June 10, 2007

“The Road of the Second Chance”

Acts 9:1-19

Pastor Jim Wood

Some time ago, the newspaper carried a review of a book about a man whose search for his real name symbolized his search for himself. When World War II ended, an eight-year-old French Catholic boy learned that while he was French; he was not Catholic, but Jewish instead. He had been placed with a French Christian family to save his life when his parents had been deported to the death camps. His original name was not Cojot, as it had been for as long as he could remember, but Goldberg.

He grew up confused about who he was and to whom he belonged, symbolized by the confusion of names. Some days he was angry with his original parents for giving him away, and then there were some days when he felt guilty for having survived while they had died.

As a teenager, he hated the Jewish part of himself, because Jews were victims. They were weak and unpopular. About that time, a physical problem developed with his right hand. It became swollen and painful and no physician was able to treat or explain it. It was as if he had called down on himself the biblical curse, “If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget its cunning.”

Like many a confused, split, self-hating person, he drove himself to become a success, which he accomplished in the field of banking and international finance. He made a fortune, but it was never enough. He needed one success after another to fill the emptiness inside him where his identity should have been.

Then one year, while living in La Paz, Bolivia, managing the Bolivian branch of the French banking network for which he worked, he discovered that the former head of Nazi information in France, Klaus Barbie, was living openly as a semi-celebrity. This was the man who had sent his parents to Auschwitz. Then and there, he decided to avenge his parent’s death by killing Barbie. He bought a gun, and despite the pain in his right hand, taught himself to fire it accurately.

Pretending to be a reporter, he interviewed Barbie to make certain there was no mistake. Then one day, while sitting in the park with his loaded pistol in his pocket, he saw Barbie, sitting a few yards away, with his back turned to him. On the verge of realizing the fulfillment of his plan of redemptive vengeance, he reached into his pocket for the pistol, and then decided he could not do it. He could not bring himself to shoot an unarmed, pathetic old man in the back, even if the man was a Nazi war criminal.

He went back to his room, expecting that he would feel ashamed of himself for his cowardice and lack of resolve, but amazingly, he did not. In fact, he felt strangely calm and serene, and he realized why. He had killed a Nazi that day, but not the one he had set out to kill. He had killed the Nazi in himself, that part of himself that was so angry it wanted to shoot, to kill, to destroy in an effort to solve its own problems. Had he killed Klaus Barbie, he would have been a murderer, an apostle of the very Nazi mentality he so despised, an apostle of violence and revenge. By not killing him, he had destroyed the Nazi in himself, that which had almost taken over his soul. At that moment, his right hand stopped hurting!

This story came to mind when reading this morning’s account in the Book of Acts, which records the well-known story of Saul’s dramatic conversion on the road to Damascus. There are some vivid similarities between the two stories. For example, Saul searched for his identity and hated the Christians. Then there was his drive for worldly success, wanting to become the top man of the Sanhedrin, the Supreme Court of Judaism. He was also on a mission of vengeance and extermination and he also had a physical affliction.

Both men had the “Nazi” within them killed. For the twentieth century Jew, it happened in a park in Bolivia. For the man called Saul of Tarsus, it happened on the road to Damascus. Both were converted. Both received a new vision. Both had their physical afflictions removed, and both took on new names: Cojot became Goldberg, and Saul became Paul.

These are two powerful stories about change. Sometimes we get the notion that people cannot change. Charlie Brown mentioned to Lucy one time that she was wearing her “crabby face” again. Lucy says, “There’s nothing wrong with being crabby. I’m proud of being crabby! The little crabby girls of today are the crabby old women of tomorrow!”

Later, Lucy does try to be nicer to people, but her friend, Peppermint Patty, sees right through this and says to her, “You’ll never be able to change. You’ll always be a crabby little girl! You were born crabby, and you’re going to stay crabby! Don’t think you’re going to change because you’re not!” Lucy responds with a sense of relief saying, “Suddenly, I feel very good!”

Give some persons an excuse to believe that people cannot change, and that’s all they need. I would remind the persons who think that way that the strongest argument against this pessimistic view is exactly what happened to Saul when he became a new person in Christ. Too many people have been caught up too long in the grip of a kind of psychological determinism. The time has come for us to realize the potential for what I call The Road of the Second Chance. We may very well be on the road to Damascus. Persons can be changed by the spirit of Christ. That’s a part of the good news of our faith. I like the way a British minister put it:

When you tell me that human nature cannot be changed, I am constrained to reply that in the light of my experience, human nature may well be the only thing that can be changed. We cannot change the laws of the physical world. We cannot change the ebb and flow of the tides. We cannot change the forces of gravitation. We cannot change the stars and their courses. But the lives and habits and purposes of people have been and can be changed.

The possibility for change is always present. It may take place differently in different people, but the potential is always there. Come with me as we take a closer look at how it happened to Saul as he struggled with the “Nazi” in himself.

First of all, notice how Saul was humbled by the light of Christ. The Bible says that as Saul approached Damascus, a light suddenly flashed about him and he fell to the ground and he heard Christ ask: “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?”

Sometimes change comes about by our being confronted. Anybody who has done serious devotional reading knows the name of C.S. Lewis, the late British novelist-critic. His books are currently enjoying a new surge in popularity and they have always been at the top of the list in the field of quality religious writing in both England and America. Lewis was a brilliant thinker and writer before his conversion to Christianity, but before that he was extremely negative and atheistic toward religion. His conversion was no easy process. He describes it in his book, Surprised by Joy:

For the first time I examined myself with a practical purpose, and there I found what appalled me; a zoo of lusts, a bedlam of ambitions, a nursery of fears, a harem of fondled hatreds. My name was legion.

