Distracted

Luke 10:38-42

July 17, 2022

 

Chef Ina Garten, also known as the Barefoot Contessa on the Food Network, once told a story about the first dinner party she ever hosted. She was still a relatively young bride, a novice cook, and she thought that it would be a good idea to make all of her guests individual omelets.

            As she described it, that good idea turned out to be a terrible one. Omelets aren’t a hard dish to prepare, but they take a few minutes, even for the most experienced of cooks. Ina realized too late that making one for everyone at the party meant that she was trapped in the kitchen for most of the evening. That was the worst part about it, she said. Ina never got to spend any time with her guests. Instead, she stood in front of the stove all night, while her husband visited with their friends. At that moment, the Barefoot Contessa made a solemn vow. From that point on whenever she entertained, she would make sure she could prepare things ahead. She would never again ignore her guests while she worked in the kitchen all night long. Ina said she would make sure that she could prepare most of her meal in advance, and then she’d have maximum time with her friends. I’m not sure her show is even on the Food Network anymore, but if you have ever had a chance to watch it, you know that she has been true to the vow she made. Every recipe she offers, every entertaining idea she gives, is about what can be done well before the guests arrive. When the guests arrive for the meal, she is there with them, present and in the moment.

            I doubt Ina Garten would have described herself as a Martha or as Mary. But at her first dinner party, she was doing what we might call a “Martha”. She was in the kitchen, cooking, working, distracted by making the omelets for her guests, and unable to enjoy herself, her friends, or the food she was working so hard to prepare.

            I will confess to you that I struggle with this passage from Luke. I struggle with what seems to be the very derogatory tone in Jesus’ voice when he speaks to Martha. And if that derogatory and dismissive tone was not in Jesus’ voice, then it has been added over the years by interpreters and preachers of all sorts. You know the tone I’m speaking of, the one an adult might use when speaking to a naughty child.

            “Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things; there is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part, which will not be taken away from her.”

            Martha wasn’t a child. And she wasn’t breaking any rules either. In fact, she was doing what was expected of her by her culture, by the society she lived in, by the men who had gathered at her home expecting a meal. Martha was doing exactly what she had been taught to do her entire life, exactly what she was told was her duty to do. Hospitality was paramount and being hospitable took work. Martha was doing the work of hospitality.

            But Mary was not. In any other situation, Mary would have been seen as shirking her duty. And I can imagine – actually, I think I know – how Martha felt. I can feel the tension and stress rising in her. I can feel her growing frustration and anger. I can hear her slamming utensils and cookware around as she worked. And I can see her catching glimpses of her sister, sitting at the feet of Jesus, and not helping.

            I struggle with this passage because Martha too often gets a bad rap, and Mary gets all the praise. Many years ago a very wise woman said to me that if all the Marthas of the church sat down, the church would fall down shortly thereafter. And nine years ago, when I was attending the CREDO conference for ministers, one of our faculty members preached on this passage at our worship service. She stood before the communion table and commented that all of us gathered there were used to standing before the communion table, calling people to gather for the sacrament, calling people to remember Jesus as they partake of the bread and the cup. But then she said, the next time you stand before this table, you also need to remember the person or persons that prepared it, set it, and made it ready. That person was probably a Martha.

            Debi Thomas wrote in a commentary about this passage that she was frustrated with Jesus not about encouraging Martha to do what was really necessary, but in not pushing the disciples gathered to step up and help so Martha could do what was really necessary. As Thomas wrote, Martha’s anxiety did not come from a vacuum. Her anxiety and worry go back to all the expectations laid on her, the expectations that I spoke of earlier. Thomas said that she would have been thrilled to read that Jesus told Peter to go chop the vegetables, and for James to knead the bread, and for Andrew and Bartholomew to set the table. After all, Jesus was already going against the tradition by allowing Mary – a woman ­– to sit at his feet as a disciple would. What would the next 2,000 years have looked like, asks Thomas, if Jesus had pushed the men to do something so counter-cultural as well?

            But that didn’t happen, or if it did, it has been redacted from this story, so we must deal with what we have before us. And what we have before us is Jesus telling Martha, not as a parent to a child, but maybe as a teacher to a disciple, that she has missed the point. She is worried and distracted by many things, but the only thing necessary in that moment was being with Jesus, sitting at his feet, and learning from him. That was the only thing necessary.

            According to scholarship, the root of the word for worry is “strangle” or “to be seized by the throat.” The root of the word, distracted, is “a separation or a tearing apart of something that is meant to be whole.” Literally, Martha is being strangled by her responsibilities and her distraction is a fracturing or a fragmenting of who is supposed to be, who she is called to be.

            Does that resonate with you as much as it does with me? I know that sometimes my worry and my anxiety make me feel like I can’t breathe. I can’t make my body take a deep and restorative breath. I am too worried, I am too anxious, too strangled by my fears and anxieties and expectations to fill my body with the oxygen it requires. And in turn, my worries and anxieties, much less my responsibilities render me so distracted that I don’t feel whole. I just feel like bits and pieces of my self are being flung hither and yon.

            Strangled and torn apart. Worried and distracted. Martha was being strangled by her worries and torn apart by her distractions. She needed only one thing, and that was to be with Jesus. She needed only one thing, and that was to be single-minded in her pursuit to sit at Jesus’ feet and learn from him.

            When I was a student intern in a church in Virginia, I was invited by the men’s bible study and fellowship group to give a presentation about my trip to the Middle East. They had a monthly dinner, and each month they would invite a special guest to speak. I was that guest. I worked hard on my presentation. I had a whole slide show put together. I brought souvenirs from my trip. I was excited to be their guest and to share stories of my travels.

            And when it came time for the meal, I got up and started to help with bringing food out to the tables, and making sure folks had what they wanted to drink, extra napkins if they needed them, etc. The pastor, Greg, who was my supervisor during that year, came over to me and said,
            “Go sit down. You were not invited here to serve or to work. You were invited here as a special guest. It is the men’s responsibility to serve you. Not the other way around.”

            Feeling like I needed to help was ingrained in me, but on that night, it was making me worried and distracted. I had lost my focus. But I did what Greg said to do. I sat down. I allowed myself to be served, and when it came time for the presentation, I was on it. We had a wonderful evening, and I left grateful for the opportunity and grateful for Greg’s reminder not to be distracted by many things, but to be true to my purpose for the evening.

            It seems to me that Jesus was not reprimanded Martha but reminding her. Martha needed to be reminded of what her purpose was in that moment. Yes, hospitality was important. Her work was of great value, something that we still forget, but there was only one thing necessary and that was being with Jesus. There was only one thing that would release the grip of worry on her throat and make her whole, and that was to be with Jesus. That was her single purpose at that moment. That was what was necessary.

