July 7, 2002—10:05 Worship
Sermon preached by Rev. Donald Ng at the First Chinese Baptist Church in San Francisco.
About a year after graduation, the young man excitedly left a message on his professor’s phone machine. “I’ve got my big break! I got hired for a TV show! I’m going to be on Friends tonight at 8:00 PM. Watch for me!”
The professor was surprised, but pleased for him. He had advised him just before graduation that attempting to go into acting was the dumbest thing he had ever heard of. “Nobody gets hired for TV,” the professor said. “It’s mostly about being a waiter for the rest of your life.” Still, he was undaunted. And now, only a year later, he was going to be on TV.
The professor rearranged his evening around it. They watched for his entrance, but the first scene passed, then the second one without him. Then toward the end, the friends are attending some sort of TV show themselves and, just as the camera whizzed past the studio audience, there he was. If they had blinked, they would have missed him. But there he was.
Andy Warhol was being generous when he said that everyone gets three minutes of fame.
Most of us are not great stars in the drama of life. Most of us are busy playing bit parts in some soap opera that will never make it even on FOX. But it seems like if God is going to do anything to the world, from what we see in the Bible, God is going to do it through small time actors who are enlisted to fill bit parts in the larger drama called redemption. God wants to hire ordinary people like us.
Saul of Tarsus
One of the most dramatic scenes in the Christian story is Paul’s conversion on the Damascus road. His name was not always “Paul.” It was originally “Saul of Tarsus,” one of the church’s first and fiercest foes. Saul was a devout Pharisee and convinced that those Christians were a dangerous fringe movement in Judaism. Saul believed that the claims of Jesus the Messiah would damage Judaism so he went out to persecute Christians.
Saul was on his way to Damascus with official letters from the authorities, giving him power to seek out and destroy Christian groups there. And on his way there, there was a light, a voice, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?”
Saul fell to the ground, blinded by the light. The voice was from the risen Christ.
Paul is stunned, blinded. He had to be led around by the hand; he does not eat or drink. Like a good movie, Saul experiences a dramatic turnaround conversion. The light of Christ blinded Saul, changing him from a persecutor of the church to a helpless Paul being led around by the hand, totally depended on others.
Little Man, Ananias
In the middle of this traumatic drama of change, a little man appears. If you hadn’t heard the story about Paul, you wouldn’t have noticed this little man at all. His name was Ananias.
While Paul was being led around by his friends who can’t imagine what ever has happened to him, another scene in this drama was unfolding.
The voice of God comes to Ananias and says, “Ananias.” He answered, “Here I am, Lord.” The Lord said to him, “Arise and go to the street called Straight. There you will meet a man named, Saul. Go, welcome him into the faith, because I have plans for him. I have chosen him to be my missionary to all the Gentiles.”
Now just imagine what was going through Ananias’ head. He could hardly believe what he was hearing. “Lord, did you say Saul? Is this the same Saul that is church enemy number one, the persecutor and bad guy to so many Christians?”
The voice replies, “Go.”
Ananias goes. He goes to Straight Street in Damascus, and there, just as the voice said, is Saul. Ananias goes to him and addresses him not as church enemy number one, not as the murderer and bad guy that he is, but rather he addresses him as “Brother Saul.”
Ananias laid hands on him. Ananias thus becomes a minister, a priest to Saul, and when he lays hands upon Saul’s head, immediately his sight is restored and he is able to receive food. The change has been so dramatic that he is no longer called Saul, but gets a new name to reflect his new identity. He will now be known as Paul.
We wonder how Ananias must have felt about all of this. Unfortunately, we will never know. Ananias was never heard from again. He probably went back home and on with his business, having played a bit part in this great drama of Christian conversion. Without his willing assistance, Paul might have never been converted. Paul may have remained as Saul.
What if Ananias had said, “Lord, I don’t mind a little part in your evangelism scene. I don’t mind some new people joining our church, but a murderer, a bad guy? I’m not going to wander down to Straight Street, that bad part of town and risk death on the basis of some guy’s religious experience.”
You wouldn’t have blamed Ananias. Maybe he had friends, close family members who had been in prison and put to death through the efforts of Saul. “Why should I do this stranger any good?” said Ananias.
Changed Lives
In my Bible, the title for Acts 9 is “The Conversion of Saul.” Was it only Saul, who was converted from being church enemy number one to the great heroic missionary of the Gentiles? Or was it little Ananias too?
Ananias who, on the basis of nothing but a voice and a vision risked his life, went to the street called, Straight, addressed a once bitter enemy by calling him, “Brother,” touched him, laid hands upon his head, and thus was the actor to cause one of the most dramatic transformation in all of Scripture to take place. Who really was transformed–Saul or Ananias?
