25
January 2015: The Conversion of St Paul
Acts 9:1-22; Ps. 67;
Galatians 1:11-24; Luke 21:10-19
St
Stephen Lutheran Church
The
Rev. Maurice C. Frontz, STS
Even
though today’s feast is called
‘The Conversion of St Paul,’
the
word ‘conversion’ does not appear in our texts for today.
But
it seems an appropriate enough word.
To
‘convert’ is to turn around.
You
are walking one way,
and
then you turn around and you walk the other way.
Oddly
enough, St Paul did not ‘convert’ in this literal sense.
He
was on his way to Damascus,
and
then he kept going to Damascus.
But
when he got to Damascus,
he
began to walk in a new way,
in
the way of suffering and witness,
in
the way of Christ.
So,
conversion.
To
walk in a new way.
We
think that we know what conversion means.
We
may say ‘he converted to Lutheranism,’
or,
‘she converted to Catholicism.’
Strictly
speaking, these are not correct uses of the word ‘conversion.’
No
one ‘converts’ to Lutheranism,
just
as no one is baptized ‘into’ the Lutheran church.
For
as St Paul himself writes in Ephesians,
‘There
is one faith, one hope, one baptism,
one
God and Father of all.’
When
we are baptized,
we
are baptized into the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church.
One
does not ‘convert’ to Lutheranism or Orthodoxy or Catholicism,
one
converts to Christianity.
But
what is the experience of conversion?
At
first glance, we might not learn a whole lot about conversion
from
St Paul’s experience.
He
is struck down, blinded,
hears
a voice,
has
a strange man sent to him by Jesus.
I
would venture to guess that none of you has had that experience.
If
you have, it would be very interesting to hear about.
See
me after church.
Actually,
make an appointment,
it
might take a while.
So
if none or very few of us has experienced conversion
in
the way St Paul did,
then
what can we learn about our conversion from St Paul?
Plenty.
Firstly,
notice that conversion is not a choice we make.
Many
Christians talk about ‘coming to Christ,’
or
‘making a decision for Christ.’
or
‘opening my heart to Christ.’
This
is not Saul’s experience at all.
It
is Christ who comes to Saul.
He
is walking in one way,
and
he makes no decision to turn around
and
walk in the other.
Rather,
he is knocked down,
blinded,
set on his feet, led, and met.
He
does not change his name from Saul to Paul,
Christ changes his name.
He
does not ‘convert,’ active voice,
he
is ‘converted,’ passive voice.
As
I say ad nauseam,
we
want to make God the subject of every verb.
Paul
does not convert to Christ.
Christ
converts Paul, turns him around,
opens
his eyes and gives him sight.
Such
as it is with all of us,
whether
we are baptized as adults or children,
it
is Jesus who takes the initiative,
Jesus
who comes to us.
Secondly,
we do not have any record
of
what Paul felt during his conversion.
Most
likely, he was scared out of his mind.
When
he heard the voice saying,
‘I
am Jesus, whom you are persecuting,’
his
thoughts probably would have been
the
first century equivalent of ‘I’ve had it now!’
But
so many Christians believe that in order to be ‘converted’
one
has to have an emotional experience,
such
as one can get at a large revival or a Christian concert.
Emotional
experiences come cheap
and can be manufactured.
Moreover,
you can get the same emotional experience without religion.
Just watch those old Riefenstahl movies of the Nazi rallies in Nuremberg.
Conversion
is a far different business.
Christ
takes the initiative
in our conversion to him.
We
need no certain feeling or emotional experience to be converted.
Thirdly,
God uses ordinary means to convert us.
He
uses the means of Word and Sacrament,
delivered
through people.
Paul’s
mysterious experience was confirmed by Ananias.
Ananias
didn’t necessarily want to preach the Gospel to Paul.
But
when Paul arrived,
Ananias
preached the Gospel and administered the sacrament.
This
is exactly how we are converted,
whether
or not a mystical vision happens.
We
hear the Word and receive the Sacraments
among
the people of God.
and
these are the instruments by which our blindness is turned to sight.
Despite
his amazing experience,
Paul
warned his churches not to depend on these experiences,
but
on the preached Word of God.
This
doesn’t seem very exciting!
But
this is how the Holy Spirit operates.
God’s
initiative, without a necessary emotional experience,
through
the ordinary means of grace.
Fourthly,
being converted to Christ links one to his suffering.
Ananias
is told that Christ himself will show Paul
how
much he must suffer for the sake of his name.
Our
suffering does not have to be exactly like Paul’s.
But
if we are being converted to Christ,
there
will be some kind of suffering associated with it,
some
kind of carrying the cross with Jesus and through Jesus.
It
may simply be the suffering of puzzling through the questions,
the
agony of living in faith,
having
to consider how our faith divides us from the world we live in,
when
and how to give witness.
We
need not think that our witness must succeed,
or
that we will be judged upon if our witness is sufficient.
But
our witness will occur.
God
himself takes the initiative in forming our witness,
it
is not something we do on our own.
Christ
converts us to himself;
this
need not be accompanied by certain emotional responses.
The
Holy Spirit is given to us by the ordinary means,
and
we are participants in Christ’s suffering.
Finally,
conversion is an ongoing process.
So
many Christians look at conversion
simply
as ‘before’ and ‘after.’
‘Before
I was saved,’
‘After
I was saved.’
Or
we bring our children to baptism,
and
we assume once we have done that,
God
is done with us.
Salvation,
however, is not a once-in-a-lifetime event.
After
the wedding, one does not say,
‘I
was married,’ but ‘I am married.’
In
the same way, we should not say,
‘I
was baptized,’ but ‘I am baptized.’
For
baptism is not an event, but it is a way of life.
Conversion
is a journey.
When
Jesus was revealed to St Paul
on that Damascus road,
that
was the beginning of his conversion.
Christ
would reveal himself
again and again and again,
in
Word and Sacrament.
And
Paul would be a convert all his life.
He
was constantly being drawn deeper into the mystery of Christ.
If
the Church is divided,
and
yet we are baptized
and have the Spirit of Christ,
this
can only mean
that the greater visible unity of the Church
will
come only
by a deepening conversion into Christ.
In
Ut Unum Sint, St John Paul’s
encyclical letter on ecumenism,
he
writes of a call to personal conversion as well as communal conversion.
Ananias
did not want to call the persecutor of the brethren ‘Brother Saul.’
It
was Christ’s continual converting work in him
that
enabled him to do so.
If
we are to pray and work for Christian unity,
for
the unity in truth and in love
for
which Christ’s prayed,
then
we are called to begin and end
by
praying for our own deeper conversion
to Christ.
Conversion
as Christ’s own work;
as
unencumbered by any preconceived emotional experience,
as
accomplished through ordinary people administering Word and Sacrament,
as
accompanied by suffering and the cross,
and
as a lifetime journey of faith;
this
is what we learn from the conversion of St Paul.
May
God reveal himself to us.
May
he turn us around, today and every day,
to
walk in the life that Christ offers all of us
and
to give him the glory and praise.
