Acts 9:10-19
There was a disciple in Damascus by the name of Ananias. The Master spoke to him in a vision: “Ananias.”
“Yes, Master?” he answered.
“Get up and go over to Straight Avenue. Ask at the house of Judas for a man from Tarsus. His name is Saul. He’s there praying. He has just had a dream in which he saw a man named Ananias enter the house and lay hands on him so he could see again.”
Ananias protested, “Master, you can’t be serious. Everybody’s talking about this man and the terrible things he’s been doing, his reign of terror against your people in Jerusalem! And now he’s shown up here with papers from the Chief Priest that give him license to do the same to us.”
But the Master said, “Don’t argue. Go! I have picked him as my personal representative to non-Jews and kings and Jews. And now I’m about to show him what he’s in for—the hard suffering that goes with this job.”
So Ananias went and found the house, placed his hands on blind Saul, and said, “Brother Saul, the Master sent me, the same Jesus you saw on your way here. He sent me so you could see again and be filled with the Holy Spirit.” No sooner were the words out of his mouth than something like scales fell from Saul’s eyes—he could see again! He got to his feet, was baptized, and sat down with them to a hearty meal.
Acts 9:31-35
Things calmed down after all the initial excitement over Saul/Paul and the church had smooth sailing for a while. All over the country—Judea, Samaria, Galilee—the church grew. They were permeated with a deep sense of reverence for God. The Holy Spirit was with them, strengthening them. They prospered wonderfully.
Peter went off on a mission to visit all the churches. In the course of his travels he arrived in Lydda and met with the believers there. He came across a man—his name was Aeneas—who had been in bed eight years paralyzed. Peter said, “Aeneas, Jesus Christ heals you. Get up and make your bed!” And he did it—jumped right out of bed. Everybody who lived in Lydda and Sharon saw him walking around and woke up to the fact that God was alive and active among them.
We are moving through the book of Acts by leaps and bounds, which is a shame to my way of thinking, because Acts is one of the richest, most jam-packed books in the Bible. In just this ninth chapter, from which our readings came today there is the conversion of Saul, the Christian hunter, into Paul, the apostle of Jesus by a voice from above and a dazzling light, then blindness, followed by a man named Ananias being sent to go and heal that blindness.
At first, many of the new Christians distrusted Paul – it’s not difficult to understand why with his history among them – but then gradually began to trust him. The traditionalist Jews who most likely had cheered Saul on in his Christian-hunting now viewed him as a traitor and apostate and plotted to murder him, leading to Paul’s dramatic escape from Damascus by being lowered over the city wall in a basket.
After escaping Damascus, Paul went to Jerusalem, where, once again, the Christians – knowing only his past performance among them, refused to trust him until Barnabas spoke up for him, and told the story of what happened on the Damascus road and Paul was gradually accepted here as well.
Things went smoothly for awhile but then there was a second plot to murder Paul, from those who disagreed with him, and he was once again smuggled out of town and this time ended up in the north in the city of Tarsus.
Peter, all this time was traveling around the nearer countryside preaching and house churches were springing up around Israel and the nearby country. In the town of Lydda, Peter healed a man named Aeneas, a paralytic for eight years, then down the road in Joppa Peter raised Tabitha, one of the well-beloved local saints, from death back to life. And the faith continued to grow and spread.
Now all of this I’ve just run past you takes place in chapter nine – one chapter! And chapter nine is not an anomaly – most of the Book of Acts is this crammed with action. You can see how easily some of the smaller stories could be overlooked, which is why I’ve chosen this brief vignette about Saul-slash-Paul and Ananias. With blinding lights and death threats and wild escapes over city walls, this story could so easily be lost, and it shouldn’t be lost because I believe it speaks to all of us average Christians – the ones like you and me who don’t get death threats and have never yet healed a paralytic or raised anyone from the dead.
Ananias is one of those characters who are scattered all throughout scripture who argue with God. The people whose mantra is “you want me to do what?”
There are the obvious ones like Moses who constantly whines to God that God has made a big mistake and clearly meant to call someone much better qualified than himself. Or Abraham who bargained God into acting with mercy when God planned to destroy everyone – the innocent along with the guilty – in the city of Sodom for their arrogance and lack of hospitality. God still destroyed the town but first sent angels to tell the innocent to flee before the city was destroyed.
