Acts 9:1-19

 

I.        We are stuck in a moral and leadership vacuum. It is what psychologists and sociologists have labeled as a “Societal Regression.”

A.       There is a chronic anxiety. We are unhappy with ourselves, we are unhappy with our institutions and with our American society.

1.       People like Dr. Edwin Friedmann, who is also a Jewish Rabbi, have described it this way.  We react instinctively, rather than respond rationally, to what we see and what we do not like around us. 

2.       Our solution is for everyone to see things the way we do, to become like us, which is called fused thinking.

3.       We also resort to violence.

a.       We do not need to go any further than what happened a week ago at Fort Hood in Waco, Texas– Major Nidal Hasan, a medical doctor, a pyschiatrist who was slated to go and help our troops! The funerals for 4 who died in that shooting was yesterday.

4.       Says church systems theory, it all goes back to not understanding what good leadership is, or how to discover it!

a.       I believe an important reason our church is now headed in a healthy direction is because of the faith, commitment and moral character of the elders and deacons who came on board in the last 2 years.

5.       In the 1800's in the United States, we had a scarcity of strong leadership in the White House. Before Abraham Lincoln, we elected 5 presidents in a row were compromise candidates of their party, men who did not intend to run for re-election, who had no great accomplishments in office. Those names?

a.       The 5 were: James Polk,  Zachary Taylor, Millard Fillmore, Franklin Pierce and John Buchanan

b.       Then came Abraham Lincoln, who is remembered as the greatest leaders to occupy the White House, because of his courageous unpopular stands, his depth of character, and his vision. [PAUSE]

 

II.       The Past two weekends I have been in Atlanta and in Chicago, going to two schools which teach Christian Leadership, each with a different approach.  First the Salvation Army’s Southern Territorial School of Excellence in Atlanta, and this past week near Chicago at the Mennonite Peace Center.

A.       Dr. Richard Blackburn, from the Mennonite Peace Center, in Lombard, Illinois, has developed an imaginative answer to this question of leadership in an age of chronic anxiety, where folks keep responding the same way out of the instinctual, the animal part of the human brain.

1.       Blackburn has taken his insights from a number of famous paintings by medieval and Renaissance artists portraying Paul on “The Road to Damascus.”

2.       As Paul answer God’s call to leadership, for the early Christians it was a time of acute anxiety , a real threat to the church’s survival.

 

B.       Paul is hit by a sudden blinding light from Jesus Christ.

1.       So, #1, leadership does not come from within,  but from outside myself.

2.       Leadership is the gift that comes when you answer the call and struggle with what that means to be an authentic self.

3.       We can learn it, we may be taught, if we are open and willing.

a.       Remember Paul was on the road completely sightless.

b.       In one painting, from the Byzantine era of the 13^th century, Paul is lifted onto a stretcher and carried into Damascus, utterly helpless.

4.       When you look at an artistic renditions of Paul on the road to Damascus, pay close attention to the source of the light, how does it fall on Paul?

5.       Michelangelo, at the height of the Counter-Reformation when the fighting and violence between Catholics and Protestants was at its worst, in a painting from 1545, depicts Saul knocked to the ground, his eyes sightless. He has a beard and a flat nose–it is a self-portrait of the artist confessing the pride of his own lost youth. The man is about to be pulled to his feet by a servant, knees on the ground quivering in prayer. The omnipotent Christ plunges into the scene from above, his flash of light momentary, enough to power Paul for a lifetime, enough to power the church for its life.

a.       Christ later tells Paul, “My weakness is enough for you.”

b.       And Paul confesses to the Corinthians, “ I was with you in much weakness and in fear and trembling...For I decided to know

                                                nothing among you except Jesus Christ ...crucified.” (I Cor. 2:2-3)

 

C.       Acts 9 says that when he heard the voice, Saul “fell on his face.”

                   1.       #2: “To fall on your face”  means to confess your own faults and to come to penance before God and neighbor.

                             a.       It is to focus on my shortcomings, engage in a serious examination of who I am and how I function, and how I may learn to do better.

