He heard a voice
saying, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?” Paul stuttered back, “Who are you, Lord?”
The voice said, “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting. Rise and enter the city, and you
will be told what to do.” Paul was probably not used to being told what to do.
Flannery O’Connor wrote in a letter:
I reckon the Lord knew that the
only way to make a Christian out
of that one was to knock him
off his horse.
When Paul rose from the ground he opened his eyes but could not see. Paul later testified
in a letter what the Book of Acts did not report: Paul not only heard the voice of the Risen One
but also amid that light saw him. And having seen him, he could no longer see anything.
He had received what one has called “the wound of blessing,” and having received it, he
rose and went to Damascus.
Moments before his mind knew no doubt, his heart no ounce of pity, his step was swift
and his eyes ablaze.
Now his mind is full of wondering, his heart is pierced with arrows he does not
understand, his eyes are blinded and his step halting and unsure. He is led by the hand. Have
you ever had to be led by the hand?
Luther wrote: “Like a blinded horse he was led.” Before he was a blindered horse, seeing
only what he was determined to see. Now he sees nothing. Like a blinded horse he is led.
You may have had those moments when you can no longer see the way. And here comes
a hand to lead you. You feel it, you cannot see it. You cannot see anything. This may be the
only way we ever let ourselves be led. It is grace that leads us.
He leadeth me, he leadeth me
by his own hand he leadeth me.
And yet, the conversation if Paul is not yet complete. Just as it did not begin on the
Damascus Road but on the road where Stephen was stoned, it was not yet finished here on the
road to Damascus.
IV
The next act happened three days later in Damascus.
The once proud and certain Paul was led blinded by the hand into Damascus. For three
days he did not see; he had nothing to eat and drink.
Surely the news had spread throughout the city that something terrible had happened to
Saul of Tarsus. If you had been a member of that tiny little house church in Damascus, what
would you have thought, have done, upon hearing that news? Gone to church, fallen on your
knees and thanked God for divine justice!? There is a God! An enemy of church had been
struck blind. Praise God from whom all blessings flow. Saul had been felled by God!
But there was one in that house church that acted differently. He received a vision from
the Risen Christ too! The Christ of the vision said, “Rise, go to the street called Straight. There
in the house of Judas is Saul of Tarsus. He is blind and is praying. Lay hands on him that he
might receive his sight.”
The response of Ananias started something like: “Lord, this is madness. Look at the evil
he has done. Let’s keep him blind. You can’t mean it.” Hearing the name Saul of Tarsus would
have been like our hearing Osama bin Laden.
But the Risen Christ said to
Ananias:
Go, for he is an instrument I
have chosen to bring my
name before Gentiles, kings,
the people of Israel.
And Ananias went and became the embodiment of an incomprehensible mercy, of a
compassion so deep it heals. He entered the house and calling Saul “brother,” of all things, said:
Brother Saul, I am here because
the Lord Jesus that appeared
to you on your way here sent
me that you may regain
your sight and receive the
Holy Spirit.
Saul, blind three days, now felt hands laid on his head. He heard a stranger’s voice call
him “brother” and pray for him to see and to be filled with the Holy Spirit.
It is like the prayer we pray every Tuesday night as we lay hands on one another:
Spirit of the Living God
present with us now
enter you body, mind and spirit
and heal you of all that harms you.
In Jesus’ name.
Amen
And the text says that “something like scales fell from his eyes” and he regained his sight.
“Something like scales” – the language of miracle is always the language of mystery.
And what Paul saw first when he opened his eyes was the face of
Ananias, or was it
Stephen’s face or the Lord’s face?
What he saw was what he would later call, “the light of the glory of God on the face of
Christ”– and on the face of those called to be God’s Christs in the world.
And the text says in beautifully economic language: “He rose and was baptized and took
bread and was strengthened.” Which means someone was there to help him up, and to baptize
him, and to make food for him, to be family to him, to be “church” to him.
Does conversion ever happen without some kind of community? Some church around us
to be family to us; some family around to be church to us?
V
Paul’s conversion was a kind of resurrection. Resurrection is what God is up to in us.
The text says for three days he was blind and had no food or drink.
And his baptism was a sign of this resurrection, from death to life, from blindness to
sight.
I once was lost but now I’m found,
was blind but now I see.
What died? And what was born? What did he finally see when “something like scales”
fell from his eyes?
Sometimes we put theological words to this conversion: Like changing from a Religion of
Law to a Religion of Grace. That’s one way to put it.
Let me put it another way. He changed from “I want to be right” to “I want to be
truthful.” (It was Rowan Williams who first made that distinction to me.)
That’s a huge inner shift. It is like death to life. This desperate need to be right is what is
killing us and what turns us into killers.
What if you believed that your life, your worth, your salvation did not depend on your
being right?
What if you believed that the truth about your life would not kill you? That the truth of
your life is held in grace?
Someone once said, not glibly, “I’m glad you can’t die from embarrassment.” The truth
of your life will not kill you; it can set you free. Do you want to be right, or do you want to be
free?
A religion of having to be right led Paul to the path of sacred violence against others. It
always does, in some form or another, because the shadow, the hardest truth about ourselves,
which we cannot face in ourselves we project onto others. And those “others” we then cast out,
put down, shun, excommunicate, exclude, dehumanize, demonize, call evil, kill.
But when that shift inside begins to happen, from wanting to be right to wanting to be
truthful, we become part of God’s program of wholeness and healing for the world.
Don’t you get tired of having to be right? It’s exhausting business. It’s not what it is
cracked up to be. And it is blindness.
It blinds you to the truth about your life held in grace. And it blinds you to the beauty and
truth all around you, if you could only see. The beauty and truth of every person around you
which you cannot see because you are so busy projecting your shadow onto them.
Would you then let Christ lay hands on you? Christ, or someone like Ananius whom
Christ has sent?
Hear them say: Brother, sister, the Lord has called me to lay hands on you that you may
receive your sight and receive the Spirit of God.
We sit there blinded and weak. We hear the words, we feel their warm hands on our
heads. The warmth spreads.
And something like scales falls from our eyes.
