God Can Do a lot With a Bit of Obedience
Preacher: Tim Jenkins
Passage: Acts 9:1-20
Our New Testament reading today features one of the most well known and influential conversion stories from all of Christianity. This story, the conversion of Saul, who we most commonly know as Paul, has captured the imagination of men and women for centuries. There are some who view this event as proof that the Christian faith is a divine revelation. That this man, who so passionately persecuted the followers of Jesus, could switch sides and become one of the most important figures in the history of the Christian Faith makes Paul larger than life. He is the very model of what we imagine the best, most faithful follower of Christ would and could be.
And yet, friends, I imagine that for many of us, Paul’s example is a hard shadow to stand in. We see his conversion, we read his writings (he wrote much of the New Testament), and we hear his call (“follow me as I follow Christ”), but when we stop to look, we notice just how far behind we are actually following.
Which is why, strange as it may seem given that preamble, I want to talk about Ananias, who we are introduced to in verse 10. Ananias didn’t write any of the books of the New Testament, and he is only mentioned in one other part of the Bible (and that’s just Paul giving him a shout-out). In many ways, Paul’s conversion and subsequent ministry is thrust just as uncomfortably upon his life as it is our own.
So, verse 10, “Now there was a disciple in Damascus named Ananias.” How’s that for an introduction? There are only a few things we know about Ananias, the strongest facts being that he was a Christian living in Damascus. He was apparently on good terms with both the Jewish and the Christian communities of Damascus, meaning that he wasn’t a refugee from Jerusalem who was fleeing the persecution there. He lived in Damascus; he was a part of that community.
This isn’t revealed in the scriptures, but there’s a 2nd Century theologian named Hippolytus who claims that Ananias was among 70 followers, found in Luke 10, that Jesus sends out to heal the sick.
And Ananias is faithfully living in his community when the Lord speaks to him through a vision. God tells him to go to Judas’ house on Straight Street where he’ll find Saul of Tarsus.
Ananias is a bit nervous about this request, and I think we can find that understandable. Saul’s reputation for violence against the faithful was growing: Many had heard how, at the martyrdom of Stephen, Saul had held their coats while looking on approvingly (looking on approvingly is actually Paul’s words). Saul had then taken to searching from house to house throughout Jerusalem, arresting the Christian men and women he found. Ananias, at this moment when God is speaking to him, is even aware of the fact that Saul is in possession of a writ that allows for the arrest and extradition of Christians from Damascus back to Jerusalem.
What do we compare this to today? Is this like being sent to Juarez to speak to the head of a Mexican drug cartel? Is this like being asked to go to Syria to visit an ISIS Leader? Maybe the stakes don’t have to be that high for you, and this is like God asking you to volunteer for VBS?
“Get up, and go to the street called McKinney Ranch, and at the church of Andrew look for a Deacon named Logan. At this very moment he is collecting supplies for Vacation Bible School. Volunteer with him, that the preschoolers may have a craft teacher at VBS.”
"But, Lord, I have heard from many about these preschoolers, and how sticky their fingers can become; how the craft glitter, once entering one’s presence, never leaves."
You know, we’re all scared by different things.
The good news for Ananias, God reassures him, is that things with Saul have changed from what they once were. Saul is to be God’s instrument.
So Ananias goes. He is obedient in the face of his discomfort and travels to Judas’ house on Straight Street, where, indeed, he finds Saul. There he lays hands on Saul, and through Ananias Saul is healed, cared for, and welcomed into the community of the faithful.
Paul’s story, at this point, is just beginning, but, as I mentioned earlier, the impact of Paul’s ministry is directly connected to the obedience of Ananias. And this, my friends, is the thing that I want you to know this morning: God can do a lot with a bit of obedience.
I hope that message is an encouragement to you. As I prepared for this sermon, the people I kept thinking about, over and over again, were you. For here you are, in the pew (or online), out of a bit of obedience. I don’t know what you’re specifically being obedient to this morning, but I know it’s got to be something like this:
you’re here out of obedience to God, and his call to participate in a community of faith,
or in obedience to the love you have for your mother/father/husband/wife/grandmother/whoever that wanted you to be at church today,
or obedient to a commitment you made to someone to be here this morning,
or maybe something else.
But whatever it is, you came when you could have not, and that’s great, because God can do a lot with a bit of obedience.
The Kingdom of God is full of both “Pauls” and “Ananiases,” because that’s what the Kingdom of God needs. God’s plan for Ananias was not the same as His plan for Paul, but we wouldn’t have one without the other. And throughout history, for whoever you think of as “the greats of the faith” (a quick list I made looks something like this: Augustine, Thomas a Kempis, Richard Hooker, John Wesley, Isaac Watts, C.S. Lewis, Demond Tutu, Mother Teresa), names that would be known through the ages, there are also many faithful, no less important in God’s Kingdom, for whom the Lord’s plan was kingdom work that would ultimately be less widely-known.
No less important, just less widely-known.
Someone had to buy the supplies for Bishop Desmond Tutu’s VBS too. Okay, we’ll, maybe not exactly that, but you get my point.
When we do the small work of obedient faithfulness, we build the Kingdom of God here on earth. We do it by, yes, helping preschoolers do crafts at VBS, and loading groceries into the back of a cars in the parking lot; sharing meals with people in a Supergroup, and hearing the stories of Anglicanism around the world between services. Even just being here now. God takes this, and all those things, our obedient faithfulness to him, and uses it to make the metaphorical scales fall off the eyes, and hearts, and minds of the lives we come in contact with.
To paraphrase Mother Teresa, “do small things with great love.”
Probably none of us will ever loom as large as Paul, but that’s okay—it’s okay to be Ananias. God spoke to him too. God used him too. And if you set your heart toward faithful obedience, God will speak to you and use you too. In fact, he’s already doing it.
Amen
