Call and Conversion

His persecution of the infant church was about breaking relationships, ...but his new life after Jesus caught hold of him was about establishing relationships.

It is hardly a surprise that folks were hesitant about responding to him.

He had been busy with some really awful things.

But things are different now in his life.

He has a new understanding of what his life should be and what he should do.

Charles Colson was one of the Watergate conspirators and spent time in prison for his misdeeds.

While there, his life was turned around by the Lord Jesus.

Since his release from prison, Mr. Colson has established a ministry especially to those in prison.

It doesn't matter how many years it has been, and how genuine his conversion appears to be,

I still hear him dismissed with a sneer:

“He's one of those...and you know what they are all like.”

It is the same kind of attitude that no doubt dogged Paul, so that again and again he had to tell people that it was the risen Lord Jesus who reached him, shook him to his very foundations, and redirected his life.

It wasn't a fluke,

it wasn't a ruse; it was for real!

This is the kind of person I am, says Paul, because of how the Lord Jesus has reached me, transformed me, turned me around, and set me on a different path.

As a Pharisee, Paul had had a general hope in resurrection of the just,

a hope that had developed in the several centuries prior to Paul because of the intense suffering the Jews were undergoing.

Those outsiders who were running the country were trying to force the Jews to adopt all of the proper Greek customs and worship, to deny their Judaism.

God, vindicate us, they prayed.

And as their suffering continued, they began to think less that they would have a victorious time in this life, but more so in the age to come.

Paul shared this belief, but now in his encounter with the risen Lord Jesus, he saw that what had been a vague and generalized hope was an actuality breaking in with the death and resurrection of Jesus.

The resurrection is the vindication of the righteous one, Jesus, the one who suffered so much.

The risen Lord Jesus says “follow me”, and “I will be with you.”

“I will send my comforter who will teach you everything that you need to know.”

So then what will our lives be like?

Will it always be smiles and carefree?

If we are following Jesus, certainly not!

We cannot translate Paul's greeting

Grace and peace to you... into “Easy times and fun ahead for you.”

To follow Jesus may involve difficult choices, challenging work, discomfort.

Parents know that children are part of God's good gifts to us...they are grace to us..., yet they are also the source of much stress and anguish.

A crying baby doesn't comprehend how tired you are or whatever other troubles you have!

A baby is grace, and also heartache!

We can hardly grasp the sorrow of a Hindu person who hears the Good News of Jesus, becomes a Christian, and is promptly shunned and disowned by his/her entire family.

The grace of hearing the Gospel, but accompanied by the pain of rejection.

Imagine Paul returning to his father who had been so proud to put him through rabbinical training with the best-known rabbi of the century, and Paul telling his father that he had found something better, something that fulfilled the general hopes of the Pharisees.;

that crazy wanderer Jesus who had been crucified as a criminal and thus outside any expectation of God's favor,

was raised from death, was vindicated, was showing God's grace to those who heard about him .

Paul's father must have been shocked.

We don't know; we wonder whether Paul's father could have used the line from today's Psalm You have turned my wailing into dancing

or whether he threw Paul out on his ear.

Both are possible reactions.

And then there is the geography that we heard in Paul's letter.

He grew up in Tarsus in southeastern Turkey, and would have traveled to and studied in Jerusalem.

But then after his conversion, he went into the desert, to Arabia, back to Damascus in Syria, to other parts of Judea, to Cilicia in present-day Turkey.

Everywhere he goes, he is either a stranger or else known to have a reputation as a violent troubler.

It isn't going to be easy for him to strike up an casual conversation.

A family moves into your neighborhood. You talk to them and get to know them.

At some point you take a deep breath and talk about your joys and sorrows as you understand them within the good gifts of God, his grace.

How will the new acquaintance react?

We don't know that in advance.

The neighbor may reject it; or the neighbor may welcome it.

We cannot talk about how perfect everything is in our lives as Christians, that would be untruthful.

And furthermore, God's peace is not something that we achieve or manufacture; it is something that we receive from God and unwrap perhaps only a bit at a time.

But it will come.

How else could Paul have sung hymns when he was locked in the painful stocks in that prison one night in Philippi?

How else dare we take on the challenges of Family Promise, or Stephen ministry, or the adult catechumenate, or teaching Sunday School, or not treating that brat down the street in the way he deserves to be treated, ...

or 10,000 other things.?

Grace to you and peace... Paul blesses all who read his words.

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ,

And the words announce what begins to happen as they are heard and are taken within us.

God's good gifts open up new life for us.

Grace makes possible new relationships where we thought none could be.

We thought that the ideas of “call” and
“conversion” only applied to special people like Paul.

Surprise! They are what happens in and through us as well.

Grace to you, and through you, opening the possibility of peace and wholeness for all whom we touch.

They are God's gifts, freely offered to us today. Hear this with joy!

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

Amen.

Please note: The preceding sermon is provided as a resource for the thought, prayer, and meditation of the members and friends of St. Mark's. It is the residue of a verbal event, and thus it does not have academic footnotes and other details that would be expected in a written document. The writer gladly acknowledges the prior thought and work of many Christians before him.