            What distracts us? What keeps us torn apart? What worries keep us strangled and gasping for breath? What keeps us from the feet of Jesus? Because it is at his feet that is the foundation for everything else we do. It is sitting at the feet of Jesus that gives us the strength and the courage and the hope to stand up again and do the work that we are called to do. Sitting at his feet is what makes us whole.

            Thanks be to God for the Marthas in our lives and for the Marys. Thanks be to God that all of us are necessary and all of us are loved.

            Let all of God’s children say, “Alleluia.”

            Amen.

Your Neighbor as Yourself

Luke 10:25-37

July 10, 2022

            “Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there.”

            Does anyone else remember that State Farm jingle? I’m not sure if its ever used anymore. I suspect it has been replaced by, “Jake from State Farm.” But for a long, long time that was the one thing I associated with State Farm Insurance Company. If you hummed the first few noes of that jingle, I could finish them without giving it a second thought.

State Farm wanted people to know that they were good neighbors. They weren’t just a necessary part of life, or a company you had to deal with when things went wrong. They were like a good neighbor. From what the advertising implied, being a good neighbor was being there for someone when they needed them. It meant being there when the times got tough. They were the hand reaching out to help you up when you’d been knocked down. State Farm was a good neighbor, because they were there no matter how bad things got, in fact they were there especially when things got that bad. They were a good neighbor.

“Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there.”

            Neighbor seems to be the key word for our passage this week. Just like State Farm’s jingle, the story of the Good Samaritan is one that I know by heart. All you would have to say is, “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho …” and I could probably fill in with the words “and fell into the hands of robbers.” I bet many of us could do that. After all, if you’re like me, you have heard this story from the time you were a little kid. In Sunday School, if it wasn’t being read to us or diagrammed out on a felt board, we were acting it out.

            And even if you didn’t grow up hearing this story on repeat, the idea of the Good Samaritan is everywhere in our culture. If someone helps someone else out unexpectedly, that person is hailed as a Good Samaritan. There are Good Samaritan laws that protect someone from being held liable if they try to help someone in distress out and it goes wrong. When I lived in Iowa there were two skilled nursing centers that used the name Good Samaritan. Even if someone had never heard any other story about Jesus, there is a good chance that they have heard this one.

            And that’s the challenge. This is such a well-known parable, it is so familiar to us, and we think we know it backwards and forwards, that it is possible, just possible, it’s lost its shock value for us. In fact, we might even question using the term, “shock value,” because this is such a lovely parable. It should make us all feel good, warm, fuzzy, not shocked.

            But as scholar Amy-Jill Levine points out in her book about Jesus’ parables, his “Short Stories,” the parables were told not to make those listening feel contented and happy. They were told to shock them. They were told to ‘afflict the comfortable and comfort the afflicted.” Jesus’ parables were meant to have a punch, an unexpected twist. They were meant to afflict the comfortable and comfort the afflicted.

            The problem is though is that we are listening from a distance. These stories of Jesus have been told for centuries, and we are far removed by time and space from the first audience who heard them. And, in the repeated telling, they have become domesticated. They have become nice little tales instead of parables that shake us up and knock us out.

            So, what in this story is shocking? A lawyer asks Jesus a question.

            “Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?”

            As I understand it, being a lawyer at that time was not just about understanding civic law.  A lawyer would have been well-versed in religious law, the Law. The distinctions between the two were not made as we make them. So, the lawyer would have known the Law. He would have known the commandments. He would have known the details of Leviticus and Numbers. Clearly, the lawyer did because Jesus turned the question on him.

            “What is written in the law? What do you read there?”

            And the lawyer was able to readily answer, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself.”

            And Jesus responds with, good answer! You know this. You got this. Go, and do likewise and you will live. But the lawyer wants to justify himself. I know that the text tells us that the lawyer wanted to test Jesus, but I’m not sure that this is one of those times when the person asking Jesus the question is trying to trick Jesus. I’m not convinced that the lawyer was trying to trap Jesus as the Pharisees and the other religious authorities so often tried to. I think he genuinely wanted to know what Jesus had to say, not as a trick but to get some clarity on the exact details of the law. Maybe that means he wanted to push Jesus to give him more specifics, not on what the law says, but on exactly who is his neighbor. And that is what he asks.

            “And who is my neighbor?”

            Jesus responds with a story, a parable, about a man going down on the road from Jerusalem to Jericho. This man is attacked, robbed, beaten, stripped of even his clothes, and left for dead. Two religious Israelites pass by. The first, a priest, sees the man and sees the state he is in, but he moves to the other side of the road and keeps going. The second, a Levite, does the same thing. But then a Samaritan a SA MAR I TAN, comes down the road. The Samaritan sees the man who has been beaten, robbed, and left for dead, and he does not cross the road to get away from him. He crosses the road to go to near to him. The Samaritan sees the man’s wounds, and he pours wine on them to disinfect them, and he pours oil on them to keep them soft. He bandages the man. He picks him up and puts him on his own animal and he takes him to an inn so that he can more fully care for him. When the Samaritan has to leave the next day, he gives the innkeeper money from his own pocket, and asks the innkeeper to take care of the man. When he returns, he will repay the innkeeper however much more the innkeeper had to pay for the beaten man’s care.

            Jesus finishes the story by saying, “Now, who was the neighbor?”

And the lawyer responds, “The one who showed him mercy.”

Jesus says nothing else, but “Go, and do likewise.”

            Lets put this in terms that we can relate to. When we talk about the Good Samaritan, we think of the word “good,” as part of his title. Instead of Dr. Samaritan, its Good Samaritan. But the word “good” is descriptive. And Jesus does not call him “good” at all, does he? The good is implied. He was a good Samaritan, not because that was part of his name, but because of what he did, how he lived, how he treated the man who was beaten and left for dead. But here’s the kicker, the lawyer who asked this question of Jesus and the people listening to Jesus would not have applied the adjective “good” before a Samaritan. Good would have been the furthest thing from their minds. The Samaritans were enemies. They were not good.

            Take a minute and think about the group of people you can’t stand. Be honest with yourself. There probably is at least one section of society that bugs you, angers you, makes you fume. If you’re a Republican, maybe it’s the Democrats. If you’re a Democrat, maybe it’s the Republicans. Maybe its people of another country or another religion. Whatever that group may be, whoever they may be, insert their name in the place of Samaritan. Make sure you add the word, “good” in front of it too.

            How do you feel?

