Conversion
Sermon for Sunday January 25, 2009
1. Good morning. Let’s pray. O Lord may the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be pleasing to You O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.
2. Opening Comments: On this day Liturgical and Sacramental Church’s throughout the world celebrate a feast day in honor of the conversion of St. Paul the great apostle to the gentiles.
Conversion – what does that mean? Have you been converted – converted from WHAT to WHAT? Does it happen and stop or is conversion an ongoing process?
I feel pretty safe in saying that most of us in this sanctuary this morning consider ourselves converts to the Christian faith while those people around us – in our daily lives - we might consider fallen away Christians, or agnostics or pagans or even worshippers of other god’s and it’s these people that God is calling us to approach with the idea of converting them to Christianity. Hmmmmmm . . . .
Now Rabbi Saul who later became St. Paul was a Jewish scholar – a Rabbi – a zealous Rabbi – who felt called not to convert others to his Jewish faith but rather to punish all Jews who were being converted to the heretical Christian sect! And so his zealotry focused on eradicating this sect completely.
In fact it was a younger Saul who held the clothes of the men who stoned St. Stephen to death!
I’m going to read the Acts passage that we read a few minutes ago once again and unpackage it a bit. The fundamental question that I’d like us to hold in our minds is this:
“What does God want to tell me about this process called conversion?
So you can turn with you or look up at the screen and watch as we walk quickly through this fascinating passage in which we hear Paul talk to His King about his conversion:
Acts 26:9 Paul said to King Agrippa “I too was convinced that I ought to do all that was possible to oppose the name of Jesus of Nazareth. 10 And that is just what I did in Jerusalem. On the authority of the chief priests I put many of the saints in prison, and when they were put to death, I cast my vote against them. 11 Many a time I went from one synagogue to another to have them punished, and I tried to force them to blaspheme. In my obsession against them, I even went to foreign cities to persecute them. Incidentally the Message’s translation of that last verse – verse 11 goes this way: I stormed through their meeting places, bullying them into cursing Jesus, a one-man terror obsessed with obliterating these people. And then I started on the towns outside Jerusalem.
Reading on:
12 “On one of these journeys I was going to Damascus with the authority and commission of the chief priests. 13 About noon, O king, as I was on the road, I saw a light from heaven, brighter than the sun, blazing around me and my companions. 14 We all fell to the ground, and I heard a voice saying to me in Aramaic, ‘Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me? It is hard for you to kick against the goads.’ Now first let me say that I find it interesting that Paul made the point of noting to King Agrippa that the voice spoke in Hebrew the Aramaic vernacular of Palestine at the time. In fact during Jesus' lifetime, the common people would've spoken Aramaic. The educated and the religious leaders would've spoken Hebrew, as well as some Greek and Latin. The Roman occupiers would've spoken Latin and possibly some Greek. But listen to the next question – verse 15 and we’ll get our answer as to why the voice was speaking in Aramaic:
15 “Then I asked, ‘Who are you, Lord?’
‘I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting,’ the Lord replied. Ah – it was Jesus and we know that Jesus spoke Aramaic almost exclusively. But did you hear what Jesus said, “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting!” But Paul was persecuting Jewish schismatic’s! No! What Jesus told him and is now telling you and me is this – when you persecute anyone who follows me – you persecute me! No, I don’t know about you but that gives me a lot of comfort and confidence – my big brother – Jesus will come to my defense if anyone takes a shot at me! Wow! I love it!!!
Let’s read on:
16 Jesus went on, ‘Now get up and stand on your feet. I have appeared to you to appoint you as a servant and as a witness of what you have seen of me and what I will show you. 17 I will rescue you from your own people and from the Gentiles. I am sending you to them 18 to open their eyes and turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God, so that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me.’
Now that’s a mouthful! Don’t you think? What did Jesus just tell Rabbi Saul? That He, Jesus was appearing to him to appoint him as a servant and as a witness of what Jesus has done to him and will show him in the future!
Now think about that – Jesus is forcefully taking charge of Paul’s life – is it against Paul’s will? We don’t know yet but we will soon. But this event is certainly forceful and Jesus is very clear about what direction his life is to take in the future. It’s to be a complete and radical turnaround of what he has been! He has been persecuting the Christians and now he will be honoring them – joining them – and seeking to convert not only the Jews but more particularly the gentile nations all around them!
Let’s read on:
19 “So then, King Agrippa, I was not disobedient to the vision from heaven. 20 First to those in Damascus, then to those in Jerusalem and in all Judea, and to the Gentiles also, I preached that they should repent and turn to God and prove their repentance by their deeds. 21 That is why the Jews seized me in the temple courts and tried to kill me.
Did you hear something unusual in that last reading? Listen to this, “I preached that they should repent and turn to Christ and prove their repentance by their deeds.”
No that’s not what he said. He said, “I preached that they should repent and turn to God and prove their repentance by their deeds.”
