Tyndale Chapel Podcast

Well, thanks, team. It's a joy to be with you all today. Well, let me tell you about my childhood, back in the 80s, when my favorite things included neon pink. Oh, right, I thought Geoff would turn it off. Okay, we good to go. All right.

My favorite things included neon pink, acid wash denim jean skirts, and so much crimp tears. I remember being ushered into my school's AV room because a mountaineer was visiting us. He told us about ding Mount Everest, the tallest mountain in the world. Even as he showed us slides in the mountain, I just couldn't comprehend it, because I had not yet even been to the Rocky Mountains. He gave me the name of a new to me hero, sir Sir Edmund Hillary. This was the first person in history that we know of to successfully make it to the top of Everest. What an exciting story for a girl growing up on the mountainless landscape of Saskatchewan. Since then, I have never forgot the name of Sir Edmund Hillary but it wasn't until I was much, much older that I found out I only had half of the picture. Hillary didn't do this feat alone. His co-adventurer Tenzing Norgay, reached the summit with him. This was actually a team effort. Moreover, I actually just learned that counting porters and mountaineers and everybody involved in this expedition, there was a few 100 people in focusing only on Hillary, I had imagined the whole expedition wrong. This was teamwork through and through.

Now we all like a good hero story. We like to shine the spotlight on someone to marvel in their story of transformation and affirm them for their personal impact. It gives us hope that we can be exceptional heroes too. And one of the many problems with this perspective is that it impacts how we read Scripture. We interpret the individual people in Scripture as heroes, even though it's actually God who's the hero of the story. And that means sometimes we're looking in the wrong places, so we miss what God is doing. Now one of the passages where we do this is the story where Jesus turns Saul's life upside down in acts nine. We have a tendency to focus on Paul's transformation rather than on the big picture. And the biblical scholar Deborah Thompson Prince points out that we can actually see this in art. Because remember, after all, art is exegesis. So here's a tapestry by Raphael. Sorry for the lower quality picture. It's what was free to use on the Internet, and I didn't have time to go to the Vatican to take a better picture. But you can see that Jesus is the focal point. There he is up at the top, and Saul takes second place in the midst of his confused companions, moving on just a little in time, Michelangelo also fills out the scene. Lots of companions, heavenly hosts and Jesus, sending down a holy spotlight on Paul. But where the art starts to lose its focus on Jesus and the community around Paul comes with Caravaggio. Notice how the frame is small. Paul is in the light. There's one animal and one man as companions, and Jesus' presence is only implied by the spotlight. This is a picture of Paul being transformed, and this painting is still influential. It impacts artistic depictions of this scene even today, as we can see in the work of contemporary artist Chris Cook. So our artist exegesis actually focuses on Paul and how he is changed by the encounter with Jesus, and that is a true and good aspect to this story. But the problem is that if we only focus here, we miss the bigger arc of what God is doing. When Paul is met by Jesus on the way to Damascus.

So let's walk through the text together, and obviously we can't exegete everything, after all, Dean Sweetman has only given me 18 minutes to speak. So I want to focus on two questions. How is this about Jesus, and what does it tell us about Jesus's holy people? So Jesus, Jesus' holy people, acts nine. Meanwhile, Paul was still breathing out murderous threats against the Lord's disciples, he went to the high priest and asked him for letters to the synagogues in Damascus, so that if he found any there who belonged to the way, whether men or women, he might take them as prisoners to Jerusalem. As he neared Damascus on his journey, suddenly, a light from Heaven flashed around him, and he fell to the ground and heard a voice say to him, Saul. Saul, why do you persecute me? Do you see the contrast there, right at the start? Here is Saul, all murdery and violence, a persecutor. But look at his initiative. He goes to the high priest. He wants to imprison God's people. And in contrast, the prey he pursues is a group of men and women who belong to the way, the group of Jesus believers who share what they have and pray for the ones who persecute them, a violent individual versus a spirit filled collective. Saul may be pursuing the people of the way, but Jesus pursues him. He meets Jesus because of Jesus' initiative, as Jesus invades all of his senses in a way that only God can do, and Jesus' question gets to the heart of the matter, Saul. Saul, why do you persecute me? In persecuting Jesus's people, you persecute Jesus and for someone like Paul, that would make no sense.

