AJM Holy Trinity 7 November 2004

Introduction

Good morning! We continue to follow our series of sermons on Acts, and we’ve reached chapter 9. The gospel is beginning to spread from Jerusalem outwards into the surrounding provinces. We’ve just been following the adventures of the apostle Philip in Samaria; and now the scene shifts to Syria, and in particular to Damascus.

Let’s start with a map. I’ve highlighted the key places for these chapters.

Samaria.

Jerusalem, where Peter and John have returned after their travels in Samaria.

Gaza, where Philip was going when he met the Ethiopian eunuch.

Azotus, where he went after that.

Caesarea, on the coast, where we left him at the end of chapter 8.

Now at the beginning of chapter 9 we meet Saul, who is travelling from Jerusalem to Damascus, not in order to spread the gospel but for precisely the opposite reason – to destroy it.

Why Damascus? After all, it’s not in Judea, it’s in Syria, and so far it hasn’t been mentioned.

Damascus

Damascus was a large and important city. It was a commercial centre, with roads reaching out in every direction into the surrounding provinces of Mesopotamia, Anatolia, Persia and Arabia – countries still beyond the fringes of the Roman empire. It had a large Jewish minority served by several synagogues – we know that about 30 years after this time at least 10,000 Jews were massacred there. It also had a sizeable Arab community, an enormous temple to Jupiter and a busy, mile long high street. It was ruled, along with what eventually became the Roman province of Arabia, by Aretas, father-in-law of Herod Antipas.

Saul

And this is where Saul is going. He’s bound for the synagogues. We know from Acts 8 that following the stoning of Stephen and the persecution which it unleashed, many of the first Christians had fled to other provinces. Saul’s mission is to search the synagogues of Damascus and root out any Jewish Christians that have gone there. He knows that if ‘the Way’ as it is called, gains a foothold in Damascus, soon it will spread out to all the other provinces with whom Damascus has trade contacts, both in the Roman empire and beyond. Its strategic importance cannot be understated. Saul is good at strategy, and Saul is thinking ahead. So here he is, with letters from the high priest to the synagogues in Damascus. The letters contained an extradition order for any Jewish Christians to be returned to Jerusalem. It was going to be important to avoid Saul.

However, Saul’s mission didn’t go quite as planned.

As he approaches the end of his long journey and approaches the city of Damascus, Saul is blinded by a great light. He falls to the ground, and hears the voice of Jesus Christ. Later he will say that he saw him also.

When he opens his eyes, he finds he can’t see. His companions lead him by the hand into Damascus, where for 3 days he doesn’t eat or drink.

Well, it seems as though that’s put the lid nicely on his mission. But no.

A disciple in Damascus, Ananias, is told by God to find Saul and pray for him. This he does, and Saul gets his sight back.

He stays in Damascus for a few days. Saul being Saul, he still heads for the synagogues, but instead of arresting people he preaches the gospel.

Then there’s a gap in the story, which is filled in in Galatians 1.17-18; after those few days Saul leaves Damascus for Arabia, returning 3 years later to continue his teaching.

This time the Jews have grasped what has happened to him; they plan to kill him and Saul has to flee

He reaches Jerusalem, with aim of meeting up with the disciples (who remember his reputation and aren’t pleased to see him)

He preaches the gospel and is persecuted again, by Grecian Jews this time

Finally the disciples bundle him off to Caesarea and by ship back home to Tarsus

Then life goes back to normal. The church grows, Peter carries on travelling round, people carry on being healed and converted, and everything quietens down.

So that’s the basic story of Acts 9. There’s a lot in it, and we can’t cover it all in detail. So what I’d like to do is to concentrate on 2 people: Saul, and Ananias.

Saul of Tarsus

Let’s begin with Saul. This is the second time he’s mentioned in Acts.

The first time was at the end of chapter 7, during the stoning of Stephen. This is what Luke wrote:

they all rushed at him, dragged him out of the city and began to stone him. Meanwhile, the witnesses laid their clothes at the feet of a young man named Saul. While they were stoning him, Stephen prayed... And Saul was there, giving approval to his death. On that day a great persecution broke out against the church at Jerusalem, and all except the apostles were scattered throughout Judea and Samaria. Godly men buried Stephen and mourned deeply for him. But Saul began to destroy the church. Going from house to house, he dragged off men and women and put them in prison.

Who is this Saul?

