The Amazing Grace of Crisis and Failure
The Amazing Grace of Crisis and Failure
Preached on May 1st, 2022
At Wollaston Congregational Church
Scripture: Acts 9:1-20
This week we continue the season of Easter with a series of readings from the book of Acts. During Lent and Holy Week we had come to the end of Luke’s gospel, with the crucifixion and subsequent resurrection of Jesus. The other gospels end at that point, but with Luke we are fortunate enough to have a sequel: Acts.
Acts is a book written to the church, about what God has done and what God is doing in the church. Acts is a communal story, and at the same time it’s a story for each of us. This morning we heard a passage about an individual named Saul, who is mercilessly persecuting the first disciples and followers of the Way of Jesus.
Saul is brutal. He rips both men and women out of their houses and drags them to stand trial before the Sanhedrin, the governing board in Jerusalem. He stands by and holds the cloaks of the people who stone the Apostle Stephen to death, making Stephen the first Christian martyr. And now, having heard that these followers of Jesus of Nazareth have spread far to the north of Jerusalem, he intends to take his own mission of persecution north too, as far as the city of Damascus.
Saul may be brutal, but he is also deeply religious. He was born Jewish in the city of Tarsus, circumcised on the 8th day and studied under the renowned Pharisean teacher, Gamaliel. When religion is not tempered with love, this is what happens. People, religious leaders in particular, can become vengeful.
In our story today, Saul is traveling on the road to Damascus, when he is thrown to the ground in shock by an incredible vision of light, flashing all around him. He hears a voice demanding "Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?" When Saul asks "Who are you, Lord?" The reply comes "I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting. But get up and enter the city, and you will be told what you are to do."
Saul may have believed that he was rooting out a threatening and heretical new sect of Judaism. But Jesus introduces himself, from heaven. By persecuting the disciples who will become the Church, Saul is persecuting Jesus himself. Evidently Jesus already knows Saul by name. Saul is blinded by this intense experience, and he allows his companions to lead him to the city. For three days he fasts, unable to see anything.
Here in Damascus, the Lord calls on a disciple named Ananias. The Lord has a mission for Ananias – he is to go and seek out the notorious persecutor of Christ’s disciples and lay hands on him. Ananias is naturally worried about this assignment. Saul has the power to seize him, bind him and bring him to the dreaded Sanhedrin. But the Lord insists. God has plans for Saul, who has been chosen as an instrument to bring the word of Jesus of Nazareth to gentiles, kings and the people of Israel. The Lord tells Ananias that Saul will be learn how much he will need to suffer for the sake of Christ.
And so Ananias goes to Saul, and lovingly lays hands on him, calling him “brother”, speaking of the Lord Jesus and imparting the gift of the Holy Spirit. The scales fall off Saul’s eyes. He is filled with the light and love of Christ and is baptized. And as soon as he is able, he begins his mission for Jesus, saying “He is the Son of God.” To quote the old hymn, Saul experiences amazing grace, he was blind but now he sees.
Saul, who will become Paul, did not experience conversion from nothing to something. He was devout and educated in the ways of Judaism. In Saul’s time, Christianity did not exist separately from Judaism. Saul is converted from resisting to accepting the risen Christ. We don’t know the state of Saul’s mind at the time, but the phrase “breathing threats and murder” implies that his mission of persecution was all-consuming. He lived and breathed it.
Somehow, the risen Christ appeared to Saul and stopped him in his tracks. Was this completely out of the blue? Or had Saul been somehow influenced by what he had seen among Jesus’s followers? Was he weary of being a hater, consumed by threats and murder? Did becoming a lover of people seem a more appealing way of life?
Whatever it was, somehow this experience on the Damascus Road led Saul from darkness to light, from hate to love, from chief persecutor to exemplary apostle. It also led him to a life in which he was on the receiving end of persecution. He endured imprisonment on several occasions and was finally beheaded in Rome, at the command of the emperor Nero.
In the book “Falling Upward” the Franciscan writer, Richard Rohr, speaks of the spiritual development that takes place when a person grows from the first-half-of-life to the second. According to Rohr, we build our ego container during the first half of life. We learn the rules, we work hard to build our lives and our careers.
