God All Along
Sermon
Sermons on the First Readings
Series III, Cycle C
Object:
See him as he travels along the road to Damascus: the intensity in his eyes, the purposefulness of his pace. He is a man on a mission.
His name is Saul, and he is making the 135-mile trip from Jerusalem to Damascus for a deliberate and expressed purpose. He and his companions are sort of a posse, tracking down dangerous criminals in order to bring them to justice. But this is not a scene from the Wild West. No, these men from Jerusalem are a theological posse, if you will, and the criminals they seek are heretics -- "any who belonged to the Way" (v. 2).
We would better recognize both those heretics and their pursuer by different names. The so-called heretics were actually the early Christians, and their chief antagonist was the man we later know better as the apostle Paul.
We so associate Paul with the spread of Christianity that it is hard for us to imagine him as one of the earliest and fiercest opponents trying to extinguish it. We read a dozen or so books in the New Testament written by Paul to encourage the believers -- all from the same hand that originally endeavored to arrest them. And the one, whom we eventually see traveling great distances in order to win people to Christ, we observe here hitting the road in order to persecute and prosecute those who already believe.
Those early followers of Jesus were the target of Paul's animus. The narrator of the story offers this strong characterization of his state of mind: "Saul [was] breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord" (v. 1). We can almost see him stewing and frothing as he appears before the high priest. He is looking for authoritative letters that will permit him to scour the synagogues of Damascus for any of these enemies of God.
Make no mistake: that was Paul's estimate of the Christians. We mustn't misunderstand Paul as a wicked and violent man, bent on opposing the things of God. Quite the contrary: Saul of Tarsus is an earnest and godly man. He is sincere in his devotion to God and zealous in his service. His opposition to the Christian movement, therefore, is born entirely out of the seriousness of his piety.
Let the half-baked, half-hearted man of God shrug his shoulders and do nothing about this growing perversion. Let the fool wink and smile at heresy. Not Saul. No, he recognized the Christian claims as dangerous and misleading, and so he set out to silence them.
What he did not recognize, however, was that God was behind it all.
So, see him traveling along on the road to Damascus. He is a man on a mission, albeit not the sort of mission we commonly associate with him. But the look is familiar, nonetheless. He is purposeful and devout. He is on the road for the Lord.
Then, mercifully, the Lord meets him along that road.
Paul's experience on the road to Damascus is distinctive, to be sure, but it is not unique. Rather, we may recognize it as part of a larger pattern. Specifically, it is a pattern of God's behavior, for he characteristically meets us along the way.
We see it early with Jacob. On two different and significant occasions, Jacob is simply going along his way when God graciously intrudes on his journey. As a young man, he is asleep on the ground near Luz: just an overnight stop along the way between the home he has to flee and the relatives' home that will be his refuge. But that non-descript spot becomes for Jacob "Bethel" -- the house of God -- as the Lord appears to him there in a dream. Many years later, on the return trip between those same two homes, Jacob is met again by God along the way. That previously unheralded spot becomes "Peniel" for Jacob -- the place where he saw God face-to-face.
We see the same phenomenon later with Moses, who is simply watching the family flocks one day, when suddenly he observes a strangely burning bush. He goes closer to see, and there God changes his life. Every tomorrow from that point on was different from what Moses would have thought or planned as God interrupted Moses' daily routine to call him to God's work.
The fishing brothers -- Peter and Andrew, James and John -- were literally minding their own business by the shores of Galilee that day when Jesus appeared and called them. Likewise with Matthew at his tax table. Add to the list Gideon, who was just doing his chores when the call of God came. Add the shepherds, who were famously watching their flocks by night in the fields near Bethlehem when they became the first audience for the gospel and the first eyewitnesses of the Savior.
All of these, and so many more, had life-changing encounters with God, but all of them came just along the way. These were not epiphanies in the temple or theophanies in worship. These men and women were not in the midst of previously designated sacred places, and they were not engaged in some sacred business. They were in very ordinary places doing very ordinary things, and God met them all along the way.
You and I recognize that pattern, for that would likely be a part of the testimony for so many of us, too. We would bear witness to a God who does not reserve his activity to certain specified places or designated times. Rather, we have encountered him in the midst of our routines. For some of us, he has been a gracious interruption, calling to us while we were just minding our own business. He meets us, deals with us, and speaks to us all along the way.