            How does it feel to consider one of these “others” as good? How does it feel to think about one of these “others” doing what the Samaritan did? Especially when two folks from your side of things crossed the road to stay away from the man left dead?!

            In the past, I have tried to minimize what the priest and the Levite did and didn’t do. They would have been ritually unclean if they had gone near the man, if they had touched him. It would have made them unable to fulfill their religious responsibilities. But they were going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, not the other way around. They were going away from the temple. It’s most likely that their religious duties were already fulfilled. And as Levine points out, the Law made it clear that helping someone in great need was more important than staying ritually clean. The priest and the Levite messed up. They failed. It doesn’t mean that they were horrible people. It means that they were human, and they failed. We all have and it’s a good possibility that we all will again. But the Samaritan did not fail. The Samaritan went near to the man. The Samaritan helped the man without thought for himself, for his own safety, for his own needs. The Samaritan did what was good because he showed the man mercy.

            It seems to me that what the lawyer really wanted to Jesus to make clear for him was not just what being a neighbor meant, but what the boundaries are on who is our neighbor. Okay, look Jesus, for real, who is my neighbor? Where do I get to draw the line? Who do I get to leave out of this equation?

            But Jesus made it clear that the boundaries we put into place on who is our neighbor and who isn’t are artificial. They have no real meaning. The person who is our neighbor is the person in need. The person who is our neighbor is the person who requires mercy. The person who is our neighbor is the person to whom we are called to draw near. It does not require political or ideological agreement on our part. It requires us to recognize who is being harmed and to realize that that person or persons are our neighbors. That might just mean that other sentient creatures are our neighbors. That might just mean that the creation itself is our neighbor, that the whole of God’s world is filled with our neighbors. Are we prepared to show them mercy? Are we ready to love our neighbors as ourselves? The lawyer realized that the neighbor was the one who showed mercy. Go, and do likewise, and we too will live.

            Let all of God’s children say, “Alleluia!”

            Amen.

Count the Cost

Luke 9:51-62

June 26, 2022
 
            A hen and a pig were out for a walk one day, when they pass by a church. They see a flyer posted on the church’s bulletin board asking people to help feed the poor and hungry.
            The hen looked at the pig and said, “I know how we can help feed the poor and hungry. We can give them bacon and eggs.”
            The pig replied, “I have just one problem with that plan. From you it requires only a contribution. But from me it asks for a total commitment.”
            It’s an old joke and a funny one, but it brings up a crucial fact about discipleship – discipleship is total commitment. That’s what this whole Christianity, following Christ life is all about, isn’t it? Total commitment. Even to the point of giving up our lives for the sake of following Jesus.
            But are we really ready to do that? Are we really ready to take that step, set off down that path, and be willing to give up everything, even our lives, to follow Jesus?
            That’s the question that Jesus has for the three would-be followers in our passage from Luke. The time for the cross has drawn near so Jesus has set his face toward Jerusalem. Jerusalem, the place where his last days would be lived out, where he would stand up to the powers and principalities, not with violence or bloodshed but with love and the power that comes from being the suffering servant.
            Jesus has set his face. In other words, he’s going to Jerusalem, no matter what. There’s no looking back, no looking in any other direction. This is not the road most people would choose willingly, but Jesus knows that this road will make all the difference.
            So, our scene is set, and Jesus is on his way. In the first part of the narrative Luke tells us that Jesus sends messengers ahead of him. They stop in a Samaritan village but are not welcomed there because Jesus is heading to Jerusalem. The enmity between Jews and Samaritans was deep and wide, so I suspect that just the idea that Jesus was going to Jerusalem, the center of Judaism, was enough reason for the Samaritans to refuse him welcome. When James and John witness this they are outraged and ask Jesus if he wants them to rain down fire on the village. But Jesus rebukes them because they have missed the point – again.
            They continue on the way to Jerusalem. And as they do, the first of the would-be disciples approaches them and declares to Jesus,
            “I will follow you wherever you go.”
            Seeing as how Jesus’ disciples often made the decision to follow him in an instant, it is surprising that Jesus doesn’t immediately take this person up on his offer But Jesus replies in an unexpected way,
            “Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.”
            Then Jesus calls to another person, “Follow me.” This person tells Jesus that he must first go and bury his father. Jesus’ response continues to surprise.
            “Let the dead bury their own dead, but as for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God.”
            Jesus approaches still another person who tells him that he will gladly follow him, but first let him say goodbye to the loved ones back home. For the third time, Jesus responds with the unexpected,
            “No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.
            Strange answers all three. They are a crucial part of the challenge of this passage. These people were not making radical or frivolous requests of Jesus. They were willing to follow, so why did Jesus answer so oddly, so harshly?
            Think about the first wannabe follower. He wants to follow. He is eager to follow. He seeks discipleship with Jesus voluntarily. But Jesus issues him a stern warning. Even animals have a place to call home, but the Son of Man doesn’t. And the implication of this is that anyone who follows Jesus will suffer the same consequences. So, are you ready? Are you really ready to follow Jesus, to be without security, without home? Are you ready to face the trials and tribulations that will inevitably be encountered on the road of discipleship? Have you counted the cost?
            The next prospective disciples are also willing to follow Jesus, BUT. One must go to bury his father before he can set off on the road with Jesus. There is great debate over how this should be interpreted. Does it mean the obvious? That the man’s father has died, and he must go and bury him? Burial was serious business. The burying of one’s parents was an act of respect, honor, and duty according to Jewish custom. It was part of the requirement of the commandment to honor your mother and father. This man was duty bound to bury his father.
            However, this could also mean that the man’s father is old, and the son must stay with him and care for him until he dies. Again, this was expected of any child.
            The other man also has family members to attend to. He will gladly follow Jesus but first he wants to say goodbye to the folks back home.
            To our ears none of this seems flippant or frivolous. The requests of Jesus were not out of the ordinary. Yet Jesus answers the would-be followers’ requests in a way we don’t foresee. Jesus tells the one man to let the dead bury the dead. Some commentators believe that Jesus means that the spiritually dead should bury the physical dead. But one of my New Testament professors made us spend practically an entire semester exegeting this passage and the word for dead in both cases means dead – physically in the flesh dead. Let the dead bury the dead. Following Jesus trumps even that time-honored responsibility.
            And Jesus’ response to the third wannabe disciple implies a reference to Elijah and Elisha in First Kings. Elisha is plowing a field and promises to follow Elijah, but first he must go and kiss his parents goodbye. But Jesus denies even this simple appeal. If you’re looking backward when you’re trying to plow, the furrow will be crooked. And to look back, even to family and friends, instead of forward to the cross is to be unfit for the kingdom of God. Unfit and unready.
            Have you counted the cost?
            The Biblical scholars I’ve read agree that Jesus’ responses are harsh. They are harsh. It would be easy to try and explain this away by saying that Jesus was using hyperbole, deliberate exaggeration to make his point. But that doesn’t do justice to Jesus’ words. His words reflect his urgency. His face is set toward Jerusalem. He is going, and he know what lies ahead. He has told the disciples, twice, what it means for him to be the Son of God. Jesus will suffer. Jesus will die. Jesus will be raised again. Jesus knows what’s coming, so there is no time for waffling or entering into a casual kind of discipleship.
            Jesus tells them all, if you want to be my disciple, there’s a cost. You need to count the cost before you follow me. Discipleship comes with a price. That cost might require you to leave a home, a duty, and leaving behind friends and family. The road of discipleship does not come without trade-offs. Before you follow me, before you take one step on this road, you have to count the cost.
            As un-Jesus like as this may seem, Jesus makes them and us face the hard truth about discipleship. Discipleship means that following Jesus is the first priority. Everything else – family, responsibility, security – comes after. This isn’t easy news to hear. And it isn’t easy to do. Have we counted the cost?
            When I have preached this passage in the past, I have not always been able to name what it is about Jesus’ responses that most frightens me. Yet, it would seem to be obvious. The cost of following Jesus means that we must leave behind the people and places and things that we love. That should be enough reason for fear. But something I read recently makes me realize that there is something more underlying all this leaving. The real thing that makes me afraid of the implications of this passage is that to follow Jesus is to give up control.
            I’m sure I have expressed this in the past, and I guarantee I will say it again in the future. Letting go of my belief that I have control is terrifying. I may be able to intellectually acknowledge that there is very little I actually have control over, but at a gut level I fight against this truth with great kicking and screaming. I want to be in control – over my life, my future, my destiny. I make plans and I expect that they will play out. But it seems to me that what Jesus is telling all of them – the disciples already following and those who are still thinking about it – is this, if you want to throw your lot in with mine, give up the idea that you are in control. The plans you have made for your life, let them go. The course you may have set for yourself or the path you thought you were choosing, let all that go.
Following me won’t be easy or neat. You can’t leave a trail of breadcrumbs, so you can find your way back to where you were before. Following me means that you may be led into chaos and suffering. Following me may require something of you that you may think is impossible. Following me means that you are going to have to let go of control and embrace trust. Following me means that you have to not only trust that you are becoming the person you need to be in the place where you need to be, but that you are not alone in the process. Following me means that you have to trust that I am right there with you. Following me means trusting me.
That is the real cost. Following Jesus means that we let go of all that we think we want or need, all that we seek to control. Following is trusting. Following means trusting that Jesus is with us through everything, through it all. Following Jesus means trusting that our decision to say, “yes” to his call is worth the cost. We must trust that following makes all the difference.
Let all of God’s children say, “Alleluia.”
Amen.

