Just When We Thought it Was Safe to Travel

Now as he was going along and approaching Damascus, suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him. He fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to him, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?”

He asked, “Who are you, Lord?” The reply came, “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting. But get up and enter the city, and you will be told what you are to do” [Acts 9:3-6].

Just outside Bab Kisan (i.e., “Kisan Gate”), one of the seven ancient city-gates of Damascus, Syria, there is a statue of the apostle Paul being thrown from his horse as he approaches the city on the fateful day of his conversion. Half a world away, there’s another outside St. Paul’s cathedral in London. This one shows St. Paul—technically, he still would have been “Saul”—being thrown from his mount as he tries to shield his eyes from the blinding light of Christ. Scattered around the world, there are multiple paintings by various grand masters depicting more or less the same sort of “man on horse meets Christ” moment. And, in a letter to Sally and Robert Fitzgerald dated 11 October 1959, Flannery O’Connor wrote:

I reckon the Lord knew that the only way to make a Christian out of that one was to knock him off his horse [The Habit of Being: Letters of Flannery O’Connor, pp. 354-55 (Macmillan, 1988].

You know, it’s funny. The powerful encounter between St. Paul and the Lord is told three times in Acts, the NT book authored by St. Luke [Acts 9:1-6, (7-20)—the first reading for the Third Sunday of Easter (RCL, Year C); Acts 22:3-16; and Acts 26:4-23]. Yet, neither Luke nor Paul ever mention a horse.

Isn’t that the trouble with some passages of Holy Scripture? They’ve been related to us so many times that we may actually think we know what the passage is trying to tell us.

I know, I know. I hear you saying it already. “What difference does it make if there was or was not a horse?”

Of course, it makes no difference. But if we miss (or rather “supply”) that detail to the story, what else might we be missing or supplying? For example, most of us would remember that when the protomartyr, Stephen—a deacon in the early Church at Jerusalem—was stoned for his alleged blasphemy [see Acts 7], the perpetrators laid their coats at the feet of a young man named Saul [Act 7:58]. It’s much easier to throw rocks at a helpless soul if one’s arms are unhindered. Do we remember that Saul was no innocent bystander that day? Indeed, “Saul approved of their killing him” [Acts 8:1].

Almost immediately thereafter, Saul began to destroy the church. Going from house to house, he dragged off both men and women and put them in prison. Oops, I almost said that Saul dragged off “Christians,” but you see, that would be supplying something that isn’t in the text. At least at this stage of the story, the followers of Christ aren’t called “Christians.” That designation occurs later in Antioch [Acts 11:26]. At this moment in time, they are known by another name provided by Luke in Acts 9. They are the people of “the Way” [Acts 9:2].

There is rich irony in that designation. Saul is willing to travel great distances—Damascus is 140 miles or so from Jerusalem—in order to persecute these early believers, only then to be struck down “on the way” to Damascus. Moreover, although I’m getting ahead of myself just a bit, after he gets a new name, Saul’s call will also be primarily characterized in terms of the distances he travels in the service of our Lord. That’s “the way” it sometimes works.

For many years now, I’ve been taken by that early designation of the followers of Christ. “The Way” is both descriptive and powerful. It doesn’t represent a strict set of rules, beliefs, or even teachings at this point—remember there is no New Testament yet. Instead, the early community of Faith was known by the fact that to follow Christ was a “way of life.” This new faith was not centered in a building or even within a home. The follower of Christ was called upon to walk whatever road along which Christ pointed. Moreover, “The Way” was never passive; it was/is active and vibrant.

While we’re avoiding references to horses and instead concentrating on the particulars that are actually found within the text, notice what Jesus says to Saul. While Saul is writhing on the ground, trying to figure out what has just happened to him, Jesus proffers a straightforward question, “Why do you persecute me?” [Acts 9:4b]. Note that at this point, Saul doesn’t know who “me” is.

“Who are you, Lord?” [9:5]. There’s more splendid irony there, of course. At this point, Saul is only trying to be respectful to a force that has the power to knock him to the ground. Later, of course, he will fully acknowledge that Jesus is in fact his Lord. But now, he’s just searching for information.

Carefully observe our Lord’s response: “I am Jesus, who you are persecuting” [9:5b]. Jesus locates himself in the midst of those who have been victims of Saul’s violence. Jesus stresses that when Saul targets those on “the Way,” Saul targets Jesus. As my close friend Luke Bell has noted, Jesus reminds Saul that when he targets the early followers in what we might think of as a horizontal dimension, he is actually targeting Christ in a vertical dimension.

I think that Saul had a particular viewpoint about those who were on “the Way.” Indeed, Saul had a particular viewpoint about Jesus. And Saul, like so many others during his own time and down to our time as well, insisted/insists that others see things the way he sees them. Stephen and the others stood in opposition to Saul’s perspective. They saw the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ as being the pivotal moment of all Creation. Saul saw this new band of believers as heretics, as having an incorrect viewpoint, of being just plain wrong!

Jesus startled Saul’s world, not so much by knocking Saul to the ground, but by injecting Himself into the plight of those whom Saul was persecuting. Can we see that when the Divine identifies with those who are persecuted, He shares his divinity with them. Saul’s problem: He refused to see the divine in those whom he was targeting. He refused to see them as children of God, loved by the Creator. They had an improper view of the Deity, as far as Saul was concerned, and that meant they should be scorned and punished.

Thank Goodness, of course, that we have solved that problem for our own day. When the Christian Left looks at the Christian Right (and vice versa) it clearly sees a group of professing Christians who share a divinity with our Lord, right? When one group sees Twitter as a resource to be guarded, shepherded, and husbanded and the other sees it as a hill to be taken, does either group acknowledge the divinity in the other? When those who are fully “vaxed” see those who have shunned the needle as being hateful and self-centered, are they recognizing the divinity in those with whom they disagree? When those who refuse masks see those who cling to them as spineless sheep, do they understand the disrespect that they are delivering to our Lord who takes the side of those being attacked, never the side of the attacker?

As Saul walked (or was it rode?) toward Damascus, before his encounter with Jesus, did he not crave the conversion of those who had fallen away from his “truth?” As he neared that gated city, did he not relish his position as guardian of truth and right? Did he not swell with pride as he signaled to the world around him just how aligned he was with social justice, just how consistent his views were with what mattered in his world?

Saul, Saul, Why do you persecute me?

Jesus has a way of showing each of us that when we become focused on the need for someone else’s conversion, the need for someone else to turn his or her mind, the need for someone else to repent, we might also be on the lookout for a vision, an opportunity, maybe even a divine voice, indicating that our own conversion is just around the corner.