And then there’s Job who took God to court, like a trial court lawyer, demanding that God justify God's actions toward Job. But my favorite of all time is, of course, Jonah – rasty, crabby Jonah, who does not like to be pushed into doing something he doesn’t want to do. Childish, sulking Jonah. I identify so much with Jonah.
Like all the above, and many more, my whiney human mantra has often been an incredulous “you want me to do what?” And so we come back around to Ananias:
At first, many of the new Christians distrusted Paul – it’s not difficult to understand why with his history among them – but then gradually began to trust him. The traditionalist Jews who most likely had cheered Saul on in his Christian-hunting now viewed him as a traitor and apostate and plotted to murder him, leading to Paul’s dramatic escape from Damascus by being lowered over the city wall in a basket.
After escaping Damascus, Paul went to Jerusalem, where, once again, the Christians – knowing only his past performance among them, refused to trust him until Barnabas spoke up for him, and told the story of what happened on the Damascus road and Paul was gradually accepted here as well.
Things went smoothly for awhile but then there was a second plot to murder Paul, from those who disagreed with him, and he was once again smuggled out of town and this time ended up in the north in the city of Tarsus.
Peter, all this time was traveling around the nearer countryside preaching and house churches were springing up around Israel and the nearby country. In the town of Lydda, Peter healed a man named Aeneas, a paralytic for eight years, then down the road in Joppa Peter raised Tabitha, one of the well-beloved local saints, from death back to life. And the faith continued to grow and spread.
Now all of this I’ve just run past you takes place in chapter nine – one chapter! And chapter nine is not an anomaly – most of the Book of Acts is this crammed with action. You can see how easily some of the smaller stories could be overlooked, which is why I’ve chosen this brief vignette about Saul-slash-Paul and Ananias. With blinding lights and death threats and wild escapes over city walls, this story could so easily be lost, and it shouldn’t be lost because I believe it speaks to all of us average Christians – the ones like you and me who don’t get death threats and have never yet healed a paralytic or raised anyone from the dead.
Ananias is one of those characters who are scattered all throughout scripture who argue with God. The people whose mantra is “you want me to do what?”
There are the obvious ones like Moses who constantly whines to God that God has made a big mistake and clearly meant to call someone much better qualified than himself. Or Abraham who bargained God into acting with mercy when God planned to destroy everyone – the innocent along with the guilty – in the city of Sodom for their arrogance and lack of hospitality. God still destroyed the town but first sent angels to tell the innocent to flee before the city was destroyed.
And then there’s Job who took God to court, like a trial court lawyer, demanding that God justify God's actions toward Job. But my favorite of all time is, of course, Jonah – rasty, crabby Jonah, who does not like to be pushed into doing something he doesn’t want to do. Childish, sulking Jonah. I identify so much with Jonah.
Like all the above, and many more, my whiney human mantra has often been an incredulous “you want me to do what?” And so we come back around to Ananias:
“Master, you can’t be serious. Everybody’s talking about this man and the terrible things he’s been doing, his reign of terror against your people in Jerusalem! And now he’s here ... to do the same to us.”
Based on the information available to him so far, I think Ananias’ is an entirely reasonable response. And God listened to him, and God explained God’s reasons for this assignment, and then Ananias went out and did as he was told.
There are those – I call them merchants of fear and dread – who sell a religion of terror – those who would have us believe that God is out to get us and is constantly on the lookout for a reason to destroy us, to punish us. Those who blather endlessly about hellfire but almost never about love. Theirs is a God of wrath whose favorite thing to do is send folks to hell forever – those who teach that we must believe and act exactly as they do in order to avoid eternal torment in never-ending fires.
I hope it goes without saying that I think these people are wrong – way wrong – psychologically and emotionally damaged people who lash out from the pain inside themselves. But one thing they have managed to insert into many people’s mainline faith is a belief that it is somehow wrong to question God in any way. But I believe the story of Ananias – and those of Moses, Abraham and even cranky old Jonah – show us that God is entirely willing to be engaged when we don’t “get it” and need to have things explained to us. I've long maintained that if all God wanted was blind obedience and unquestioning devotion, God would have stopped with dogs and bypassed the idea of humans.