The Sound of Silence -- Juneteenth

 Kings 19:1-15a

June 19, 2022 

            This past week I was in Louisville at the Presbyterian Seminary, finishing up the second week of my fourth and last seminar for my Doctor of Ministry degree. There is still at least another year and a half of work, research, and writing left to do before I can even think about the graduating, but to finish this fourth seminar felt like a big step. In retrospect, I can see how much further I got on my project during these last two weeks. But I can only say that because I’m done with the two weeks. I could not say that during these past two weeks. No, in the throes of these last fourteen days, my attitude toward everything I was doing was very, very different.  

            The first week when I attended the class from home, I felt overwhelmed and wasn’t sure I’d be able to get through all the work that needed to be done. But I kept thinking that it would be better once I was actually on campus. Then the second week, I went to Louisville, and it didn’t feel any better. Forget these two weeks! I was convinced that I would not be able to get through the work for the entire degree. Talking to Brent at night, I would tell him,

            “I have made a huge mistake.”

            “Why did I ever think I could do a DMin?”

            “Why did I ever say the word, DMin?”

            “I’m going to quit.”

            “I want to go home.”

            And when I wasn’t sharing my fears with Brent, I was lying awake at night, wondering what the heck I had gotten myself into. There were tears. And I don’t think I had one good night’s sleep the entire time I was gone. But the last day of class, my professors assured me that my work on my proposal had come a long way from the first day of the seminar.

            Hearing that helped. And I’m so grateful for Dr. C. and Dr. F. because they kept me going forward. But what helped me even more was hearing that my colleagues in our cohort were feeling the same way. Apparently, it wasn’t just me asking, “Why? Why?!” And it wasn’t just me shedding tears of frustration and wanting to quit, give up, go home, and forget that we’d ever even thought about getting a DMin at all. That made me feel better, not because I wanted my misery to have some company, but because I discovered that I wasn’t alone. I wasn’t the only one feeling discouraged and confused. Even though I may have felt completely alone in those moments, I know that I wasn’t. And that helps. It helps because it reminds me that we are all in it together. Knowing that doesn’t make the work that lies ahead any less daunting. It doesn’t make it any easier. But it makes it bearable, because I know I have three other women who are with me. No matter how discouraged about this work that I have been, and no matter how discouraged I will be in the days and months to come – and I’m sure I will be – I am not alone. These three other women are with me on this path, and I am with them.

            Elijah was not alone either, but he felt like he was. We haven’t spent any time in the chapters before this one, so we may not have a good sense of how Elijah was doing in living out his prophetic call from God. Well, from what I can tell, he was doing great! In the verses before our chapter begins, he predicted that a drought would come to an end, and it did! Before that he triumphed over the priests of Baal. Major victory for God and for Elijah. Elijah’s ministry was on fire. One commentator that I read likened Elijah to a pastor whose ministry is in the fast lane. If Elijah were a minister today, the commentator speculated, he would be that pastor whose church is growing by leaps and bounds. The pastor’s congregation is thriving. The church’s programs are busting out at the seams. Other pastors want to be this pastor. If Elijah were a pastor today, he would have inspired other ministers to preface their comments with, “Well, I’m no Elijah but …”

            But for all that Elijah was able to accomplish in the time before our passage, in the verses we read today we find him running scared. Jezebel, Ahab’s wife, has sent word to Elijah that she is going to do to him what he did to the prophets of Baal. With this threat and the fear of being struck down in his heart, Elijah runs away. Suddenly Elijah isn’t quite as confident as he was before. He travels about a day into the wilderness and finds a solitary broom tree. He sits down underneath it and asks God to let him die.

            “It is enough; now O Lord, take away my life, for I am no better than my ancestors.”

