The Third Sunday of Easter Year C

The Third Sunday of Easter Year C May 5, 2019 This past week, our speaker at Spring Clergy Conference was Dr. Catherine Meeks who is the Executive Director of the Absalom Jones Center for Racial Healing in Atlanta. (Let me just say that I’ve gone to 15 years of clergy conferences, and Dr. Meeks, was by-far the best speaker I have heard. She has such a gracious presence, is clearly very comfortable in her own skin, and has a way of sharing her story and other truths in a way that is both matter of fact and gently joyful.) Dr. Meeks’ time and work with us was divided between watching documentaries (one of which revealed to me a part of our American history that I had been completely ignorant about), conversations about what next steps we might take in our congregations, and her emphasis on the notion that racial healing in our Church begins with our own inner work and awareness. She began our conversation together by referencing the story of Jesus’ healing of the man at the pool of Bethsaida, when Jesus first asked the man, “Do you want to be healed?” She reminded us that “we as Christians believe in healing and transformation. We believe that Jesus brings those about. It is up to us to set ourselves on the road.” I am still processing all of what she said and what we all shared, and I don’t have any ideas about what my next steps here are in light of all this, but we have certainly already begun this conversation in our Just Mercy book study, and through that, I am thankful that we have already begun this work of racial healing here together. But what I was struck by is her image of healing and transformation which is given by Jesus and of our own responsibility to set ourselves on the road in light of our reading from the Acts of the Apostles today. We see Saul, who has made a name for himself by persecuting people of the Way, the followers of Jesus. We have already seen the young Saul earlier in Acts as he stood by and held the coats of the people who stoned Stephen, the first Christian martyr. Our reading for today shows Saul on the road to Damascus when he is blinded by a light from heaven and hears a voice asking him, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?” It’s interesting to me that Saul never answers the Lord’s question. Instead, he responds with a question: “Who are you, Lord?” And the Lord replies: "I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting. But get up and enter the city, and you will be told what you are to do." The story goes on that those who are with Saul hear the Lord’s voice but do not see anything. Saul follows the Lord’s instructions, going into the city where he is blind and doesn’t eat anything for three day. Finally, he is visited by Annais, who the Risen Christ has sent (after having to do some convincing). And through Annais faithfulness and work on behalf of the Risen Christ, Saul is healed and transformed, and he begins to testify about his conversion. But still I can’t help but wonder, why is Saul persecuting Jesus and his followers? What is it that is going on inside him that makes him think that is what he needs to be doing? Most of us don’t naturally identify with Saul, I would guess. It’s not a very flattering picture of humanity, and yet it is one in which we all share. Each one of us is capable of being a Saul, persecuting others, and if we are truthful, we have all done this in much smaller, yet still destructive ways. I think back on the times when I have persecuted someone else—making someone else feel like they are an outsider, engaging in gossip about someone, thinking uncharitable thoughts about someone, judging someone. All of these are micro-aggressions or precursors to persecution that come out of a place of insecurity or dis-ease in my own soul. We persecute others, I think, when we are afraid that we are going to lose something that we think belongs to us or is owed to us. Your invitation this week is to pay attention to the goings on in your soul, especially when those goings on involve persecuting someone else or even the precursor to persecution, when you are feeling insecure or uneasy or you are afraid. When you catch yourself in that moment or in reflecting after, ask God for forgiveness and healing, and rest in the assurance that both you and the one you have harmed are both beloved of God who are loved beyond what you could ever ask for or imagine. “We, as Christians, believe in healing and transformation. We believe that Jesus brings those about. It is up to us to set ourselves on the road.”