So it was for Saul. He was traveling along the way from Jerusalem to Damascus when, suddenly, he was surrounded by a blindingly brilliant flash of light. He fell to the ground, and he heard a voice speak to him.
As the story unfolds, we discover that Paul had companions with him on this journey, but they were not blinded by the light, and they did not hear the voice. Even in the midst of a group, this was a singularly personal experience.
It was a pointedly personal experience, for the voice called him by name. This was not a public address: this was a one-on-one encounter with bystanders. "Saul, Saul," the voice called (v. 4).
Grammatically speaking, this is a double vocative, and we have seen it elsewhere in scripture. In the Old Testament, we remember God trying to speak to a young boy at night, calling, "Samuel! Samuel!" (1 Samuel 3:4). Meanwhile, in the New Testament, we think of Jesus' gentle word of correction that begins "Martha, Martha" (Luke 10:41). Somewhat later we hear him lamenting, "Jerusalem, Jerusalem" (Matthew 23:37). And at the Last Supper, he speaks a sober caution to Peter, saying, "Simon, Simon" (Luke 22:31).
At a minimum, the double vocative suggests a certain urgency. That is certainly the tone of the episode in Samuel. It reflects one person trying hard to get through to another person. And, beyond just the urgency, there seems to be a quality of sadness in each of the New Testament usages cited above. Jesus is sad about Martha's well-meaning error. He is heartbroken over Jerusalem's obstinacy. He conveys a troubling message to Peter in the midst of a troubling moment.
So, too, with Paul on the road to Damascus. The Lord calls him by name twice: "Saul, Saul." He urgently endeavors to get through to Paul. Certainly there must be a sadness in the voice: sadness over Paul's own error, as well as sadness about his misguided mission and its damage to Christ's church.
"Saul, Saul," the voice calls out from the light into Paul's darkness. "Why do you persecute me?"
What an astonishingly personal question. It is personal, as we have already observed, because it addresses Paul by name. But even beyond that, it is personal because it personalizes Paul's work.
After all, Paul's endeavor had been to rid the synagogues of heresy -- to put away those Jews who were accepting and teaching what Paul understood to be a dangerous doctrine. He was not opposing an individual; he was opposing a movement, a group. If Paul was persecuting anyone, the object of his persecution was plural, not singular. If someone were to ask him why he was persecuting, the question would have to be, "Why do you persecute us?"
But that's not the question Paul heard. Not "us" but "me." "Why do you persecute me?"
From our vantage point, we can see the truth of it. We think of Jesus' familiar teaching about the sheep and the goats (Matthew 25:31-46), and we recognize the vicarious nature of our actions. What we do for the least of his brethren we do for him. And what we fail to do for them, we fail to do for him. Small wonder, then, that Paul's harassment of the church should be portrayed by Jesus as a persecution of him.
Evidently, Paul has no idea who is calling to him -- or, for that matter, whom he is persecuting. So he cries out, "Who are you, Lord?" (v. 5a).
The term "Lord" is an imprecise one for our purposes. The underlying Greek word, kurios, was not only a theological term used to refer to God and, later, to Jesus. It was also a secular term used in day-to-day life. An individual might address as "lord" almost any authority figure. A king, a governor, a landowner, a master, and even a husband might be addressed as "lord."
Accordingly, when Paul cries out, "Who are you, Lord?" he might be addressing God, or he might be simply saying "Sir." Whatever the case, the answer he received was staggering. If Paul was not already on the ground, he would have fallen to the ground when he heard this.
"I am Jesus," the voice replied, "whom you are persecuting" (v. 5b).
But Jesus was dead.
It was Jesus' troublesome followers with whom Paul took issue, not Jesus. The Jesus problem had already been dealt with some time before by the Sanhedrin and by Pilate.
We don't know precisely what Paul thought of Jesus prior to this moment on the way to Damascus. Perhaps Paul regarded him as a failed political figure, as a heretic rabbi, as a false prophet, or as a fanatical cult leader. We don't know. But on this occasion, Paul discovered that Jesus was none of those -- he was God all along.
See him as he travels along the road: the intensity in his eyes, the purposefulness of his pace. He is a man on a mission. He is making several thousand miles worth of trips -- through Israel, Phoenicia, Asia Minor, Macedonia, and Greece -- as he endeavors to bring everyone he can to know "the way." Amen.