            Then Elijah lays down under this tree and falls asleep. An angel wakes him and tells him to get up an eat, otherwise the journey will be too much for him. Elijah looks and sees that there is food and water waiting for him. He eats and drinks, and with the strength that the food gives him, he goes forty days and forty nights to Mount Horeb, the mountain of the Lord. There was a cave there, and he went into the cave and spent the night there.

            The Lord comes to him while he waits in the cave. The Lord speaks to him, wanting to know what Elijah is up to. Elijah answers,

            “I have been very zealous for the Lord, the God of hosts; for the Israelites have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword. I alone am left, and they are seeking my life to take it away.”

            In other words, “Look God, I have been eager to do your work and your will. I have been diligent. I have never forsaken you or your call in my life. But instead of things going right, they are going wrong. I am all alone in this because the other Israelites are trying to kill me. “

            I am alone, God. I am alone, and if you cared about me at all you would let me die.

            That may be an extreme sentiment, but I suspect that more of us have felt forsaken, discouraged, and alone than we would care to admit. Elijah had been trucking along at a nice speed, but then he was derailed by a hateful threat and the work that he had been doing came crashing to a halt. Now, he didn’t know what to do next. He was all alone.

            Except … he wasn’t. God was there with him in that cave on Mount Horeb. God refused to leave him alone, and considering the state that Elijah was in, he may not have thought that a good thing. But the Lord refused to leave Elijah alone or let him off the hook.

            “Go out, and stand on the mountain before the Lord, for the Lord is about to pass by.”

            And a terrible wind, so strong that it was splitting mountains into two and pulverizing large rocks into tiny pieces. But God was not in that great wind. And after the wind passed, there was an earthquake. Everything on land and maybe even in the sky shook and rolled with the force of that quake. Then after the earthquake came a fire. Its heat blazed across the shaken and tossed mountaintop. But after the fire came the sound of sheer silence. When Elijah heard the sound of silence, he wrapped his head in his mantle and went and stood at the entrance of the cave. Out of the silence, the Lord spoke to him.

            “What are you doing here, Elijah?”

            Elijah gave him the same response as before. I’ve been zealous for you, Lord. The Israelites have forsaken your covenant. They have thrown down your altars. They have killed your prophets with the sword. Now, they want to kill me too.

            If Elijah hoped that God would say, “Oh, I understand why you ran away into the wilderness. I get why we had to have this conversation up here. It’s okay, buddy, you take a few days to get yourself together. Maybe take a week. Go somewhere sunny, with a beach! And when you return, I’ll start you back on desk work. Okay?” then he was sorely disappointed.

            God did not respond to Elijah’s complaint. God just said, “Go.” If that seems callous on God’s part, let’s look back at the story. God made sure Elijah had food and water. God made sure Elijah made it through the wilderness for forty days and nights. God could have roared at Elijah in the great wind or shaken him in the earthquake. God could have singed him in the fire, but it was in the sound of silence that God spoke to him once more. It was in the sound of silence that God said, “Go.” And God didn’t tell Elijah to go and sacrifice himself. God didn’t command Elijah to voluntarily put his head on a silver platter. God just said, “Go.” Go because there is still work to be done. Go because I call you to be faithful in spite of the hardships that others place on you. Go, because I never promised you that this would be easy, but I do promise you that in the long run it will be worth it. Go, because sometimes all you can do is keep on keeping up, but I promise I am with you.

            All of us are called, in different ways, to different ministries, but we are all called. And I think that along with each and every call comes discouragement. Discouragement that it seems with all we do and all we try nothing is changing. And in these times, giving up and walking away seems like the wisest decision to make. When we are discouraged, it is easy to forget that God has been providing for us all along. God has fed us, nourished us for the journey. God has sent messengers along the way to remind us that we are not alone. And when we think we cannot go another step, God says, “Go.” And we do. We put one foot in front of the other, and we go. We move forward. We keep on keeping on. And we trust that we are not alone. We trust that there are people on either side to help us walk when we cannot. We trust that we are not alone, that God is with us. So, let’s go. The work is before us, and God says, “Go.” Thanks be to God.

            Let all of God’s children say, “Alleluia!”

            Amen.

An Open Heart -- Sixth Sunday of Easter

 Acts 16:9-15

May 22, 2022

 

            I was still a fairly new Presbyterian. I had been attending my church in Richmond for maybe a year, maybe a little longer. After joining the church, I was laid off from the job that brought me to Richmond in the first place, but something told me not to go back to Nashville yet. I was able to stay in Richmond because a dear family in the church had taken me in, invited me to be their second daughter, and gave me the space and time I needed so catch my breath so I could figure out my next step.

            It was spring, and I was in a small group Bible study at church. The group met that evening, so that afternoon I was reading through the lesson to get prepared for the discussion that night. The scripture was from Philippians 2 …

            “If then there is any encouragement in Christ, any consolation from love, any sharing in the Spirit, any compassion and sympathy, make my joy complete: be of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves. Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others. Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus …”

            I was certainly not a Biblical scholar – then or now – but I had grown up listening to scripture. It was read at church. My dad read it each morning at breakfast. In my more ambitions moments as a child, I would try to read the entire Bible. I usually got stuck in the begats in Genesis. But if I had ever read or heard these words from Philippians before, I didn’t remember them.

            So, I read them again. And again. And each time I read them, I felt like something was opening up inside of me. It’s difficult to explain what I mean by that. But I think the best way is to stay that as I read these words from Philippians, I heard them in a way I’d never heard scripture before. They were no longer just lofty words on the page, they meant something. They were speaking to me. Had I been of the same mind as Christ? Did I consider others with humility, believing they were better than myself? How had I lived up to these words? And how had I failed to do just that?

            Something changed that day when I read those words. Something changed in me. I think, I may be wrong, but I think it was God opening my heart to hear these words, to hear scripture in a way I had never heard them before.

            We don’t know what words Paul spoke to the women gathered by the river that day, but through those words God opened the heart of a woman named Lydia. God opened her heart to hear Paul’s words, to accept them, to believe them, to believe in what he was preaching, and with her heart opened, she responded to the apostles by opening her home.

            This is a quiet sort of story, isn’t it? In my Bible, the subheading for this passage is, “The Conversion of Lydia.” But what struck me about this story is that Lydia is described as “a worshiper of God,” before her heart is opened. And if she is being converted, it is certainly not the dramatic conversion that Paul once Saul experienced, is it? Lydia does not hear a voice speaking to her from heaven. She is not thrown to the ground. No scales fall from her eyes. No, this is a much quieter kind of conversion.

