Are you sure?

At the end of our reading from John today, Jesus said, “Follow me.” Indeed, we are called to follow God every day of our lives. Every choice that we make is an opportunity to bring glory to God. We are all called to be disciples, and this is what a life of discipleship means. On the night before he died, Jesus told his disciples, “They will know you by your love.” And when he met Peter and the other disciples on the beach after his resurrection, he told Peter, “Feed my lambs.” Every choice that we make to love God and to love one another is a choice to identify ourselves as a follower of Jesus, or as the early disciples were known, as followers of “the Way.” Our journey through the book of Acts during this Easter season is a call to remember again what this means, to remember what it can look like. What it should look like every day. With that in mind, Ananias’ answer to God stands out to me. After Saul had his encounter with Jesus on the road to Damascus, God called on Ananias, who was a disciple, a follower of the Way, in Damascus at that time. And God asked Ananias to go to Saul. And Ananias had a moment, and he stopped and asked God, “Are you sure?”

This is where I can see myself in this story, because I know I’ve done that too. I know there are plenty of times when I second guess God, when I wonder, is that really what God meant to do? Or more often, I wonder, why isn’t God doing anything at all? But it’s always easier to notice mistakes when other people make them, and hearing Ananias’ statement in this passage can bring this point home to us, and we might stop and think, “Who are we, actually, to question God?” But he does, Ananias does, and he says to God, essentially, “I’ve heard a lot of people talk about that guy, Saul, and he’s a bad dude. And now, here he is in my town, and he’s a bad dude with a lot of power.” And God says, “Yeah, I know. But I’ve picked that guy out for something special, and whatever he’s done, that’s between him and me.” Okay. So, Ananias goes. And he greets Saul as a brother, and he heals him in Jesus’ name. Because Jesus said, “they will know you by your love.” And to Peter, he said, “Feed my lambs.” And to Ananias God said, “that includes Saul.”

It can be hard as a follower of Jesus to understand that everyone, everyone is one of Jesus’ lambs. And to remember that this is not just a theoretical concept, but more importantly, it is something that has to be lived out every day, in every choice that we make. That is why this passage poked at me this week, because as much as I can see myself in Ananias’ second-guessing God, I cannot see myself, not every day, in his choice to go and talk to Saul anyway. I don’t get that right every time, I’m not even sure if I get that right the majority of the time. One of the hardest things God can ask of us, is just what God asked of Ananias; to go, with an open mind, to talk to someone we already have an opinion about, or even, someone we are afraid of. That power difference between Saul and Ananias is important to notice. Because it is a whole lot easier to think of showing God’s love to people who cannot harm us, than to think of being loving toward those who could cause us harm, even if the harm involved for us these days is only the pain that comes from changing our mind. We all know how painful that can be.

Now, if it were only because Jesus said, “they will know you by your love” and to Peter he said, “feed my lambs,” if it were only for that reason, it would surely be enough of a reason to choose every day to see the image of God in everyone. Everyone. And to act accordingly. Someone in our lectio divina group yesterday noted, “the blessing is in the obedience.” We are surely blessed when we do what God calls us to do. But. We are not the only ones who may be blessed when we do this. It’s also true that when we look back at the history of movements for justice in this world, this willingness to see the image of God in those with the power to hurt us is probably the only thing that has ever brought us closer to the kingdom of God. Love your enemies blesses us, yes, but it also changes the world.

It certainly worked out that way for Ananias. To be sure, when Saul had his moment with Jesus on the road to Damascus, and when he changed from one who was “breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord” to one who “began to proclaim Jesus in the synagogues, saying, “He is the Son of God” I think we can all agree that that came about because of God’s intervention, and because of God’s grace. God did that. Absolutely. But. God also worked through Saul’s relationships with those around him. There’s a reason why God called Ananias. And if even one percent of Saul’s change of heart came about because amid the chaos and the disorientation that followed his loss of sight, Ananias, a follower of the Way, showed up and called him brother, healed him and welcomed him into community, then I would say that gives us a lot to think about. Especially when Ananias’ action is put together with the fact that prior to his trip to Damascus, Saul witnessed and approved of the stoning of Stephen, only to then hear Stephen call on God to forgive all of those who participated.

Thinking of Ananias’ choice to minister to Saul, who then goes on to work tirelessly for the gospel, makes me wonder about all the times that I question God, that I say “no” to God, and all of the blessings that may be missed because of this. This story from the book of Acts is usually referred to as Paul’s conversion, or Paul’s calling. But there is another calling here, and that is Ananias’. He was already a follower of the Way, had already heard of the resurrection and was following the path Jesus set out for his disciples, and even being that close to all that had happened, he still had a moment of doubt in God, a thought that God’s plan could not possibly be carried out through this man Saul. His instinct was to put a limit on what the Holy Spirit could do. Imagine what our lives, our world, could be like if we stopped doing that too. To that end, I invite you to join me this week in recognizing that whatever pessimistic attitude we might have about a change in the world, whatever doubt we have that some wrong can’t possibly be righted, some relationship can’t ever be fixed, some hope or some progress will never be fulfilled, that’s only us, like Ananias, forgetting that our God brought life out of death. Forgetting that there is always resurrection, and forgetting that as followers of Jesus, we are called to, blessed to, participate in that resurrection with every choice we make. Thanks be to God. Amen.