Understanding God’s Call: Lessons from Saul and Ananias

Published on by The Rev. Jason A Burns, DeaconLeave a comment

I’m going to tell you a secret, we could have heard a shorter version of the reading from the Acts of the Apostles, but I don’t like skipping or over simplifying things, so we heard the entire passage and because of that the service will be about 30 seconds longer today. Truthfully, when I read the story of Saul’s conversion, I immediately heard the faith story of us all.

Saul was a faithful Jew, in fact he was a Pharisee, which means he believed that all written and oral Jewish law should be strictly adhered to and this is why he didn’t like what the new Christians were up to. Interestingly, Pharisees also believed in the resurrection of the dead, in the immortality of the soul, and that they would be either rewarded or punished after death. They believed in the importance of keeping rituals and the need to convert the Gentiles. However, their adherence to the law was so meticulous that it often came at the expense of their inner faith and which is the very thing Jesus was challenging time and time again.

One of the hardest parts of living a God centered life is not really understanding that faith in God is paradoxical by nature. There are moments when faith feels literal and tied to the rule book (hold up BCP) and there are moments when it feels emotionally raw. There are moments when we realize that the rulebook doesn’t matter because the rulebook is not God, and there are moments when we cling to the rulebook because it provides us comfort.

As Rev. Anna often says, we are shaped by how we pray, which is not unique to Anglicanism, but we are unique in our emphasis of it. What it means is that our liturgy, the work we do as the people of God, transforms us. Though this transformation does not come because of the rituals themselves, the ritual is simply a means through which we truly open ourselves to God’s redemptive love, and is why Jesus was constantly challenging the Pharisees to set aside the rulebook and listen to what God was asking of them.

As a Pharisee, Saul sought to persecute Christians because they were breaking all the rules and it was on his way to oversee the arrest of a new crop of Jesus followers that he truly heard the voice of God for the first time, and the experience blinds him; or perhaps the encounter reveals his blindness, which was caused by his refusal to believe that the rules he clung to are not truly from God. Ultimately it is Ananias, who being sent by God, restored Saul’s sight; but Ananias, knowing of Saul’s history, was also resistant to what Jesus wanted him to do, so doesn’t that make him just as blind as Saul?

The world is filled with Sauls and Ananiass. How many are blind to the teachings of God, and the story of redemptive love? How many of those who are blind to God’s teachings are professed Christians? How many professed Christians share the doubt of Ananias when faced with the Sauls of the world, but do not have the spiritual fortitude to follow through with God’s commandment to Love when we doubt the motivations or worthiness of others to receive that love?

We are all very aware of the current climate of our nation. Many things feel unfair and chaotic and many of us are aware of how changes to US immigration policy have affected this very community. I have met people who are ready to move overseas, I have met people who are shocked and I have met people who are indifferent. Whether we like what is happening or not the call to Love our neighbor does not change, that is a constant, and the only thing we can truly control is the degree to which we allow the politics of the human world to separate us from God and their mission in the world. I am wondering if Ananias would still have agreed to heal Saul if he knew he voted for the opposing candidate? Would he have denied the sharing of God’s love because he didn’t like what Saul believed or who he voted for? I truly believe that the answer is no, he still would have laid his hands on Saul and restored his sight because despite having doubts, Ananias trusted God. He trusted that the message of the Gospel would prevail despite his misgivings about Saul and we are called to do the same. God does not seek to improve the lives of their people by directly interfering in human matters, they don’t sit on a throne and issue judgements based on whether we follow their rules, let alone the things we think are their rules. God lives in us and thus improves the lives of their people through us, through our liturgy, through our work. The book of Acts says that Saul was healed when Ananias laid his hands on him, but we should not take this literally. Saul had faith, he loved God, and he placed his trust in the rule book. His healing likely came through the teachings of Jesus as conveyed to him through Ananias, which means that his figurative blindness to God’s true plan was cured by the teachings of Christ.

I am afraid that we are so wrapped up in the political climate of our time that we are forgetting that all of the issues facing our country, and the world, and our community remain the same. There are still people who are physically, emotionally, and spiritually poor and whether PBS exists or not that will remain true. I was recently giving a lecture on The Great Society programs, the crux of which focused on ending poverty in America. In 1959 there were approximately 39 million Americans who were considered poor, in 2023 the number was 36.8 million, which is not a huge difference when you are dealing with numbers of that magnitude. The problem is that we never talk about actual numbers, we like to look at percentages, so let’s do that. In 1959 22% of Americans lived in poverty and in 2023 11.1% lived in poverty. When we look at it that way it looks like we have cut our poverty rate in half and statistically we have, but not because we have greatly reduced the number of people who live in poverty, we have simply increased our population by nearly 50%. The truth is that we don’t really do anything to solve the issue of poverty, we simply change the definition of what it means to be poor so it looks like we have done something about the issue. The reality is that the number of actual people who are poor has remained relatively the same.

