Conversion of Saint Paul — Sermon by Rev. Canon Bryan Biba

Let us

pray. Lord, may my speech and my message

not be plausible words of human wisdom,

but a demonstration of the spirit and of

power. So our faith may not rest in the

wisdom of men but in the power and the

love and the care of Jesus the good

shepherd through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Amen. You may be seated.

Jesus Christ, the good shepherd, is

always leading

us. No matter where we are, no matter

what we experience in life, no matter

where we find

ourselves, Jesus, the good shepherd, is

always leading

us. But he's always leading us in the

same direction. No matter where we are,

it's always the same

goal, our

transformation. Jesus, the good

shepherd,

longs to change

us, to lead us on paths of righteousness

for his name's sake, out of the darkness

of this world, the darkness of our

hearts into the light and glory of his

kingdom. All are welcomed in the kingdom

of God.

All are welcomed into the fold of the

good shepherd. Yet we cannot inhabit the

kingdom of God and remain as we

are. We must be changed,

transformed, made

new. This friends is what the

resurrection of Jesus is all about. For

too many Christians, the resurrection of

Jesus is simply a hope for life after

death. A hope for the future. But in

truth, Jesus, the good

shepherd, desires to give us

resurrection life now, today, to change

our hearts, to transform our lives today

if we will let him lead us. His goal is

to make the dead parts of our lives

alive again, beginning with our

hearts. But Jesus doesn't stop there. He

also longs to make the dead parts of our

world alive again, the dead parts of

creation, the dead parts of human

society, to resurrect them in his

likeness, beginning with the church. So

if we long to see transformation in our

world, transformation in the places and

people in our

lives, God always begins with the hearts

of his people, the hearts of his church,

his sheep, the sheep of his

flock. But how does this happen? How

does Jesus, the good shepherd, transform

our hearts, making them alive again?

Well, that's what uh our reading from

Acts 9 is all about. There's perhaps no

greater example of the power of the

resurrection to transform us than the

conversion of Saul. We'll be looking at

this text in detail together. Open up

with me in your Bibles to Acts chapter

Acts 9 · chapter mention

9.

Jesus, the good shepherd, demonstrates

his resurrection power by transforming

Saul of Tarsus, the most unlikely person

imaginable. Right off the bat, chapter

9:1, we're told by Luke, "But Saul,

still breathing threats and murder

against the disciples of the Lord, went

to the high priest." And you got to ask

yourself, why is Saul so angry? Why is

he breathing threats of murder against

the disciples? Is he just a bad person?

He's just

mean? No. If we want to understand

what's motivating Paul, we have to get

into his biography. And thanks be to

God, he writes in his letters reflecting

back on his life in multiple places,

giving us insight into the state of his

heart before his conversion. First place

we'll go is uh Philippians chapter 3

Philippians 3:4

verse

4. Paul is being challenged by the

Philippian church there. Uh many are

claiming he's not a good apostle. He

doesn't have what it takes. He doesn't

have a good resume. And so he gets into

his resume a bit. If anyone else thinks

he has reason for confidence in the

flesh, I have more. circumcised on the

eighth day, of the people of Israel, of

the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of

Hebrews, as to the law, a Pharisee, as

to zeal, a persecutor of the church, as

to righteousness under the law,

blameless. Paul describes himself as a

Pharisee. Saul studied the law of Moses

in Jerusalem under the leading scholars

of his day. He belonged to a school of

thought, the Pharisees, that advocated

the necessity of Israel's

distinctiveness as a

nation. For Pharisees like Saul, all of

Israel's problems, all their social

problems, all their political problems

were theological in

nature. The people had been unfaithful

to the Lord. And that's why the Romans

occupied them and oppressed them.

They were unfaithful to the covenant God

had made with them. Israel, remember,

was called to be a chosen nation, a

people set apart for the Lord. They were

given the law as a marker of their set

aartness. And yet, as Pharisees like

Saul read the Old Testament, they saw

time and time again how over time,

Israel became entangled with their

neighbors, entangled with the gentile

pagans around them. thus losing their

distinctiveness and undermining their

faithfulness to the Lord and his

covenant. Most recent example of that

was the exile when the people of Israel

were sent away into foreign lands and

intermixed with all kinds of other

Gentiles. This was at the heart of the

Makabian revolt only a few decades

earlier.

