The Church is a Safe Place
Acts 9
I think I’ve told you this before but in case you missed that Sunday, I grew up in the church. I learned the stories and learned what they meant. I was certain that I needed to tell everybody forcibly about Jesus, so that they would be saved, even as hell wasn’t addressed in my religious spaces. I was just certain that my way of understanding the world was the way it was supposed to be. Minister, theologian, and professor James W Fowler recognized developmental stages of faith, much like the developmental stages found in psychology. That stage, where I had knowledge of many things and remained certain, is Stage 3: where you choose the faith for yourself but it really is the one that you’ve been given, and any question to that faith is seen as a threat. I stayed here until I had made it through college. It was after that I started learning that questions weren’t something to fear but an opportunity to grow, and that uncertainty wasn't’ something to remove but how I might learn.
Not everyone passes through all the states of faith, stage 6 is saved for those who fully embody their faith in a way that is generous and compassionate to all--a recognition of the universal connection of all creation--think Mother Theresa or Archbishop Desmond Tutu.
I tell you think because I think, like me, Saul stopped at stage 3. He was certain, he had the knowledge, the resources, the experience, the connections. He had memorized the stories of faith, put them in context, they were all of who he was and he took them literally--this was the way that the faith was to be lived and experienced. The reason those people had to be killed was because they were still claiming to be Jewish while clearly outside of the rules that had been established--they were a threat to his understanding of God, worship, scripture, and life. How quickly is it that one can be radicalized when they are certain that they are correct. I say this because Saul was a lot of things, but he wasn’t evil. Everything that he was doing was because he believed that he was doing God’s will, living into his call to maintain the faith as it had been lived and experienced for 1000 years. He was a Zealot, a fanatic. He was me, plus murder.
For a lot of reasons that have to do with wanting to feel like winners, we see this story of Saul traveling on his way, on the road to Damascus as one of a triumphal win for the church. We focus on this moment when Saul has an encounter with the Risen Christ in voice and light as his moment of conversion. Because it’s a big deal and if you or I were knocked off our horses or bikes or just knocked on our butts by a light from God, it would be a big deal. This week, I'm questioning if that is the “moment” of Saul’s change, or even if there was one.
Before we get there, let’s take a moment to look at our other character and their transformation. Ananis had at some point become a follower of The Way, as it was called that the time--a follower of the teachings of Jesus. Maybe he had joined around the coming of the Spirit at Pentecost. That has always struck me as a moment in the early church of celebration. There were so many joining and they had this power, this encouragement, this motivation. It was a moment of possibilities. But then Stephen was killed. And then others were killed. And they started hearing about this person, Saul. Saul was leading the actions against the followers of The Way. Their large celebratory group scattered and they started to live in fear.
So imagine being Ananias and hearing from God. If it’s anything like today, I’m guessing that it doesn’t happen very often, so that’s an awesome moment. And then hearing that you, Ananias, need to get up and go heal Saul because Saul was being called to bring the Gospel to the gentiles.
Here’s what I imagine Ananias hears: the murderer Saul is in town, I, God, need you to heal and train him because I’m going to make him a big deal.
I don’t know about you, but if I were Ananias at this point in my life, I'd have a lot of questions for God, I’d have a lot of feelings about this request, and I wouldn't get up as quickly as Ananias did. And when Ananias gets there, the person who had been killing people he knew, was sitting there, blind and vulnerable.
I imagine Ananias through all of this had to take deep breaths, and had to think about who God was, who God called, who the Good News was for. Because if the Good News of Jesus was even for Saul… who else might it be for? Ananias had a moment of transformation. And Ananias’ transformation, transformed Saul.
See, I’m going to propose today, that Saul’s transformation didn’t happen in a moment on the road although, he needed the moment on the road to bring him to a stop to even hear and see what would come next, but instead transformation began in Judas’ house, when Ananias, despite any hesitation or fear or trepidation, touched the face of the man who had been his enemy, said his name and called him family. And then continued, in the days that followed, welcomed Saul into his home, into the community, into The Way.
