SCRIPTURE: Acts 9
TEXT: THEME: Prayer is for listening to God, Faith is putting what we hear into action. INTRODUCTION In Sunday school we begin to build our theological ideas. First based around stories of Creation, Adam and Eve, Noah and the ark, the stories surrounding Abraham, Sara and their family, Moses leading the Israelites out of Egypt, the Ten Commandments and the Lord as our Shepherd. The powerful God of the Old Testament can be portrayed as fierce and punitive. When we develop our theology, we tend to get intrenched and closed to any other ways of understanding what we believe. We tend to defend, rather than to be open to consider something different. We start by being literal in our understanding. But as we are informed by the context in which the text was written and how those words were used in their day, we can begin to expand our understanding of a text. We can know more of the nuance and the intent of a passage and have of sense of their meaning, giving us a better understanding of the heart of God. We can move from obeying commandments, to Living the will of God. Then we meet Jesus in the New Testament, soft and cuddly as a baby. Living a common life. Growing up in the neighborhood. Teaching about God in ways that expand our theological imaginations and giving us living examples of what it means to be the people of God. Last week we saw the inflexibility of the High Priest with what the apostles were saying about Jesus. Paul has become cut from this same theological clothe as a witness of the resurrected Jesus. Today’s text is the story of how Paul transitions from a closed theological perspective to a new theological template. SCRIPTURE We know the story of Paul’s conversion on the way to Damascus. In route to round up followers of ‘The Way’ he has an experience with the resurrected Jesus. Knocked off his horse, blinded by a light and hearing the voice of Jesus. He is in a quandary of where his theology is too small to accommodate this experience with Jesus. In his theology it is impossible for Jesus to be God, it is impossible for Jesus to be resurrected. So, when Jesus appears to him, resurrected, he has to choose to keep God in a small manageable box or change his theology to match this out of the box experience of Jesus. Resurrection of the dead expands the theological parameters and to have Jesus as God in flesh and blood. This is where we get to the second part of this story, with an average person of faith, just like us, Ananias. He is a believer of the Way of Christ. And while praying; ‘The Lord said to him in a vision, “Go to where your worst enemy is and pray that he might regain his sight.”’ Ananias answered, “Are you CRAZY?!” But the Lord responded, “Yeah, Yeah, I know, but Paul is praying and has seen of vision of you going to pray for him. He is the instrument who I have chosen to bring my name before Gentiles and kings and before the people of Israel.” That is pretty compelling, besides having this awesome visions and dialogue with God so Ananias goes, prays for Paul and say, “The Lord Jesus who appeared to you on your way here has sent me so that you my regain your sight and be filled with the Holy Spirit.” Scales fall, his vision is restored and that’s history. APPLICATION By simply living our faith, listening to God, and doing what God asks creates all kinds of God possibilities in the world. What difference does the Resurrection make for our faith? For Paul (and for us), the resurrected Jesus makes everything that Jesus said about God, about how we are to live, about the Holy Spirit empowering us, about how to treat others, about who the people of God are and moving away from temple sacrifices, for living in loving, and caring communities that follow the ways of God, an exemplification of Jesus,’ life, true. Prayer is for communicating with God, but our use of prayer has evolved into a shopping list of wants. The other side of prayer is listening to God. Being silent and present as we open ourselves to listen. There was a Guy from Inter Varsity (Dino Simmons) who encouraged us to listen beyond the silence. Then we can hear how we are to participate in what God is doing in our hearts, in our families, in our relationships, in our church and in our world. This passage is filled with people listening to God, God has had to use a few extreme measures to get the attention of Paul and Ananias but they received God’s message and their faith moved them beyond what they thought was possible into doing what God wanted to be accomplished. We carry with us those touch stones of when God has been real to us. An answered prayer. Speaking in tongues, a vision, a sense of peace. Being healed. Those stories of Provision or protection that arrived just at the right time. How things have worked out in a difficult situation. Our life’s journey with all of those times where God has intersected our lives. These experiences inform our theology boxes beyond their confines, so we listen to what thing, God might possibly be calling us to participate in. My Uncle and Aunt came to celebrate Ching Ming at his parent’s grave in Lahaina. It is like a Chinese Memorial Day. On the way to Lahaina, driving along the bypass there is a field of sunflowers planted just beyond Waikapu. It made me think about Ukraine. Sunflowers are a crop that Ukraine is known for. There is a bill board campaign where all they have is a picture of a Sunflower to remind us of the people of Ukraine. I watched Kelly Clarkson’s talk show this week and in the back ground she had two pictures of sunflowers. Her guest Henry Winkler came out wearing a blue shirt with a yellow tie. The colors of Ukraine. These reminders of Ukraine are prompts for us to be in prayer for them and the battle they have with Russia. But it is also for us to be in prayer to listen to God, of how God may be speaking to us about what we can do to participate in what God wants to accomplish there. Praying, listening for God’s voice, to hear what God wants to accomplish there and the faith to participate in that action. CONCLUSION When we couple the stories of the Bible with our experiences of God and then stew them together through prayer, this is a soup for us to listen to God’s voice in our lives that may be even greater than our theological confines. Certainly, greater than what we want to do, but along with God’s Spirit, and the mustering up of our faith, recalling our touch stones of our experiences of God in the past, we can participate in what God is doing today and take action.
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