                             b.       It is not about blaming others but about accepting responsibility.

                   2.       Later medieval art, a 13^th century painting from Chartres, France,  has Saul riding on a horse and falling from his mount.

                             a.       This represents the fall of pride (or, hubris), the haughty spirit.

                             b.       Christ says, take on my humility, my emptying of myself.

                   3.       It takes time for me to move in that direction, more than a year.

                             a.       Without fail, all congregations that need to move in that direction expect to hire a new pastor in 3-6 months! But hiring a new pastor without changing myself, my modus operandi for the past is to invite failure, which becomes my own fault, not the pastor’s.

                             b.       One of the rewards of being an interim pastor is to watch as people in the church change, as they are reconciled, when real healing takes place, when those who opposed each other say, “I am sorry,” and they embrace each other in love,

                             c.       as the whole church family embraces hope and a new identity.

                             d.       You step back in awe and say, This is a gift from a loving God.

                                                                            

D.       There is always an Ananias, a reluctant fearful Christian servant, whom God uses anyway.

                   1.       #3: Ananias must change as well.

                   2.       He must let go of that self-righteous determination.  His resistance is to be expected, a human reality.

                   2.       Christ hears Ananias out.  But then Christ says to him,

                             a.       “Go, he is my chosen instrument....for I will show him how much he must suffer for the sake of my name.”

                   3.       There is a natural tendency for me, like Ananias, to distance myself, to get sucked in and take on the loneliness of leadership as a willing victim.  But I must stay connected, without emotion, especially with those who have wronged me.

                             a.       None of us who stand as a leader before Christ can ever say, I have earned that right.  We only stand there out of grace.   (page 2)

                             a.       Whenever Abraham Lincoln had someone in his governmnet he did not like, he made a point to get to know him.

 

          E.       So Ananias blesses Paul.

                   1.       What does Jesus say in his Sermon on the Mount: “But I say to you, Love  your enemies, pray for those who persecute you...so that you may be sons (and daughters) of your Father who is in heaven’”

                             a.       A 30-second TV spot by the Presbyterian Church some 20 years ago was in the form of a western cartoon. The posse has rounded up the cattle rustler. “Let’s string ‘im up; it’ll teach ‘im a lesson,” says the group. Someone else says, “Let’s forgive ‘im; it’ll teach ‘im a lesson.”

                   2.       #4: Effective leaders bless their opposition. They listen, collaborate,  understand the mind of those who are on the other side.

         

          F.       So then, these four qualities we must have deep within ourselves if you and I are to be a committed and effective leader today:

                   1.       recognize that whatever leadership I have is a gift I may be taught to use;

                   2.       if I will fall on my face before God.

                   3.       I must let go of my self-righteous self-determination.

                   4.       I must bless those who oppose me. [PAUSE]

         

III.      Caravagio’s masterpiece,  “The Conversion of Paul,” is housed in St. Mary of the People, a private chapel in Rome. This piece shows the Apostle fallen from a horse, in the puposeful crowding of space, and in a darkness as in the art of the Catacombs. It is like you are in the picture and this man is falling right into your lap. 

          A.       With little movement, the focus zooms in. He seems to be praying, abandoning himself to his plight.

                   1.       Your role, my role, as the leader God has called is to not concern myself

with what anyone else is doing, but to focus on becoming a more aware self, that non-anxious presence, calm, staying connected, always in that

                             position of prayer.

                             a.       From William Shakespeare’s “Hamlet”:  Leonis give a last piece of advice to his son Laertes, who is always in a hurry, but mainly to get away from his father’s long-winded speeches.  But this is a short speech:

          b.       “This above all: to thine own self be true,

                                                And it must follow, as the night the day,

                                                Thou canst not then be false to any man.”
          2.       The 4 most important words are, “Will you help me?” The 3 most important words, it has been said are, “I am sorry.” The two most important words are, “Thank you,”  and the most important word is, “Please.”  What are the 10 most important words, each word just 2 letters? You may memorize these 10 words in a few seconds.

                             a.       “If it is to be it is up to me.”     Amen.       (page 3)