So who is Saul? Well, let’s turn to Acts 22 and read his own words. This is what he says to the crowd:

“I am a Jew, born in Tarsus of Cilicia, but brought up in this city. Under Gamaliel I was thoroughly trained in the law of our fathers and was just as zealous for God as any of you are today. I persecuted the followers of this Way to their death, arresting both men and women and throwing them into prison, as also the high priest and all the Council can testify. I even obtained letters from them to their brothers in Damascus, and went there to bring these people as prisoners to Jerusalem to be punished. (22.3-5)

So, Paul comes from Tarsus, which is on the other side of the Mediterranean in modern Turkey, and part of the Roman province of Cilicia. He studied in Jerusalem under Gamaliel, the gentle Pharisee whom we met in chapter 5 advising the Sanhedrin that to persecute and execute the Christians would be both unwise and unnecessary. But Gamaliel’s moderation doesn’t seem to have worn off on his pupil. Gamaliel had advised that if this new Way came from God they would not succeed in stopping it, and if it didn’t it would die out by itself. But Saul doesn’t like to leave things to chance. I think he has the kind of personality which thinks nothing will happen if he isn’t in charge of it. So he takes charge, assuming I suppose that God will breathe a sigh of relief and take a well-earned rest.

What does taking charge mean. Well, in the case of Saul it means ferocity. The Greek verbs used are ones more commonly used to describe the frenzy of wild animals, ravaging and mauling and snorting; and Saul himself refers to his state as a ‘raging fury’ or an ‘obsession’ in chapter 26. If Gamaliel was wise and thoughtful, Saul his disciple was a young man who can only be described as a religious fanatic. Why are fanatics the way they are? Well, Jung said that ‘fanaticism is only found in individuals who are compensating secret doubts’. Fanatics are people who want everything dried and dusted, who like rules and systems, who want laws ruthlessly applied, whose heads have completely lost touch with their hearts – objective people, perhaps, who are suppressing all human emotion in an obsessive search for order. They are people who are trying to keep the lid on their own humanity, their own doubts, their own insecurity. People who have ideals but not love. People perhaps who feel they haven’t received the recognition they deserve, people who are struggling to find a place in the world, people who can see what’s wrong with the present order but can’t find a human way of changing it. And so they become like animals. The contrast with Jesus, who also saw what was wrong with the world, but who stayed in touch with his emotions and his humanity in his solution, and who derived that solution not from pride in his own ability but from his Father in heaven, is enormous.

This is how Saul later describes himself to the Philippians : in regard to the law, a Pharisee; as for zeal, persecuting the church; as for legalistic righteousness, faultless. (Phil 3). A faultless fanatic.

So this is Saul of Tarsus. A religious fanatic, the kind of man who ran the Inquisition, the kind of man who planned terrorist attacks on the members of Jewish synagogues. And this is the man God chooses to take the gospel and turn it into the foundation of the church. Why?

Why does God choose Saul?

It’s a good question, isn’t it. Two things spring to mind:

We expect God to work with nice people, people like Gamaliel, people respected for their integrity and maturity. I’m sure Gamaliel would have made an excellent cell leader or minister, and he’d have got through all the selection processes. I’m not so sure about Saul of Tarsus.

We expect God to deal with those who persecute others according to the justice for which he is famous. This man has a criminal past, a past littered with the massive violation of human rights. He needs to be demoted, not promoted; blindness in fact seems quite a suitable thing for God to do to him.

And these are precisely the points made by Ananias of Damascus. He asks incredulously, pray for him???? Surely, Lord; let me remind you of the facts…

“Lord,” Ananias answered, “I have heard many reports about this man and all the harm he has done to your saints in Jerusalem. And he has come here with authority from the chief priests to arrest all who call on your name.”

And yet God insists. He offers two reasons:

1. I need fanatical types, all or nothings. I know what I am doing; and this is the man I need. Vs 15, This man is my chosen instrument to carry my name before the Gentiles and their kings and before the people of Israel.

2. And secondly, my justice is untouched; I can assure you I’m not taking him on a picnic. Vs 16 I will show him how much he must suffer for my name.”

Let’s just unpack this a bit.

God’s first answer

Let me ask you a question. Who are the religious fanatics of our day? Well, there’s not much doubt where the fanatical young Sauls are today. They are in the Muslim world. And there’s no doubt either that they are fighting against a world order which they perceive as a threat to their way of doing things, or that they are fighting with all the animal ferocity of this young Jew.

