Acts 9:1-6, (7-20)
I am convinced that one of the hardest things to do in this world is change your mind. Something that might be even harder is admitting aloud that your belief or opinion has changed from what you once fervently professed. We are not rewarded for it, either socially or by our own brains and bodies. One of the worst charges pundits can hurl at politicians and public servants is the epithet of “flip flopper,” latching on to any perceived change in their voting patterns or political stances. We punish people who have made choices that led to bad outcomes and come to us for help, saying “you’ve made your bed, now you have to lie in it.” It is as if we all expect each other to come out of the womb fully formed in all our opinions and to never change any of them. Most of my psychology classes in college could be summed up as a survey of all the different ways human beings twist ourselves into psychological, emotional, and spiritual pretzels in response to new information that challenges what we know or believe to be true. The scientists and therapists call it cognitive dissonance- the painful, sometimes intolerable experience within our minds when something we say or do does not align with our beliefs, or when we discover that we hold fundamentally opposed beliefs within ourselves. Consistency feels like control. Consistency feels safe, and predictable, and it means we can predict how people will behave and how we will feel about those behaviors. When we discover inconsistencies, it can lead to change. To change is to experience dissonance, to be challenged. It can be troubling, or even painful, it can keep us up at night and make us feel alone and isolated, especially if changing means disagreeing with the beliefs of our family or our faith community or our friends.
And yet, to be Christian is to live a life of change. In our baptismal vows, we promise to repent and return to the Lord whenever we fall into sin, to recognize when we have been wrong and to change our ways. In our marriage vows, we promise to uphold one another through abundance and poverty, ability and illness, the changes of age and experience. In our weekly worship and in our daily prayers we confess that we have fallen short and ask for the grace and forgiveness to begin again. Conversion, which for most of human history has been how one becomes a Christian, is literally to change, to believe one thing and then to be so fundamentally convinced by the Gospel that you begin to believe something new. We are wired to struggle with change, and yet it is our highest calling and our soul’s deepest desire. It is only by the power of the Holy Spirit that such conversion ever takes place, overcoming every barrier of cognitive dissonance and social stigma. The Holy Spirit breathes change into us all the time, every day. But how often do we take the risk of embracing that change?
Today our scriptures offer us two of the most infamous examples of changing minds in Christian history. Saul, the persecutor of the Church, and Simon, the denier of the Lord.
Perhaps more infamously, more gloriously, more perplexingly than Simon Peter’s trauma-induced lapse in judgment, we have Saul. Breathing threats and murder against the already persecuted minority of Jesus followers, Saul seeks out special permission to arrest, bind, and disappear suspected disciples. Saul has seen the martyrdom by a mob of Stephen for preaching the Gospel, and he believes all Christians should meet the same or similar fates. He is a self-proclaimed enemy of the Gospel, and proud of it.
Until he isn’t. Until the moment the voice of the Lord comes to him, calling him by name. Saul is so overwhelmed by the experience that it is disabling. He cannot see, he cannot eat, he cannot drink. He is helpless and vulnerable, relying on the help and hospitality of the very people he has come to destroy. Ananias and his fellow believers know this notorious persecutor, and they are more than a little hesitant to receive him into their fold. But the Lord has chosen Saul for an evangelist, and so Ananias experiences a conversion of his own, offering radical hospitality to the man he once believed to be his enemy.
For three days, Saul processes his encounter with the risen Jesus, trapped in the darkness with only the company of God and strangers to guide him. Ananias lays hands on him, calls him brother, and restores his sight in the name of Jesus. The moment the scales fall from his eyes, Saul is baptized into the Body of Christ, a concept he will spend the rest of his life writing and teaching about. Like Jesus feeds Simon Peter and the other disciples on the lakeshore, so Ananias and his fellow disciples feed Saul. They share the Gospel with him, and the man who once sought to capture followers of Jesus begins to proclaim him Son of God in the synagogues.
Imagine this happening now. Imagine the names Saul would be called, the things he would be accused of. Flip flopper. Hypocrite. Cancelled. Such a sudden and total reversal of deeply held commitments might even land him in a psychiatrist’s office. Assuredly it would alienate him from his family, friends, and coworkers from his former life. The patron saint of changing one’s mind, the one person who knew most vividly the shame and guilt that comes with turning around, would likely be dismissed or vilified today, either for changing his mind in the first place or for having once behaved differently. His reception in his own time and place was not always a warm one. Nevertheless, Saul changed his mind, and then he spent the rest of his life explaining why.
With all the obstacles stacked against us, for a human being to change their mind is a miracle. For Simon Peter and Saul, it took miracles of Biblical proportions to get there. But what is just as important as the change is what happens next. Jesus calls Simon Peter to follow him. Ananias receives Saul as a brother. How do we receive the miracle of a changed mind? How do we respond to a repentant heart? Do we pray for the conversion of our enemies? Do we really, in our heart of hearts, desire it for them? Or is there still some part of us that would rather see them ruined than changed, would rather delight in their downfall than celebrate the scales finally falling from their eyes. I wonder.
To change your mind is to be a Christian. Just as Thomas taught us that doubt is a part of faith, so Saul teaches us that certainty is not. Saul was certain that persecuting followers of the Way was the right way to serve God. Saul was certain that the stoning of Stephen was justified. Jesus was not the Son of God, of this Saul was certain. Until he wasn’t. Until he learned something new, met someone new, heard a different perspective. It was not instantaneous. It was not easy, or tidy, or pretty. He made mistakes. He misspoke. He changed his mind again, and again, as he got to know Jesus and lived into his calling as evangelist to the Gentiles. He grew, and changed, and lived his life out loud, that we might have an example of what lifelong conversion in Christ really means. This Easter season, leave your certainty in the tomb. The resurrection is changing everything. Let it change you.
Mother A Writes 