Fresh Breath (Sermon)

“Fresh Breath”

Acts 9:1-9

Allen Huff

Jonesborough Presbyterian Church

4/10/16

         Last week we looked at John’s account of Jesus’ first post-resurrection appearance to the disciples. In that story, Jesus breathes on the disciples saying, “Receive the Holy Spirit.”

         That scene echoes the second creation story in Genesis when God breathes the “breath of life” into the form God has scraped together from dust. I hear scripture proclaiming Creation and Resurrection as two metaphors for the same God-revealing, dust-animating initiative of grace.

         In 1Corinthians 15, Paul says this overtly when referring to the first and last Adams: “The first man, Adam, became a living being; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit.” (1Corinthians 15:45)

         Spirit. Ruach. Pneuma. Breath is a symbol of God’s active presence in the creation. So, Jesus breathing the Holy Spirit and peace on the disciples stands in stark contrast to Saul, who for love of God and Torah, is “breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord.”

         Talk about your bad breath…

         The thing I find encouraging and redeeming in this story is that even in the very midst of Saul’s deliberate and violent hostility toward those who follow Jesus, God sees in Saul the fundamentals of integrity and faithfulness. God chooses this brutal jihadist to serve as the first and most influential single evangelist of the new spiritual movement arising from the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth, and on the forever mystifying story of Jesus having somehow outlived his own death.

         Luke narrates Saul’s Damascus Road experience in Acts 9. In Acts 26 Paul recalls it himself before King Agrippa in Caesarea. It is interesting, in neither telling of the story does God ask for, or does Saul/Paul offer repentance.

         Think back: Jesus does not ask the eleven remaining disciples to repent after having abandoned and doubted him. He simply breathes the Holy Spirit on them. For that matter, when Jesus calls the twelve, he does not demand that they qualify themselves by declaring repentance. He just says, “Follow me.”

         Given such precedent, why has the church decided that true conversion requires public admission of and retreat from not only personally memorable sins but also pre-natal guilt?

Now, hold that question. Let it simmer.

         When we continue reading in Acts 9, we meet Ananias, a disciple of Jesus living in Damascus. God tells Ananias where to find Saul.

         ‘Go, lay hands on him,’ says God, ‘so he can see, again.’

         Ananias says, ‘What? Lord, I know this guy, and he is pure evil.’

         Once again, fear raises its serpent head and tempts a freshly-minted New Creation to embrace the authority to judge and condemn. Ananias and Saul now have that in common.

         Fear. Does anything create more evil in the world than the spiritual halitosis of fear? Fear leads humankind into politics of vengeance and economics of scarcity and envy. Behind such philosophies lies the selfish anxiety that I will not get my share – more accurately, the anxiety that you may get more than me. This is particularly true in First World cultures, and ours may be one of the most fearful on the planet right now. Listen to the political and economic rhetoric. Watch as one piece of legislative panic after another gets passed in statehouses across the nation. It is like watching a fish lying on the bank gasping for air. The fish cannot breathe when there is too much of a good and necessary thing.

         Yes, things are changing, too fast in some cases. And I understand lament. Even here, I feel the pressures of changing realities. In this gathering of disciples called Jonesborough Presbyterian Church, we have folks who Feel the Bern and folks who are ready to Play the Trump Card. I try my best to empathize with everyone while also trying to remain true to my own convictions. And my foundational conviction affirms our shared discipleship. We are all God-imaged human beings. Each of us has our own minds, strengths, weaknesses, opinions, and histories. When I fail to love you for who you are, all I really care about is feeling safe and secure in the unchallenged rightness of my own mind.

What will Saul eventually say about Love? Something about being patient, kind, grateful, humble, and hopeful. Something about the lack of Love reducing us to “noisy gong[s] or…clanging symbol[s].” (1Corithinans 13:1-7)

 Un-love is to fear what stagnant water is to amoebic dysentery.

         Sometimes I give fear that kind of power, and when I do, I have terrible breath – threatening, murderous breath, hiding behind a smile and beneath a robe.

         ‘I know all about Saul,’ God says to Ananias. ‘And yeah, he’s caused a lot of suffering. But he can take it, too. And he will do that for Jesus. I choose Saul. You, go help him.’

         The difference between faith as the church often teaches it and faith as Jesus demonstrates it is Jesus’ utter lack of fear. Fear always looks back. It always retreats, abandons, closes doors, and builds obstacles. Fear holds its breath expecting the worst.

Jesus’ faith always looks forward. And while hardly naïve, it always sees potential.

         When looking for a new king of Israel, Samuel has something particular in mind; so, he dismisses a young shepherd named David.

‘Not so fast,’ says Yahweh, “[I do] not see as mortals see; they look on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.” (1Samuel 16:7)

‘I choose David,’ says God. ‘He’s got a strong, wise heart.’

         This kind of thing happens all the time.

Moses says he has no authority, no voice. And God says, ‘You have a bold heart. I choose you.’

         ‘I’m just a boy,’ says Jeremiah. ‘I can’t do this.’

         ‘You have a perceptive heart,’ says God. ‘I choose you.’

         ‘How can this be?” asks Mary.

         ‘You have the perfect heart for this,’ says Gabriel. ‘Like God’s own heart. Trusting, mothering, faithful. God chooses you, Favored One.’

         Within each one of us there stirs the heart of a fresh-breathed New Creation. Knowing that heart, God calls us to fearless discipleship. And that is as true for the person sitting next to you, and the person sitting across the aisle from you, as it is for you.

         God warns us when we develop bad breath. Our job is to serve as each other’s Ananias – the New Creature who takes the profound risk of trusting God’s will and power to re-breathe even our foulest breath. When we fully trust Resurrection, we know that nothing and no one lies beyond the grace of God.

To suffer with and for one another is to trust the indwelling intimacy between the First and Last Adams living within us, purging us of selfish fear. Breathing that Holy, Spirited breath transforms us, day by day, two steps forward and one step back, into signs of and participants in the Household of God.

Now, isn’t that the point, and even the very process of repentance?