If Jesus were standing here, I suspect that he would be wondering why we are spending so much time worrying about things that we can’t control instead of doing the work he has given us, work that will have a real impact on the lives of others. We did that work when we rallied behind a family who needed our support as they uprooted their lives and moved over 2000 miles away. Ananias questioned the work Jesus wanted him to do, but ultimately, he did what was asked of him and because he did, we were given the gift of Paul, which is the Roman name of Saul, and his letters, from which we learn what it looks like to wrestle with the integration of faith and daily life.

 When Saul was persecuting Christians, it was because he was trying to stop them from breaking the rules and it took an encounter with God, through his interaction with Ananias, to see the error of his ways and become a fully faithful follower of Jesus. When we are focusing our energy on doom scrolling or cuts to federal programs, we are forgetting about the people who are right in front of us and the fact that they are the people we are called to minister to. What happens to government programs, that are at best band-aids for symptoms not cures, does not change the mission because whether those programs exist or not there will still be poor people, some of whom are likely sitting in this room and are most certainly a part of our communities. Saul didn’t understand God’s call, but Paul did. Ananias understood God’s call and even though he didn’t like what Saul stood for he ministered to him because he was the person in front of him. We are called to minister to the people in front of us and trust that God is working on the other things through people who are better equipped to affect the change we hope for. Saul was transformed by his encounter with God, he truly saw God for the first time because of his encounter with the body of Christ  and ultimately became the means through which countless others came to be followers of Christ Jesus. Are we prepared to be transformed by God into the next Paul so that we can be the vessel through which God reaches the world or are we going to be like Saul and stubbornly cling to our rituals and fail to recognize the risen Christ that is seated right next to us. Amen.

Awakening to New Life: Jesus’ Invitation to Change

Published on by The Rev. Jason A Burns, DeaconLeave a comment

Why do we gather, year after year, to retell the same story? We all know how this ends. Jesus was executed on a cross, he was clearly dead and then he wasn’t. We all know what this means, right? It means that if we believe in Jesus then we will also get to be alive after we die and until that happens, we just need to limp along through life and do our best to be good people. The end.

Today the cross is seen as a symbol of forgiveness, redemption, resurrection and even comfort and our adoration of the cross is not misplaced, but I fear that we have lost the most important part of its meaning. In the first century it was ultimate symbol of a painful death. It was a very painful tool of execution, yet we don’t view it that way, which is unfortunate because as Bonhoeffer said “When Christ calls a man, he calls him to come and die.” Which is not a very inviting message, yet it’s true. It is true because important things have a cost, love requires us to sacrifice a part of ourselves for the benefit of another person; taking the time we need to regenerate after a long day requires that we put aside the to-do list even if it means something important has to wait; living in a committed relationship or raising children requires that we give up some of our desires and habits; and living a God centered life requires us to give up parts of ourselves because the love and joy of Easter, of resurrection, of new life requires that we die, but not just any death, not a peaceful in our sleep death after a lifetime of good living kind of death. It requires a hard death, a death that will involve some pain and fear and even anger. A death that requires us to willingly suffer the very real pain and raw emotions we know will come when we give ourselves over to it. The kind of death we would experience if we were hung from a cross, the kind of death Jesus had.

The reason we need to tell the same story every year is because we very quickly forget that the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus is not only about the simplified cycle of passive belief in God so many people think it is. It isn’t only about getting to go to heaven, which isn’t even what people think it is anyway. It isn’t only about being resurrected after we die. It is about having a new life now. If the life of Jesus was about life after actual death, then why would he have spent three years healing the sick, and telling parables that are so abstract and mystical that we learn something new about ourselves every time we hear them?

Reducing our faith to the belief that Jesus died for our sins so that we can go to heaven is not wrong, but it also isn’t the whole truth. Jesus invites us to die to this world every day with the knowledge that new life is not only possible, but guaranteed. The Gospels are filled with examples of how Jesus helped people receive new life. He helped countless people walk, and see, and stand, and speak, he helped people feel whole and if that is not new life then I don’t know what is; but in order for these miracles to happen a very specific things had to occur, they had to be willing to give up the life that they knew before they could have a new life.

