Sermon: The K.O.  and the C.O. in Konversion/Conversion

Text: Acts 9:1-20

Date: April 18, 2010

Rev. Dee Eisenhauer, Eagle Harbor Congregational Church

            You’ve seen it in the movies and cartoons a hundred times.  Some guy is  riding his horse through the forest.  He’s going recklessly fast, using the reigns as a whip to urge the horse to greater speed.  What’s going to happen?  Wait—suppose the rider is either the villain of the story, or someone who is all puffed up with pride and conceit?  What’s obviously going to happen when he rides through the trees at a great rate of speed?  Of course he is going to get knocked off his horse by a low branch.  Preferably right after a close-up of him smirking.  

            John Dominic Crossan  and Jonathan Reed, authors of In Search of Paul, point out that when Christian artists over the centuries depict the conversion of Saul/Paul in a painting, they have frequently added to the Acts account a horse for Paul.  And that was “utterly appropriate in a world where upended pride was best symbolized by a fallen hero looking up his horse’s rump.”[1]   If the rump of the horse is highlighted in the art work, the symbolism is none too subtle.  (Guess what you’ve been acting like?)

            Saul before he becomes Paul is acting the part of villain when he appears on the scene in the book of Acts.  He is the fellow holding the coats of those who have gathered to stone the young church’s first post-Jesus martyr, Stephen.  In case the reader is in doubt about whether the guy holding the coats is an innocent bystander, the storyteller notes “And Saul approved of their killing him.”  Turn the page, and Saul is described as a man “ravaging the church by entering house after house, dragging off both men and women, and committing them to prison.”  [Acts 8:3]  As we meet him today, he is on the road to Damascus “breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord.”  He has gotten extradition orders from the high priests in case he finds any Christians in Damascus that can be brought back in chains to Jerusalem to face the religious authorities there.  He’s a villain, all right, and a zealous, violent, prideful one at that.

            You can see what is coming.  Someone’s going to get knocked off his high horse—regardless of whether there is an actual horse involved.  There’s a flash of light from heaven, and Saul finds himself flat on the ground, knocked for a loop.  Saul is a man of faith; he recognizes God as the agent in his sudden fall.  Or someone or something divine, anyway; he asks from his flat-out posture, “Who are you, Lord?”  The answer was no doubt unexpected: “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting.”  If he hadn’t already been on the ground, you probably could have knocked Saul over with a feather at that point. 

            I’m guessing Saul experienced an enormous internal “UH-OH” at that moment.  Maybe he cowered, covered his head, expecting punishment.  That’s the way of the world; the good guy gets the villain right where he wants him, and metes out violent justice.  (You’ve seen that in the movies a hundred times, too.) However, punishment is not what the Lord has in mind.  God is working on a conversion project here.  Rehabilitation, not retribution. 

            Saul’s conversion should, perhaps, be spelled with a “k-o” instead of the standard “c-o.”  It’s a conversion that begins with a “K.O.” which in boxing lingo stands for “Knockout.”  Not only is Saul knocked to the ground, but he is blinded.  His mission is snatched from him in a most dramatic fashion.  He goes from being the Sarge–In-Charge to a shaken man who has to be led by the hand the rest of the way to Damascus.  He has been instructed (by Jesus) to enter the city and wait to be told what to do, so there he sits in the dark, fasting, stunned, for three of the longest days of his life.  Konversion with a k-o. 

            That K-O Konversion definitely happens to some people.  Heidi Peterson wrote in the Christian Century about meeting another volunteer at a Habitat for Humanity project.  They laid a little sod together, and then the man asked her if she had been saved.  Peterson writes, “When I told him that I believed I was, he asked for the date, time and description of my conversion.”  She immediately wished she had a good road-to-Damascus type conversion tale to tell.  It was no great surprise to learn that he did.  She says, “My fellow Habitat volunteer was an outspoken pacifist, a good neighbor and a self-avowed Christian who knew with certainty the moment Jesus called his name and entered his heart. He knew where he was, what he was doing, what he was wearing.”[2]  She doesn’t say whether his K-O was the result of a positive or negative experience, but when the result is a Konversion, the details don’t much matter. 