His name is Saul, and he is making the 135-mile trip from Jerusalem to Damascus for a deliberate and expressed purpose. He and his companions are sort of a posse, tracking down dangerous criminals in order to bring them to justice. But this is not a scene from the Wild West. No, these men from Jerusalem are a theological posse, if you will, and the criminals they seek are heretics -- "any who belonged to the Way" (v. 2).
We would better recognize both those heretics and their pursuer by different names. The so-called heretics were actually the early Christians, and their chief antagonist was the man we later know better as the apostle Paul.
We so associate Paul with the spread of Christianity that it is hard for us to imagine him as one of the earliest and fiercest opponents trying to extinguish it. We read a dozen or so books in the New Testament written by Paul to encourage the believers -- all from the same hand that originally endeavored to arrest them. And the one, whom we eventually see traveling great distances in order to win people to Christ, we observe here hitting the road in order to persecute and prosecute those who already believe.
Those early followers of Jesus were the target of Paul's animus. The narrator of the story offers this strong characterization of his state of mind: "Saul [was] breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord" (v. 1). We can almost see him stewing and frothing as he appears before the high priest. He is looking for authoritative letters that will permit him to scour the synagogues of Damascus for any of these enemies of God.
Make no mistake: that was Paul's estimate of the Christians. We mustn't misunderstand Paul as a wicked and violent man, bent on opposing the things of God. Quite the contrary: Saul of Tarsus is an earnest and godly man. He is sincere in his devotion to God and zealous in his service. His opposition to the Christian movement, therefore, is born entirely out of the seriousness of his piety.
Let the half-baked, half-hearted man of God shrug his shoulders and do nothing about this growing perversion. Let the fool wink and smile at heresy. Not Saul. No, he recognized the Christian claims as dangerous and misleading, and so he set out to silence them.
What he did not recognize, however, was that God was behind it all.
So, see him traveling along on the road to Damascus. He is a man on a mission, albeit not the sort of mission we commonly associate with him. But the look is familiar, nonetheless. He is purposeful and devout. He is on the road for the Lord.
Then, mercifully, the Lord meets him along that road.
Paul's experience on the road to Damascus is distinctive, to be sure, but it is not unique. Rather, we may recognize it as part of a larger pattern. Specifically, it is a pattern of God's behavior, for he characteristically meets us along the way.
We see it early with Jacob. On two different and significant occasions, Jacob is simply going along his way when God graciously intrudes on his journey. As a young man, he is asleep on the ground near Luz: just an overnight stop along the way between the home he has to flee and the relatives' home that will be his refuge. But that non-descript spot becomes for Jacob "Bethel" -- the house of God -- as the Lord appears to him there in a dream. Many years later, on the return trip between those same two homes, Jacob is met again by God along the way. That previously unheralded spot becomes "Peniel" for Jacob -- the place where he saw God face-to-face.
We see the same phenomenon later with Moses, who is simply watching the family flocks one day, when suddenly he observes a strangely burning bush. He goes closer to see, and there God changes his life. Every tomorrow from that point on was different from what Moses would have thought or planned as God interrupted Moses' daily routine to call him to God's work.
The fishing brothers -- Peter and Andrew, James and John -- were literally minding their own business by the shores of Galilee that day when Jesus appeared and called them. Likewise with Matthew at his tax table. Add to the list Gideon, who was just doing his chores when the call of God came. Add the shepherds, who were famously watching their flocks by night in the fields near Bethlehem when they became the first audience for the gospel and the first eyewitnesses of the Savior.
All of these, and so many more, had life-changing encounters with God, but all of them came just along the way. These were not epiphanies in the temple or theophanies in worship. These men and women were not in the midst of previously designated sacred places, and they were not engaged in some sacred business. They were in very ordinary places doing very ordinary things, and God met them all along the way.
You and I recognize that pattern, for that would likely be a part of the testimony for so many of us, too. We would bear witness to a God who does not reserve his activity to certain specified places or designated times. Rather, we have encountered him in the midst of our routines. For some of us, he has been a gracious interruption, calling to us while we were just minding our own business. He meets us, deals with us, and speaks to us all along the way.
