"What does Easter mean for Assholes?"
The bible text for this week’s sermon can be found at https://bible.oremus.org/?ql=518500156
Restored (The Conversion of Saul) By Lisle Gwynn Garrity
What does Easter mean for assholes? I really wanna know, because I’m with Ananias on this one. I am not in a hurry to heal those who use their authority for evil and I’ve got questions. What does redemption even look like for those who hurt others and see no problem with it? Who even think that this harm is noble and necessary? Who do so in the name of God?
This isn’t a real stretch for me as I have real feelings about Saul turned Paul because even his words that follow this transformation have been used ad noseum to support slavery, misogyny, and homophobia. I have heard and been impacted by the words of this man and those who invoke his name to bind up and condemn others. People have literally died because of his actions. So if it were up to me, I’d say he could sit there with those scales a bit longer. Saul may be ready, God may be ready, but I’m not. No ma’am.
Not to mention this is the worst Pastoral advice ever. I would absolutely never tell the victim of abuse to go meet one on one with their abuser and pray with them for healing. Never! In fact, I would with strongest passion advise them against it and denounce any spiritual leader who advocated for such nonsense. Honestly, I struggle with a God who seemingly sends people into dangerous and traumatic situations.
What does Easter mean for that?
What does disruption, redemption, and transformation look like here?
What about when I’m the one sneering at the possible redemption of anyone I think unworthy?
The fuzzy bunnies and colorful eggs have left the building and it’s a mess.
I don’t always know how to navigate that or find the way forward or where the lines should be drawn, but I think that’s at least in part because the line is not always in the same place nor in the same place for everyone. So I am reminded of what does guide us through.
The voice of Christ, but even more so when there’s no clear voice, the heart of Christ that turns us toward one another, toward who each of us were created to be, and so toward the Creator who makes all things new.
I believe boundaries and saying “no” can be good and holy. But I’ve also watched myself walk into situations I know better than to enter because something else seems to be present. I hesitate to even say that because I know it’s shaky ground. I don’t say this lightly because I know people have been hurt - physically, emotionally, and spiritually and even killed leaning toward trust over caution. I’m pretty sure my mom really wishes that I didn’t do things like that. I sometimes wish I didn’t do things like that. It has turned around and bit me in the but more than once.
Even here, among +KINDRED, the reality is that leaning toward one another as messy people means that I can not guarantee how any of this will turn out on any given day. We begin with trust and we treat this community with care, but sometimes it breaks down and then we have to deal with it. How do we mend? How do we mend ourselves and our connection to one another when there is real justifiable fear and hurt? How do we allow the past to shape our caution but not close us off entirely to possibilities? When our church leadership has had to reflect on this, we ask…how do we pursue justice that isn’t retributive but restorative? How can we imagine a way forward that isn’t driven by a sense of punishment but by opening a pathway toward repair?
What changes Saul, (and Ananias) is not their own doing. Their mutual redemption doesn’t happen on their own or in isolation. What changes them is not a book club or a convincing argument they heard about why Jews and Christians can co-exist. Surprisingly for Saul, this restoration does not come through the temple system that has always been his bread and butter, nor is it by being made to sit in a corner and think about what he’s done. It’s not because Saul and Ananias find some way to meet in the middle.
What changes them, what resurrects and creates them anew, is an encounter with the risen God, an extension of grace, and the work of healing.They are transformed by a voice they didn’t choose to hear, but speaks to their ears and their heart anyway. That doesn’t mean instant dance party. Sure by the time the story ends, Paul is singing “I saw the light” but first he’s lost, stuck, and hungry. Even after his sight returns, his name is changed, and his community shift, there is a time of healing body and soul - sacred baptism, food, and rest - before anything else can move forward. And even then, the reaction isn’t one of complete embrace. This new Paul and this new life as someone who proclaims God’s wide and transformative embrace...is met with outright vitriol and suspicious distance. The temple authorities want him killed as a traitor of faith and the disciples want him kept at an arm’s length. I imagine a redemption road is a pretty lonely place for a while. But it’s not where the story ends.
And lonely doesn’t mean alone. This healing and resurrection continues to unfold bit by bit over time, through the continued presence of an active God and in the community God forms around us, as confounding as it may be. Easter has room for our messiness. Easter makes a way out of no way. Easter is for our shared liberation.