Rohr says “Almost all of culture, and even most of religious history, has been invested in the creation and maintenance of first-half-of-life issues: the big three concerns of identity, security, and sexuality and gender … we all need some successes, response, and positive feedback early in life, or we will spend the rest of our lives demanding it, or bemoaning its lack, from others.” [1]
The first-half-of-life and the second include various the stages of development that all humans experience. If we grow in a healthy way, we will move forward to maturity and a deeper understanding of our meaning and purpose in life. We are transformed.
This is our life’s work which never ends, even in old age. This growth is all about letting go of the things that worked in the first-half-of-life: ruled-based religion; certainty about what is “right” and what is “wrong”; a sense of identity that includes those who are like us and excludes those who seem different.
Transformation and spiritual growth can be come about by way of failure or crisis. This kind of crisis is sometimes called “the long dark night of the soul.” The Quaker author and expert in spiritual leadership, Margaret Benefiel, observes that organizations as well as individuals can experience one or more long dark nights of the soul in their spiritual development. [2]
Wollaston Congregational Church, we have had our share of crises over the years: the suspension of youth group hosting, due to the famed bacon fire; frozen pipes; broken heating system; the recent flooding of the education wing; and burned-out volunteers, to mention a few.
Crises in organizations expose the weaknesses of the system. Over the past two pandemic years, we have witnessed the weakness of our culture in the form of mental and physical health problems, a lack of connectedness, and a need for resilience. I know that I am coming through this pandemic, feeling much older than I felt in the beginning.
There have been natural and expected transitions and crises during this period that have felt more difficult and even catastrophic because of their timing.
I am so grateful that in the case of my own family, my dad’s transition from life to death and my mom’s need for surgery and aftercare, happened at a time when travel was possible again. I will need to wait a while before I can determine what kind of spiritual growth will come from these personal crises of mine.
Crises and exposed weaknesses provide an opportunity for transformation if we pay attention. One of the great lessons of the pandemic is the simple idea of letting people and organizations do what they do best. We don’t need to be everything to all people simply because we are people of faith, simply because we are a church.
This revelation came about for myself and some of my clergy colleagues when the Quincy Interfaith Network organized a Service of Grief and Hope for lost loved ones and members of the community who had sacrificed and struggled. The religious leaders of the Interfaith Network were worn out from continually adapting in-person and virtual services. We didn’t feel able to create a high-quality community-wide virtual service. Enter Quincy Access TV, who did what they do best: recording, broadcasting a streaming a beautiful production. Since then, QATV has stepped in to assist the Inter Church Council with streaming of the annual ecumenical Epiphany and Good Friday services.
Wollaston Congregational Church’s history includes a passion for music, education, youth and children. In years gone by these ministries were performed by the staff and members of the church making use of the facilities on this site. These days, we can continue to offer some of these things, through our weekly services and occasional concerts.
But the crises of our times have led us to a new place in which these old bones – this great historical structure – will provide a place for our building users to do what they do best. To name a few Elements Academy, Mel O’Drama, recovery groups, Scouts, the Wollaston Garden Club. And, if all goes according to plan, we will not even have the burden of providing heat and light and being on call for unexpected problems. We can simply make our own worship space more useable, size-appropriate, beautiful, and welcoming. We can let go of everything else.
We would not have come to this place, were it not for our continued spiritual growth, through failures and crises. We may have had long dark nights of the soul when the way forward seemed hopeless. We may have tried new ideas some of which lasted for a season, and others that simply failed. None of these things were wasted. They all contributed to our growth into who we are today, individually and as a community of faith.
Friends, falling upward will never be comfortable, whether we are blinded by light and voices from heaven, or brought low by crises that come our way, or by our own foolish mistakes.
Fortunately, most of us have not breathed threats and murder in the name of our religion. And still, there is the possibility for us to move further into light and away from darkness, closer to love and further from hate. We are never too old to grow. Even in our dying there is the opportunity to grow more fully into the spiritual beings God intends us to be.
This is the amazing grace of crisis and failure.
May all God’s people say,
Amen
[1] Richard Rohr, AARP Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life (San Francisco: Wiley.Kindle, 2011), 158
[2] Margaret Benefiel, The Soul of a Leader: Finding You Path to Success and Fulfillment (New York: Crossroad Publishing, 2008)