So it was for Saul. He was traveling along the way from Jerusalem to Damascus when, suddenly, he was surrounded by a blindingly brilliant flash of light. He fell to the ground, and he heard a voice speak to him.
As the story unfolds, we discover that Paul had companions with him on this journey, but they were not blinded by the light, and they did not hear the voice. Even in the midst of a group, this was a singularly personal experience.
It was a pointedly personal experience, for the voice called him by name. This was not a public address: this was a one-on-one encounter with bystanders. "Saul, Saul," the voice called (v. 4).
Grammatically speaking, this is a double vocative, and we have seen it elsewhere in scripture. In the Old Testament, we remember God trying to speak to a young boy at night, calling, "Samuel! Samuel!" (1 Samuel 3:4). Meanwhile, in the New Testament, we think of Jesus' gentle word of correction that begins "Martha, Martha" (Luke 10:41). Somewhat later we hear him lamenting, "Jerusalem, Jerusalem" (Matthew 23:37). And at the Last Supper, he speaks a sober caution to Peter, saying, "Simon, Simon" (Luke 22:31).
At a minimum, the double vocative suggests a certain urgency. That is certainly the tone of the episode in Samuel. It reflects one person trying hard to get through to another person. And, beyond just the urgency, there seems to be a quality of sadness in each of the New Testament usages cited above. Jesus is sad about Martha's well-meaning error. He is heartbroken over Jerusalem's obstinacy. He conveys a troubling message to Peter in the midst of a troubling moment.
So, too, with Paul on the road to Damascus. The Lord calls him by name twice: "Saul, Saul." He urgently endeavors to get through to Paul. Certainly there must be a sadness in the voice: sadness over Paul's own error, as well as sadness about his misguided mission and its damage to Christ's church.
"Saul, Saul," the voice calls out from the light into Paul's darkness. "Why do you persecute me?"
What an astonishingly personal question. It is personal, as we have already observed, because it addresses Paul by name. But even beyond that, it is personal because it personalizes Paul's work.
After all, Paul's endeavor had been to rid the synagogues of heresy -- to put away those Jews who were accepting and teaching what Paul understood to be a dangerous doctrine. He was not opposing an individual; he was opposing a movement, a group. If Paul was persecuting anyone, the object of his persecution was plural, not singular. If someone were to ask him why he was persecuting, the question would have to be, "Why do you persecute us?"
But that's not the question Paul heard. Not "us" but "me." "Why do you persecute me?"
From our vantage point, we can see the truth of it. We think of Jesus' familiar teaching about the sheep and the goats (Matthew 25:31-46), and we recognize the vicarious nature of our actions. What we do for the least of his brethren we do for him. And what we fail to do for them, we fail to do for him. Small wonder, then, that Paul's harassment of the church should be portrayed by Jesus as a persecution of him.
Evidently, Paul has no idea who is calling to him -- or, for that matter, whom he is persecuting. So he cries out, "Who are you, Lord?" (v. 5a).
The term "Lord" is an imprecise one for our purposes. The underlying Greek word, kurios, was not only a theological term used to refer to God and, later, to Jesus. It was also a secular term used in day-to-day life. An individual might address as "lord" almost any authority figure. A king, a governor, a landowner, a master, and even a husband might be addressed as "lord."
Accordingly, when Paul cries out, "Who are you, Lord?" he might be addressing God, or he might be simply saying "Sir." Whatever the case, the answer he received was staggering. If Paul was not already on the ground, he would have fallen to the ground when he heard this.
"I am Jesus," the voice replied, "whom you are persecuting" (v. 5b).
But Jesus was dead.
It was Jesus' troublesome followers with whom Paul took issue, not Jesus. The Jesus problem had already been dealt with some time before by the Sanhedrin and by Pilate.
We don't know precisely what Paul thought of Jesus prior to this moment on the way to Damascus. Perhaps Paul regarded him as a failed political figure, as a heretic rabbi, as a false prophet, or as a fanatical cult leader. We don't know. But on this occasion, Paul discovered that Jesus was none of those -- he was God all along.
See him as he travels along the road: the intensity in his eyes, the purposefulness of his pace. He is a man on a mission. He is making several thousand miles worth of trips -- through Israel, Phoenicia, Asia Minor, Macedonia, and Greece -- as he endeavors to bring everyone he can to know "the way." Amen.