So how should we be responding? We’ve read the story of Saul. Let me read you this account of the conversion of Sundar Singh, a Hindu born in the Punjab in 1889. He was a man fiercely hostile to the gospel, with a track record of burning Bibles. One day, praying in his room in the early morning, he saw a great light. This is what he wrote later:

"Then as I prayed and looked into the light, I saw the form of the Lord Jesus Christ. It had such an appearance of glory and love. If it had been some Hindu incarnation I would have prostrated myself before it. But it was the Lord Jesus Christ whom I had been insulting a few days before. I felt that a vision like this could not come out of my own imagination. I heard a voice saying in Hindustani. 'How long will you persecute me? I have come to save you; you were praying to know the right way. Why do you not take it?' The thought then came to me, 'Jesus Christ is not dead but living and it must be He Himself.' So I fell at His feet and got this wonderful Peace which I could not get anywhere else. This is the joy I was wishing to get. When I got up, the vision had all disappeared, but although the vision disappeared the Peace and Joy have remained with me ever since”.

Are there any lessons in these conversions for us? Maybe we should be praying for the conversion of a key member of Al-Quaeda. Which as it happens is precisely what one of my ten year-olds suggested wailingly when Bush first marched into Iraq. But no, we prefer military solutions, and we don’t even really much mind who we fight as long as we fight someone. We’ve tried this before, in particular in the 12^th and 13^th centuries when Christian armies marched into the Holy Land to seize it back from the infidel. When that happened, there was one lone Christian voice calling for another way: Francis of Assisi. While the armies piled eastwards, Francis went to see the Pope to get his permission to see if he could persuade the Sultan of God’s love in person. Well, Francis tried, but the armies carried on with their pillaging. How about us? Should we fight, or should we pray? Would a strategy of prayer work? It doesn’t seem very proactive, does it, not much like taking charge, not the kind of solution that Saul of Tarsus had much time for. But over the next few years Saul was to learn a thing or two about conflict. This is what he wrote to the Ephesian Christians: that the battle we face is not against flesh and blood but against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. Fight the spiritual forces, not the human beings who are blinded by them, he said. And maybe that’s how we should pray for Leicester too: not against this group or that group, but for the light of Christ to shine into every heart.

So, God chose Saul, this unattractive, fanatical, disrespectful young man, as the key person to take the gospel to the Roman world. It’s a surprising choice, and maybe it has implications for us as we think about how to take the gospel to our world. But maybe it has more personal implications too. Follow it through, and think about yourself. And ask yourself, who does God choose now? Does he just choose the smooth, mature, wise kind of people who we expect to see exercising a careful, pastorally sensitive ministry, or does he choose the other sort too? In other words,

do you think you have to be a plaster saint for God to use you?

do you have a stereotype of the perfect Christian? Do you match up to it?

do you think it’s possible that God wants to use difficult, demanding, unfeeling people in the service of his gospel? I read a book recently which said, there’s nothing wrong with the Church of England that couldn’t be cured by God calling 100 insensitive, uncaring people into the ordained ministry…

In other words, you don’t have to get to some height of tranquillity before God will use you. That’s Buddhism, not Christianity.

So God chooses Saul the fanatic. This is Saul’s own account, from Acts 22:

“About noon as I came near Damascus, suddenly a bright light from heaven flashed around me. I fell to the ground and heard a voice say to me, ‘Saul! Saul! Why do you persecute me?’ ‘Who are you, Lord?’ I asked.

“ ‘I am Jesus of Nazareth, whom you are persecuting,’ he replied. My companions saw the light, but they did not understand the voice of him who was speaking to me.‘What shall I do, Lord?’ I asked.‘Get up,’ the Lord said, ‘and go into Damascus. There you will be told all that you have been assigned to do.’

Ananias

Now let’s leave Saul for a moment and take a look at Ananias.

Who is Ananias? Only mention here. He was a Christian, we know nothing about him except that he lived in Damascus, and that God asked him to make this particular contribution to the kingdom on this particular day. Saul later describes him like this: He was a devout observer of the law and highly respected by all the Jews living there. (Acts 22.12)

This is what God said to Ananias: Acts 9.10-12.

The Lord called to him in a vision,“Ananias!” “Yes, Lord,” he answered. The Lord told him, “Go to the house of Judas on Straight Street and ask for a man from Tarsus named Saul, for he is praying. In a vision he has seen a man named Ananias come and place his hands on him to restore his sight.”