            The K-O Konversion is a fairly common experience among humans.  But it’s not the only type of conversion in the world.  It’s not even the only type of conversion in this one biblical story.  There is a less sensational C-O Conversion unfolding as well.  In the Acts story, turn your attention to Annanias.  He was a disciple who was also visited by a vision, asked to go to Saul and pray for his healing.  Annanias objects.  And who wouldn’t?  Saul’s been making his name by trying to wipe Christians off the face of the earth.  Would you want to go alone to meet him and pray for him?  I think not. 

            God hears his objection, but wants Annaias to take his discipleship to the next level.  God has plans for the rehabilitation of Saul, and has plans for the renewal of Annanias through this task.  He urges Annaias to cooperate with this plan in spite of his not unreasonable fear.  This type of conversion is a C-O conversion.  When you hear the initials “C.O.” you might think of being a “Conscientious Objector.”  That is not exactly what this conversion of Annanias is, although the “objector” part is accurate.  It sort of fits if you substitute the word “Critical” for Conscientious, since Annanias was a critical objector who nevertheless overcame his critique of God’s plan and went along with it.  But it’s better, perhaps, to think of the C-O as the first letters of “Cooperation.”  Disciples like Annanias are converted to a deeper level of discipleship when they choose to cooperate with God’s urging.  It lacks the drama of the K-O Konversion but it is another way God works in the world; probably the more common sort of conversion.

            Heidi Peterson, the Habitat volunteer who was working alongside the fellow who knew the date and time of his Konversion, says that she has experienced conversion more of this C-O sort.  She says of herself, “I was baptized as an infant, raised in a faith tradition I was taught to love and respect, and gradually grew into the theological convictions I strive to live. Every day the conversion continues as I am changed by human encounters, the natural world and countless experiences that provide new insights into the nature of God.”  She offers this metaphor for a C-O Conversion: “If you consider a flower unfolding petal by petal over days, how can you mark the precise moment at which the bud "converts" to being a flower?”[3]

            I like her way of describing the more gradual, cooperative style of conversion to true discipleship.  Yet I think that if we who have experienced more of a C-O conversion than a K-O Konversion were to look back on our faith journeys, it might not be as smooth and subtle a motion as a petal unfolding in the sun.  I suspect the faith journey for a lot of us comes more in a lurching pattern, marked by multiple moments that constitute turning points, decisions to go to the next level.  Often these have to do with overcoming fear.  I was in the park with my dog last week and we met a horse and rider there.  I had to get my dog off on another trail, where she stood and barked furiously.  The horse really had to be encouraged by the rider to keep going; it had to overcome a good deal of nerves and trust that its rider was right in assuring her she would come to no harm.  I think that’s the kind of conversion Annanias had; he was able to go to the next level of discipleship, but his horse just had to turn a different direction and go on, not unseat him altogether. 

            Several of us were fortunate enough to go and hear Walter Brueggemann last weekend.  I think there are some connections between what he was saying and what the bible story of Konversion/Conversion today has to say.  He spoke about the Psalms mostly, and the main point he was trying to make was that these ancient hymns express three general states of being a human in relationship to God: Orientation, Disorientation, and New Orientation.  A person in a state of Orientation is in a steady and stable mode.  Everything is working the way one expects it to work, and the universe looks orderly, and God appears to be keeping order, rewarding the good, punishing the bad, and so forth.  The tone of these psalms of orientation is overwhelmingly of trust and praise.   For instance, these words from Psalm 33: “Praise the Lord, O you righteous.  Praise befits the upright…For the word of the Lord is upright, and all his work is done in faithfulness.  He loves righteousness and justice; the earth is full of the steadfast love of the Lord.”      

            Then there are a great many psalms of Disorientation, in the form of laments.  These are the anguished words of people who have been knocked off their pins by illness, disaster, or being attacked by enemies.  We don’t read them publically as often as the psalms of Orientation, in part because they are not very “nice.”  We know Psalm 22 because Jesus quoted its opening lines from the cross: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?  Why are you so far from helping me, from the words of my groaning?”  Psalm 13 moans, “How long, O Lord?  Will you forget me forever?..How long must I bear pain in my soul, and have sorrow in my heart all day long?”  Brueggemann pointed out that these times of darkness and disorientation are part of every human life, and we’re ignoring a great resource if we skip over all the lament psalms.

