Acts 9:1-22
Meanwhile Saul, still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord, went to the high priest and asked him for letters to the synagogues at Damascus, so that if he found any who belonged to the Way, men or women, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem. 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.” The men who were traveling with him stood speechless because they heard the voice but saw no one. Saul got up from the ground, and though his eyes were open, he could see nothing; so they led him by the hand and brought him into Damascus. For three days he was without sight, and neither ate nor drank.
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.” So Ananias went and entered the house. He laid his hands on Saul and said, “Brother Saul, the Lord Jesus, who appeared to you on your way here, has sent me so that you may regain your sight and be filled with the Holy Spirit.”
And immediately something like scales fell from his eyes, and his sight was restored. Then he got up and was baptized, and after taking some food, he regained his strength. For several days he was with the disciples in Damascus, and immediately he began to proclaim Jesus in the synagogues, saying, “He is the Son of God.” All who heard him were amazed and said, “Is not this the man who made havoc in Jerusalem among those who invoked this name? And has he not come here for the purpose of bringing them bound before the chief priests?” Saul became increasingly more powerful and confounded the Jews who lived in Damascus by proving that Jesus was the Messiah.
Just to re-cap… Saul – a good, faithful, perfectly-pedigreed, First Century Jew – better known as Paul to most of us, was persecuting other Jews for following Jesus. He had the blessing of the high priest who sanctioned the threats and murder he breathed against those early disciples and, on the road to the city of Damascus, while “Paul” was still called “Saul,” he was blinded by the light (before it was a hit song), he started hearing voices, and then couldn’t eat or drink for three days. He heard the voice of Jesus, that is, and all the rest was prepping him for the big change – the life-changing, transformational, conversion – that was to come.
Meanwhile, somewhere in the city of Damascus, Ananias, an already faithful follower of Jesus – someone who knew about Saul’s wicked ways – started hearing voices, too. The voice of Jesus, telling him to go out, find Saul, lay hands on and heal his enemy – this man who might have killed him, if given the chance – Aanias was to heal Saul from the blindness that struck him on that road. And Ananias does what he’s told. Saul gets healed and the scales fall from his eyes. And Saul, becomes Paul, who we know to be the first, greatest evangelist, missionary, and church planter in all of Christendom.
I’m probably more cynical than I should be – or at least more cynical than people expect a Pastor to be – but I’m pretty suspicious of “call stories” and “conversion stories” like Paul’s, and others I’ve heard. It’s not that I’d ever say they couldn’t or didn’t happen. If that’s what someone says they’ve experienced, I believe them. I just know that sort of thing hasn’t happened to me, I’m not sure I have the faith to believe it really could, frankly, and I’m almost certain I wouldn’t want it to, because it seems kind of terrifying – blinding lights, hearing voices, days without eating, “something like scales,” falling from my eyes. Thanks, but no thanks.
But I heard a modern-day conversion story of sorts that rivals Paul’s, for my money.
It’s the story of a white guy named Ken Parker who marched in that “Unite the Right” white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, back in 2017. You know the one that pretended to be about protesting against the removal of Confederate statues and monuments, but that was really about white power and white pride and blatant racism, according to people like Ken Parker, who were part of it. This is the protest that ended in the death of Heather Heyer, the 32 year-old counter protestor who got run over by a car, at the end of the day.
Anyway, this event for Ken was just one of many – but also one of the last – where he was “breathing threats and murder,” as Saul might have said it, against Jews and people of color as a proud white nationalist and “Grand Dragon,” even, of the Ku Klux Klan. As Ken Parker says it, he was there to “stand up for [his] white race.”
But strange as it sounds, like Saul, Ken started hearing voices, too. Not the voice of Jesus, exactly, but, as part of the rally experience, he connected with a Muslim film maker who was creating a documentary about hate groups and that particular event in Charlottesville. Her name was Deeyah Kahn, she was brown, and she was kind to Ken, in spite of knowing exactly who he was and what he was up to – and he noticed and remembered it, and his wheels started spinning.
Some time after the chaos in Charlottesville, Ken Parker ended up in a conversation with a Black pastor, named William McKinnon, III. That conversation continued, over time, until Ken accepted an invitation to attend Easter worship at that Black pastor’s mostly-Black church. A month after that – when the scales had fallen from his eyes, you might say – Ken Parker stood before that congregation, shared his story, confessed his racist sins, and was welcomed with hugs and hand-shakes and grace, in spite of it all, ultimately to be baptized into the faith in that place, to complete his own life-changing, transformational conversion.
Now, while I can’t not love that story, I don’t think Ken Parker is the star of the show. I mean, I’m not as impressed or inspired by Ken Parker – the grown, white supremacist knucklehead who finally saw the error and terror of his racist ways. I mean I don’t think he’s really the hero here, or the kind of example or inspiration most of us need, from what I can tell.
I’m more impressed and inspired by the likes of that film-maker, Deeyah Kahn, the Muslim woman, who was able to be kind and respectful and patient enough with the likes of Ken Parker – someone who was or would have been none of those things to her (kind, respectful, or patient, I mean) if given the chance.
And I’m impressed and inspired, of course, by Pastor William McKinnon, III, and the people of the All Saints Holiness Church, who would so faithfully dare to welcome the likes of their greatest enemy into their midst, hear his story, believe in his repentance and redemption, and love him because of it.
See, they all play the role of Ananias – if not the voice of Jesus – in the story of Saul’s big change on the road to Damascus; Ananias, the one who healed Saul’s blindness and revealed for him the power of God’s love and mercy. Like Ananias, Deeyah Kahn, Pastor McKinnon, and the people of his church, did the Lord’s bidding. They confronted their enemy and their fears with faithfulness. They overwhelmed Ken Parker with grace and mercy, with forgiveness and a second-chance. And they showed him the Kingdom and welcomed him into it alongside them.
And that’s how I’d like to be – and how I’d like us all to be – in the world and in the Church more often:
agents of change for the brokenness that surrounds us;
kind, respectful, forgiving, open to and speaking the language of God’s love in Jesus, so that our greatest fears will be relieved;
so that our hearts – and the hearts of those from whom we are so divided – would repent and be reconciled, one to another;
so that all sins could be confessed, not in shame or for the sake of ridicule, but with the hope of forgiveness and with the expectation of redemption;
and so that the scales would fall from every eye until all can see the fullness of God’s love and be changed for the better because of it, for our sake and for the sake of the world, that has so many changes, so much conversion, such transformation yet to be realized.
Amen
NOTE: I gleaned the information I learned about Ken Parker from the following story, if you’d like to read more and/or see and hear from some of those mentioned. NBC News
