Sunday, May 1st: "We're All Villains"

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The First United Presbyterian Church of Loveland

“We’re All Villains”

Rev. Amy Morgan

May 1, 2022

Acts 9:1-20

Meanwhile Saul, still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord, went to the high priest 2 and asked him for letters to the synagogues at Damascus, so that if he found any who belonged to the Way, men or women, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem.

 3 Now as he was going along and approaching Damascus, suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him. 4 He fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to him, "Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?"

 5 He asked, "Who are you, Lord?" The reply came, "I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting. 6 But get up and enter the city, and you will be told what you are to do."

 7 The men who were traveling with him stood speechless because they heard the voice but saw no one. 8 Saul got up from the ground, and though his eyes were open, he could see nothing; so they led him by the hand and brought him into Damascus. 9 For three days he was without sight, and neither ate nor drank.

 10 Now there was a disciple in Damascus named Ananias. The Lord said to him in a vision, "Ananias." He answered, "Here I am, Lord."

 11 The Lord said to him, "Get up and go to the street called Straight, and at the house of Judas look for a man of Tarsus named Saul. At this moment he is praying, 12 and he has seen in a vision a man named Ananias come in and lay his hands on him so that he might regain his sight."

 13 But Ananias answered, "Lord, I have heard from many about this man, how much evil he has done to your saints in Jerusalem; 14 and here he has authority from the chief priests to bind all who invoke your name."

 15 But the Lord said to him, "Go, for he is an instrument whom I have chosen to bring my name before Gentiles and kings and before the people of Israel; 16 I myself will show him how much he must suffer for the sake of my name."

 17 So Ananias went and entered the house. He laid his hands on Saul and said, "Brother Saul, the Lord Jesus, who appeared to you on your way here, has sent me so that you may regain your sight and be filled with the Holy Spirit."

 18 And immediately something like scales fell from his eyes, and his sight was restored. Then he got up and was baptized, 19 and after taking some food, he regained his strength. For several days he was with the disciples in Damascus, 20 and immediately he began to proclaim Jesus in the synagogues, saying, "He is the Son of God."

He was clearly the villain. As the children in my son’s third-grade Sunday school class learned about the book of Acts, every time the name Saul came up, the pastor would say, “Sauuuuuuul!” and all the kids would join in. “Sauuuuuuul!” He was the bad guy in the story for the first nine chapters. 

And from the comfortable vantage point of Christian history, it’s easy to depict “Sauuuuul” as a one-dimensional villain. He’s present at the stoning of Steven, and the narrator of Acts clearly declares, “And Saul approved of their killing him.” He’s breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord and going out and abducting Christians to take them to Jerusalem where they will be imprisoned and perhaps tortured or even killed. He’s the guy with the black cowboy hat, the maniacal laugh, the dead, soulless eyes. 

And then he is knocked to the ground and encounters the risen Christ on the road to Damascus, and God flips a switch that suddenly turns him from Saul to Paul, from a bad guy into a good guy. It’s as simple as that. 

So the moral of the story is that God turns bad people into good people. Amen. 

This is the easy way to see Saul. But it probably isn’t accurate. Because it doesn’t line up with the bigger picture of what we know about Paul, humanity, or God. 

When Paul talks about his pre-conversion life in his letters, he clearly laments his former worldview and theological stances. He admits that his ideas and actions were sinful and in need of redemption. But there also seems to be an understanding that he never set out to be a bad guy. He wasn’t trying to be evil. In fact, he was trying to be good. He was well-educated in the law of God. He was supported and encouraged by his religious, moral community. His persecution of Christians was part of a broader effort within his faith tradition to preserve peace and righteousness. Paul didn’t view his pre-conversion self as a bad guy. He saw him as zealous for God. 

And what we know about humanity is that zealousness can be misdirected, it can go terribly awry, and it can lead to dangerous self-righteousness. Our zeal for causes we believe are just and righteous can blind us to the truth of others’ viewpoints. It can cause us to dehumanize our opponents. And ultimately, it can turn us all into villains. 

We live in a society of villains today. On the same road, on the same day, I saw bumper stickers accusing two different presidents of being liars. An opinion piece in the Reporter-Herald yesterday applauded a politician for “punching back” at his opponents, while the political cartoon next to it ridiculed that politician. Our zealousness for freedom and liberty, our zealousness for justice and equality, has turned us on each other and resulted in all kinds of dastardly deeds. 

We are a society that believes in pulling ourselves up by our bootstraps, in rugged individualism and independence, in personal responsibility and ingenuity. And while these are all positive characteristics in many ways, we often fail to recognize that they can also all be forms of self-righteousness. Our zeal for self-sufficiency can blind us to our inter-dependence and our shared humanity. 

Just like Saul’s zeal for the law, we are zealous for many things at are good and even righteous. But when any of those things is placed above the love and grace of God, our zeal is misdirected. We are in danger of following that same path Saul was on, dehumanizing and persecuting others because of our blindness to their belovedness. 

We can’t save ourselves from this danger. We are human, and all of us are prone to act in sinful ways. We are all villains. We are all enemies of God. 

