A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Damascus

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Damascus
Text: Acts 9:1-8
Rev. Dr. John E. Manzo
April 18, 2010

Have you ever noticed how often we use the word funny and how often it ends up meaning very different things?

For example, sometimes we use the word funny to mean humorous. A funny person is a person who enjoys laughing and making other people laugh. I love funny things and even attempt, on occasion, to be funny. Humor is important to me.

But we use the word funny in other ways.

If a person gets up in the morning and says, “My stomach feels funny,” they are not saying that their stomach is now starting a new career in stand up. It means that they are not feeling well.

If we say that we’d feel funny about doing something it means that we’d feel awkward about something which we are undertaking.

And if we say something funny happened on our way to someplace, well, it can either be that we had an entertaining event or something completely unexpected took place.

And then there was Saul. A funny thing happened on the way to Damascus and it wasn’t amusing.

Saul, the one we’ve come to know as St. Paul, was persecuting Christians. He was building up a case and was on his way to Damascus when a funny thing happened. Luke tells us that a light appeared and a voice came down from Heaven and asked Saul why he was persecuting me. And Saul wants to know who ‘me’ is. And Saul encounters Jesus on the road to Damascus. And Saul turns from being a persecutor of Christians to the person who is most important in the history of Christianity of anyone other than Jesus.

For many, this story is vexing and offers so many ways to approach it.

Let’s focus on Paul for a moment.

When we think of St. Paul we think of the great Christian. When the people Paul was first interacting with thought of him, they thought of him as this horrible person who was persecuting everyone in the early church. And they were correct. This is who he was.

And so there was the question. Why did God use this bad man for such a noble purpose? Or maybe better asked is wondering why God doesn’t use better people than Paul.

But there was more to Paul than this and one thing we often miss about St. Paul. He changed. He changed big time, and change is difficult.

Paul was not the average guy. He was incredibly accomplished. He was fluent in writing Greek and used many images from the philosopher Plato which means that he was highly educated by Greek philosophers-----this was reserved for only the best and the brightest, so he was one of the best and the brightest.

But in Acts of the Apostles Luke tells us that St. Paul was educated by the famous Rabbi Gamaliel who was the well known and highly renowned teacher of the best and brightest Rabbinical students.

Paul was brilliant. Seriously brilliant. When we speak of the great minds in history, Albert Einstein, Thomas Aquinas, Galileo, and Isaac Newton, we need to include St. Paul. He was in that category.

And he changed.

For a person of Paul’s brilliance and accomplishment and achievement, change would have been difficult. Very difficult.

It is easy to say that it would have been easier for him than most. After all, God spoke to him, God knocked him off the horse, and God made him blind. This would have been enough. But that’s not all together true.

Reread Exodus some day. God makes war on the land of Egypt. Ten plagues fall upon the people. Ten. The water turns to blood. Pestilence. Boils. Death of the firstborn. Horrible, horrible plagues. God was not getting the people’s attention in Egypt. God was picking them up by their feet, spinning them around, and launching them high in the air.

Yet, the Pharaoh still sent his troops after the Israelites. After so much, after TEN incredibly destructive plagues from a God he obviously could not defeat, he still kept up the fight. It was hard headed and hard hearted beyond all recourse. Yet, the Pharaoh keep it up.

But Paul changed.

Change is sometimes difficult because it may challenge our deepest principles. Saul was Jewish. He believed that Judaism was the one true religion, the one true faith. He did not believe the Christians were right; he believed they were wrong strongly enough that he was putting them to death.

Yet he changed.

In 1803 the President of the United States was Thomas Jefferson and he had a problem.

Before him was the offer of a huge parcel of land; the land we now call the Louisiana Purchase. Historians called this Jefferson’s finest moment, but Jefferson was vexed.

Jefferson did not really believe in a strong, central, national government. He was a huge advocate for state’s rights and believed that the Federal Government should be small and weak. But...

It was going to require a huge effort by the Federal Government to make this purchase. It would require taxation to pay for it and it would require Jefferson to move in a manner contrary to every political principle he had. His choice was simple: stick with his political principles and not purchase the land; or go against long held beliefs and make the purchase and transform the young nation.

He changed his mind. It was not because he was unprincipled, but because Jefferson determined there was something greater at stake that his principles.

For Paul it was a great deal like this except for one big thing. His principles were wrong. Everything he believed, his core set of beliefs, he came to understand, was wrong.

Truth is not something that always accommodates our own ideas. Truth is what it is. The fact that we have a set of beliefs or opinions or ideas contrary to the truth does not make our ideas better because we hold onto them. We are challenged, at times, to put everything we have at the core of our being at risk to be open to God.

We honor Paul because he did.

There is something else at work here.

At the stoning of Stephen, Luke seemed to note that something jarred inside Paul. That jarring was the beginning of respect for another.

We cannot grow, we cannot ever change, we cannot really experience instant or ongoing conversion unless we can learn to respect people who might have different perspectives than we do.

Sometimes I think we are a nation and a people in the midst of a great crisis. It isn’t economic or political or international as much as it is something amongst the people itself. We have, as a society, lost the ability to respect one another.

We see this all the time. We are probably all guilty of it.

I know I am guilty of it. You all know me. I am quick-witted, often make quick, sharp comments. I love sarcasm. Sadly, I can be sarcastic at the expense of others. I’d like to say that I’ve never been guilty of this, but I have been. I look forward to the day when I outgrow this!

But our society seems to be on the verge of a national nervous breakdown. People are so tense about the fact that people cut into each other quickly.

In the recent health reform issues in Washington D. C., I think many people watched in distress as something happened. There really was no debate. There really was no debate. I can say that 1001 times. There were contrasting monologues of posturing and speeches, and no debate. It was not about right or wrong, good or bad, it was about winning or losing. Or winning by making the other guy lose. When it was all over, there were no innocent parties.

But that was just a grand and glorious display of the nation. People are willing to cut into each other with vim, vigor, and glee, regardless of how much they hurt each other. Respecting one another has become lost.

I am reminded, however, that this is not the way God calls us to be. In 1 Peter it is written:

Let your love for one another be intense, because love covers a multitude of sins. Be hospitable to one another without complaining. As each one has received a gift, use it to serve one another as good stewards of God's varied grace." 1 Peter 4:8-10

And that respect and intense for others is so key to conversion.

Perfection is often defined as the inability to improve.

You cannot make a perfect circle more perfect.

You cannot improve a perfect square.

You can write a perfect sentence. “John sees Mary.” If John sees Mary, it’s a perfect sentence.

Two plus two equals four. You cannot improve the answer.

We always have to ask ourselves: Am I perfect? I always know the answer to the question when it pertains to me. I suspect the answer is the same for everyone.

And unless we are perfect we are challenged to grow and to grow requires change, and to change requires learning from others and learning from others means first and foremost, to respect others. And the opinion of others.

We have a societal crisis because we cannot grow because we cannot respect one another.

St. Paul was an amazing man. Despite his great education and knowledge, he was humble enough to change. Despite his own person beliefs, even anger at others, he was able to respect and that respect enabled him to grow.

A funny thing happened on the way to Damascus. And Christianity was transformed by the greatness of the man knocked off his horse that day.