An old Hasidic story tells of a wise rabbi who asked his students, “How do you know when the night is over and the day begins?” One student answered, “When you can tell the difference between a dog and a sheep.” “No,” said the rabbi. Another suggested, “When you can tell the difference between the leaves of an oak or a maple?” The rabbi shook his head No. “Then tell us please,” the students begged. So the rabbi answered, “When you look into the face of any other human being and have enough light to recognize your brother or sister. Until then it is night and darkness is still with us.”

About all we Christians need to add to the rabbi’s words is, “Because in that sister or brother is Christ.”

Today we heard from Acts Luke’s tale of the conversion and calling of Paul. Luke is nothing if not dramatic here. Only once before has he mentioned Saul of Tarsus (as the man was known then) and that was only to say that he approved of the stoning of Stephen, remembered as the first Christian martyr. Now Saul has set out on a mission of hatred, intent only on his enemies, on their apprehension and their destruction. He seems so certain in his hate, so unshakable in his rage against them. Then, out of the blue, a burst of light. Saul was a teacher of Israel, a man learned in the lore of his people, so right away he recognized a theophany— a sudden manifestation of the divine— when it hit him in the face. But what was it? Who was it? Poor Saul had to ask, “Who are you, Lord?” And then came the devastating, life-changing answer, “I am Jesus whom you are persecuting.”

Absolutely unbelievable! And certainly today it is scarcely credible the way Luke spins the tale. He seems all to read to sacrifice plausibility for the sake of dramatic effect— at least for us who have been taught that growth and change are gradual, that human beings don’t change overnight, much less in the twinkling of an eye. We’ve learned in school and through experience that events have causes which can be discovered and explained. So we must ask in all fairness to the truth as it is given our age to understand the truth if what Luke describes as a bolt from the blue was not rather the result of a longer, and ascertainable, string of events.

We can look at what Paul himself has to say. He was a Jew from Tarsus and a Pharisee. He had undertaken the commendable tast of living his life in the utmost fidelity to the Law of God. That Law, that Torah, was understood in all its carefully worked out minutiae not as a burden to be borne but as a means of liberation; observance of the Law freed the soul to dwell on the things of God and the Law of the Lord delighted the soul for it was sweeter than honey from the comb. But for Paul it became a torture that emphasized the abysmal gulf between his human frailty and the awe-ful holiness of God. The closer he hewed to the most painstaking observance of every jot and tiddle, the farther he felt from the one thing that mattered most to him, the farther he felt from God’s accepting love. “I do not understand my own actions!” he cried. “I do not do the good I want, but I do the thing I hate. I can tell what is right, but I cannot do it!”

Centuries later Martin Luther would find the same conflicts as he tried to find his way to God through the time-tested workiongs of the Church’s sacramental system. And as he agaonized and confessed and performed his penances, all he saw over him was a grim and terrible Judge. We have to realize that the opportunities for flagrant sinning were somewhat limited in the Augustinian monastery where Luther, like Paul before him, wrestled with the weakness of his humanity until all he could do was scream out with Paul, “Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?”

So we learn that the man who set out for Damascus seemingly so self-assured in the rightness of his hatred toward those who followed Christ was in fact a writhing, anguished tangle of conflict and doubt, of self-loathing and despair. No wonder he hated! No wonder he was trying to vent the hostilities and pain in his own soul against that small band of heretical Jews who had the gall to call a crucified criminal Lord and Christ.

Obviously, while he was carrying out his task as chief harrier of the Church he had had face-to-face encounters with Christian men and women. Probably without even knowing it in the darkness which was engulfing him he had even seen the likeness of Christ in the face of Stephen or of the others he had persecuted.

So it would seem that as he went to Damascus a conflux of factors was raging within him, tumbling here and there in ever new configurations until everything fell into place, until suddenly there was daylight where roiling darkness had reigned, until suddenly, as he later wrote to Galatia, “God was pleased to reveal his Son to me, that I might proclaim him to the Gentiles.”

Luke hasn’t finished with his drama when Paul hears the vision identify himself. He tells us that Paul was blind: the man who had headed so confidently toward Damascus had, in the end, to be led by hand into the city. And there, for a not coincidental three days, he sat alone in the dark fasting, until another Christian, a man called Ananias, came at his Lord’s bidding; and in that company, that companionship, the scales fell from Paul’s eyes and in that new light he was ready to begin the work Christ had called him to do, ready to remember Christ’s death, proclaim his resurrection, and wait for his coming again— no longer alone in the darkness of his turmoil but now in the company of others who, like Ananias, knew his Lord and could offer comfort and solace and cheer and point him to recognize his brothers and sisters in the light.

Back to sermons