Pharisees like Saul believed that the

only way to overthrow the Romans and

restore Israel's greatness was to return

to the

distinctiveness of their

fathers. Pharisees believed that by

keeping every jot and tit of the law,

Israelites would prove their

faithfulness to the Lord and his

covenant. And only then would the

Messiah come and save them. They had to

prove that they belonged first in order

for God to act on their

behalf. Saul was a Pharisee. This is

what he

believed. But you can't get from

Pharisee emphasizing the distinctiveness

of Israel and the need for the law to

murdering people, right? There needs to

be another step there. And then we see

that step in uh Galatians chapter 1.

Galatians 1 · chapter mention

There Paul again describes his resume.

He gives some insight into his

biography. Galatians

Galatians 1:13

1:13 he writes, "For you have heard of

my former life in Judaism, how I

persecuted the church of God violently

and tried to destroy it. I was advancing

in Judaism beyond many of my own age

among my people. So extremely zealous

was I for the traditions of my fathers."

We heard that word earlier in

Philippians 3. The word zealot. It's a

technical

term. Saul was not only a Pharisee, but

he was also a zealot. Zealots had a long

tradition in Judaism. Going back to

Numbers 25. There we see the first

zealot, Phineas, who was a priest, the

grandson of Aaron. He used violence to

keep the nation pure from corruption.

Famously, Israelite men uh intermarried

with some Gentiles. And when Phineas saw

this, he took a spear and killed both

the man and his gentile

wife. Following in the tradition of

Phineas, many Jews felt that the only

way to maintain Israel's distinctiveness

was to use violence.

In particular, Zealots targeted any Jews

who intermarried with non-Jews. They

were not only lawb breakakers, but

traitors. They were

compromisers. Jesus, you'll remember,

had a zealot among his 12 disciples,

Simon the Zealot. And indeed, in the

stories we have of Simon, you could see

his aggressiveness kind of coming out.

He's a very black or white kind of guy

as zealots were in that

day. So in short, Saul was a Pharisee

and a zealot. He believed that he could

usher in the kingdom of heaven by

violently enforcing obedience to the

law.

Now we can better understand why Saul

did what he did. Why he was breathing

threats of murder against the disciples

of the Lord. The emerging movement of

Jews who claimed that Jesus of Nazareth

was the Messiah was a fundamental threat

to everything Saul the Pharisee and

zealot believed. From his perspective,

Jesus broke the Sabbath commandment, the

distinctive commandment of Israel's law.

Jesus ate with sinners. Jesus welcomed

Gentiles. Christians who followed their

Lord were compromisers. They were

polluting the nation. Their movement was

a

cancer. The only way to fight cancer is

to cut it off.

That's exactly what Saul sought to do.

And so we learn in Acts 9, Saul, who

just recently got done participating in

the murder of Steven goes to the high

priest and asks for official documents

giving him permission to go to another

nation to Syria to hunt down followers

of the

way so that he can bring them into

Jerusalem to be killed.

This is where the transformation of Saul

begins. He gets those letters. He sends

off on the road to Damascus with the

spirit and fire of zealatry and

obedience to the law in his heart. And

what happens in verse three? Now he went

on his way. He approached Damascus and

suddenly a light from heaven shone

around him.

And falling to the ground, he heard a

voice saying to him, "Saul,

Saul, why are you persecuting

me?" Our transformation always begins

the same way with an encounter with

Jesus. Jesus encounters Saul on the road

and confronts him with a question. What

are you doing? Why are you persecuting

me? And it's a strange question, right?

Because Jesus is ascended to the right

hand of the father. He's shining in

glory. Right? How is Paul Saul

persecuting Jesus? Well, as Paul will

write in first Corinthians, we

Christians are members of Christ's

body. We mediate the presence of the

ascended Christ in the world. We are his

hands and his feet. The church is a kind

of extension of the incarnation by the

power of the Holy Spirit working in us.

Paul would write this later, but Saul

here in Acts 9 does not understand this

that indeed if he persecutes followers

of Jesus, he is persecuting

Jesus. Verse 5, he said, "Who are you,

Lord?" And he said, "I am Jesus whom you

are

persecuting." Saul knows this is the

Lord. He knows this is Adonai, the God

of Israel, speaking to

him. And then he hears what he couldn't

imagine. That the Lord is Jesus. That

the persecute his followers is to

persecute him. Saul's entire world has

been turned upside

down. Here on the road to Damascus, Saul

has an encounter with reality. He's

living in a false world. And now in the

face of Jesus, he sees things as they

really

are. Jesus is the kingdom of heaven

embodied. Saul, the Pharisee and zealot,

has been living a life opposed to the

Lord, opposed to Jesus and his kingdom.