It’s OK to question God...as long as we listen to God’s answers. Some of us, like Ananias, get it with a short answer. Others, like Jonah, need to spend some time in fish guts before we finally understand. And that appears to be OK with God.
And that’s the reason this story is here – for us to know that we are OK with God, even when we don’t understand – as long as we are trying. And sometime we still don’t understand but we do what God says anyway – and that may best of all.
And I came to realize, while putting this message together, that the reason the whole Book of Acts is here just may be found in the last sentence of our second reading, the story of Peter healing Aeneas: Everybody.....woke up to the fact that God was alive and active among them.
Oh, one more thing here while we are still in Acts. Because of the way in which the story is presented to us in the average Bible, we tend to read it with a full stop at the end of Luke's Gospel, and then we start a whole new story with Acts. But that is not the way that Luke wrote the two books and that is not the way the early Jesus-followers lived out the story. That division was added on after the fact. It is an artifact of our western literary traditions, not history.
The early Christians didn't think in terms of Jesus alive among them and then Jesus not alive among them anymore. They realized that Jesus had always been with them and was with them still -- just in a different form. For awhile he walked and ate among them just as one of them, but then that human form died and then he continued to live among them still -- just not in a visible form. For the early church there never was the "full stop" between these two ways of being with them. When they recognized Jesus still living among them it was the real thing and no ghostly shadow of what had gone before. Jesus lived with them, walked with them, ate with them, and taught them -- just as he had always done.
And that is how is today -- no different. Jesus is with us now and forever. Thanks be to God.
There are those – I call them merchants of fear and dread – who sell a religion of terror – those who would have us believe that God is out to get us and is constantly on the lookout for a reason to destroy us, to punish us. Those who blather endlessly about hellfire but almost never about love. Theirs is a God of wrath whose favorite thing to do is send folks to hell forever – those who teach that we must believe and act exactly as they do in order to avoid eternal torment in never-ending fires.
I hope it goes without saying that I think these people are wrong – way wrong – psychologically and emotionally damaged people who lash out from the pain inside themselves. But one thing they have managed to insert into many people’s mainline faith is a belief that it is somehow wrong to question God in any way. But I believe the story of Ananias – and those of Moses, Abraham and even cranky old Jonah – show us that God is entirely willing to be engaged when we don’t “get it” and need to have things explained to us. I've long maintained that if all God wanted was blind obedience and unquestioning devotion, God would have stopped with dogs and bypassed the idea of humans.
It’s OK to question God...as long as we listen to God’s answers. Some of us, like Ananias, get it with a short answer. Others, like Jonah, need to spend some time in fish guts before we finally understand. And that appears to be OK with God.
And that’s the reason this story is here – for us to know that we are OK with God, even when we don’t understand – as long as we are trying. And sometime we still don’t understand but we do what God says anyway – and that may best of all.
And I came to realize, while putting this message together, that the reason the whole Book of Acts is here just may be found in the last sentence of our second reading, the story of Peter healing Aeneas: Everybody.....woke up to the fact that God was alive and active among them.
Oh, one more thing here while we are still in Acts. Because of the way in which the story is presented to us in the average Bible, we tend to read it with a full stop at the end of Luke's Gospel, and then we start a whole new story with Acts. But that is not the way that Luke wrote the two books and that is not the way the early Jesus-followers lived out the story. That division was added on after the fact. It is an artifact of our western literary traditions, not history.
The early Christians didn't think in terms of Jesus alive among them and then Jesus not alive among them anymore. They realized that Jesus had always been with them and was with them still -- just in a different form. For awhile he walked and ate among them just as one of them, but then that human form died and then he continued to live among them still -- just not in a visible form. For the early church there never was the "full stop" between these two ways of being with them. When they recognized Jesus still living among them it was the real thing and no ghostly shadow of what had gone before. Jesus lived with them, walked with them, ate with them, and taught them -- just as he had always done.
And that is how is today -- no different. Jesus is with us now and forever. Thanks be to God.
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