A Riot That Turned Into A Testimony Series

Monday of 3rd Week in Course

Feast of the Conversion of St. Paul

Today’s Gospel really takes us to the core teaching that we sum up in the word “Gospel,” which means “Good News.” That core teaching is that we are not to just come to Jesus, not just listen to Him and be forgiven, healed, baptized with His Holy Spirit, and spend the rest of our time enjoying His presence. No, Jesus’s last words to us are to “Go.” Go into the whole world and proclaim the Gospel to all nations. We are not responsible for the results, only for our faithfulness to the command, “Go.” God will give us the tools, and God will validate the words we speak. But we cannot fulfill our baptismal commitment until we “go and proclaim.”

St. Paul, for the early Church, was the pre-eminent writer and preacher of the Gospel. He made three missionary journeys, along with several different companions, and his prison journey to Rome was a kind of missionary journey in itself. Everywhere he preached the Good News of Jesus and established local churches with their own pastors and teachers and all the rest of what we know as parishes and dioceses today. But today we hear of two stages of his life journey. He gives testimony to his conversion on the road to Damascus, but that speech is given in the context of what could have been his murder.

Paul is in Jerusalem. He came to deliver funds collected from his Gentile churches for relief of the Jerusalem church and its poor. He also came to fulfill a vow, which as a pious Jew he would fulfill in the Jewish Temple. It took seven visits to the Temple, each time with Paul making an offering. But on the seventh day, some Asian Jews, who had seen Paul in the city with one of his Gentile converts, grabbed Paul and stirred up a commotion, claiming that Paul had brought the Gentile into the Temple precincts.

There was an horrible irony about this claim, because the Hebrew vocation, thousands of years old from the time of Abraham, was to worship the One God rightly, and to attract all nations to right worship and right living. There was even a Court of the Gentiles in the Temple, which is where the merchants had set up shop. The Jews had turned their backs on their missionary vocation. Now Paul had not violated their silly law, but the Asian Jews raised a commotion and almost beat Paul to death. (It's not the only time in history that an innocent person has been excused of inciting a riot.) Only the rescuing Roman troops, alerted to the commotion, kept Paul from the assassination. Even so, the tribune arrested Paul and accused him of being an Egyptian who was trying to incite an insurrection. Paul replied to him, “I am a Jew from Tarsus in Cilicia,” and he added, with tongue in cheek. “I am a citizen of no mean city,” because Caesar Augustus had given Roman citizenship to all residents of Tarsus because of their loyalty. His testimony then to the Jews that we heard today followed. It is Paul’s account of his personal encounter with Our Lord as Paul–then Saul–was traveling to Damascus to find, arrest and kill every Christian he could locate.

The great light from heaven was clearly a divine encounter. Saul recognized it at once and prostrated himself before God. But he heard the accusation, “Saul, Saul, why dost thou persecute me?” What? He had been blindly persecuting God? So he answers from his confusion, “Who are you, Lord?” “I am Jesus of Nazareth whom you are persecuting.” Wait! This divine voice was the human being whom the Romans had executed, and He is identifying Himself with the Christians that Paul was killing?

But Saul has the presence of mind to realize he’d better do what was right, and stop doing what was wrong. But what should he do? He asked the Lord, who told him to go into Damascus and he’d be told what to do. And this self-assured, self-righteous, murdering rabbi, who thought he knew everything, had to ask his companions to lead him down the road, where Ananias took him in hand, healed him of his blindness, and gave him his mission. He was baptized, his sins–even murder–were forgiven, and he called on Jesus as Lord. That day the history of the world shifted as if by an earthquake. We are all the beneficiaries.

So what is God calling you to do to spread the Good News that Jesus is Lord, and to draw others to right worship in the Church? Discern that purpose, and get to work.