BE THOUGHTFUL. In Mark Twain s hilarious Letters from the Earth Satan writes from earth to Sts.

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1 BE THOUGHTFUL Acts 9:1-20; Rev. 5:11-14; John 21:1-19 In Mark Twain s hilarious Letters from the Earth Satan writes from earth to Sts. Gabriel and Michael to tell them about the earth and it most curious inhabitant, human beings. Satan informs the archangels about the heaven that human beings have invented. 2. In man s heaven, everybody sings! The man who did not sing on earth sings there; the man who could not sing on earth is able to sing there. This universal singing is not casual, not occasional, not relieved by intervals of quiet; it goes on, all day long, and every day, during a stretch of twelve hours. The singing is of hymns alone. Nay, it is of one hymn alone. The words are always the same, in number there are only about a dozen; there is no rhyme, there is no poetry; Hosannah, hosannah, hosannah, Lord God of Sabaoth, rah! rah! siss!-boom!... aaah! 3. Meantime, every person is playing on a harp these millions and millions! whereas not more than twenty in the thousand of them could play an instrument in the earth, or ever wanted to. Consider the deafening hurricane of sound millions and millions of voices screaming at once and millions and millions of harps gritting their teeth at the same time! I ask you: is it hideous, is it odious, is it horrible? that singular show is a service of praise: praise by hymn, praise by prostration. It takes the place of church. Now then in the earth these people cannot stand much church an hour and a quarter is the limit, and they draw the line at once a 1

2 week. That is to say Sunday. One day in seven; and even then they do not look forward to it with longing. And so consider what their heaven provides for them: church that lasts forever, and a Sabbath that has no end. they think they think they are going to enjoy it with all their simple hearts they think they think they are going to be happy in it! It is because they do not think at all; they only think they think. (pp ) So writes Twain in a book that was banned for some 30 years after it was written. It s a wonderful lampoon of, among other things, a certain kind of popular religious belief that is not unknown among Christians even to this day. We see some encouragement for this kind of thinking in the mysterious Book of Revelation. But is it thinking? Well, it was thinking when St. John the Divine wrote the Book of Revelation, which is an intentionally murky set of symbols meant to encourage faith among the followers of Jesus during a time of persecution by Rome. The primary message of this writing is that Christ will be victorious over all foes and circumstances, including victorious over the Roman Empire. Those who think they think might take Revelation as a description of heaven, as with the scene of myriads and thousands of thousands singing with full voice. Those who think, however, will understand that the book is comprised of images to help burdened Christians persevere in their faith in the face of difficult challenges to such perseverence. Let s hold on to Twain s distinction between those who think and those who merely think they think and consider the story of St. Paul s conversion in the Book of Acts. It is a story we find nowhere in St. Paul s own writings, where he frequently and freely describes himself as formerly a zealous Jew who strove for perfection in his faith 2

3 by the standards of Jewish law and who took it as his mission to persecute the followers of Jesus for challenging that law. This is the Saul we meet in the Book of Acts in the dramatic story of his conversion as he was making his way along the Damascus road. In this story, he hears the voice of Jesus from heaven. This, we are told, is heard not only by Saul but by the members of his entourage as well. The voice calls into question Saul s persecution of the Christians. Saul is at the same time struck blind and remains so for three days, during which he neither eats nor drinks. Jesus, speaking from heaven, also contacts one of his disciples, a man by the name of Ananias, and instructs him to go to Saul in Damascus and restore his sight, which Ananias does with some reluctance for fear of the notorious Saul. Saul s sight is restored, he is baptized and fed, and the rest is history: he becomes Paul, Apostle to the Gentiles. The story of Paul s conversion in Acts is a great story, but it is not, as I have said, a story that Paul tells about himself. If we think about this story, as opposed to merely thinking we are thinking about this story, we will see it as drama and not history, as a story to drive home the power of the Word of God represented in Jesus to change lives. Allow me to suggest an alternative understanding of Paul s conversion, dramatic in its own way, but credible as the story in Acts is not. Saul, the persecutor of Christians, is a well-educated man who in preparation for and in the course of his work comes to understand very well what the followers of Jesus believe. Moreover, in persecuting the Christians to death, he is witness to astonishing acts of courage and grace, most notably for readers of the New Testament, the case of Stephen, who prayed for his persecutors even as they were murdering him. Witnessing such things, we may well believe, affected Saul and moved him to think more deeply about the Jesus movement, so much so that he 3

4 came to see the truth of it and converted from his old way of thinking to become a follower of Christ. This is not, I will admit, as spectacular a story as that of the Damascus road, but it is probably closer to what actually happened and has the advantage of giving us a picture of how hearts and minds are changed to the way of Christ that does not depend on voices from heaven and miraculous blindness and its cure. And why is this important? Why can t we just marvel at wondrous tales of old in the Bible and leave it at that? Because we want to understand what it is that that our faith teaches. We want our faith to speak to us in the world in which we actually live, and this includes understanding what it is the Bible says in order to find the Word of God in the words of scripture. And so for homework, I am assigning you our Gospel reading for today. It s an odd story, to say the least, and your assignment is to think about it and not merely to think you have thought about it because you have read it. You don t need to be a biblical scholar to do this, but you do have to recall what you know about St. Peter from elsewhere in the Bible and to care enough about the story to want it to make sense to you. Good luck. I don t think it can meaningfully be said that religion in general and Christianity in particular suffers from too much thinking. On the contrary, more often than not religion is a refuge that many people seek from having to think about the world and their lives. And of course it can be a breeding ground for all sorts of fanaticism and nonsense the terrorist-strapping-the-bombs-to-his-body kind as well as the Pope-cando-no-wrong kind as well as the can t-teach-evolution-because-it s-not-in-the-bible kind as well as the fetal-life-is-the-equivalent-of-a-mother s-life kind and on and on. A bit more thought might be of help in all such instances of unthinking religiosity. For this, 4

5 one need not be an intellectual, but one must be thoughtful. One need not be unemotional about one s faith, but one must be thoughtful. A thoughtful Christian faith enables us to come to terms with all the problems of human existence that we encounter in the world. A thoughtful Christian faith helps us to find meaning and hope in a world that often seems devoid of both. A thoughtful faith allows us to appreciate mystery without appealing to magic in the hope, to take a phrase from Julian of Norwich, that all shall be well and all manner of thing shall be well. That is what we want, is it not, that all will be well? And is that not the good news promised us in Christ? Just think about it. Amen. Third Sunday of Easter, April 18, 2010 Emanuel Lutheran Church 5