Tag: Acts 9:1-22

Living Signs

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Biblical Text: Acts 9:1-22

This sermon takes on a topic that is probably a little far afield for most Lutheran churches, conversion. And in thinking about conversion we have to think about things above and things below. What I mean by that is we live in a sacramental world. The reality above breaks into our reality here. We can call it sacraments. We call it signs. We call it revelation. Depends upon the stability of the inbreaking. The conversion of Saul/Paul is the text to think about this. If you ask how Saul was converted, a valid answer is baptism. Ananias baptizes Saul and he is welcomed as brother and receives the Holy Spirit. That is the reality. But that is not how most of us would describe Saul’s conversion. The road to Damascus is the sudden replacement of Saul’s will which was breathing threats and murder with the will of Christ. This is also the daily conversion of any Christian. The sermon attempts to think through these things. As I said, not a standard subject. I think it hangs together, but sermons are signs themselves. And describing signs is always a bit like interpreting dreams or reading revelation. You are better off experiencing it.

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Know the Damascus Road?

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Biblical Text: Acts 9:1-22

The text is the conversion of Saul/Paul on the Damascus Road. I took the first text because of something that happened with the confirmands. When I mentioned “The Damascus Road” they had no idea what I meant. I also took it because we most often concentrate on what I think is one part of the Damascus Road experience, and that the lesser part. We focus on the dramatic turn, Saul going from “threats and murder” to preaching the gospel. And that change of action is important. The gospel does lead to good works. But there is a second part which should be the first. And it is the second part that puts all of us on the Damascus Road. We all were agents of the powers that be. Whether we met Jesus on the Road quite a ways down it before he turned us around, or if we met Jesus as an infant in a baptismal font, we all have changed Lords. This sermon ponder what I see as our cultural denial of the ability to change, how that hardens, and how the gospel gives us the contrary hope.

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