HE COMES UNKNOWN AND UNEXPECTED
Scripture: Acts 9:1-20

FOCUS: God comes to us in the most unexpected ways and if we are not open to God’s coming we may fail to know God when God comes.

He was born to a deeply religious family. His father was a Pharisee, one steeped in the 613 decrees of Jewish law. His home town of Tarsus is in on the southern coast of what is now Turkey and was a hub of commerce, a crossroads of a wide variety of cultures. His given name, Saul, means “one prayed for”. Though we know little about his parents it is likely that, as was often the case with those chosen by God for special ministry, Saul was born to those who had struggled to have male children He most likely came from a family of social and economic privilege. Scripture tells us that though he was a Jew, he was also a citizen of Rome.  While the Roman Empire governed his home town, most of its inhabitants were Jews, and only the most influential would have been granted Roman citizenship.

A deeply religious person, at the age of fourteen he was sent to Jerusalem to train as a Rabbi. His teacher was Gamaliel, the preeminent legal and religious scholar and teacher of the day. It was the practice at the time, for rabbinical students to also learn another trade so as not to ever becoming burdens on society and to insure that they would have a secular profession on which to fall back during hard times. This young student chose to be trained in the art of tent-making.

Following in the footsteps of his father, Saul became a Pharisee. He was a man of firm convictions and fiery temperament, one who always acted on his beliefs. Confronted with what he took to be a heresy to Judaism, he worked with all his might to quell it. Called simply The Way by its earliest disciples, this so called heresy would come to be known as Christianity. Saul was present at the stoning of Stephen, and though he did not participate, he encouraged the violent act that put to death the first of the Christian martyrs. He participated in a widespread campaign of persecution which included, going from house to house, dragging out believers, both men and women and throwing them into jail. He volunteered eagerly for a mission to Damascus. There he intended to continue attacking Christians. However, on the way, he was dramatically and forever changed.

The encounter of Saul on the Damascus road is one of the most familiar vignettes in all of scripture and one of the most confusing. For some skeptics it gives occasion to ask the question, “If this kind of thing really happened, why don’t we hear of such happening today?”  For some who seek to be faithful followers of the one who came to Saul that day it gives rise to a feeling of inadequacy. “Why have I never seen the flash of a bright light? Why have I never heard a recognizable voice?” For some of those who populate the ivory towers of academia it is a fascinating story to ponder endlessly, seeking to find logical or scientific explanations for Saul’s remarkable blindness and recovery.

I don’t have any answers for those folks, save to say that it is all a great mystery to me, as is much about the faith I affirm. And that is OK with me, for I am convinced that the great mysteries of the faith are there by God’s design. I don’t fully understand all about the story we have before us this morning, but it does speak to me and it does offer much Godly wisdom and truth.

That young zealot named Saul was on his way to wreak havoc among those who claimed the name of Jesus. He was focused on destroying as many of the group as possible in hopes of bringing down their movement. But it was not to be. God came to Saul in dramatic fashion as he was on his way. There was that bright flash, thunderous words, then darkness. In his helpful book, The Problem of Pain, C.S. Lewis says that sometimes suffering and pain are God’s megaphone. I think that is what God was about on the road that day. I suspect the one who would come to be called Paul was the kind who would not have even noticed a burning bush like the one sent to Moses. I don’t think Paul would have paid any attention to the still small voice on the top of the mountain as did Elijah. But he had no choice that day. He heard whether or not he wanted to. He saw a bright light he had not sought, and he was struck blind, left to the mercy of others. We are not told when exactly Saul began to be known as Paul, but I suspect it was about the time that he was struck blind.

The name Paul means small or humble and I imagine in those days, as he wrestled with what had happened to him, this cocky, brash, self confident Pharisee felt quite small and came to understand a bit about humility. Paul’s experience that day was certainly not what he had anticipated, not what he sought, not what he planned, but it was what he needed, for Saul needed to be transformed, to become Saint Paul. The image of light is powerful in this story. It blinds Saul. Then when his sight is restored, it is Paul who has been blessed with a new way of seeing.

George Buttrick was a gifted pastor, preacher and scholar of the last century. He tells of an experience he had while serving as chaplain at Harvard. It was announced that Harvard would be giving an honorary degree to a woman for the first time in its long history. The recipient was to be a secret until the day of commencement. When the time came the president announced that Helen Keller was to be the recipient. The crowd stood and offered thunderous applause. Keller sat in her seat quietly, completely unaware of the honor which was hers. Then Annie Sullivan, her teacher tapped the message into Helen’s hand and she understood. As they were leaving the podium Buttrick turned to the president and said, “You know, we made a mistake today. We should have given two awards, one to Helen and the other to her teacher Annie Sullivan. There never would have been a Helen Keller without her great teacher.

Paul is not the only saintly figure to be found in our morning’s scripture. There never would have been an apostle Paul without Ananias, whose name most of us won’t remember in a day or two. When Saul was struck blind it was Ananias who helped him during those days of transformation. Ananias knew Saul’s reputation. He wasn’t at all thrilled with his job assignment, but he went willingly, because God had spoken to him in a quiet moment of prayer. He confronted one known to be looking to arrest folks such as he and greeted him as brother, because God had told him to. And as he did, the scales fell from Saul’s eyes and a great ministry was born.

