Scriptures: Acts 9:1-20, John 21:1-19
We all have a bad habit of times of taking Scripture a little too seriously. In most cases, that’s not a bad thing. These are writings, after all, that are wrestling with the “big questions,” life, God, purpose, understanding, meaning. But there are times however when we might miss a bit of the fun the texts have to offer.
As I was jetting about the great city of Pittsburgh on my trip this week, I was debating with myself (and with my colleagues) about which text I was going to preach on this weekend. Was it going to be “Paul gets knocked off his horse” or “Peter swimming naked to see Jesus.” To me, there is something innately funny in both those stories. They are told humorously. They are about people we normally take quite seriously, and so we are now seeing them in a different light.
That may be important in helping us remember that things we think are of prime importance are not quite such a big deal to God.
We’ll start with Paul. This is the harder of the two texts to view humorously. Paul is not yet Paul at this point, but is still Saul, the great villain of the early part of the book of Acts. The story sets the tone with its first line, “Breathing threats and murder...” Is this really supposed to be a funny story?
Well, Saul sets out for Damascus with intent to harm the church there, but God decides to intervene. A shaft of light, a voice from heaven, and Saul eating dust (literally) as he’s knocked from his horse’s saddle. Struck blind by God, Saul is taken into the city to convalesce.
Image from Wikipedia
And now is where it starts to get funny. God intervenes again, this time with Ananias. “Go to the street called Straight and visit this guy Saul.” Ananias’ response is something to the effect of “You’ve got to be joking. You want me to go to him? To that guy?” Well, Ananias goes despite his reservations, heals Saul, and talks to him about Jesus.
Next Sabbath, he shows up in the synagogues talking about how great Jesus is.
Let me give you a sense of how crazy this is. Remember “Jihadi John,” the British national who became part of ISIS and was involved in several rather brutal atrocities? Imagine him showing up at our church this morning, walking up front, taking off his black terrorist garb, and saying “Let me tell you about Jesus.”
No one saw that coming. And God’s up there in heaven going “Surprise!”
Let’s rewind the timeline about ten or so years to our Gospel lesson. After Jesus’ death and resurrection, there is a bit of limbo that the disciples find themselves in. They’ve seen Jesus alive. They know he’s been resurrected. But they aren’t quite sure what to do with themselves. So they revert to type, specifically Peter and the sons of Zebedee go back to being fishermen. One day, while out in the Sea of Galilee, they spot Jesus by the seashore.
When Peter realizes it’s him, he jumps into the water “naked,” as the story says, although that’s probably not literally true given the taboos of the day. Still, he’s basically in his underwear, almost naked, but he’s so desperate to see Jesus again he doesn’t care how he’s dressed. Now how’s that for an image? This dignified paragon of the faith that we’re so used to now jumping into the sea in the 1st century equivalent of his tighty whities.
They have dinner together and Jesus then turns to Peter and asks him three times “Do you love me?” It’s a ridiculous question on its face. He’s asking the guy who cast aside all propriety and modesty (never mind patience) to jump into the sea to swim to meet him. To ask it once is nonsense in the face of all the evidence, but to ask it three times is ridiculous. Peter, like us, is confused by this, even hurt. How could Jesus not know?
But that’s not the point.
Underlying the humor, the nonsense situations, the surprises, and everything else in these stories that might make us chuckle a little (or scratch our heads in bewilderment) is, in fact, a serious message. These are stories about grace and its immense power to transform and heal.
Saul is this monstrous villain and yet God calls him to become one of the greatest of apostles. He didn’t deserve that. If anything, that shaft of light should have burned him to cinders for all the damage he did to the early church. But that’s not what happened.
It’s easy for us to forget that Peter, at this point in time, is the person who just weeks before did everything in his power to deny Jesus during the night of his trial. Three times he was confronted with the fact that he was a disciple and three times he rejected Jesus. He walked away that night thinking he’d betrayed Jesus almost as badly as Judas. What did he deserve for that disloyalty? Whatever it was, it’s not what he gets. What he gets instead is a threefold chance to redeem himself for his betrayal.
Sin is a problem. It is what divides us from a god who loves us more than any language can say. But because of that love and the sacrifice of Jesus that love drove him to, sin is not nearly the deal breaker we think it is. God is mercy. God is grace. God is forgiveness. God is about restoration and transformation, and these stories highlight all that. Both of these men are today spoken of in the same breath as the greatest of apostles: Peter and Paul, with almost a hushed reverential tone. But they were also deeply flawed human beings like us, who made some really big mistakes. None of that mattered in the end.
I’ve often said, in a somewhat humorous fashion, that the whole of Scripture can be summed up with a simple phrase: God telling us, “You guys chill. I got this.” Grace abounds. That’s who God is. That’s what God does. We can laugh at these stories because God wants us to relax. He’s got it covered. He’s got it taken care of. God is the one who can take the most flawed or even the most evil of people and transform them into a tool for his purposes. Look at us. Who are we? We’re hardly the villain Paul once was or the failure Peter once was. What can God do with us? I wonder. Amen.
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