But we worship a God who loves enemies. In Jesus Christ, God meets us at our most villainous moment. He dares the sinless to cast the first stone, he delivers himself into the hands of sinners to be crucified, he forgives and empowers those to abandoned him, and he shows up on the road to Damascus as Saul is on his way to persecute Christians. God shows up, again and again, in the Hebrew scriptures and in the New Testament, at humanity’s darkest moments. When people are being killed and enslaved, when people are being greedy and oppressive, when people are zealously blind to God’s love for the whole world. 

And when God shows up, it is often an experience that dashes us to the ground and knocks the wind out of us. 

When Saul finds himself flat on his back in the middle of the road, in the middle of nowhere, notice what happens to him:

First, he is forced to listen. It is highly unlikely that Saul had ever listened to one of the Christians he was persecuting, heard why they believed in Jesus, or how his actions would affect them and their communities. Now, Jesus himself has Saul’s full attention. Saul hears, possibly for the first time, that what he is doing is persecution, not prosecution. Prosecution is just punishment for a crime. Persecution is unjust oppression. Saul’s actions are reframed by Jesus. And he sees the one he is persecuting, not as a movement or idea or stereotyped group of people. He sees Jesus, fully human, fully God. 

And then Saul is told what to do. None of us, especially in our most zealous moments, likes being told what to do. Saul has been put in charge of this important mission to round up Christians, and here he is being ordered around by none other than Jesus himself. 

And when he staggers to his feet, blinded and stunned, he realizes that he’s absolutely helpless. There’s no way he could find his way into the city on his own. He’s entirely dependent on those around him, who lead him into the city. And the people who end up telling him what to do are the very people he had planned to capture and drag off to Jerusalem. He must depend on his enemies. For food and healing, for direction and instruction. 

And all this so that Paul can suffer for a cause he used to think was heretical. God plans to use Paul to bring the good news to the Gentiles, to make more enemies into friends, to convert zeal for the world into zeal for God. 

Being forced to listen to our enemies, do what we’re told, be dependent on our opponents, and suffer for their causes all sounds extremely unappealing, if you ask me. 

But when Saul is knocked off his high horse, it isn’t all bad news for him. 

He’s given a new family, as the Christian community in Damascus surrounds and supports him, baptizes him and equips him for ministry. He is healed by Ananias of his physical blindness, but he is healed by this whole community of his spiritual blindness. As they care for him and teach him, he must see their humanity, their faith, their love and compassion. He is saved from his destructive zeal and self-righteousness. And he is sent on a mission of salvation that continues to echo in the world today. 

Salvation is not a self-improvement project. It’s not something we can zealously pursue. It is something God accomplishes in us when the wind has been knocked out of us, when we’re flat on our backs, when we’re blinded and groping around in the middle of nowhere. 

Because it’s really only in that state that we can be forced to listen to the people we have made into enemies, hear how we have become villains, see our blind spots, and learn what we need to do. We can only be saved from our well-intentioned, though still villainous, zeal by moments of helplessness, dependence and powerlessness, not by personal liberty, self-righteousness, equality, ingenuity, or rugged individualism. These are good qualities, but they are not the road to salvation. 

Salvation is God’s work, and it generally involves the unappealing aspects of listening to our enemies, doing what we’re told, being dependent on our opponents, and suffering for their causes. But God doesn’t ask anything of us that God was not willing to experience. In Jesus Christ, God listened to the needs of those who were considered enemies of God. He “became obedient to the point of death-- even death on a cross.” He put himself into the hands of his enemies, and he suffered for us all. 

But when we are knocked off our high horses, it is not all bad news. Because in this helpless and humbled state, we can be received into a new family. We can be healed. We can learn and be loved. We can be saved.

And we can be used by God to bring others into the same family, offer them the same healing, teach and love. We can be part of God’s plan for salvation of all the beloved creation. 

Saul’s conversion, and ours, isn’t a one-dimensional switch from bad to good. “Sauuuuuuuul” was never a bad guy. He was always a beloved child of God, created in God’s image, one of God’s chosen people. But he was zealous for the wrong things and blind to how his zeal was sinful. When his name changes from Saul to Paul, it doesn’t make him a new person. Paul is simply the Greek translation of the name Saul, a better fit for someone sent to preach good news to the Gentiles. Paul’s zeal is no less intense after his Damascus road experience. His zeal is simply re-directed toward sharing the love and grace of God in Jesus Christ. 

Ananias and the other Christians in Damascus had to see that Saul was a beloved child of God, created in God’s image, even as he was doing evil things. Otherwise, they never could have obeyed God’s instruction to heal him and welcome him into their community. They had to believe that there was good in him that God could use to make him an instrument for God’s purposes. 

We are all villains, friends, but we are also all beloved children of God, created in God’s image. Our zeal can make us blind and lead us into sin. But it can also be re-directed toward sharing the love and grace of God in Jesus Christ. If we will only believe that about ourselves, and about each other, perhaps there will be few villains in this world. 

To God be all glory forever and ever. Amen.