Third Sunday of Easter
May 4, 2025
Acts 9:1-20

In 1958, Gallup – the polling people – asked Americans a simple question. How would they feel if their children married someone from the other political party? This is 1958 – 33% of Democrats and 25% of Republicans said they wanted their children to marry someone from the same political party. Fast forward to 2016. Same question. 60% of Democrats and 63% of Republicans said they wanted their children to marry someone from the same political party. There is something going on with us. Of course, this isn’t about marriage. This is about identity. This is about entrenched cultural attitudes. This is about what we feel in the culture – that we’re moving apart. And clearly, for nearly two thirds of us, we find crossing the political divide unpalatable. There is a gulf between us.

Like it was for Saul, who would become Saint Paul; and like it was for Ananias. Two people, with two very different identities. There is gulf between them. Saul was out to arrest Christians. Ananias was a Christian. And as we’ll see, they could hardly imagine crossing that line. That’s our story from the Acts of the Apostles.

So, there is Saul, “breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord” (Acts 9:1). Saul is a staunch Pharisee, he is a Jew; committed to his identity. And Saul is so scandalized, so angry that other Jews were following Jesus, that he wants to track them down and arrest them. That’s what sets him down the road from Jerusalem to Damascus. And it’s one of the famous stories from scripture – a light flashes around Saul, he hears the voice of the Lord Jesus, he is struck blind, and he is converted. 

This is why Saul becomes Paul. A core piece of his identity has been changed. He’s willing to change who he is and what he values. He was persecuting the disciples of Jesus, and then he becomes one. He crosses the divide.

But that’s only half the story. There is also Ananias, who is a disciple, a follower of Jesus, living in Damascus. And the Lord calls to Ananias in a vision. And Ananias says, “Here I am, Lord” (Acts 9:10). Look, anytime anyone in the Bible says, “Here I am, Lord,” look out. “Here I am” – it’s what Abraham says to God in Genesis (22:1). “Here I am” – it’s what Moses said when the Lord spoke to him out of the burning bush (Exodus 3:4). The prophet Isaiah says “Here am I” as God’s thunderous presence calls to him. “Here am I” – it’s what the Virgin Mary said when she was told about the child she was to carry (Luke 1:38). 

So there was Ananias, a disciple of Jesus in Damascus. He’s minding his own business when God has the audacity to show up. And Ananias does what the heroes of our faith do – he says, “Here I am, Lord.” And like each of those characters before – Abraham, Moses, Isaiah, Mary – God has a mission, a purpose in mind for Ananias. They don’t necessarily want to do it, but who can stop the will of God? So the Lord says, to Ananias, “Get up and go to the street called Straight, and at the house of Judas look for a man of Tarsus named Saul” (Acts 9:11). 

Understandably so, Ananias blanches at the thought. “Lord, I have heard from many about this man, how much evil he has done to your saints in Jerusalem; and here he has authority from the chief priests to bind all who invoke your name” (Acts 9:13-14). In Jimmy Abbott’s modern translation, that would be – “uh, God, are you sure about this?”

And amazingly, Ananias goes. He goes to the man who would have arrested him. And Ananias does one of the bravest things in holy scripture. He stands there before Saul, and calls him “Brother Saul.” Brother Saul. They’ve crossed the divide.

See, to me, the real hero of this story is Ananias. Paul was passive in this whole thing; to get Paul to change his mind, the Lord has to actually strike him blind. But Ananias, Ananias has to actually do something to cross the divide.

Sure, Paul gives up his persecutions, and immediately begins to proclaim Jesus as the Son of God (Acts 9:20). But also, Ananias gives up his fear, his preconceived notions, and is willing to lay his hands of blessing upon this man; a man who would have shackled those very hands just a few days before. This is what God does. The Lord opens hearts. The Lord transforms lives. And to make a new community, to make new “brothers,” the Lord God changes two lives. Paul is converted, surely. But so is Ananias.

Something else strikes me about Paul and Ananias. Of course, Paul goes on to greatness. Through Paul, the Lord God calls people who are not Jews to also follow Jesus. Paul goes on mission for years – starting new churches, making disciples. Thanks to Paul, we have a big chunk of the New Testament. We name churches after him. This story – the Conversion of Paul – even has its own feast day in the church – it’s January 25th in case you missed it. And yet, that was only because of another man whom the world has mostly forgotten. Ananias. 

Ananias never shows up again in the New Testament. I know of no Episcopal church named for him. Ananias fades into the background. But we have to ask – does that matter? Ananias did his duty to the Lord God. As far as we know, he only made one disciple, and that was Paul. And that is enough. He crossed the divide. 

This, I think, is what we can take away. The Lord God is about making new communities, the Lord God is about transformation. If someone gets all the acclaim and if someone else doesn’t, so be it. It’s not about who gets the credit, it’s that two people come to see each other for who they are – brothers.

And let’s all admit it – even today, in this church – there are dividing lines. We are not of one mind, even when it comes to politics. I don’t want to make this awkward, but you might not even agree with the person sitting next to you.

And yet, that is the amazing thing. That we still have the courage, the guts, to be around each other. Because I think that the Holy Spirit is calling us to an even deeper relationship with each other. To call each other “brother” and “sister.” Even if it’s awkward. Even if it means giving up part our identity, to gain a new one in Christ. This is a word of grace. A kind of grace that our world will not find on their own. The world needs the church, it needs our grace, our love.

And yet, with every grace, comes a warning. None of us must be so smug as to think that we can come to church and not expect to be changed. Maybe that’s why fewer people are coming to church nowadays, maybe it is all correlated. Maybe it’s not that we’re politically entrenched, maybe it’s that we’re just more resistant to change than ever. We like who we are, thank you very much, and we don’t want the Holy Spirit meddling with our lives. Because the problem with a life with God, is that God changes us; and the grace of a life with God, is that God changes us. 

So my hope, for each of us, is that with every encounter with God, God changes us. I pray that the scales fall from our eyes, I pray that we have the guts to call each other brother and sister; I pray that we have the audacity to stand here and utter those words which are sure to change a life – “Lord, here I am.”