            Now there is drama leading up to this moment. We start our passage basically in the middle of a paragraph, but the verses before our starting point tell of Paul and his companions trying to go into the region of Phrygia and Galatia, only to be stopped by the Holy Spirit. The Spirit would not allow them to speak in those places. They tried to go to another place, but the Spirit would not allow them to go there either. So, bypassing Mysia, they go down to Troas. And that’s where our part of the story begins. Paul has a vision of a man asking him to “Come over to Macedonia and help us.” Paul heeded the vision and went to Macedonia, sailing from Troas to Samothrace to Neapolis to Philippi, crossing into the continent of Europe for the first time.

            And once there, Paul did not seek out worship in a synagogue, which seems unusual. Instead, he went to the river figuring that a prayer gathering would be happening there. And it was. And there God opens Lydia’s heart. Although there are only a few sentences devoted to Lydia, we learn some significant things about her. She was a worshipper of God, but like Cornelius, she was a Gentile believer. She was not a native of Philippi, she was from Thyatira. She was a dealer in purple cloth, which meant that she was a businesswoman and most likely a successful businesswoman at that. Purple cloth was the cloth of wealth and means. Purple was not an easy color to create, so if you wanted purple you had to have money to buy it.

            So, that’s what we know about Lydia. And what we also know is that while she was already a worshipper of God, something about what Paul said resonated with her, and through those words God opened her heart. And when her heart was opened, she responded by opening her home. Her response to God was hospitality.

            Like I said, even considering the vision at the beginning of this story, this is a quiet conversion. But what it does mean that she was converted, especially because she was already a woman of faith? Does it mean that she was converted to the gospel of Jesus? Probably. Does it mean that she was now, in the words of John’s gospel, “born again?” Maybe. Does it mean that her heart was expanded to believe in God in a new way? I would think so. It may mean all the above and so much more, but what I kept thinking as I worked on this passage, is that Lydia had been given a new understanding of God, of God’s work in the world, of the saving grace of Christ, and the power of the Holy Spirit, and that this was the next step in her growing in faith. This was next step in her walking the life of faith. Yes, she was converted, but maybe it was one of many conversions that she would experience throughout her life. Maybe the first conversion was what brought her to worship God before Paul ever entered her world. Maybe this conversion would be the steppingstone for the next one, and that one would be the steppingstone for the next one after that.

            It seems to me that this conversion was not the end all conversion of Lydia’s life. I realize that this purely speculation on my part. We have no other story of her but this. But I wonder if this isn’t often how conversion works. It is a series of having our hearts opened to hear God’s word, to see God’s work in the world in a new way. It is a lifelong process, not a one-time event.

            Because here is the thing about our hearts. They can be so easily closed. Our daily lives, filled as they are with both drama and mundane, with hopes and fears, with losses and celebrations, with love and with grief, all of this works to close our hearts. We close our hearts. Maybe it’s not deliberate or intentional. It’s just that life is hard. It can be hard facing this world with an open heart because our hearts can be so badly broken. It can be hard to hear God’s word because this really is a noisy, cacophonous world that we live in. So, maybe, just maybe, we need to have our hearts opened again and again. And again.

            When I had that experience reading the words from Philippians, I wasn’t reading in a vacuum. I was a youth advisor, and we were experiencing conflict among the advisors. As I read that passage, I began to wonder about how we were dealing with one another. Were we coming at the conflict with humility or conceit? In our next meeting, I talked about my experience with this scripture, what I had realized, what I had begun to see. I don’t know if it helped all that much, but it gave us something to think about.

            As we’ve read and as I’ve already pointed out, Lydia’s opened heart was not just about her. She responded. She opened her home. When our hearts are opened, in those moments when we can see in that mirror a little more clearly, we are also called to respond. When our hearts are opened, we are called to share that in some way with someone else. Maybe it is offering our witness or our testimony, and maybe it is in something that we do, an action that we take. So, my question for all of us is this. Are our hearts being opened to someone or something in a new or different way? Are we being given a glimpse of something new? Is God working on us right now, opening our minds, opening our hearts, opening our hands? Are we being called to take a step in new direction, with our relationships, with our church, with our work, with our lives?

            Lydia’s conversion was a quiet one, and I think that our lives are filled with such quiet conversions. But with each opening of the heart, we can see more, we can understand more, and we can do more.

            May God open our hearts to hear the Word, to see the Word, to live the Word, today and every day.

            Let all of God’s children say, “Alleluia.”

            Amen.

There Was a Disciple -- Mother's Day

 Acts 9:36-43

May 8, 2022/

 

            There was a disciple in the city of Joppa who cared for the least of these. She made clothing for poor widows – tunics and other garments. She used her resources to help others. She used her time and her talents to give care, hope, and comfort to the poor and to the marginalized. She showed compassion and love to those at the furthest reaches of her society.

But it came to pass that this disciple fell ill. She died, and the grief and mourning surrounding her death could hardly be contained. The people who knew her, who loved her, who had received her love and care were inconsolable. But some people in her community heard that an apostle, one who was close to Jesus, was in nearby Lydda. Two men were sent to him, to ask him, beg him if they had to, to come back with them to Joppa. Come back with them to where this disciple lay, to where the people mourned.

This disciple heard their plea, and he went to Joppa with the two men. There he found the disciple, washed and laid in an upstairs room. She was encircled by widows, keening with grief at the untimely death of this beloved disciple. The women showed the apostle the tunics that she had made for them. They showed him the other clothing that she had woven and sewn and stitched so that they could stay warm and dry. This disciple had cared for the widows, for the least of these, the forgotten ones when no one else did.

What would they do? What would they do? What would they do without this disciple who loved them?

In the city of Joppa there was a disciple. Her name was Tabitha in Aramaic and Dorcas in Greek. Luke, the author of the gospel by the same name and also this book of Acts, writes that she was devoted to doing good works and acts of charity. When she fell ill and died, the people of Joppa sent for Peter. Although it is not part of our immediate story today, it is helpful to know what is happening preceding our verses, our part of the story. After the dramatic conversion of Saul, and before another dramatic conversion yet to come, the narrative switches back to focus on Peter.

Peter is going “here and there” among the saints of Lydda. He meets a man named Aeneas who has been paralyzed and bedridden for eight years. Peter comes to Aeneas’s bedside and speaks to whatever hope for healing Aeneas may have had left.

            “Aeneas, Jesus Christ heals you. Get up and make your bed!”

            Aeneas does just that. He stands up. He walks for the first time in eight years. And, although the text does not say this specifically, it’s fair for us to assume that Aeneas also made his bed just as Peter told him to. When the people of Lydda and Sharon heard about this miracle, they turned to the Lord and believed.

