May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all
our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.
Today we are not only
celebrating our fifth and final service in the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity,
we are also celebrating the Conversion of Saint Paul the Apostle. I think this Holy Day is a fitting end to our
week of exploring what it means to us to be united as Christians and with
Christians throughout the world.
Usually when we hear the word
conversion we think of a change from one type of thing to another type of
thing. We convert power from AC to
DC. We convert measurements from feet
into meters or temperature from Fahrenheit to Celsius. And we convert people from one religion to
another or one denomination to another.
This type of converting is what I think of when I hear “conversion.” Is it the same for you?
This is not what happened
when Paul had his conversion. Paul was a
Jew who was very concerned about keeping his religion “pure.” He was a “good guy” doing what he saw as God’s
work. He was going from place to place
and rooting out this upstart Jewish sect that was causing schism. He was a devout man protecting what he saw as
holy. As Glen said yesterday, he was
completely sane or rational in his chosen work.
When Jesus came to Paul, Paul
was converted. Did he stop being a
Jew? No.
To the end of his days, Paul never stopped being a Jew. What changed was not his religion. It was his understanding of purity. What Jesus showed Paul was that by keeping
his religion pure, by keeping out “undesirable” elements, he was not making it
stronger. In fact, he was making it
weaker. Jesus opened his heart to the
understanding that his God was not interested in caring only for the people of
Judah. Jesus brought the message that
every single person on this earth is one of God’s chosen. Every single person on this earth is God’s
beloved. Every single person on this
earth is created in God’s image. Every
single person, whether we like them or not, whether we agree with their
understanding of God or not, whether they even believe in God or not, shares
this in common with us. They are created
in God’s own image. And just as God
loves them, so should we.
Thanks be to God. Amen.
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