"The Only Thing Stronger Than Hate" - Acts 9:1-19

April 25, 2004
Rev. Rachel Cornwell, Bethesda UMC

The story of Saul's conversion is a very familiar story for us. Many of us probably learned it as children in Sunday school. It is a key story in the Christian narrative, telling us how a powerful and zealous man from Tarsus, Saul, an enemy of the early church, was struck down by God on a road outside of Damascus and became Paul, the greatest missionary in the history of the faith. We often refer to Paul's experience, and sometimes our own dramatic conversion experiences (if we have had one) as a "Damascus Road" experience.

But Paul's conversion was not complete out on the Syrian highway. No, there was another part of Paul's conversion experience that occurred in the home of a man named Judas, on a street called Straight, just inside the city wall. This part of Paul's conversion involved a man named Ananias and the community of God.

Before we look at the conversion experience that is the center piece of today's scripture, let's take a look at this man, Saul, whom God converted. Saul was a young and passionate man, faithful to the legalisms of the Temple authority, eager to suppress any deviation from the rigid fundamentalism of the time. When we first meet Saul in Acts (7:58) he is standing off to the side at the stoning of Stephen, holding the coats of those who are taking part in the execution. Although Saul never lifts a stone himself, he approved of Stephen's death.

He hated these "followers of The Way," as they were known - people who had been corrupted by that teacher from Galilee, Jesus. Saul and his gang of thugs must have been deeply angry that killing Jesus had not discouraged his followers. And even worse, this story about Jesus' resurrection was converting more people to The Way. Something had to be done.

Saul was on his way to Damascus with search warrants enabling him to go into the synagogues there and arrest any followers of The Way and bring them back to Jerusalem for trial. Saul was blinded by his passion, his hatred, his sense of righteousness. But suddenly he was overcome by the only thing more powerful than his hate - God's love. Jesus knocks Saul off his feet, takes his breath away, blinds him with brilliant light. This is part one of Saul's conversion.

Years ago, a Johns Hopkins University professor gave a group of graduate students this assignment: Go to a tough, inner city Baltimore neighborhood. Find 200 boys, between the ages of 12 and 16, and investigate their background and environment. Then predict their chances for the future. The students, after consulting social statistics, talking to the boys and compiling much data, concluded that 90 percent of the boys would spend some time in jail.

Twenty-five years later, another group of graduate students was given the job of testing the prediction. They went back to the same area. Some of the boys - by then men - were still there, a few had died, some had moved away, but they got in touch with 180 of the original 200. They found that only four of the group had ever been sent to jail. Why was it that these men, who had lived in a breeding place of crime, had such a surprisingly good record? The researchers were continually told: "Well, there was a teacher ..." They pressed further and found that in 75 percent of the cases it was the same woman. The researchers went to this teacher, now living in a home for retired teachers. How had she exerted this remarkable influence over that group of children? Could she give them any reason why these boys should have remembered her? "No," she said, "no, I really couldn't." And then, thinking back over the years, she said musingly, more to herself than to her questioners: "I loved those boys."

It is the second part of Saul's conversion that I would really like us to look at today, the part that happened after the Damascus Road experience, because of a faithful man named Ananias, and how love and forgiveness changed Saul.

Ananias receives a call from God to go to Judas' house to lay hands on, and restore sight to a man named Saul from Tarsus. Ananias knows this man - he has lived in fear of this man. He has heard of Saul and his right-wing crusade to destroy the followers of Christ. He has heard that he is evil, and has been warned to be careful because Saul was on his way to Damascus to arrest Ananias and his friends. We can only imagine the fear and the hatred that Ananias had for Saul. Perhaps it even crossed his mind that in this weakened state he could kill Saul, protect the community and avenge Saul's persecution of the faithful. God responds to Ananias' questioning mouth and heart, telling him that God has a purpose for Saul, and that he will suffer, but God will be the one to straighten Saul out, not anyone else.