            When the two men from Joppa came to Peter with their request, he did not hesitate to go with them. We do not know what the people who loved and lost Tabitha wanted them to do. The text gives us no specifics about their expectations of Peter. Did they think that he could bring her back from the dead? Did they seek consolation even as they believed they could never be consoled?

            Whatever their motivation, when Peter arrived, they showed him samples of the clothing Tabitha had made for them. It was as if they were saying to Peter,

            “Tabitha cared for us. She cared whether we lived or died. She gave to us, poor widows that we are, not because she had to but because she wanted to. Who else will care for us in the way she did? What will happen to us now?”

            Peter sent the mourners out of the room. When he was alone with Tabitha, he knelt and prayed. He turned toward her body and said,

            “Tabitha, get up.”

            Just as Aeneas listened and did what Peter told him, so did Tabitha. She opened her eyes. She sat up, and Peter took her hand and helped her to stand. He restored this saint of Joppa, this saint of the church back to the fullness of her life. He brought her back to her life of charity, good works, and service.

            There was a disciple in Joppa who devoted herself to charity and good works. When the text tells us that she was a disciple, she was indeed a disciple. One of the unique points of this story is that this is the only instance in the New Testament where the feminine form of the word for disciple is used. Tabitha was a mathetria, and as a mathetria she served her community with absolute devotion. When she became ill and died, the people who loved her and the people whom she had loved were distraught. We know already that they called for Peter to come to them, but the text does not tell us what they wanted him to do. Did they expect what actually happened to happen? Did they believe from the get-go that Peter could revive and resurrect her? Did they think that he could find a way to continue her work among them? Or did they hope for comfort and consolation from this person who had known, loved, and learned from Jesus?

            If Peter wonders why they called them, we aren’t told about it. But he goes with the men who came for him seemingly without question. Maybe he understood this to be part of his new call, part of his work as an apostle, sharing the gospel and continuing the ministry that Jesus began during his earthly life. When he arrived in Joppa, did Peter believe that he could help them? Did he believe that when he prayed for Tabitha and told her to “get up” that she would?

            I realize that Peter and the other apostles have grown by leaps and bounds in their faith, in their understanding, in their willingness to follow the narrow road that discipleship called them to walk. But this same Peter who once denied Jesus three times, now has the depth of faith to call a woman back from death. Whatever the mourners’ expectations of him, whatever expectations he may have had about himself, this is an amazing and astonishing act of faith. Through his belief in Jesus’ ability to heal, make new, and resurrect, Peter brings Tabitha back to the living. He restores her not only to the people who love her, but to the fullness of her life here on earth.

            When Peter was still in Lydda and he healed Aeneas, people heard about his actions and, more importantly, the consequences of his actions and believed in the Lord Jesus. The same is true in Joppa. The people who heard about Tabitha’s miraculous resurrection believed in Jesus. They believed in the good news.

            That seems to be the logical thing to do. Right. You hear that someone has died, then been brought back to life, and you believe in the person, the power, that made this happen. But what does this do for us today? How many saints have we lost in our church, in our families, among our friends, and prayed that they would be healed, restored to us, only for it not to happen? And what’s more Tabitha would not live forever. She would one day die again just as we all will do, and that time she would stay dead.

            So, is this a story about the resurrection of a beloved disciple, the only mathetria in the New Testament, or is it a story about the upside down turning that the gospel created? One of the truths that seems to be most prevalent in all of Acts is that for a short while the world seemed as close as it ever has to being the kind of world that God created. Flowing out from Jerusalem, from the center point of where Jesus lived and died and rose again, this world was perhaps the closest that it has ever been to being the kingdom of God, the kingdom of Heaven that Jesus proclaimed was in our midst. This is a world where it is obvious that the Holy Spirit was on the move. Things were happening. Miracles were happening. Saul, who once breathed threats and murder against anyone who followed the way, was converted and began to speak the gospel of Jesus the Christ to all who would listen. Well, that was a complete and utter miracle of miracles. But now Aeneas has left his bed and walked, and Tabitha has been brought back to life. The world has truly been turned upside down. And the people who knew that really knew that, and what’s more they lived it.

            They lived the reality of their world turned upside down, by the power of the Holy Spirit that had been unleashed, and by their belief in the resurrection of Jesus. They were Easter people without even knowing that they were Easter people.

            Maybe the message for us today is that we do know we are Easter people. And yet do we live as though we are? Easter was only, what, three weeks ago? But are we still living the joy and the wonder and the power of that day? Or have we already moved on? The candy is most likely gone, and the Easter baskets have been put away for another year. And what’s more, death seems predominant in this world of ours. It’s hard, if not impossible, to live as people who believe that death has been conquered and that the Holy Spirit swooshes through the world breathing new life and light, when so much seems dead and dark.

            But we are Easter people. We are people who believe in the power and the promise of the resurrection. We are people whose lives have been changed, turned upside down, because we have heard the good news of the gospel and believed it. Now our call is to live it. Our call is to go home this afternoon, and give thanks for the mothers in our lives, and also think, the world has been turned upside down and I am an Easter person. Our call is to go to work tomorrow and think the same. Our call is to go to the grocery store and believe the same. Our call is to trust that that indeed the world is upside down, the last are first and the first are last, and to live as though that matters, because it does. We are called to live as though this truth, our truth, has changed everything, because it has.

            We are called to be Easter people. The entire book of Acts is about a small group of Easter people who believed in the resurrection, who performed great and wondrous acts because of the power of the resurrection, and who lived their lives differently because of the resurrection. May we do the same.

            Let all of God’s children, all of God’s Easter people, say “Alleluia.”

            Amen.

The Scales Are Falling -- Third Sunday of Easter

Acts 9:1-19

May 1, 2022

 

            When we hear the phrase, “the scales fell from his eyes,” many of us know that it is based on this story in Acts. We know, because if we have been in church at all, we have probably heard this story several times. The story of Saul on the road to Damascus was most likely a story told with characters on a felt board when I was a little girl in Sunday School.

            So, the scales falling from the eyes is not new to us. We know that it happened to Saul. We know that it was part of his conversion from one who wanted to kill followers of the Way, to becoming an evangelist extraordinaire for Jesus the Christ.

            This story is a familiar one, and the detail about the scales falling from Saul’s eyes has even been incorporated into popular culture. Yet because this story is so familiar, because it is known beyond the realm of the church, it presents a unique challenge when it comes to preaching it. It is so well-known that we may take it for granted. It is so well-known that it can be hard to figure out how to make it relevant and real to us right now in 2022. To address this challenge, I decided I needed to ask questions of this text that I had not thought to ask before.