New life can look like many things, we all know it can literally mean life after death, that is the obvious definition, but also not likely what Bonhoeffer was referring to when he spoke of Christ’s invitation to death. The invitation to death is an invitation to have a change of heart, it is an invitation to change how we view and approach the world. It is an invitation to die to selfishness, to approach every person with the assumption that their intentions are good and trust that they too desire peace; to approach every situation with the assumption that a positive outcome is possible, most especially when it feels like the intentions behind the situation are rooted in selfishness and even evil. This is not an easy ask, allowing yourself to trust other people, to assume that their intentions are good even when their actions indicate otherwise; to trust that the systems we have made to facilitate our interactions, while flawed, are infused with God’s love and that the people who work within those systems want to do what is best to be good people even if the work they’re doing appears contrary to what we would call good. Even when we don’t believe that God is at work in other people, we have to trust that they are, we have to trust that the Holy Spirit is at work in everyone and by loving them, and trusting them, and praying for them, they too will choose death and allow the Holy Spirit to take control.

The miracle of Easter is not just that we receive new life after physical death, it is that we can receive new life now, we can be free from the control of the fear, and anxiety, and sadness that grips us; but to be free of these things we must first choose to face the cause of them because unless we do, death is not possible and neither is new life. Facing the things that cause us anxiety and fear and sadness is painful, but from pain comes new life.

We retell the same story, year after year, not to remind us that we will receive new life after death, but to remind us of the possibility and the reality of receiving new life now; but it is only possible if we first allow our need for control to die begin assuming that good exists in all people because it does. If we do not believe that people can change, if we do not believe that we can change, then it is a sign that we do not trust God; that we do not believe that new life possible and we are not ready or willing to turn ourselves over to death. Accepting Christ’s invitation to death requires that we do the spiritual work that is necessary to become better people, it requires that we engage with scripture, learn from it, take it to heart, and allow it to guide our thinking and decision making to the point that seeing the potential for good in people and in situations becomes second nature, not because every person is a good person, but because everyone has the capability to be a good person if given the chance and we give them that chance when we believe they are capable and trust that they will not betray us. Sometimes this means that we will be hurt, sometimes it means that events will unfold in unhelpful or painful ways, but that doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter because accepting death and new life is not about living a perfectly peaceful life, it is about living a different life, a life that is countercultural, a life that puts the needs of others, telling the truth, and trusting both God and humanity ahead of what we think is best. Jesus often put the needs of the people he ministered to ahead of himself, he always told the truth, and he most certainly trusted God and humanity. He trusted that God would not abandon him and he trusted that humanity has the capability to follow his lead, accept death, and in doing so help God restore creation to its intended purpose. Amen.

We need to be countercultural, Jesus was

Published on by The Rev. Jason A Burns, Deacon1 Comment

Sermon preached at the Ordination of Jaclyn Mayo

It would be hard to deny the prevalence of individualism in American culture, it is not unique to The United States, but it is generally defined differently here than in other places. For nearly two centuries’ Americans have drawn a direct connection between individual liberty and the belief that hard-work will achieve greatness. As technology has advanced, especially in the last twenty years, there has been a shift in our culture that has significantly changed how we interact with each other. It is a shift that is not entirely explainable, at least not yet, but what is becoming clear is that the American Dream, the idea that hard work can and will lead to success is not only alive and well, it has been heightened by an unwritten set of rules that require unfettered competition with everyone and everything, including social interactions. The subliminal pressure to be number one, to be the top-rated employee, to be the straight A student, to be the highest performing athlete is not only real, it is damaging to our health. The number of young adults, aged 18-25, who have reported feelings of anxiety has more than doubled in the past twenty years. My own students tell me that even though their parents do not pressure them directly to perform at their best, they feel pressured to do so. They fear that if they don’t stretch themselves to their limits that they will have no future, and the saddest thing for me is that I rarely see any joy in their eyes, I rarely see anything except their ambition to get ahead of everyone else so that they can go to college and make lots of money so that they can afford to live.

