Acts 9:1-20
May 4, 2025
The first car that I ever purchased
for myself, by myself, completely by myself, was my Ford Fusion. It was the car
that I was driving when I first came here to the church. I drove the heck out
of it, then I passed it onto Phoebe who drove it not quite into the ground, but
pretty close. We made that car go for as long as it possibly could. As I said,
this was the first car I ever purchased just me. Before that I had others along
to help me. But I bought this car all on my own. It was a momentous step for me,
and I was proud that I negotiated it by myself. I did call my dad a few times
to get his thoughts, but he was not there with me during the negotiations. It
was just me and I was proud of me and proud of the car. But I hadn’t been
driving it very long when I realized there was one design issue that I didn’t
like. That car had terrible blind spots. I bought it before backup cameras were
commonplace, and I quickly learned that I had to be extra cautious when I was backing
out or changing lanes, because other cars could zip up on me and I wouldn’t see
them until they were right there. Every car has some blind spots, but the blind
spots on that car could be challenging.
Blind spots are not reserved for
vehicles only. We humans also seem to have built-in blind spots. I won’t make
the claim that these blind spots are design flaws, but everything that goes
into making us us – our families, our culture, our education, our
region, our entire context – influences how we view the world around us, and
these things can contribute to our blind spots. We see and interact with the
world through particular lenses; and while those lenses allow us to see so
much, they also make it easy to block things out as well. Blind spots.
When I was studying this passage
from Acts, I thought I knew everything about it. After all, the story of Saul’s
conversion experience on the road to Damascus is one I know well. At least I
thought I did. I don’t remember a time when I didn’t know or was aware of this
story. I remember seeing this story enacted on felt boards when I was a little
girl in Sunday school. And felt boards were the height of technology when I was
a kid. I probably heard this story read in picture books. It’s just one that
I’ve always known – or thought I did. Here is the way I have always heard it.
Saul, who was the bad guy because he
hated Christians, was on the road to Damascus. He had permission from the
church leaders – also bad guys – to round up even more of Jesus’ followers when
he reached Damascus. But while he was on the way, he was suddenly blinded by a
great light, the light, from heaven. The light was so bright and so strong it
knocked him down, and he was lying, blind, on the ground when a voice spoke to
him from the heavens. It was Jesus’ voice. And Jesus asked Saul, this bad guy,
why Saul was persecuting him. Saul did not understand. He asked who it was that
talking to him from this great heavenly, blinding light. Jesus answered that it
was Jesus, and then he told Saul to get up and go to the city and he would be
told what to do. Saul, who could not see because he had been blinded by the
light, was helped by the others around him and taken to Damascus. A man named
Ananias, who had also heard instructions from Jesus, went and met him. When
Ananias laid hands on Saul, and told Saul that he had been sent by Jesus so
that Saul could regain his sight and be filled with the Holy Spirit, scales
fell from Saul’s eyes. And, just as Ananias said, he could see again. Only this
time, he really could see. He could see that Jesus was the true Son of God. He
could see that he was now called to a different way, the way of discipleship,
the way of following. He could really see. Saul, the bad guy,
would be transformed to Paul, the good guy. In being blinded by the light, his
blind spots about Christians were gone.
As I said, I thought I knew this
story frontwards, backwards, and sideways. I’ve preached it. I’ve studied it,
and Saul was always the bad guy. But then I read an essay by a biblical scholar
who pointed out that Saul did not consider himself to be a bad guy. Saul was
doing what he thought he was called to do. He thought he was ridding the faith
of corruption. He thought he was purifying the faith from evil. He thought he
was saving the Jewish people, God’s chosen ones, from being led astray and led
to their destruction. Perhaps the first thought that crossed his mind when he
was knocked down and blinded by the light, when he heard Jesus’ voice speaking
from heaven, was, “Who me? I’m not persecuting anybody. I’m doing God’s work.”
Because maybe, just maybe, Saul thought he was the good guy.
This new aspect on Saul reveals two
things to me: Saul had his own blind spots; he was beset by them. And I also
have a big blind spot when it comes to this story. I thought I knew it so well,
but how could I have never considered that Saul thought that he was in the
right and doing the right thing? Saul thought he was executing God’s will. Saul
probably thought he was the good guy. He had a big blind spot, and when it
comes to Saul, so do I.
I know that I have many more blind
spots than just this one concerning Saul. At this point in my sermons, I will
often say, “And I don’t think I’m alone in this.” I’m going to say that now. I
don’t think I’m alone in this. I don’t think I’m alone in having blind spots.
We all have blind spots. When my eyes were opened to this revelation about
Saul, I realized that this story has many more layers to it than I’ve given it
credit for.
It is a story of transformation,
true. It is a story about God working through unlikely people, true. After all,
Ananias and the other believers knew about Saul and didn’t want anything to do
with him. But perhaps there is another layer of meaning to this story as well.
Perhaps it is also a cautionary tale. It warns us of the dangers of thinking
that we know God’s mind and that we are privy to every working of God’s heart.
It reminds us that because we don’t know fully, we need to check ourselves when
we try to decide what is pure and what is not; and more importantly who is pure
and who is not. Saul was on a purity campaign. He wanted to get rid of the
negative elements he believed were leading Gods’ people astray. He thought he
was a good guy, a faithful guy. He thought he knew what God’s will was, only to
find out that he had been wrong. He found out that he had been blind long
before he was blinded by the light.
Our blind spots can cause us to
wreak havoc on one another and on God’s creation. The Church as a body, an
institution, has had many blind spots and caused great harm because of them.
We, none of us, and I’m pointing the finger at myself, can know the fullness of
God’s heart, and the bible is full of stories about God working through the
unlikeliest of people. Saul is one of many. But in saying this, I’m not saying
that everyone is just all okay and groovy and if we think someone is wrong
about something, it is only because of a blind spot on our part. No. People do
wrong things, terrible, evil things. And we are called to speak out against
evil. But we are also called to remember that we have blind spots, all of us,
and that we only see in part. That’s why being a disciple is so difficult.
Recognizing that we all have blind
spots and that there are many other perspectives is not an excuse for allowing
injustice to continue. But calling out injustice, working against it, is not
the same as trying to rid a community or the world of people we think are
wrong. Blind spots, when taken to the extreme, have resulted in some of the
greatest atrocities in history.
Yet acknowledging that we have blind
spots, we all have blind spots, is the first step in seeing that God’s will and
God’s understanding is so much bigger than we can grasp. Anne Lamott, one of my
personal heroes, wrote that she knows she has made God in her image when it
turns out that God hates all the same people she does. Blind spots.
Realizing that we have blind spots
and accepting that God works through people we consider to be unlikely is the
fist step in trusting God more than we trust in ourselves. Recognizing and
acknowledging that we have our own blind spots, that we cannot fully see what
God sees, sit to remember that we are made in God’s image and not the other way
around. We all have blind spots. But the good news is that God does not. God
sees what we cannot see. God understands what we cannot understand. And the
really good news is that God sees us, sees our every flaw, sees our sometimes
misguided good intentions, sees in us what we cannot always see in ourselves.
God sees the whorl of God’s fingerprint in us, all of us. Because in spite of
our blind spots, our flaws, our missteps, our sins, God sees us and loves us.
May we do our best to overcome our blind spots and see others and ourselves in
the same way.
Let all of God’s children say,
“Alleluia.”
Amen.
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