In 2017, Megan Phelps-Roper took to a TED Talk stage and discussed why she left the Westboro Baptist Church that her whole family was a part of and her grandfather founded. It started with conversations on twitter, discussions and debates, and then meeting people in person. It started by seeing the humanity in the people that she held vicious signs about and protested against. Maybe we could call those her interactions on the Damascus road, preparing her. She stayed until she couldn’t and those whom she had previously protested against, whom she had called names, condemned to damnation, welcomed her into their homes, their communities, treated her like family.
And Westboro is an easy community for nice people like us to point a finger at, easy for us to see as an enemy or at least contrary to what we think is right and kind and doesn’t fit our view of God. But that’s why we started where we did… how certain I once was, how I was once like Saul, how easy it is to be a zealot against another.
The church, yes the building but more importantly the people, is to be a safe place for everyone. Those we disagree with, those who have different perspectives, those who have abused, attached, vilified. The church is a safe place for all those looking for an experience of the Good News, the Risen Christ. And we, church, are called to offer grace, welcome, community, family.
And it’s hard because as much as we might condemn a community as hateful, even our instincts are always toward preservation, toward the known, toward our being right and their being wrong, and that starts to make us look more like Saul than Ananias.
The church is a safe place when we, the church, remember that God is not standing still, nor is God’s call for the church--it is dynamic and growing and always, always rooted in love, and always, always expanding and reaching out. It’s why the call of the church for many, many years has been the welcoming of LGBTQ2IA communities into full inclusion into the life of the church. Because God’s love is expansive and growing. And you’re either Saul before Damascus and Ananias.
The church is a safe place when we, the church, welcome all people with their unique stories and experiences--and their stories don’t make yours less valid. When I was in college, we took a field trip from Oshkosh to Milwaukee for a cross-cultural experience--15 white 19 year olds and their professors spilling out of white vans in the North side of Milwaukee. We met a woman who said: “If you don’t look in the mirror every day and acknowledge your whiteness, you will never understand the experience of a person of color.” And I was too much in Stage 3 of my beliefs to understand that I had something to learn from her, from her experiences, from her stories. I didn’t understand how different her experience of the world was than mine, and I certainly wasn’t prepared to hear how lucky and privileged I was. And not to start a fight, but, my high school just voted to change the mascot from the Indians, after years of well intentioned suburban folks who said, “It’s a respectful picture” “It’s honoring the culture” “This one Native person says it’s ok” in response to Tribal communities saying again and again that it wasn’t. Some stories are not about us, to respect the experiences of other and instead of dismissing them. The church is a safe place when we listen to learn, to understand, to grow,
Transformation like that, it takes time, and it’s hard, and it means setting your own defenses aside to make room for someone new, someone different, for the unexpected and the unlikely. It took Megan Phelps-Roper 5 years to prepare herself to stand on that stage, acknowledging her past and setting a vision for her future. And she carries with her the name of her grandfather--never fully able to escape it, perhaps letting it motivate her to more in the world with intention.
Saul never escaped his past either. Saul was his Hebrew name, Paul his Greek. It reminds me of some folks I went to school with who would have an English name JuYeon would be Julie sometimes for the sake of ease (which, to be honest makes me sad because we should honor people with their names). Saul’s name did not change to Paul, but Paul was used in the Gentile, greek speaking world. Saul’s past became part of his ministry, his story, and it informed his mission. It might have offered him more compassion: the communities that he ministered with and to, had different contexts, theologies, cultures, issues, and solutions. He no longer lived in the clearly defined world of right and wrong but lived in the questions rooted in the God of love.
We are called by God to get up and go, to heal and be open. We are called to the ever-expanding and expansive love and welcome of God. In this call we learn and grow, listen and empathize. We are on the long road of becoming transformed while welcoming and inviting others to join us. We are the church, whether we are in the building or grocery story or park, whether we are gathered together or far apart. We are being transformed, we are being the welcome, being church, and we are the safe place.