So obviously he has questions. Who are you, Lord? Saul, asked, I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting he replied. Now get up and go into the city, and you will be told what you must do. This is so good. In saying I am Jesus, Jesus is propelling Saul into a time of undoing, a time of renewing. And now Saul remember he's the one with all that initiative on his own. He has to follow someone else's initiative. He is sent to the city by Jesus, where he will wait for directions. But also notice, Jesus doesn't tell Saul the content of what he must do. Saul actually needs someone else to tell him the message from Jesus. Saul's experience of Jesus is not complete on its own. He needs the community. He is not alone, not even in this scene, verse seven, the men traveling with Saul stood there speechless. They had heard the sound but did not see anyone. Saul got up from the ground, but when he opened his eyes, he could see nothing. So they led him by the hand into Damascus for three days he was blind and did not eat or drink anything. Notice how the frame widens here. The scene is a bit more like the art of Raphael or Michelangelo two of the Ninja Turtles. Saul was not alone on his way to the Damascus. This experience of Jesus was not a solo experience. His fellow travelers too. They witness with their ears, even if they can't see, they hear the voice of Jesus. Now, in all of those paintings that we looked at, did you notice they only focus on the Damascus Road, the scene with all the light and all the falling down. Now, if the story ended here, it wouldn't be much of a story. It's incomplete. Saul would just be blind and unaware of God's call in his life, and that's something all the paintings miss. This isn't just a solitary encounter with Jesus on a road, but a journey into community and calling. The story is incomplete without Jesus appearing to Ananias and Ananias saying yes to Jesus, the obedience of others completes this story. Yes, Jesus pursued Saul, but now Saul will encounter Jesus again through Jesus's people, starting with Ananias. In Damascus, there was a disciple named Ananias. The Lord called to him in a vision, Ananias, yes, Lord, he answered. The Lord told him go to the host of Judas on straight street and ask for a man from Tarsus named Saul for he is praying. In a vision he has seen a man named Ananias come and place his hands on him to restore his sights. Do you see we see Jesus' initiative again here? Drawing persecutor and persecuted together in ways no one could have anticipated. Ananias, the disciple is supposed to go to his persecutor and touch him so God can heal his sight?

