SERMON, EASTER 3C, ACTS 9:1-19A

“How do you love those who never will love you?”

Those are words from a song by Susan Werner. I heard this song for the first time on my way back home from clergy conference last week. That song, in combination with this reading from Acts, got me thinking.

How do you love those who never will love you?

Meanwhile, Saul, still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord . . .

The early church was founded under the persecution and death of its members. “The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church,” said one church father. We can start with Jesus, and then add Stephen, Peter, and a host of others too numerous to name here. And Saul was one of the earliest persecutors. He was out to crush this troublesome new sect.

And why was that? Because on the one hand, they were going against all of the traditional teachings of Judaism and turning people away from God. They were advocating removal of the purity laws. They were stating that Gentiles had equal access to God. These radical new thoughts were a threat to the Jewish understanding of what it meant to be in relationship with God.

And on the other hand, they were claiming that these radical new thoughts were not something they cooked up themselves. These new ideas weren’t just a matter of caving to some outside feel-good social agenda. The members of this new sect were claiming that these new thoughts were a revelation from God; they were a new direction instituted by the Holy Spirit. And claiming that God was doing something new was a threat to the established religion.

The people of this new sect, the Way as it was called, are called to love each other as Jesus loved them. But how does that translate to loving the people who persecute you? For starters, they . . . we . . . pray for them. “Pray for your enemies. Love those who hate you.” Despite some statements to the contrary, this actually seems like an easy thing to do. We can certainly pray for our enemies without becoming involved with them. It’s easy to stand up in church once a week and pray for those who hate us, that by some miracle they will see the light and quit being obnoxious twits. I’m fairly certain that the people of the early church were praying for Saul.

And then, on his way to Damascus, Saul saw the light, so to speak, and had a conversion experience. Maybe those prayers worked. Maybe God decided to do something on his own. Maybe it was a combination of the two. Whatever the reason, Saul had a life-changing experience with the risen Christ. He realized that by persecuting the people of this new sect, he was, in fact, persecuting the very person of Jesus. It wasn’t simply individuals of a new religion that Saul was chasing down; rather, he was tearing apart the unified body of Jesus Christ.

It was here that Saul realized there was a vast difference between following the rules of the religion and entering into a relationship with God. Sometimes the rules have to change. When rules keep people out of our churches because of an accident of birth or a genetic difference over which we have no control, then we need to think about changing the rules. Maintaining and defending the rules because “we’ve always done it that way” keeps more people out of a relationship with God than it does to encourage people to explore that relationship.

So Saul has a life-changing experience. He learns, or will learn, that God is calling all people into a close, personal, loving relationship. He learns that God is not necessarily interested in following the rules, or only allowing the right people in, or keeping the unclean out. That movement into a close relationship, though, is a scary thing.

It’s scary because it’s new. It’s scary because it’s different. It’s scary because “we’ve never done it that way before.” Saul was scared.

But guess what? Saul wasn’t the only one who was having a life-changing conversion experience. Ananias was a disciple living in Damascus. We don’t know much about him. He wasn’t one of the original twelve. He may have been part of the group that followed Jesus during his ministry. He may have come to discipleship later. It’s really not important.

What is important is that he was a disciple and that he knew of Saul. He had heard from various sources of “the evil things [Saul] has done to [God’s] holy ones in Jerusalem.” And yet, God chooses him to go into town to be with Saul. Ananias doesn’t want to, of course, but God convinces him that God really does know what he’s doing. So he goes.

Here’s the thing, though . . . when Ananias goes to meet Saul, he goes fully trusting that God knows what’s best. He doesn’t give Saul any conditions for his healing. He doesn’t give Saul any conditions for his baptism. He doesn’t make Saul renounce his former life. He doesn’t tell Saul that he’ll be watching him carefully. He goes to Saul, lays hands on him, and calls him, “My brother.”

What kind of conversion process did Ananias go through? How did he move from fearing Saul to welcoming him has a brother? How do you love those who will never love you?

You see, it takes more than one to be unified. We can pray for our enemies all we want. We can hope that they will be converted from obnoxious twits to disciples of Christ. We can hope that they will be people like us. We can hope that Saul gets converted. But that’s only half the story.

The other half is us. How will we receive those outside our walls? How will we receive people who have antagonized us for being Christians? Will we place burdens on them that keep them from becoming full members of the body of Christ? Or will we be converted, like Ananias, and welcome them as a brother or sister?

How will we love those who will never love us?