But there on the road to Damascus, he's

confronted with the truth. He must learn

to live a new kind of life, to see the

world in a new way. to read the

scriptures of his fathers in a different

way than he was

taught. I love Luke's insight in in

verse 7. Uh Saul's told by Jesus, arise,

enter the city, you'll be told what to

do. And we're told that the men

traveling with him stood speechless.

They heard the voice, but they didn't

see who was speaking. This is a kind of

a mystical experience. Something

happened. They don't really understand

what is going

on. So verse 8, Saul rose from the

ground and although his eyes were

opened, he saw nothing. So they led him

by the hand and brought him into

Damascus. For three days he was without

sight and neither ate nor drank. Saul

experiences physical blindness. This is

a physical manifestation of his

spiritual condition. Saul the Pharisee

and the zealot is blind. Blind to the

truth of Jesus Christ. Blind to the

meaning of scripture. In order for Saul

to see, he must die to

himself, die to his phariseism, to his

zealatry, and rise again. And you know,

it's a kind of death and resurrection

because Luke gives us a hint that he was

blind for three days. They didn't eat

for three days. This is a new kind of

resurrection for

Saul. This brings us to one of the

unsung heroes of the New Testament,

Ananas. I love Ananas. I wish we knew

more about him. We don't really know

much about him at all. We know he's a

follower of the way. He was likely a

Jew. We know he's living in Damascus.

But the most important thing about

Ananas is that he's

obedient.

Ananas said we're learn in verse 10. The

Lord said to him in the

vision,

Ananas, here I am Lord. Echoing the

little boy Samuel in the temple.

And the Lord said to him, "Rise, go to

the street called Straight at the house

of Judas and look for a man of Tarsus

named Saul." And you could imagine

Ananas stomach sinking, right? Pit in

his stomach. Saul the

murderer, the one who killed Stephen. Go

to

him. And behold, he is praying. He has

seen in a vision a man named Ananas come

in and lay his hands on him that he

might regain

sight. Saul the Pharisee and zealot has

devoted his life to destroying his

enemies and now he's been humbled by the

Almighty

God. He must learn to suffer, Jesus

says, for the sake of his

name. Ananas shows great courage. He

obeys the call of

God and God uses him to heal his

enemy. What great love, what great

obedience. And because of Ananas, the

world will never be the

same. Just listen to the desperation in

his voice. Verse 13, Lord, I'd heard

from many about this man, how much evil

he's done to your saints. He's coming

for me. He's out to get me. You want me

to go to him? But the Lord says, "Go. He

is the chosen instrument of mine to

carry my name before the Gentiles,

kings, children of men. I will show him

how much he must

suffer." And that's what Ananas does. He

goes to

Saul. He speaks to him. Verse 17,

brother Saul, this man, this murderer

who was an enemy, now he's a brother. He

lays hands on him. The Lord Jesus

appeared to you on the road, has sent me

to regain your sight and be filled with

the Holy

Spirit. And through the laying on of

hands, through the prayer of

Ananas, something like scales fall

from Saul's eyes. the veil is taken

away. He not only regains his physical

sight, but now he has spiritual sight.

He sees things as they really are. He

knows the truth of the gospel. He

confesses Jesus as Lord. And we're told

that he rose and was baptized. And

taking food, he was

strengthened as a symbol of this new

life. Later on, he will take a new name.

No longer Saul, but Paul, the apostle

that we know him to

be. His

transformation is

complete. So, what are we to make of the

conversion of St.

Paul? I think there's two things we can

learn

here. First, transformation is about the

heart.

Jesus the good shepherd desires to

transform us by the power of his

resurrection. And while this

transformation is holistic, it involves

body, mind, soul, spirit, our emotions,

our will, it always begins with the

heart. God has to change our hearts in

order to change the rest of us.