            What exactly are these scales? I guess there is no way for us to really know. I have always assumed that they were like the scales on a fish or a snake, because that is what makes the most sense in this context. I doubt they were the musical scales that I hated to practice when I was taking piano and cello lessons as a kid. And I also doubt that they were the device that sits on my bathroom floor, the one that I often dread to stand on.

            So, they must have been like the scales on a fish or a reptile or even some mammals. But I wanted to know the purpose of scales. What are they exactly? I take for granted that I know what they are, but do I really?

Google to the rescue! Scales on a fish or a reptile or a mammal are hard protrusions that grow out of the skin of the creature who wears them. Scales provide protection. They protect the creature by making it hard for predators to get through the scales. They provide protection from weather, from the environment the creatures dwells in. They provide protection in the form of camouflage. Scales will often help the creature blend in with its surroundings.

            Hmmm. It makes me wonder if these were the kinds of scales covering Saul’s eyes, what exactly was he being protected from? Or, more importantly, what did he want protection from?

            Let’s talk about Saul. In this story, Saul is not yet Paul, the evangelist, church builder, and writer of many letters. But this story of Saul’s conversion is not the first time that we meet him. A few chapters earlier, Saul is mentioned as one who approved of the killing of Stephen. Stephen was the first person to be martyred for the sake of the risen Christ. And in Stephen’s dying words, he asked the Lord to not hold the sin of these people – the people who stoned him to death – against them. Saul must have been included in Stephen’s request.

            Saul may have been a minor character in the story of Stephen, but in the verses before us he steps firmly into the spotlight. And he steps into the spotlight “breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord.”

            To breathe threats and murder means that Saul’s desire for violence was in every exhalation of breath. Hatred was running rampant throughout his circulatory system. If he was breathing threats and murder, his whole body, his whole being, was filled with loathing for the followers of the Way.

            Just before this story, we read the story of Philip and the Ethiopian Eunuch. That means that the good news of the gospel, the good news of Jesus the Christ, was reaching far beyond the original boundaries of Jerusalem. It was on the move toward Syria. That’s why Saul wanted to go to Damascus. He wanted to prevent this faction from growing any larger. And it is on the road to Damascus where Jesus meets him, and he meets Jesus. It is on the road to Damascus where a light from heaven flashed and Saul fell to the ground in its wake. It is on the road to Damascus where Saul hears a voice asking why.

            “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?”

            Saul, bewildered and afraid, asked who was speaking to him.

            “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting. But get up and enter the city, and you will be told what you are to do.”

            Jesus?! Saul was after the followers of this Jesus. But the voice, Jesus’ voice, made it clear that Saul was not just persecuting the people who followed him, he was persecuting Jesus himself. And this voice did not come from Saul’s imagination. All those with him heard it too. Saul stood up, but he could not see. His eyes were open wide, but he could not see. Helpless and afraid and wondering what would become of him, Saul was led into Damascus.  For three days, he could not see. For three days he did not eat or drink.

            Then the story shifts to a disciple in Damascus named Ananias. That brings me to another question. What about Ananias? The focus of this story is on Saul who becomes Paul. And, yes, Saul is the main character. As I’ve already said, it is Saul who is breathing threats of violence and murder against anyone who is a follower of the Way. That’s what folks are calling the early disciples of Jesus of Nazareth. They were not Christians as we are, meaning that they were still Jews, but they believed this Jesus of Nazareth to be the Son of God. They believed him to be the Savior, the Messiah. They believed that contrary to what common sense would dictate, he was brutally executed, but after three days in the grave, he was resurrected. Something happened in that tomb, and he got up and left it empty. So, these believers were his followers, but the name the Way suggests that they were not so much about doctrine but about doing. The Way suggests that they were about traveling and doing and moving through the world in a new way, in the way that Jesus moved and lived and did.

            But what about Ananias? Ananias is a believer. He is a follower of the Way, and he has heard the stories about Saul. He knows of Saul’s hatred for believers of Jesus. He knows what Saul wants to do to those who follow The Way. He probably knew of Stephen and knew that Saul approved of Stephen’s killing. Ananias knows that even if Saul did not throw a single stone on that terrible day, he still has blood on his hands. But Jesus speaks to Ananias too. Jesus tell Ananias that Saul is coming to the city, blind and in need. Jesus wants Ananias to go to Saul, speak with him, help him as he experiences this dramatic change in his life.

            One commentator wrote that this would be like asking a rabbi to go to Hitler and help him to hear the word of God, to bring the peace of God to Hitler, to help convert Hitler’s heart and mind.  

            With that analogy in mind, it is easy to understand why Ananias is reluctant to do what the Lord asks of him. He resists Jesus’ request. But Jesus tells him to go. Go to Saul. Help Saul. Saul will be the “instrument whom I have chosen to bring my name before Gentiles and kings and before the people of Israel.”

            Ananias does what the Lord asks of him. He goes to where Saul is staying. He lays his hands on Saul and calls him brother. He tells him that the same Jesus who spoke to Saul on the road to the city has spoken to him as well. Saul will regain his vision and be filled with the Holy Spirit.

            And it is in this moment, when Ananias speaks these words to him, that the scales fall. Those hard protective coverings over Saul’s eyes fall away. And he can see. He can see. His sight has returned, and the first person he sees is someone who only a few days earlier he would have arrested, bound, taken to Jerusalem for trial. Only a few days earlier, Saul would have approved the stoning of Ananias as surely as he approved the stoning of Stephen.

            The scales fell. And if scales on creatures are designed for protection, maybe Saul kept those scales on his eyes for protection as well. Maybe he kept them there so that he would not have to see the humanity of his enemies. Maybe he would not have to see that the ones he was so angry with, the people he so wanted to stop, were also children of God.

            Saul was helpless from the moment that light flashed on the road to Damascus, but in this moment, I think he was more vulnerable than ever before because now he could see – really see the person who stood before him. He could see his own hatred, and how that had blinded him. He could see the enmity and destruction that lived inside of him. He could see how every breath he took was filled with hate and anger and fear.

            I don’t think the scales fell only from Saul’s eyes that day. I think they fell from his mind and his heart too. That begs my final question. What are the scales covering our eyes? What are the scales covering our minds? What are the scales covering our hearts? What are we protecting ourselves from, really? When will we finally allow them to fall, so that we can see one another as God’s children? When will finally allow them to fall away, so that we can see one another as God’s children?

            Let all of God’s children see, hear, feel, and share the love of Jesus the Christ.

            Let all of God’s children say, “Alleluia.”

            Amen.