You must picture me alone in that room in [Oxford], night after night, feeling whenever my mind lifted even for a second from my work, the steady, unrelenting approach of [God] whom I so earnestly desired not to meet. That which I greatly feared had at least come upon me. In the Trinity Term of 1929 I gave in, and admitted that God was God, and knelt and prayed: perhaps that night, the most dejected and reluctant convert in all England. I did not then see what is now the most shining and obvious thing; the Divine humility which will accept a convert even on such terms. The Prodigal Son at least walked home on his own feet. But who can duly adore the Love which will open the high gates to a prodigal who is brought in kicking, struggling, resentful, and darting his eyes in every direction for a chance of escape. The words compelling people to come in, have been so abused by wicked [people] that we shudder at them; but, properly understood, they plumb the depth of the Divine mercy. The hardness of God is kinder than the softness of [human beings] and [God’s] compulsion is our liberation.

C.S. Lewis, confronted and humbled by the light of Christ, as was Saul.

Secondly, notice how Saul was blinded by the light. When he got up from the ground his eyes were open, but he could not see. We can only imagine what fear must have lurked within this once powerful man who now had to be guided into the city of Damascus because he could not see.

There are nearly nine million Americans who live in a world where colors are missing. They cannot see certain colors . . . they’re colorblind. They are unable to enjoy the subtle differences in color that most of us take for granted. This condition of color blindness was first classified in the eighteenth century by a scientist named John Dalton after he unknowingly wore a red jacket to a funeral. For a long time, color blindness was called Daltonism. When the apostle Paul was still Saul, he was colorblind. He saw matters and people in black and white, no shades of gradation, no subtleties. He was in total darkness because he was spiritually blind.

A colleague tells of a member of his congregation who was an exceptionally good plumber. He was so good that he had been employed in a nuclear installation. He had not been much of a person for attending church, so his pastor was surprised when the man called and said that he wanted to come by and talk. Then he told this interesting story. He said that while he was working at the bottom of a pit installing pipe, there was an electrical short in the system that put him in total darkness. He said he felt an overwhelming sense of loss and separation. In that total darkness, he began to think about the emptiness of his life and his lack of faith.

Later, he was put into another pit to do the same work, this time alongside another plumber who was a Christian. The man was telling this Christian plumber of his experience, his sense of shock and sense of being lost. This prompted the Christian plumber to share his sustaining relationship with Christ. The man said he wanted that kind of assurance in his life to which the fellow plumber asked if he would be willing for the two of them to kneel down and pray for that assurance.

The plumber sharing this story with his pastor said that was the most wonderful experience he had ever had and that he would never give it up. He said, “Not many days go by that I don’t get an opportunity to tell someone about my experience and how I was led out of my total darkness into light.”

Saul was indeed blinded by the light of Christ, but in that blinding light, was given a second chance by the Christ who can restore us to the fullness of life.

On the road to Damascus, Saul not only had an attitude adjustment, he had a sight adjustment. The scales that blocked his seeing the beauty in the subtle charm of the Christians dropped from his eyes and in the fullness of God’s light, Saul was able to receive full vision and a whole new world opened up for him.

Finally, notice how Saul was changed by the light of Christ. For me, this is the best part of the story. It’s the true miracle that took place on that road when Saul became Paul. He was given not only a new name, but also a new status. His new name symbolized a new reason and purpose for being.

John D. Rockefeller, Sr. determined as a very young boy that he was going to drive himself to the limits. At thirty-three he had earned his first million. At forty-three he controlled the biggest company in the world. At fifty-three he was the richest man on earth, at that time the world’s only billionaire . . . and he was also dying. He developed an illness in which one’s hair turns completely white and falls out. He lost all the hair on his head, including his eyebrows and eyelashes. He became shrunken and looked like a mummy.

Here was a man who had a weekly income of one million dollars but could only eat crackers and milk! He was so hated in Pennsylvania that he had to have body guards around the clock. He could not sleep. No one could remember the last time he smiled. The doctors predicted he would be dead in less than a year. The newspapers were gleefully writing his obituary in advance.

Something began to happen to Rockefeller. During those long sleepless nights in the darkness he began to realize that he could not take his money with him and his money was indeed everything. The next day, in the morning light, he was a new man. He began to give money to churches. He began to dispense of his amassed wealth to the poor and needy who were often overlooked by society. Perhaps his most significant accomplishment was the establishment of the Rockefeller Foundation whose funding of medical research led to the discovery of many marvelous wonder drugs like penicillin. He began to sleep at night. His appetite returned and so did his hair. Oh, yes, he lived for more than a year . . . he died at ninety-eight!

The aisles in this place of worship may not look much like a road, but for some of you here this morning, they may be the very roads that can bring a change in you. It may be on these roads where you are confronted by the Christ, who humbles you, and blinds you, and ultimately changes you into the fullness of your being. Let us pray:

Though we often wander away, O God, you come and search for us. When we feel lost and confused, you would have us be found and shown the way. Do not forget us, Lord, even when we have forgotten you. Do not depart from us even when we turn our faces from your side. Direct us with your gentle touch, your still, small voice which speaks to our hearts and minds, urging us back to that which is sensible and spiritual—that straight, sure road that leads to abundant life. Breathe your Spirit into us, O God, that we may sense the inspiration of your love and have confidence in your guidance. Amen.