Ponder that . . . what Paul is saying then is that the Jews were not following God – the God they claimed to be following – the God who sent Jesus His Son. They Jews were not following God!
Now that’s an indictment! That’s what was so upsetting to the Jews – the Christians were in fact telling them that they were the heretics while the Christians were in fact the real believers in God!
Talk about an insurrection! Just imagine that you’re a Jewish person in good standing in Jerusalem and you hear that the Christians are claiming to be the real followers of God while you and all your friends are in fact heretics who are not really following God!
Ouch! That’s rough language don’t you think. But then listen to the rest of that verse:
I preached that they should repent and turn to God and prove their repentance by their deeds.
And prove their repentance by their deeds! In other words the real fruit of true repentance is actions consistent with their faith!
Wait a minute – faith is enough isn’t it? Yes, but it must be faith that leads to actions! Without actions there is no faith! A Christian in words only isn’t a Christian – but a hypocrite!
Real conversion leads to real change which must become manifest in actions – not just pretty words!
4. Reflection on Paul’s Conversion. Now before we draw any other conclusions from this we need to hear St. Paul’s further reflections on his conversion this time found in his letter to the Christians in Galatia – turn with me to Galatians 1:11-24;
Gal. 1:11 I want you to know, brothers, that the gospel I preached is not something that man made up. 12 I did not receive it from any man, nor was I taught it; rather, I received it by revelation from Jesus Christ. 13 For you have heard of my previous way of life in Judaism, how intensely I persecuted the church of God and tried to destroy it. 14 I was advancing in Judaism beyond many Jews of my own age and was extremely zealous for the traditions of my fathers. 15 But when God, who set me apart from birth and called me by his grace, was pleased 16 to reveal his Son in me so that I might preach him among the Gentiles, I did not consult any man, . . . I want to end it right there because the point I want to highlight is St. Paul’s realization that he had been set apart from his birth by God!
What is Paul acknowledging here? And remember this realization has come to him with time and intimacy with Jesus!
St. Paul has grasped the ultimate fact that God really is in charge and has plans for all whom He calls – plans which He has had before we were even born!
Paul was brought to conversion on the Road to Damascus but his conversion didn’t stop there – over time he came to the realization that God had his conversion in mind before he was even born – God is God! Ha!
5. Now what does all of this mean for you and me?
Are you a Christian or are you just a good person – or perhaps in reality not that good – for what I mean by good is good in your inner bring – in your inner person.
Are you just playing a good game or are you really a Christian. Look at the fruit in your life – fruit that has come from your actions which are consistent with who you are in your inner being!
Our fruit really tells the whole story! Look at your fruit and allow God to bring us to deeper repentance and deeper conversion . . . .OR . . . we can do what many still do for we have learned how to justify our bad actions and hide from the condemnation of our bad fruit and so we live on in our self-made prisons of – Christians in name only – pathetic hypocrites! O God protect us from this terrible fate!
But there’s something else that we may be able to learn from this – God has a plan not only for our ongoing conversions but also for the initial and ongoing conversion of those “gentiles” as it were, all around us!
Are we going to give them a chance to be converted or are we going to be so intimidated by the antagonistic culture all around us that we don’t ever dare to talk about Jesus at all!
We don’t have to force anyone – the process of conversion is in God’s hands. But God does call us to witness to the reality of Jesus in our lives – the living breathing – real life Jesus. Now perhaps Jesus isn’t present in your life and you can’t in fact witness to His real reality in your life. If that’s true is His absence because He was never there or because you have stopped nurturing your relationship with Him and consequently your soul has become lukewarm or even cold to any spiritual reality?
Listen to what the renowned author Madeleine L'Engle had to say about conversion:
“Conversion for me was not a Damascus Road experience. I slowly moved into an intellectual acceptance of what my intuition had always known.”
Listen to what C.S. Lewis has to say about conversion:
"Every story of conversion is the story of a blessed defeat." (in Foreword to Joy Davidman’s Smoke on the Mountain)
St. Peter had it right when he reminded his readers that conversion was far more than just a psychological change. In his words conversion makes us: “partakers of the divine nature” (2 Peter 1:4).
Partakers of the divine nature – wow!
Pope Benedict XVI said recently when paying special homage to St. Augustine’s conversion:
“St. Augustine is ‘model of conversion’ for Christians of all ages. Although conditioned by the passions of youth and the habits of his time, St. Augustine sought the truth -- and that led him inevitably to faith.”
Ah – a seeker of truth! Jesus said, “I am the way THE TRUTH and the life!” Seek the Truth and you will find Jesus! You can’t fail – He won’t let you!
Jesus is calling you to a new conversion – an ongoing conversion – an awakening to His sublime reality. Again you can’t make this happen but you can come to your knees and invite Jesus to bring a deeper conversion into your life.
So let’s do that right now shall we? Let’s allow God to bring a deeper conversion into all of our lives.
Please, if you will, kneel or bow and let me pray for all of us…
Let’s pray…