            I have been mulling over his theme of disorientation in connection with conversion, especially the K-O kind.  An overarching theme of the Hebrew scriptures is the dialogical covenantal relationship between God and the chosen people.  There’s a fair amount of complaining and critique on both sides of the covenant in the Old Testament.  God criticizes the people for their lack of fidelity to God and God’s laws, particularly through the voices of the prophets.  And the people criticize God for not attending to their suffering swiftly enough, for allowing them to become sick or hungry or overrun by personal and national enemies—and a lot of those complaints against God show up in the Psalms.  One of the things that Brueggemann pointed out was that there isn’t a whole lot of guilt and talk of sin in these psalms.  The people acknowledge that once in a while their difficulties are their own fault.  But lots of times they are suffering through no fault of their own, and they want God to get on the stick, do God’s job, and rescue them. 

            It seems to me that the Hebrew people were onto something here.  It would be very neat and tidy if we could find a sin or error to account for all human suffering, blame that person and get the accounting over with.  But you and I know that much of the pain we suffer cannot be traced to personal accountability.  Take cancer, for example.  We don’t ask the cancer sufferer what he or she did to deserve this; we just acknowledge it is awful.  Many periods of disorientation and pain are more the result of chaos than sin and punishment.  As people who are drawn to meaning and logic, it is part of the pain we suffer that we cannot always give a reason why something has gone seriously wrong.

            So let’s return to the figure who is flat on the ground, staring up at the rump of the horse.  He might be there because he was acting like a horse’s  a**, or there through no fault of his own, and he’s about to get dumped on or stepped on by the goldurn horse.  It seems to me that no matter how one got there, flat on the ground, gasping with pain and disoriented, it’s an occasion for conversion.  K-O Konversion.  Because whether God put you there or found you there, God’s always interested in rehabilitation, not retribution.

            The third type of psalmnody Brueggemann spoke of was the psalms of re-orientation, or more precisely, new orientation.  Quite a number of the psalms that have bitter complaints and use strong language calling God to fidelity wind up with words of trust and gratitude.  In Psalm 22—the one that begins “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”—there is a pause in mid verse in verse 21: “Save me from the mouth of the lion! [Pause] From the horns of the wild oxen you have rescued me.  I will tell of your name to my brothers and sisters, in the midst of the congregation I will praise you.”  Who knows exactly what happened during that pause?  But on the other side of it, there is a deeper trust, a renewed faith in God as the one who hears our cries and helps us, and who brings us through as stronger people.

            The scriptures teach us that it is entirely appropriate to voice our pain and complaint in the periods of darkness and disorientation we suffer.  But we should also learn to look on those jolting times as openings for a renewed and deepened relationship with God.  Even the rottenest periods of our lives may wind up being occasions for conversion, cooperating with God in our healing and insight.  I have heard stories of Konversion and Conversion from many of you who have faced being knocked down and bumped around with the kind of openness that leads to greater faith and gratitude.  In this very room, this very hour, we sit with sisters and brothers who have journeyed from terror to gratitude, being led by the One who renews, and renews, and renews.

            Listen to this invitation from the God who converts us, voiced by the poet Rainer Maria Rilke:

God speaks to each of us as he makes us,

Then walks silently out of the night.

These are the words we dimly hear:

You, sent out beyond your recall,

Go to the limits of your longing.

Embody me.

Flare up like flame

And make big shadows I can move in.

Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror.

Just keep going.  No feeling is final.

Don’t let yourself lose me.

Nearby is the country they call life.

You will know it by its seriousness.

Give me your hand.[4]

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[1] Crossan, John Dominic and Reed, Jonathan L.  In Search of Paul: How Jesus’s Apostle Opposed Rome’s Empire with God’s Kingdom San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 2004, p. 8-9

[2] Peterson, Heidi A.  “Saving Saul”  http://www.religion-online.org/showarticle.asp?title=2186

[3] Ibid.

[4] Rilke, Ranier Maria Rilke’s Book of Hours: Love Poems to God  Translated by Anita Barrows and Joanna Macy  New York: Riverhead, 1996, p. 88