Sermons & Services

My conversion to Christianity happened suddenly – over a course of just 16 years or so – I know, so fast, right? It started I suppose, the day I was born in a family that was reasonably committed to getting their butts out the door every Sunday morning to get to whatever Lutheran church we went to at the time. My dad was in the Navy, so we moved from East Coast to West Coast to East Coast to West Coast to East Coast to Third Coast (that’s the shore of Lake Michigan for you New Englanders), all before I was eight. But there was always a Lutheran Church.

One of my earliest memories is crying in the nursery of a Lutheran Church in Virginia Beach, separated from my mom for what must have been one of the first times.

Another early memory is saying grace before dinner every night, a Lutheran prayer: Come, Lord Jesus, be our guest. Let these gifts to us be blessed. Amen. (I was at least 8 before I understood these to be separate words).

Another early memory is sitting in the pew during worship and asking my parents if I was being good, because I knew that being good in church meant a trip to Dunkin Donuts after church.

Another early memory is standing in line impatiently as the adults received communion, waiting for my turn to go up to the railing to kneel and have the pastor place his hand on my head and say, “The peace and love of Almighty God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, rest upon you always. Sometimes he even said “…Michael.” Amen.

Another early memory is hearing the pastor say, “As a servant of Christ, I forgive you all your sins.”

From about age 12, I remember a sermon the pastor gave. It must have been based on Jesus’ saying about not worrying about tomorrow, because today has troubles enough of its own. The part I remember was the phrase, “Don’t sweat the small stuff.”

About that same age, I remember being confused by the world, specifically by the future. I remember seeing mixed messages about life and happiness. On the one hand, there were clues, from church and other places, that being happy came from being kind to other people, all people, having a family and playing with your kids. And on the other hand, there were clues that being happy came from being something called a “bachelor,” having pretty girlfriends, drinking beer with other cool guys, and riding a motorcycle. I remember thinking about who I would be in the future, and being confused about how to reconcile all those clues about what it meant to be happy, or at least to be cool.

I also remember being introduced to Letters and Papers from Prison by Dietrich Bonhoeffer in my high school Sunday school class and then reading the whole thing – and seeing that Christian faith could be subversive and dangerous and interesting and that doing what is right could get you killed.

When I need to tell this story in fewer words, I say that I am a Christian because the Lutheran liturgy of my youth did its job. The phrases, vocabulary, themes, patterns, songs, and content all worked together to shape my innate view of the world. All the things that have mattered to me throughout my life were there: love, peace, forgiveness, kindness to everyone, generosity, things worth dying for, divine beauty. I can glimpse other dimensions of human experience, like anxiety, and hate, and fear, and divine distance, but they will never be natural to me. By the age of 16, I suppose it would be fair to say I was a follower of Jesus, just innately believing that because of God’s love in Jesus Christ, the world is a beautiful place.

In the book of Acts the story of Paul’s conversion is told much differently. Quick, maybe 16 seconds, rather than sixteen years. External, visible, maybe even cataclysmic. Saul, as his name was then, was so zealous about careful observance of the law of Moses that he persecuted the earliest followers of Jesus who upset the status quo and didn’t follow the law as the Pharisees taught was right. He participated in imprisoning and executing followers of Jesus. Then, on the road to Damascus, the risen Christ speaks to him, and Paul sees that the Way knows the way. And, boom, he’s a passionate follower of Jesus from that point forth, giving himself, mind, body, spirit, hand, and heart, in life, and eventually in death, to let others know that the Kingdom of God is near, and it is beautiful, and it is good – for Jesus has been raised, and all can be raised with him to a life that really is life.

But I am sure there was more to this conversion than that. The Bible never goes in to the psychology of its characters. We just don’t learn about people’s inner lives and intimate stories. Even Paul, who wrote so much of the New Testament, keeps the focus on Jesus, the community, and the message, never on himself. But I am pretty sure that the cataclysmic event of his conversion had a backstory, and that backstory is set in the world of the earliest church, which is also the world of the Roman Empire.

It is important to realize that Paul wasn’t converted from Judaism to Christianity, he was converted from one version of Judaism, one that did not find its fulfillment in Jesus, to another type of Judaism, one that did find its fulfillment in Jesus. From his birth to his death, Paul was Jewish, he followed the way of the law of Moses and the spirituality of his ancestors, but he came to trust that in Jesus of Nazareth, it all came together – the Kingdom was at hand.

