The Conversion of St. Paul (January 21, 2024) (2)

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be always acceptable in thy sight O Lord, our Strength and our Redeemer. Amen.

· Introduction

o Feast of St. Paul

§ In Epiphanytide: Light to the Gentiles; Paul is Apostle to the Gentiles.

§ The Feast is this Thursday but we are celebrating it today because he’s our Patron Saint.

o Conversion in Formal Logic

§ To convert a statement is to flip its subject and predicate so that it says the opposite.

§ If P then Q becomes if Q then P.

§ If it rains, then the home team will win becomes if the home wins, then it must be raining.

o Conversion in Scripture

§ In religious talk, conversion refers to a life that dramatically changes to something completely opposite of what it was.

§ The Book of Jonah depicts the conversion of the Assyrians en masse.

§ The woman at the well

§ Zacchaeus the tax collector

o St Paul as the model of conversion

§ Pharisee of Pharisees with an impressive educational pedigree in the Jewish circles of his day.

§ In his mind, Christianity was a heresy. Remember, Saul, as he was called at the time, was the one who held the coats for all the men who stoned St. Stephen, the Deacon and first martyr of the Church.

§ And so in our reading today, Saul goes out, commissioned by the synagogues to round up what are, in their minds, apostate Jews to bring them back so they can be disciplined.

§ Of course, that’s not what happens: Saul is knocked off his horse when he sees a great light. He has a conversation with Jesus: “Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me? I am Jesus whom thou persecutest: it is hard for thee to kick against the pricks.”

§ So he arrives in Damascus not as a proud agent of his religion, but as a man blinded by the light: his external condition is matched by his internal disposition. But after three days with Ananias, three days of fasting, the scales fall from his eyes, and he is converted. He becomes baptized, spends time with the Christians in Damascus, and starts preaching the Gospel of Christ to the Jews in the Synagogue, a fact that amazes those who heard him because they remembered how severely he persecuted the Church and now they see him becoming one of its greatest Apostles.

· Conversion as Encounter

o I want us to think about conversion today. What is it that makes a person convert, to flip from going one direction in life to moving in an entirely different direction?

o For St. Paul, it was not a series of arguments, it was not watching YouTube videos, it was not that he stepped back and rationally assessed the various options.

o What caused St. Paul to convert was an encounter that he had with the living God that knocked him off his horse.

o In this way, we might think of conversion as an event: it’s something that happened to Paul and after that nothing could be remain the same.

o The driving force behind the change is an encounter with God.

· Conversion as Process

o But I think we should also see that conversion is more than just an event. The initial event gives way to a process.

o Paul obeys God, he goes to Damascus, he stays with Ananias, he’s baptized, he’s taught by the local Christians, the very ones he came to persecute. St. Paul had to put in a lot of work, a lot of cooperation with God to become who he was.

o The initial experience of conversion is necessary, we might say it’s a catalyst; it’s the first movement in a new direction but there’s a long way to go beyond that.

o The event begins a long journey.

o Conversion must be a continual process then in which we reconcile who we are, what we do, and how we think with what happened to us.

· Conversion as Missional Invitation

o Conversion is not a private event; not if it’s real conversion.

o Real conversion changes a person so dramatically that, even if you don’t narrate that experience to others, they can see in how you act that you are totally different. This is what happens to Saul: when his fellow Jews saw him preaching in the synagogue, they were amazed because they remembered the intensity with which he hated this new Christian sect. And now he’s a spokesman for them.

o We might say that conversion is a missional invitation: in experiencing this earth-shattering, life-altering event, the converted person can’t help but invite others to experience the same.

o And of course, it is often the case that people don’t want to accept that invitation. And that’s okay, we can’t control that. In fact, St. Paul met with serious rejection and yet he continued on as Christ’s faithful soldier, preaching the Gospel, pouring himself out for the Church, as he recounts in 2 Corinthians 11 “in stripes above measure, in prisons more frequent, in deaths oft. 24 Of the Jews five times received I forty stripes save one. 25 Thrice was I beaten with rods, once was I stoned, thrice I suffered shipwreck, a night and a day I have been in the deep; 26 In journeyings often, in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils by mine own countrymen, in perils by the heathen, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false brethren; 27 In weariness and painfulness, in watchings often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness. 28 Beside those things that are without, that which cometh upon me daily, the care of all the churches.”

o The person who experiences conversion cannot help but keep it in. This life-changing experience must be shared.

· Application

o And so here at St. Paul’s, it’s fitting that St. Paul should become a template for us.

o We should understand conversion as an encounter.

§ Maybe our encounter with God isn’t as dramatic as St. Paul’s—most of us haven’t been literally knocked off a horse or blinded.

§ But God faithfully encounters us in our baptisms, in the preached Gospel, in the Sacraments, in prayers, in others, and many other ways.

§ Just like Jacob encountered and wrestled with God and left with a limp, so we cannot leave our encounters with God unchanged.

o Encounter with God becomes an impetus for change. And so we must continually be converted.

§ We may agree with the words of the Nicene Creed or read the Scriptures. And still go about with our internal dispositions unchanged.

§ We too often allow ourselves to be distracted by worldly cares and concerns: accumulating wealth, political power, or social popularity.

§ And so we have to be doing the constant work of turning. “Turn us again, O Lord, and we shall be turned.”

o We must invite others to encounter the living God.

§ “Come and see.” That’s the invitation Jesus extends to his disciples when he first encounters them.

§ This is the best thing we can do for others. It’s not so much about theological debates or arguing them into faith; it’s that simple invitation “Come and see.”

§ And then we let God do the rest.

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.