So Ananias goes to the Street called Straight, enters the house, sees his arch enemy there, on his knees praying, blind and dumb. He goes over to Saul, takes a deep breath, calls him his "brother," then lays hands on him and brings him his sight again. We live in a world right now where there is a lot of talk of Aenemies.@ After September 11, 2001, we Americans knew what it felt like to be persecuted. We are now at war in Iraq, and our soldiers and civilian workers are being targeted and killed by people we know only as enemies. We live with an underlying sense of fear that we could be attacked again on our own soil. Given our own experiences, can we imagine what it must be like to be called by God to embrace an enemy?

I don't know how many other married couples do this, but Marcus and I, from time to time have passionate debates about politics. We are not so far apart in our political beliefs, but occasionally something comes up and we can really go at it. Maybe it's the pastor-lawyer combination. Anyway, a week or so ago, we had one of these debates over breakfast. You probably remember the news -Osama bin Ladin had offered a "truce" with European countries who would agree to withdraw their troops from Iraq, and most governments, including our own, said that we would never negotiate with Osama bin Ladin because he is a terrorist. I asked the question: Why would we eliminate any possibility of a negotiation when we know that the only other option is war, death and suffering? Marcus countered that we should never negotiate - we were attacked unprovoked and we should not give Osama legitimacy by taking his weak efforts at diplomacy seriously. We went back and forth for a bit, then we said we loved each other, and Marcus went to work, but I have been thinking about this debate ever since. So when I read this morning's scripture, I could not help but see it from Ananias' perspective, and it got me thinking about the power of God's love to change people's hearts.

Now, since my own husband doesn't agree with me on this, I don't expect you to either, but I want to put it out there for all of us to think about and pray on. God's love, and our willingness to live out that love does have the power to change people and situations, even the ones that we find completely unredeemable. The gospel tells us that we shouldn't confront hate with hate. We find Jesus' version of a "pre-emptive strike" against enemies in Matthew's gospel that was read this morning: love your enemies and pray for them.

The great contemplative monastic Thomas Merton wrote this about loving our enemies: "If you hate enemies of the church instead of loving them, you too will run the risk of becoming an enemy of the church, and of Christ, for he said: "Love your enemies," and He also said: "He that is not with me is against me." Therefore if you do not side with Christ by loving those that He loves, you are against Him. But Christ loves all men. Christ died for all men. And Christ said that there was no greater love than that a man should lay down his life for his friend."

Now Jesus, and Thomas Merton and I, we might not be the people you would want on your foreign policy team, so if you are still dubious, I want to offer you one more perspective on this idea of loving our enemies, and this one from General George S. Patton, written during the Battle of the Bulge to everyone under his command: "Those who pray do more for the world than those who fight; and if the world goes from bad to worse, it is because there are more battles than prayers. Hands lifted up smash more battalions than hands that strike. Urge all of your men to pray, not alone in church, but everywhere. Pray when driving. Pray when fighting. Pray alone. Pray with others. Pray by night and pray by day. Pray for our Army, and pray for peace."

God changed Saul's heart. God changed a hateful, violent, self-righteous man, into one of the greatest lovers of Christ and his Gospel our church and world have ever known. But if Ananias had not believed, if Ananias had not listened to and trusted God, if he had not obeyed God and gone to that house to confront his enemy, not with hate, but with love, Paul's conversion would not have been complete. He would not have been accepted into the community, been baptized, and started preaching Jesus was the Son of God. God needed Ananias to love his enemy, to forgive him, and to trust in God's loving power to convert even the most hateful, evil people.

We are living in a world where politics and human power have made some people allies and some enemies. But we also live in a world where Christ is risen. Where our Savior, dying on the cross, forgave those who put him to death. And then was raised from the dead to show that God can conquer human evil, God can conquer death, God can create new life. We might not have much faith in human beings to change. We might not think that people like Osama bin Ladin, or Saddam Hussein, or anonymous suicide bombers are likely to change their hearts and ways. And without God, without our prayers, they are not going to. But, in this season of hopefulness, of new life and joy, may we pray for our enemies, and may we have faith in the power of God's love to do anything.

Amen.