Paul never forgot what his brother had done. As an old man Paul was still telling eagerly of his transformation. In Acts 22 we find these words: “A certain Ananias, who was a devout man according to the law and well spoken of by all the Jews living there, came to me and standing beside me he said ‘Brother Saul, regain your sight!’ And that very hour I regained my sight and saw him.”      

For Paul it came with flashes of light and odd voices, for Ananias it came as he sat quietly in prayer. There is no one religious experience which fits all. Our calls come in all sorts of ways, some dramatic and instantaneous, others commonplace and over time. The roads to Christian faith and discipleship are as varied as the people who profess the faith.  We cannot predict how or when God will come to us with a definitive calling. But I am convinced that God will surely come to each of us, often when we least expect it and in ways we would never have anticipated. .       

Albert Schweitzer concludes his classic book, The Quest of the Historical Jesus with these words: “He comes to us as One unknown, without a name, as of old by the lake side He came to those men who knew Him not. He speaks to us the same word: ‘Follow though me!’ and sets us to the tasks which He has to fulfill for our time. He commands. And to those who obey Him, whether they be wise of simple, He will reveal Himself in the toils, the conflicts, the sufferings which they shall pass through in His fellowship, and, as an ineffable mystery, they shall learn in their own experience who He is.”

Ineffable. I confess. I had to look it up. I had an inkling of the meaning but was not certain. The Oxford dictionary has a definition I like, especially in our context, “too great or extreme to be expressed in words.” The way God works is certainly a great and wonderful mystery to me. Often I find it hard to put into words my encounters with God. Christ often intrudes in our lives when we are least expecting him. And oft times it is only in retrospect that we come to recognize who it is that has come to us on our journeys. I suppose that has much to do with the fact that we have a human propensity to be about our own agendas, focused on our own ideas, busy making our own plans. So God and God’s son have no choice but to interrupt.

That is what happened to a man named Saul and that is how it worked for Ananias as well. Saul was not seeking God that day. He was not seeking anything, except godly people he could arrest, torture or put to death. But God had another idea. Why did God choose to change Saul’s name and the very fiber of his being? I don’t know, but God did. It was one of those wonderfully ineffable encounters that God seems to cherish. Ananias certainly wasn’t looking to meet face to face with one of the most notorious pawns of the temple hierarchy, much less to bring healing and sight to him. But as he was praying that is precisely what God called him to do, and he obeyed. The idea that he would be called to such a task is ineffable and wonderful beyond words.

One enemy of the faith who was not simply uninterested but who was actively, about as actively as anyone could be, working against it, and a man of God, a prayer warrior we might call him, brought together by God’s grace for the common purpose of inaugurating a ministry which would carry the gospel message to all the known world. That is how God works. He comes in the most unexpected ways, at the most unexpected times to the most unlikely of folk. He comes quite often as one unknown, but at its heart the message is always the same: “Follow me.”

In the late eighties Bishop Timothy Dudley-Smith of the Church of England was inspired by the words from Schweitzer we have read this morning to compose a hymn. The words speak to us of the ineffable mystery we celebrate here each week.  

He comes to us as one unknown,
a breath unseen, unheard;
as though within a heart of stone,
or shriveled seed in darkness sown,
a pulse of being stirred,
a pulse of being stirred.

He comes when souls in silence lie
and thoughts of day depart,
half-seen upon the inward eye,
a falling star across the sky
of night within the heart,
of night within the heart.

He comes to us in sound of seas,
the ocean's fume and foam;
yet small and still upon the breeze,
a wind that stirs the tops of trees,
a voice to call us home,
a voice to call us home.

He comes in love as once he came
by flesh and blood and birth;
to bear within our mortal frame
a life, a death, a saving name
for every child of earth,
for every child of earth.

He comes in truth when faith is grown;
believed, obeyed, adored:
the Christ in all the scriptures shown,
as yet unseen, but not unknown,
our Savior, and our Lord,
our Savior, and our Lord.

You may be one God calls in a whisper as you are immersed in prayer. Or perhaps before you can hear the call God will have to knock you off of your feet to get your attention as you seek to ignore God, or perhaps even to do God harm. Most of us, I suspect, fall somewhere between those two extremes. We are those who are neither fully engaged with God, nor completely ambivalent. We are those who are called to the light from out of the darkness of our hectic schedules and frantic lives. The call may well come when we least expect it. And God may come as one who seems to be unknown at the time. Still, I am convinced that God is calling each of us. We all need to answer the call, for like Paul, we have all, at least from time to time, found ourselves on the wrong paths. But because we have been given the gift of free will, it is up to us to answer.   

As Paul would certainly discover in short order, once the call has been answered God refuses to leave us as we are. To be called by God is to be transformed by God. As part of the process of transformation God always gives some task, charges the one seeking transformation to be about some work for the building up of the kingdom of God. I am convinced that for the most part it will not be the work you would have chosen and the task may well be difficult and challenging. As you go about the work, as you take on, at least symbolically, a new name born of humility, you will come to learn who it is that comes to you. And you will be grateful and you will be blessed to be a blessing. For your sake and for the sake of the kingdom of God, let it be so. In the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, AMEN.