Beyond Playing Church

Beyond Playing Church--January 23, 2018

Now there was a disciple in Damascus named Ananias. The Lord said to him in a vision, “Ananias.” He answered, “Here I am, Lord.” The Lord said to him, “Get up and go to the street called Straight, and at the house of Judas look for a man of Tarsus named Saul. At this moment he is praying, and he has seen in a vision a man named Ananias come in and lay his hands on him so that he might regain his sight.” But Ananias answered, “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.” But the Lord said to him, “Go, for he is an instrument whom I have chosen to bring my name before Gentiles and kings and before the people of Israel; I myself will show him how much he must suffer for the sake of my name.” [Acts 9:10-16]

It's not just that Jesus' call reaches out to include people who called him their enemy; it's that Jesus calls his followers to love those enemies, too.

We saw the first part in our look yesterday at the way the risen Jesus called Saul of Tarsus to a new orientation and vocation, even though Saul (1) hated Jesus, (2) had rounded up Jesus' followers, and (3) was convinced he was doing right in all of it.  But that wasn't really the hard part of this story.  The difficult thing about the ninth chapter of Acts is this: Jesus calls us, if we dare to call ourselves his disciples, to show the same risky, reckless love to enemies as well.

That's where the rubber meets the road for a disciple named Ananias, unfolding at the very same time that Saul/Paul was on his way up the road.  And, of course--this had to be a hard conversation for Ananias.  How do you make sense of what is being asked of you if you're Ananias here?  It seems like down is up and wrong is right and all the sure, certain things are being undone.  If there's one thing that Ananias knows about Saul of Tarsus it's that he's responsible for the arrest of Christians, displacement of Christians, and to some degree, the violence against Christians.  This Saul has been dead set against the community of Jesus, and now Jesus appears to him in a vision and says, he has to be welcomed in to the Christian community?  That's difficult--that's near impossible!  It's even harder for Ananias than for us on most days, because Ananias is being asked to be the human voice and face of that welcome—it's not just Jesus telling Ananias to get used to the idea or the concept of unexpected people being received into the church.  It's that Ananias, if he is to be faithful to what Jesus is calling him to do, will have to personally take the risk of receiving this man, who is not just a stranger or unexpected believer, but a downright enemy of the church.

In other words, Jesus is calling Ananias to quit playing church and to embark on being the church.  And let us be clear about what that difference is, that difference between playing church and being church.

It is the difference between talking about love for neighbor and stranger and enemy, and then actually doing good for those persons when we are brought face to face with them. 

It is the difference between believing intellectually that Jesus has forgiven us and called us to be forgiving people, and then taking those beliefs seriously enough to know that my guilt has been wiped away and that I am called to speak that same word of liberating forgiveness to others. 

It is the difference between secretly nursing grudges against others and publicly letting go of them. 

It is the difference between making a big fuss over the "decline of Christian influence in culture," and actually letting the way of the real Jesus influence me, regardless of whether anybody else notices or applauds.

That is hard for us to do—much harder than the easy tasks of rattling off a few facts about God without thinking as we say the Creed, or putting on a fake smile for the visitors in worship on Sunday while secretly muttering, "We're letting the riff-raff in?", or hearing the words "Go in peace, serve the Lord!" and promptly forgetting the call to serve by the time we're out the door.

Ananias is called to be a person who makes God's grace real, to make God's mercy tangible, for Saul.  It will not be easy for Ananias, as it is never really easy to forgive if we understand just how complete a wiping away of the record is involved in forgiveness.  But it will not be easy for Saul, either—his whole world is being turned upside down, too, and the new life he has been invited into will be a life of the same kind of suffering, enduring love that Christ Jesus has shown to him.  The Lord knows it, too, that the life which Saul will be entering as a follower of Jesus will not be an easy one:  "I myself will show him how much he must suffer for the sake of my name," says the voice.  But then again, this life of faith was never promised to us to be easy—only deeply good in the end. 

If we are to take this story seriously, and to see ourselves as people who just might be placed in the difficult position of Ananias, we need to consider that we will be called upon to speak words of real forgiveness to real people.  We sometimes gloss over the real messy details of our lives when we talk about "confessing our sins" in worship—we put into generic terms that we have sinned "in thought, word, and deed," but easily block out of mind that this specifically means the betrayal of a spouse that happened years ago, or the angry words spoken at a former-friend months ago, or the cold indifference to someone met on the street just days ago, or the apathy toward the hurt and brokenness that is always all around us—an apathy we cover up in our day to day "busyness" that keeps us from paying attention to things beyond my immediate circle of work and family.  These are the difficult real sins we need to know are forgiven, and these are the sins that God forgives in my neighbor next to me.  When I am the betrayed spouse, or the one wounded by careless angry words, or the one left on the side of the road, or passed by and left out by the priests and Levites—in other words, when I am sinned against--it is hard to hear God's forgiveness for the ones who have done me wrong.  It is hard, in other words, to be Ananias, hearing God's forgiveness spoken for Saul, and knowing that he must be the one to speak it to Saul.

And yet, in the big picture of things, given our utterly sinful ways, perhaps it is more honest to say that we are always sinning against each other and are therefore always called to be Ananiases for one another, speaking to someone else that God has forgiven them, and calling on God to grant us the ability to forgive as well.  We are called, too, to pray fervently to God when such forgiveness seems too much, too easy, too big a cancellation of debt, and to ask God to help us deal with such a wide mercy.  That is hard word, but it is always harder to be the church instead of just playing church.  And, of course, it is always deeply good in the end.

For this day, the call of Jesus is the call to be done with "playing church," the call simply to be church... which is really just another way of saying, the call to live within the enemy-reconciling love of God.

Blessed One, you make it hard to be disciples because it is hard to hear your mercy spoken over those who have wronged us, and it is hard to hear the litany of ways we have wronged others.  It is hard to tell the truth, and it is hard to have the truth told about us and to us.  And yet, we are compelled to be your disciples by your love that has chosen us and called us.  So give us the grace and the strength we do not possess to hear your forgiveness in all its breadth and depth, and make it possible for our ears to hear it and our mouths to speak it.