And understandably, Ananias has questions. Lord, Ananias answered, I have heard many reports about this man and all the harm he has done to your holy people in Jerusalem, and he has come here with authority from the chief priests to arrest all who call on your name. But the Lord said to Ananias, go, this man is my chosen instrument to proclaim my name to the Gentiles and to their kings and to the people of Israel. I will show him how much he must suffer from my name. Did you catch Ananias? He's basically saying that guy, you want me to go to that guy? And I think we can sympathize with Ananias concerns, but we shouldn't miss his theology. Notice the phrases your holy people and all who call on your name like Jesus, Ananias gets the connection between Jesus and his people, that in coming to Jesus, you become part of the collective. You are part of the holy people who call on Jesus' name together. You are set apart, meant to look like God in the world. But now look at what the Lord says to Ananias. We can see right away that it changes everything for Paul. Obviously, here at last, is the commission that he wasn't given on the Damascus Road. He needed Jesus' people to receive his commission. Saul will proclaim Jesus to the Gentiles and to their kings and to the people of Israel, and instead of causing suffering, he himself will suffer. He will no longer be a murderous, violent oppressor, but an oppressed Proclaimer of Jesus. But do you see that it's not only Saul who's going to be transformed. Saul's transformation is actually part of the bigger transformation Jesus is bringing to his people first in this story and in the rest of the chapter, the church is transformed as they learn to welcome a former enemy as a brother, but the greater and most surprising transformation is that through the transformation of this persecutor, the gospel will spread to the Gentiles. This will no longer be a community of only Jewish people, but Gentiles as well. This is the transformation that brings me into the story and so many of you, my fellow Gentiles, in this chapel, the real transformation at hand is the one that changes all of God's people. And yes, Saul will have a key role in that mission, but he's never alone in it. If you notice that guy's always a part of a team. He's commissioned as part of a team with Barnabas by the church in Antioch at the Holy Spirit's initiative. The inclusion of Gentiles is God's work. He transforms his holy people, and Ananias embodies something of these transformations as he obeys with his feet and goes to find Saul. Verse 17, then Ananias went to the house and entered it, placing his hands on Saul, he said, Brother Saul, the Lord Jesus, whom appeared to on the road as you were coming here has sent me so that you may see again and be filled with the Holy Spirit. Immediately, something like scales fell from Saul's eyes and he could see again. He got up and was baptized, and after taking some food, he regained his strength. Saul spent several days with the disciples in Damascus. Okay, first of all, notice how he greets him, Brother Saul. Brother Saul, Ananias gets it. He gets the transformation of how Jesus's people. He puts people together who wouldn't normally be family, and here he is embodying Jesus and His people by touching Saul, facilitating his physical healing and his filling with the Holy Spirit. After this beautiful act, Ananias disappears from the story, and he finds his place with the other disciples, which, as you can see in verse 19, is where Saul is too. With the other disciples. Saul's transformation required the participation of Jesus's holy people. This was a community endeavor. It seems that after those days of blindness, Saul understood that Jesus and his people go together. We know this because he joins he gets baptized, he stays the rest of his life he is a part of God's holy people. In the next few paragraphs after this story, if we were to continue reading, we'd see Saul has to flee Damascus because already people want to kill him, and when he gets to Jerusalem, he tries to join the other disciples, and they are understandably suspicious, and it's Barnabas who vouches for him. Saul wants to be with the disciples. He understands the collective and the holy people vouch for him. So throughout the story, Saul is important, but he isn't the point, Jesus is. Jesus initiates all of this. It is his love pursuing Paul. Saul is his chosen instrument. Saul is a part of Jesus' holy people. He's now filled with the Spirit. Our interpretations, both written and artistic, sometimes tend to focus on Saul, on where the spotlight shines. But Saul at every turn, he points you to the source of the light. He wants you to see Jesus. Jesus is the point of this story. Okay, so why did I focus on acts nine today? So many reasons, but I'll limit myself to three. Okay, first, if even Saul slash Paul, you know, the apostle to the Gentiles, avid writer of epistles, if he needs God's holy people, then obviously we do too. You need God's holy people. Sometimes theological education makes church difficult for people, you become a critical thinker, and it's easy to over analyze. Maybe you love the community you found at Tyndale so much that any other community just doesn't seem to cut it. It's easy to be hyper critical, it's easy to be lazy, and it's easy to believe the lie that you can follow Jesus on your own, but hopefully you see that Saul's transformation in ministry only happens as a part of the body of Christ. We need each other. You cannot follow Jesus by yourself. See when we're reconciled to Jesus, we're also reconciled to each other. Coming to Jesus means finding yourself in a new family, and this is part of why Paul in his letters is always talking about the unity of the church. It's because it isn't optional. Paul gets that being the church together is a sign that the kingdom is here, and this is a word, especially for students who are graduating. Find a church. As you leave Tyndale stay rooted in Jesus' family. Don't ghost God's people. Be with them. Second if you were called into a ministry position in the church, you are part of the church, like Saul you are with the disciples. Sometimes, in our brokenness, our leadership turns into something else, because we like power, and we actually like thinking we're important, we want to be the exceptional hero. Maybe we enjoy the spotlight a little too much. We have to check our hearts. Do I love the church, or do I want to be in charge? Do I labor over the church, or do I labor with the church? Do I seek my own power? Or do I seek to empower? The New Testament scholar and our brother, Gordon Fee, talks about how the model of the church in the New Testament looks a little different from how we often imagine we often function with a sharp division of pastors and people, imagining the pastors to be some kind of boss over top of the church. And Dr fee reminds us that leadership functions within the people of God, rather than over you are the church. So for those who are called into leadership roles who are going to serve as pastors and teachers, worship leaders. Resist the pedestal, resist the spotlight. Instead, seek Jesus in community. Seek to work with and within the whole people of God. And finally, I ask you, what does it mean for us to be God's holy people? We we have a corporate calling, a collective calling. Hopefully, our look at acts nine has helped us to see that the community is involved, and Jesus initiates all the things. But did you notice how we are described in this passage, as the holy people? That's a collective as the way think about the metaphor of the way that we are on a Jesus journey together. So the question, what does it mean for us to be God's holy people? Helps us not to engage in hero worship, but to focus on Jesus and His calling for us as His holy people. So I leave you with the words of our brother, Gordon fees. The New Testament knows nothing about individual saints, only about Christian communities as a whole who take up the Old Testament calling of Israel to be God's holy people in the world. So let's be a people, a holy people. Please pray with me. Father, you are good, Jesus, we thank you for your initiative. How you pursue each one of us and call us by name so that we can call on your nam. And Lord, we repent for the times we have focused on heroes and people rather than on you. We repent for the times we sought the spotlight instead of seeking you. Give us imagination and courage to be your holy people so that we can cooperate with how your Spirit is moving in the world. Jesus, help us to be a community of belonging, where we listen to your voice together, where we labor with one another in your kingdom. Help each of us individually to stay rooted in your family. Lord, connect each of us with a community of believers with whom we can share life and mission and we worship you Jesus. Amen.