Kristin's Sermons

Our story this morning is a story about conversion.

Saul is literally stopped in his tracks by an encounter with God. He sees a vision of the living Christ, and is struck blind, and for days he is unable to eat or drink. Saul encounters the presence of the living Christ, and Christ becomes his Lord, and his life is never the same again.

Now I've never had that kind of conversion, nor did many Lutherans I know.

Those of us who were baptized as infants and raised in the church don't have a conversion story, a moment when we came to believe in Christ and were "born again." For many of us, there's a sense of having always believed in God, always been at home in the church.

Nevertheless, today is a day to focus on conversion.

Our lesson today has some important things to tell us about the experience of conversion. I'm going to focus on two of them.

First--and this isn't going to shock anyone here, but it's always worth repeating--conversion is initiated by God. It is a gift of God. God approaches us, and we are saved.

Or, as William Willimon writes, "Conversion, change of the radical kind worked in Saul is something Christ does, not something we do."

It is Christ who invites us into relationship with him.

The second thing this story shows us so well is that conversion is a transformation of life, a change in being. This is explicit in the story of Saul's conversion. The story begins with Saul "breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord." It ends with his baptism into this same community of disciples.

In the process, Saul is literally blinded, and when he sees again, he sees everything differently. Saul, the enemy of Ananias, has become his brother. Saul's enemy has become his Lord.

Saul encounters the living Christ, and his life is transformed.

He is transformed from an expert on legalism to an expert on grace. He is transformed from a keeper of boundaries to a love beyond boundaries. He is transformed from a builder of walls between people to a love beyond walls.

I have said that for myself and many Christians I know, we do not have a story, a moment in life, of conversion to Christianity.

Yet haven't we heard God's invitation into loving relationship--not just once, but over and over again? Haven't we had our vision changed by an encounter with the living God--not just once, but over and over again?

Maybe we need to look again at how we use that word, "conversion."

The Benedictine order expresses a vow of continuing conversion of life: a vow to be open to transformation by God. Open to allowing one's limited imagination to be shaped by God's limitless imagination. Open to allowing our response that "it's not possible" be changed by the Word which says, "With God all things are possible."

What does this mean, to be open to constant conversion by God?

It may mean a professor walks into a classroom or a pastor into a pulpit and says, "I've been wrong."

It may mean acting on a vision for exciting new ministry in a local congregation.

It may mean facing my greatest fear and accepting my first call in North Dakota.

But it may be even simpler than that.

Kathleen Norris is a poet who has written powerfully about her return to church after a twenty year absence, her own gradual and painstaking conversion. She writes, "Conversion is seeing ourselves, and the ordinary people in our families, our classrooms, and on the job, in a new light."

Sometimes, God visits us with a light so dazzling that we cannot help but be changed. But often, God's light shines more dimly, in ways and places we will not see unless we're keeping our eyes open for them.

We cannot create conversion in ourselves or in others. But we can keep our eyes open for the daily ways God invites us to see with new eyes: to imagine the unimaginable; to expect the impossible.

Keep your eyes open! Because you never know when you may find yourself walking on Damascus Road.