The problem with Saul is that he loves

the wrong things or he loves the right

things in the wrong way. And friends,

that is the problem with us too. The

desires of our hearts are all

corrupted. We want the things we

shouldn't want and the things we should

want, we don't want. As Paul would write

in Romans

7, Saul the Pharisee desires control and

conformity. He loves the truth of God

more than God himself. He has forgotten

that the law, which is a good thing, is

a means to the love of God. And as a

result, Saul's

heart has made conformity to the law an

idol. Saul must be set free from his

desire for

control. And Saul, the zealot, he

desires power and purity. He loves the

holiness of God more than the people of

God. He's forgotten that the end of

holiness is relationship, communion with

God and with neighbor. And as a result,

Saul's heart has made purity of God's

people an

idol. Saul must be set free from his

desire for power.

The transformation of the heart always

begins in the same way with an encounter

with the living Christ. In Jesus, we see

the love of God made flesh, the love to

those who are undeserving.

Jesus exploses the blindness of our

idolatry and shines the light of his

resurrection into the darkness of our

hearts so that we might

see our

soul is healed through union with God by

the Holy

Spirit. You might say that Jesus takes

our soloulish hearts and transforms them

into polish hearts. He takes our hard

hearts and makes them

soft. But the second thing we see here

is that transformation is possible for

everyone. I mean, if Jesus can transform

Saul's heart, then no one is beyond

saving. No one is too far gone. God

loves all people. He desires not the

death of sinners, but that they may turn

from their wickedness and live.

Jesus can transform both the most

committed Pharisee and the most ruthless

zealot, the most hopeless, homeless

addict, and the most proud, successful

professional.

Jesus can transform the most radical

left-wing snowflake and the most extreme

right-wing nut

job and the most hypocritical,

self-righteous, religious person and the

most hostile, irreverent secular

atheist. No one is beyond the bounds of

God's

transformation. If Jesus can change

Saul's heart, he can change anyone.

So be careful when you're tempted to

dismiss someone as

irredeemable, as your enemy,

hopeless. Instead, consider how God

might use you to facilitate the healing

of your enemy's

heart. You know, Phariseism and zealotry

have made a comeback in our world today.

If you don't believe me, just log on to

social media.

There are many Christians today who

believe that we can usher in the kingdom

of God through our own efforts. That if

we get the right leaders out of power

and the get the right leaders in power,

right? If those leaders pass the right

kind of laws or pass the right kind of

executive orders, if we have the right

kind of theology or the right kind of

morality, if we defeat those who

disagree with us, then the kingdom of

God will come. Right?

This kind of thinking demands complete

purity, ideological purity, theological

purity with no tolerance for

disscent. Those who disagree with us

must be

eliminated. They're a cancer. We have to

cut them

out. Friends, this is soloulish

thinking. This is not the thinking of a

soft heart.

These are the desires of a hard heart.

And all of us have those desires if we

look down deep

enough. It's easy to externalize our

fears, to blame someone else for our

problems. And while hear me, there is

indeed evil in the world, the conversion

of St. Paul teaches us that the

transformation of the world begins in

your

heart. In our hearts. You can't change

the world unless you're willing to be

changed yourself.

When we encounter Jesus, we are exposed

the darkness in our life. He shines the

light of resurrection in our souls. He

removes the sinful logs out of our eye

so that we might see our neighbor, our

enemy, clearly in the light of God's

love.

The real problem with Pharisees and

zealots is that they are blind. They're

blind to their own faults and they're

blind to the goodness of their

opponents. They see themselves as

completely in the right with no

possibility of being wrong. This is how

Saul saw himself and he needed to be

changed. It is the cross of Christ which

exposes our self-righteousness.

revealing the truth of our

sin, thus beginning the transformation

of our hearts. And as we regularly

encounter Jesus in prayer, in holy

scripture, in the sacraments, in one

another, our hard solish hearts are

changed into softer, polish hearts.

We become people who like Ananas are

even willing to facilitate the healing

of our

enemies. So as I close, I want us to

take some time to reflect honestly in

prayer about the ways that Jesus, the

good shepherd, longs to change you.

Consider in the stillness and silence of

this

moment how Jesus, the good shepherd,

might long to transform your

heart. Ask the Holy

Where are the hard solish parts of our

heart that need to be softened by the

love of God?

Holy

Spirit, crucify the Pharisee and zealot

in

us so that we might truly follow the

leading of the good

shepherd into your

kingdom. Amen.