Towards Lands Beyond

Today we commemorate the Conversion of Saint Paul, a remarkable conversion. Most of us can trace our presence in this church today to this man and this moment. The 12 original Apostles were simple, sincere, and pious men; not very well educated. Their horizons did not extend much farther than the people and lands of the chosen people. Jesus always had to push them. But those Apostles were looking for a messiah and were open to the truth. Paul, on the other hand, had been building an impenetrable wall around the Torah, limiting the truth to those inside the walls. Paul was sophisticated, and educated by the greatest Jewish scholar of the time. He was a Roman citizen, a man who exerted influence and commanded respect wherever he went. His faith, loyalty, and devotion to the Torah were strong and deep. He was an unlikely choice as a late Apostle, unlikely in different ways from the unlikely group of the original 12. Paul was called dramatically, a way that demolished the wall of his education and all of the certainties he held and was fighting for. He had a greater vision of Jesus Christ and his Kingdom. This vision, ultimately, brought the Gospel to us. So, in a way, today’s feast is the feast of our conversion too. It is a good time to ask ourselves, has my life been transformed by my encountering Jesus Christ? The fact that we are here in this church this morning to celebrate the Eucharist is a sign that it has. But we must go further and ask, has my life outside this church also been transformed? Do the unconverted of our time, the atheists, secular humanists, and agnostics, see in our lives flashes of the blinding light of Jesus Christ and of the presence of God among us? That is our challenge. Life has its dramatic moments, but most of the time life is ordinary. What do we bring to the ordinary moments and times of our individual lives? If it is not Jesus Christ, then we need to be reconverted. We need to have a greater vision of the Kingdom of God, a kingdom that sends out Damascus roads to everyone, reaches out to everyone; and challenges us to have for ourselves the experiences of both Saint Paul and of Ananias his healer. May we be up to the challenge.