What Paul came to see was that a Judaism that all came together in Jesus was not just for his people, but was for all. And in his time and place, that meant, in particular, it was all people living in the shadow of Rome.

I think we sometimes read the story of Paul’s conversion as meaning that this was the time he chose to “believe in Jesus” – that he assented to the idea of Jesus as the Son of God and as raised from the dead. I mean the evidence in front of him was overwhelming – the very voice and presence of Jesus – he could hardly avoid believing it. But do you remember Paul’s question when the voice from heaven speaks to him? Paul asks, “Who are you, Lord?”

That use of the word “Lord” is telling. Turns out, in his conversion, Paul wasn’t just choosing to believe stuff, he was surrendering to a Lord, a ruler of his life, a north star, an anchor, a guide, a friend. And what makes a Lord a Lord? Having a community for which one is responsible, in which one holds sway, a community of mutual trust, and common identity.

You see, in Paul’s day, “Lord” was not a neutral term. It was not first of all a religious term. It was a political term, a political claim, and it was the Roman elite, from patron, to general, to emperor, who claimed to be Lord over all.

But the way of Rome was oppressive, even spent, empty. If you know the dystopian world of the Hunger Games, it’s not a bad analogy for the Roman Empire in the first century. The provinces existed to serve the capitol, all economic benefit flowed to Rome, and the system was held together with strict social hierarchy and violence. The Pax Romana was the pax of submission, not the pax of freedom.

By joining team Jesus, by calling Jesus Lord, Paul switches sides, declaring allegiance to one Lord, rather than the other. Big picture, though, it wasn’t just the way of Rome that was spent, but the way of empire itself. The way of thinking that Empire was the only option.

In the story of his people, fulfilled in Jesus, Paul discovered that to be a people, a community, didn’t mean you had to Lord it over others, that you had to be an empire. Rather than being based in extraction and competition and scapegoating and violence, being a people could be based in common commitments, in mutuality, in a vision of divine beauty that joined all creation in harmony. Community didn’t depend on Empire. There was another Lord whose rule was not based on fear and conquest, but on reconciliation and love – not abstract divine love, but agape, the mutual burden bearing difference embracing love of community.

The book of Acts uses anecdotes to reveal the nature of this new community – a community at first called the Way, the Way that knows the way. The anecdotes are windows to the whole. Everyone shares what they have, and it is redistributed to each as any has need. The fundamental walls dividing humanity are broken down, and there is no Jew or Greek, male or female, slave or free. Suffering is shared. Mirthful songs abound. Families of birth and families found are nurtured and loved. Conflict is resolved in confession and forgiveness not violence. And this very community is a sign of resurrection. A sign that the Lord who makes such a life possible is beginning his reign of love: he the first fruits, and then those who follow him, into new life.

That’s what Paul’s conversion was about – that’s the backstory of his cataclysmic Damascus road experience. He left one Lord behind, left one “community” behind, and he accepted the embrace of another Lord, and he became part of a new and true community.

And what we are all about here is being converted to this different way, this different Lord, this different community.

I don’t know, but I’d love to hear sometime, what your conversion looks like. Maybe it’s like mine, unfolding over the first 16 or so years of your life. Maybe it took place in revelatory instant, something more like Paul’s, at age 21, or 51, or 81. Maybe it is unfolding right now and you don’t yet know how to tell the story. Maybe it is the fifth decade of your conversion, maybe it’s the first day, maybe it’s the day before the first day.

All of us need to have such a conversion. Not conversion to a new way of thinking about the world, thinking about who God is or who Jesus is, in an intellectual sense. Rather we need to be converted to the way of life that is embodied in this community, reflected in the liturgy that we share together, as I experienced in my Lutheran church growing up. We need to be converted to a community that is based in love, and forgiveness, and peace, and reconciliation, and justice. And do I need to tell you how important that conversion is right now? It is not just about rejecting MAGA-land. It’s about finding a new Way in the world, a new people in the world, who are our people – with a common “Lord,” who gives us identity and purpose and joy and love and forgiveness and grace, so we can reflect all of that back into this world. Wherever you are on that journey of conversion, again whether you are in the fifth decade, or the first day, or perhaps if tomorrow is the first day, I bid you the grace of God. I bid you a joyful journey into being part of a community with a common Lord who gives us love and life and joy – an alternative to everything else out there, be it Roman, American, or anything other self-proclaimed “Lord” – an alternative that truly gives life.

In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, Mother of us all. Amen.