Tag: paul

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Understanding God’s Call: Lessons from Saul and Ananias

Published on by The Rev. Jason A BurnsLeave 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.

It’s not about you, it’s about community

Published on by The Rev. Jason A Burns1 Comment

   Communities of faith have been in decline for decades, which does not mean that faith is in decline, it simply means that fewer people are seeing the necessity of participating in a community of faith. A part of this is because faith traditions, like the Episcopal Church, have stubbornly held on to “traditions” that are no longer culturally relevant. Of course, an additional sticking point is that as a faith community attempts to maintain relevancy, they will potentially alienate the long-time members of the community who feel connected through the current programming and liturgy.

            Eli represents the old way of doing things, he has been a faithful servant of God for his entire life and has been teaching Samuel how to do the same. Samuel represents the new generation and appears to be happy to be learning the ropes and dutifully responds when Eli needs him, but God has a different vision for Samuel’s future, and calls him to be the voice to Israel, to hold them accountable as they struggle to move forward as a community.

            Paul’s very uncomfortable letter to the Corinthians is his attempt to address a lack of change. Corinth was known as a den of licentiousness, but that is not the issue Paul is addressing in his letter. He is concerned that the believers in Corinth are not changing their behavior to be community focused, instead they continue to focus on their individual desires without regard for how their actions are affecting everyone else, which is contrary to the teachings of Jesus.

            John tells us of the calling of Nathanial, which at first glance has nothing to do with what we heard from Samuel and Paul, but ultimately is also about community. While Nathanial believes right away, Jesus promises that if he sticks with him he will experience far more interesting things than what he as seen so far.

            God calls us to be in community with them and with one another as seen in the calling of Nathanial; they call us to adapt and change our culture, as seen in Paul’s letter; and they call us to speak truth to power, as seen in the calling of Samuel. One of the more difficult parts of being followers of Christ is discerning how to build community in new ways, so that we can remain relevant and assist God in their efforts to reach the people of the world. To be clear, I am not suggesting that we need to change our ways so that we can fill the pews and pay the bills, that is the old model. One could argue that what we need is to discern why so many people feel belonging to a faith community is not necessary, but that would be nothing more than an attempt to figure out how to get butts in pews.. Everything Jesus taught is about community and while we are aware of that, what we have not kept pace with is what community actually looks like outside of these walls.

What we do on Sunday morning has not significantly changed in my lifetime. The format is the same, the hymns are the same, the prayers are the same and while I find that comforting on one level, I am also aware that the language we use during the liturgy and the expectations we have for children are extremely outdated and unwelcoming. Much of my generation grew up in broken homes, many of us did not have father figures in our lives, so when we come to church and hear language and imagery that depicts God as our father, it doesn’t resonate. When my children were young my wife stopped coming to church because the expectation was that they would be still and silent. At one point the vestry suggested parents should take their children to the parish hall during the sermon, which was code for we don’t want your kind here because our experience is more important than all members of the community being included. This is the exact kind of thing Paul was raging against in his letter. The church members in Corinth were continuing to focus on their individual desires instead of what was best for the entire community.

            What we do here has to reflect every member of our community in some way, including the people who have yet to come through those doors because if it doesn’t, if what we do only aligns with what we think liturgy and community should be; then our efforts are not about God, they are about us. If liturgy is the work of the people then it needs to reflect all people. It needs to use language that speaks to all people, and we need to find ways to include all people because if we don’t then we are not following the way of love. Love never excludes, it doesn’t discriminate, it doesn’t divide. Love is inclusive, it creates a bond between us that can withstand divisive issues and turmoil. I believe that many people no longer see the relevancy of faith communities because our communities have lost sight of why we exist. We, our community, this community does not exist to provide pews for butts, we do not exist to preserve the exact wording of the Book of Common Prayer, we do not exist to perform the liturgy with perfection, we do not exist to make everyone happy. We exist to minister to the needs of the body of Christ and as the body changes we need to also heed the call to change. The body of Christ is over 2000 years old, and it has changed immensely in that amount of time, but yet we still think that what was done in 1955 is the right way and cling to it as if our life depends on it. We lose sight of that fact that the reason the church has lasted for over 2000 years is because the church has lived, died, and been resurrected time and time again.

            Eli was preparing Samuel to tend to the temple as he had been taught, but God had a different plan, he needed Samuel to help bring about the resurrection of Israel. The Christians in Corinth struggled to let go of their individual desires, which were getting in the way of God’s attempted resurrection. Nathanial answered the call of Jesus to leave his life behind and take a chance on unknown possibilities and the work he did as a disciple of Christ Jesus laid the foundation for us to also experience the resurrection as the body of Christ.

            St. John’s is experiencing a resurrection. The Spirit is alive among us, it is pulling us in new and exciting directions, directions that are allowing God to reach the people “out there”. I know this is true because every week there are new faces and many of those new faces have become familiar faces. We are surrounded by resurrection, but to see it we need to let go. Amen.