When we are converted to Christ, we are not simply converted into loving Christ, but, in loving Christ, we are commanded to love those whom Christ loves. Christ’s love is always reaching out, grasping hold of lives, changing others, bringing people who are lost back home again. Christ loved Paul. And if we are already at home, how does it feel when some of these new lost people get found?
It is one thing to love Jesus, but sometimes it can be an even greater challenge to love those whom Jesus loves! Ananias had heard enough about this man Saul to know that he didn’t want any part of him. And yet, he was commanded to go to this house and bless him, commanded to call him by the name, “Brother.”
Perhaps this is the true test for whether our conversion is real, for whether or not it is truly in the name of Christ. Are you and I able to call “brother” or “sister” to those whom Jesus had so named?
Note that Ananias was not, for all we know, some spectacular Christian. We never heard him teach or preach. His name was not mentioned among those who are closest to Jesus either before or after his resurrection. He was just an ordinary little person—with a small bit part in a dramatic story.
Love Everybody that Jesus Loves
Stanley Hauerwas and William Willimon in Where Resident Aliens Live, tell of an old Baptist country preacher who was called to a church in rural Georgia. The church had tried to call a series of other pastors, better preachers, and had failed. So they turned to this lay preacher. After they hired him and heard one of his sermons, they informed him that the church did not want any newfangled ideas and definitely did not want any “colored” members.
The next Sunday that preacher preached a sermon against this racial attitude, telling them, “If you love Jesus, you’ve got to love everybody Jesus loves.”
A number of the congregation told him they did not like such attitudes. Still, the preacher persisted, saying, “If you love Jesus, you’ve got to love everybody Jesus loves.”
Many people left the congregation in protest. A number of African American people joined. More people left. “I preached that congregation down to almost nothing before it started to grow again,” said the preacher. And then it grew and grew into a strong, inclusive congregation.
As this preacher said, “If you love Jesus, you’ve got to love everybody Jesus loves.”
Ordinary People
Jesus does not hesitate to ask ordinary little people to act like Christians. Discipleship is taking ordinary, everyday little people, and turning us into saints–courageous people who are able and willing to love the same people Jesus loves.
Almost everyday on the pages of our newspapers, we see killings and senseless bombings in the Middle East. When a terrorist bomber kills, maims, and destroys innocent people as well as himself/herself, the Israelis strike back with even greater force and revenge. Now perhaps out of desperation, the Israeli government is building a towering electronic fence to protect three sides of Jerusalem against Palestinian attacks. The fence will only serve as another symbol of brothers hating brothers and sisters hating sisters.
Not only was tennis played in Sausalito this past week, it’s being played at Wimbledon in England too. This year, Aisam-ul-Haq Qureshi, a Muslim from Pakistan teamed up with Amir Hadad, an Israeli Jew to play doubles. The president of the Pakistan Tennis Fedaration had written to Qureshi demanding an explanation for his decision to play with an Israeli. The president said, “We hope and expect that he would not repeat this mistake in the future.”
Qureshi and Hadad teamed up because they knew each other and respected each other’s tennis ability. Qureshi said, “I never thought it was going to become such a big thing. I don’t like to interfere religion or politics into sports.”
The two, who have known each other for two or three years might team up again for the U.S. Open. “We are good friends, and I think we’re going to keep playing together in the future.”
Qureshi and Hadad might never win a Grand Slam tournament. Rather, they are more like little people, ordinary players. Being a Muslim and a Jew, they are not disciples of Christ either. But they are demonstrating and standing up for their convictions and showing the world that barriers and electronic fences must come down.
Jesus is calling us to reach out to people on the other side of the barriers and fences. If you love Jesus, you got to love everybody Jesus loves. We can’t go around like the world does, designating people as fanatics, colored, black, white, gay, straight, redneck, Jew,
Muslim, murderer, bad guy, but as God commanded Ananias to go see Saul, we must also go see all people as “brothers” and “sisters.” The Lord calls us, and we say, “Here I am, Lord.”
Remember the young man who got the bit part in Friends. Unbeknown to his professor, the young man may have become transformed and changed by just being in that brief and fleeting scene. Like Ananias, the brief and bit part that this actor did may have led him to discover himself too. We don’t really know.
But what we do know is that if we are going to love Jesus, then we must be willing to play even a little part in God’s big plan. As so ordinary and little people like Ananias, we must be willing to have our little lives be caught up in the life-giving, fence-breaking, expansive love of Christ in the world.
Let us pray.
Gracious Lord, forgive us when we create fences and barriers that separate people from one another. Like the way you taught Ananias to love people, teach us to love those whom we try to avoid and dislike. We love you, Lord, and help us to love those whom you loved. We pray as your “ordinary” servants. Amen.