Acts 9:1-20

So this is my sermon for tomorrow. It's a rough draft and it won't sound like this when I give it but...

If you had a mother like mine, one who wanted nothing more then to protect her children, she scolded you and told you not to look into sun or you will go blind. Maybe if she was thinking more about the immediate dangers of meeting the Son, Jesus Christ, she would have had a warning about that as well. “Don’t get too close to Jesus, he is going to make you feel uncomfortable and turn your world upside down.”
I’m sure that’s what Paul felt when he had his Damcus Road experience. He had been the top of the top in Jewish culture. He was a Roman citizen and a Jewish leader in the synagogue. He had everything going for him. He was well educated, came from a family of wealth, and had religious authority. Paul had enough power to persuade the high priest to allow him to go to Damascus and arrest Christians and bring them back to Jerusalem to be tried and put to death for their beliefs. Yet, this man of power was struck down and made infantile when he met the Almighty Christ along the road. His meeting with Jesus became dangerous.
Throughout the Old and New Testament human eyesight, especially in religious leaders, reflected their ability to experience the living God. Blindness often was a sign of a deeper spiritual issue. Let’s turn back to 1 Samuel 3. Here we have the story of Samuel being called to by God, yet his spiritual mentor who was had eyesight that was growing dim could not tell him that God was calling to Samuel for three times. Here you have Eli, a priest who was unfaithfully serving God. He had two sons who were disgracing God and his temple and Eli did nothing to stop them. And as a result his own heart had grown cold towards God and he was powerless to God’s promise that he would punish Eli’s house forever.
Now along the Damscus road we see a powerless Saul. A man who was so distant from God that he had to ask who was speaking to him (v 5 “Who are you, Lord?) We get a glimpse at Saul at his weakest state when he has to be led by the men with him, men underneath him in status in everyway imaginable, by the hand to the city. What a disgraceful moment for Saul.
Thankfully, not everyone in the Bible was as spiritually blind as Eli and Saul. In verse 10 we meet a disciple named Ananias. The risen Christ also calls to him yet he knows right away who he is talking to. He responds, “Here I am Lord”. But even though Ananias knew who the Christ was and responded with an egar heart, Christ still came in and wrecked his life. Look at what he commanded him to do. “Get up and go to the street called Straight, and at the house of Judas look for man of Tarsus named Saul. At this moment he is praying, and he has seen in a vision a man named Ananais come in and lay his hands on him so that he might regain his sight.” Ananias is not uninformed. He knows exactly who Saul is and all of the baggage that comes with Christians that is linked to his name. He is the persecuter and murder of Christians, so Ananias tentatively questions Christ. He explains what he knows to Christ as if to ask, ‘Jesus do you know who this is? Are you really sure that you want me to do that? This could end very badly for me’
Christ does not mind Ananias questioning him for he isn’t scolded for being tentative, but he is commanded to go. With that command comes the assurance that Christ knows what he is doing and that he will be with Ananias as he is obedient. That was all the reassurance that Ananias needed. He went to where Saul was and laid his hands on it, commanding not only that he would regain his sight, but also that he would gain a relationship with Christ and be filled with the Holy Spirit. Immediately. Immediately Saul regained his sight, got up and was baptized and he went on to proclaim about Jesus in the synagogues.
We all know the rest of Saul’s story. It was just as Christ explained it in verse 15. He went on to be “the instrument whom Christ had chosen to bring his name before the Gentiles and kings and before the people of Israel.” But today I want to place a little less emphasis on Saul and his conversion and pay more attention to Ananais. We are not all called to be Pauls in this world. We may not all have a dramatic conversion and have Christ call us to be missionaries or become one of the foundations upon which the church is built, but we are all called to be Ananias’. We are called to be the hands and feet of Christ in the world, but if we are going to make this claim, we must ask ourselves if we are manifesting the obedience of Ananias. How many times has God called us to do something and we have shrugged it off or politely told God that we know better then him. We know the dangers. We know the outcome and it is not worth our effort or risk.
Christians today claim that their disobedience is due to a lack of knowing what God wanted them to do. We want God to reach out and grab our hand and drag us to what he desires us to do or to be blinded like Saul was by Christ or to hear an audible voice like Ananasis did. We need to ask ourselves if this is really what we want. When we can no longer claim to be nieve and have no excuse to closing our eyes, ears, and hearts to God, what would life be like? Would we really act any differently? Or would our choice to be obedient be a little less sincere and a little less free?
Remember that Christ never called us into a passive relationship. He never promised us that life would be easy or that we would never have to step it up and act on his behalf. In fact in the gospels, as Christ is discussing his death and departure from earth, he gave a very active Great Commission, ‘Go and baptize’ Are we going or have we domesticated Jesus so much that we have forgotten that Christ is the Lord of our lives who will make us feel uncomfortable and turn our worlds upside down. Jesus was not safe. Think back to CS Lewis’s description of Aslan (the lion who symbolically represents Christ) from the Chronicles of Narnia:
"Then he isn't safe?" asks Lucy.
"Safe?" says Mr. Beaver. "Don't you hear what Mrs. Beaver tells you? Who said anything about safe? Of course he isn't safe. But he's good. He's the king, I tell you!"
If Jesus truly is King of our life then we cannot tell him no without acknowledging the negative consequences. What would have happened if Anaias would have said no? Would the greatest evangelist, Paul, never have been converted? Would he have remained physically and spiritually blind? We cannot say no to God without realizing that the consequences stem far beyond us.
Who have we been telling God that we will not reach out to today? Who have we been avoiding because it is too risky? Is it our neighbor who doesn’t know Christ? Is it the homeless man on the corner? Or is it the lady at work who claims to be an agnostic? Or is it more simple then that – are we just ignoring God’s daily prompting in our lives to be searching after him. We cannot claim not to be hearing God if we aren’t letting him speak to us through prayer and scripture reading. How many times have we avoided acknowledging the prompting of God because we are uncomfortable? Are we ready to be like Ananias, being obedient to God’s plan even if it meant confronting the one person in this life who had the ability to take him away from this earth. If Christ was beside Ananias he will surely be beside us. Are we ready to follow are King today? Are we ready to live a life that is a little more dangerously for God?