Now as we know, Ananias wasn’t keen. But God insists. So Ananias does what he’s told.

Ananias went to the house and entered it. Placing his hands on Saul, he said, “Brother Saul, the Lord—Jesus, who appeared to you on the road as you were coming here—has sent me so that you may see again and be filled with the Holy Spirit.” Immediately, something like scales fell from Saul’s eyes, and he could see again. He got up and was baptized..

This is Paul’s own account, 22.12-16.

“A man named Ananias came to see me. He stood beside me and said, ‘Brother Saul, receive your sight!’ And at that very moment I was able to see him. “Then he said: ‘The God of our fathers has chosen you to know his will and to see the Righteous One and to hear words from his mouth. You will be his witness to all men of what you have seen and heard. And now what are you waiting for? Get up, be baptized and wash your sins away, calling on his name.’

I said earlier that God’s instruction to Ananias raises 2 problems: firstly, why does God have to choose such an unsavoury character as Saul of Tarsus for his work, and secondly, what has happened to his sense of justice, because this man is a persecutor of Christians and of Christ himself? We looked at God’s first answer, which is that he needs all or nothing servants, people who will not flinch from doing what he says. And now we come to his second answer, which is that his justice is untouched because he’s not planning to take Saul on a picnic.

God’s second answer

Now let’s think about this. Ananias doesn’t want to pray for Saul’s healing, because Saul simply doesn’t deserve it. And this is an instinctive response which we all recognise, because we all have it.

Let’s put it in everyday terms.

What do you do when God asks you to pray for someone who is unpleasant and offensive?

What do you do when God asks you to forgive someone who has hurt you?

I think what we do is we struggle. We say but God, surely you aren’t going to overlook what they’ve done? That’s what Ananias is saying.

But God has an answer: that’s my business, Ananias. And I will show him how much he must suffer for my name. This isn’t a cosy promotion, it’s going to cost him something.

What did he mean? Well, this is what Paul says later when he writes to the Corinthians:

Are they servants of Christ? I am more. I have worked much harder, been in prison more frequently, been flogged more severely, and been exposed to death again and again. Five times I received from the Jews the forty lashes minus one. Three times I was beaten with rods, once I was stoned, three times I was shipwrecked, I spent a night and a day in the open sea, I have been constantly on the move. I have been in danger from rivers, in danger from bandits, in danger from my own countrymen, in danger from Gentiles; in danger in the city, in danger in the country, in danger at sea; and in danger from false brothers. I have labored and toiled and have often gone without sleep; I have known hunger and thirst and have often gone without food; I have been cold and naked.

Besides everything else, I face daily the pressure of my concern for all the churches. (2 Cor 11)

God was looking for someone tough. He wasn’t looking for him so as to wrap him up in cotton wool and sit him on a cloud. He had a tough assignment, one which would bring pain. And he wanted a man who was prepared to execute the task given him without regard to pain. Saul was his choice. And this is what he taught him:

^{Phil 3:7} But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ—the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith. I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead.

And that’s what he got. According to Christian tradition he was eventually beheaded in Rome. That was the kind of person God was looking for. Someone who would recognise that as he had persecuted others, so he would be prepared to endure persecution himself, even to death. Someone who would be as merciless on himself as he had been on others. That man was Saul.

So what should we do when God asks us to pray for someone who has hurt us, or someone who deserves severe punishment for what they have done? God is offering them forgiveness, but it will be a forgiveness which has justice built into it. It isn’t the kind of forgiveness which says it doesn’t matter what they did. And not understanding that is the biggest obstacle we face to forgiveness. God takes no one on a picnic. So let me ask you 3 questions:

How does God want us to respond to those who persecute Christians today? Would we rather have Bin Laden tortured and killed, or transformed till he serves Christ to the point of his own death?

Who do you need to forgive or to pray for? What should we do when God asks us to forgive someone who has hurt us?

And finally

Do you believe that you too are called by God for specific tasks? Maybe you are abrasive and unpleasant like Paul – God can use you. Maybe you are quiet and mature like Ananias – God can use you.

And as a stimulus, let’s ask ourselves, what would have happened had Ananias not prayed for Saul as God asked him to?

1. no gospel, no church
2. would God have continued speaking to Ananias? Someone once said to me, if we don’t respond when we hear God’s voice, we stop hearing it. I don’t know about you, but that’s something I don’t want to happen.

So Ananias prays. And Saul sets about converting the Roman world.

Amen.