            While our culture has certainly shifted, I am also aware fact that little has actually changed since the first century. Paul told the Philippians to do nothing from selfish ambition or empty conceit, which means that you have a baseless sense of superiority. What is the American dream if not selfish ambition wrapped in a bow of empty conceit? Now before you get your pitchforks, I am not saying that the idea of hard work leading to success is wrong or bad because it isn’t; the issue is that we have placed our sights on the wrong prize. As Christians we claim to desire humility, and love, and peace; yet the second our ideas are challenged on Facebook or Instagram or whatever technology we turn to, our inner tiger comes out and whether we reply or not, we get riled up because what we believe and what we want has been threatened. That, my friends, is the rearing of the empty conceit we all thought, just a moment ago, doesn’t apply to us.

            Paul tells us that God emptied themself of all their power and took the form of a servant, a servant that is to this day revered as one of the most influential persons to have ever lived and not just by his followers. According to Luke, that very servant told his followers that “the greatest among you must become like the youngest and the leader like one who serves.” So here we have God, in the form of Jesus, telling their followers that when they achieve greatness, of any kind, that it is then time to set aside your own greatness and “humbly regard others as better than yourself”.

            It is of course easy for me to stand here and say that we all need to be humble, that we all need to act like servants. We all know that there just isn’t enough time in the day. There just isn’t time to volunteer at the soup kitchen, or to drop off those extra blankets we never use; there just isn’t time to plan a bible study, or give Alice a ride to the doctor; there just isn’t time do anything except work hard so that we have enough money to pay the rent, to make sure that we meet the deadline at work, to run our kids to ten different events that they don’t even want to do. The phrase “there isn’t time” is a fallacy and it is evidence that we all participate in the culture that values rabid individualism and competition over community and the only reason there isn’t time for things is because we refuse to change our behavior.

            The amazing thing about the life of Jesus is that he was the person we all want to be, and even though he has given us everything we need to lead a countercultural life, because that is what Christianity is, countercultural, we fail at it time and time again. We just can’t let go of the rat race, we can’t step out of our own way, we can’t bring ourselves to put others first, not even when we purposefully try to do so. For example, when do we volunteer? When do we protest for what is right? When do we stop working on the big work project? When do we write a letter or an email or make a call to a friend just to say hey, how are you? When we have time, that’s when.

            Jackie, today you are continuing a journey that began before you were born. You are choosing to accept a mantle of leadership that asks you to be countercultural and I am not going to sugarcoat the fact that this mantle is heavy. Choosing to live an ordered life, a life based on scripture, and prayer, and love, and humility while also bearing the burdens that come with wearing a collar is life changing. While you may not feel different after today because you are still the person God made you to be, you are still you, you are the deacon God wants in their church; how other people see you and interact with you will be different and that will change you because that is how it all works. The perceptions of others change who we are, it is our own fear that others might think we are unsuccessful or lazy to fuel our work ethic and allow our ambition to guide our life decisions instead of turning to the thing that we all know to be true, which is that we really want nothing more than to be loved. The role of a deacon is truly undefinable; yeah, we have our prayer book definition and every deacon in this room can tell you the song and dance about having one foot in the church and one foot in the world, but that doesn’t come close to truly describing who deacons are, it simply gives us parameters for our work. There will be times when you will be called upon to be a pillar of strength and it will feel like you are holding the weight of the entire world on your shoulders. There will also be times when you will want to burn it all down and just before you light the match realize that if you do it, if you do burn it all down, you will in fact be burning yourself down right along with it, which brings me back to how I started this long diatribe of randomness.

            Jesus has asked us to be countercultural, he has asked us to step back from the rat race and try, just try, to approach life from a perspective of love and doing so requires humility and it requires that we stop making excuses about time and energy. I actually believe that sharing God’s love with each other is quite simple, what isn’t simple is setting aside the parts of ourselves that want to win the race at all costs so that we can be sure that our future is secure. Humility requires risk and we don’t like risk. It is far easier to just run the race to win and suffer the consequences than it is to slow our pace and invite God and our neighbor to run with us. The American love affair with hard work is not wrong in principle, but let’s make sure that the hard work is the kind of work we should be doing in the first place. Let’s work on things like love, and prayer, and humility, and empathy, and God forbid compassion. What’s the point of being first, if itmeans you are all alone? God emptied themself of power, they humbled themself to the point of death by execution so that we could understand that a different way is possible. Being a Christian is hard work, it is transformative, it is life giving, but only if we are willing to trust God enough to run a different race, a race that will still involve pain, and anxiety, and even death; but also, a race that guarantees, by the resurrection, that everyone crosses the finish line, so be countercultural, and in humility regard others as better than yourself. Amen.