Name that Tune! That was the title of the TV game show where the contestants would try to identify a melody in the least number of notes. Contestants would try outbid each other by saying, “I can name that tune in 5 notes.” The opponent would respond by saying, “Well I can name that tune in 4 notes.” The bidding would go on until one contestant, rather than bidding lower, would say: “Ok, name that tune.”
I’d like for us to engage in a similar sort of game today. Let’s call it, ’Name that Person!’ I’ll give you a clue about a Bible personage and then say, “Name that person!” You all just call out the name of the individual that you think I’m talking about:
• Described self as: “I’m like an aborted fetus who was given life.” (1 Corinthinas 15:8) – Name that person. (answer Paul or Saul)
• Said, “I am less than the least of all God’s people.” (Ephesians 3:8) – Name that person. (answer Paul or Saul)
• Lamented, “I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin.” (Romans 7:14) – Name that person. (answer Paul or Saul)
• Grieved, “I know that nothing good lives in me.” (Romans 7:18) – Name that person. (answer Paul or Saul)
• Was sorrowful because, “For what I want to do that I do not do, but what I hate, I do.” (Romans 7:15) – Name that person. (answer Paul or Saul)
• Described as a person who, “[Breathed] murder and threats against the disciples of the Lord.” (Acts 1:1) – Name that person. (answer Paul or Saul)
• Began to destroy the church. Going from house to house, he dragged off men and women and put them in prison. (Acts 8:3) – Name that person. (answer Paul or Saul)
• Approved of the murder of the first person martyred in the Church. (Acts 8:1) – Name that person. (answer Paul or Saul)
My goodness, Paul was a really bad egg – a nasty person, wasn’t he? He did some mighty evil things against Christ’s Church. But listen, there is just one more clue that I want you to respond to… here it is:
• God described this person as, “…A chosen instrument of mine to carry my name before the Gentiles and kings and the children of Israel.” (Acts 9:15) – Name that person. (answer Paul or Saul)
Wait a minute! How can this be? We’re talking about the same person here - Paul. How can an aborted fetus, someone who is less than the least of all God’s people, an unspiritual, slave to sin, a destroyer of the church, a murderer of Christians be the very same one whom God call, “My chosen instrument?”
Mom wanted to put her 10 year-old to the test. And so she asks the little girl that age-old question: “Which came first, the chicken or the egg?” Without skipping a beat the little girl immediately responded, “Why the chicken, silly.” The mother, intrigued at how the daughter could so quickly answer asked the little girl: “Well, why do you say that the chicken came first?” The little girl answered, “Mom! God doesn’t lay eggs.”
At a commuter train station a policeman noticed a woman leaning over the steering wheel of her car. She was in evident discomfort. So the police walked up to the car and asked, “Is there anything wrong?” Half crying and half laughing, the woman replied, “For ten years I have driven my husband to this station to catch the train. This morning I forgot him.” Talk about laying an egg, huh? (adapted from an illustration in a sermon by Steve Shepherd on SermonCentral.com) We lay eggs sometimes, but God doesn’t.
Here’s another little story: A soldier at the rifle range was working hard to qualify as a marksman. But he was having a terrible day. The young G.I. was really depressed over his poor performance. When he turned in his score card to the sergeant, he said, “Man, I feel like shooting myself.” The sergeant looking at the terrible score on the young soldier’s card said, “Son, you’d better take two bullets.” Laying an egg can happen to anybody – even a person in a uniform. (adapted from an illustration in a sermon by Steve Shepherd on SermonCentral.com)
Life is definitely full of ups and downs. We enjoy the thrill when things are going well – that part is easy. But when things aren’t going so hot, when we lay enough eggs to keep us in omelets for a lifetime, why that’s a horse of a different color, isn’t it? It’s at that time that we feel like God really laid an ‘egg’ – and it’s me! Why wasn’t I born taller or faster or smarter or slimmer or cuter. Why can’t I make ends meet? Why is it that when my checking account is running out that there’s still so much of the month left. Why am I sick? Why did death bring its icy touch into my life?
Life can get downright depressing when we began to think that we are the bad egg that God laid – that we’re just not worth very much. We can get pretty messed up when we start to think of how inadequate we are. The psychiatrists and other head-shrinkers have come up with all kinds of descriptions and explanations for this condition. People who mope around thinking that they don’t quite measure are often described as having ‘self-esteem’ problems. One of the little phrases that is often said of people who lay lots of eggs is, “Oh that person has lots of issues.” All kinds of therapies, self-help books and workshops and seminars have been sold to help teach egg-layers to get a little self confidence – to teach them how to hold their head high and not to take any guff.
Well listen, all these therapies and books and seminars might sound like pretty good stuff and the techniques taught may serve to build skills that will help people be more effective in their relationships and in their jobs, but these techniques will never help us to get along with God any better. You see the problem is rooted in a condition that is endemic to humanity. The teaching of scripture is that we have a fallen, sinful nature that wars against God. In fact, the scriptures teach that, “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” (Romans 3:23) And if that isn’t sad enough, “The scriptures say that the wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23) – that is eternal separation from the source of life and goodness and hope and peace and joy – God.
Can you imagine going up to Saul with a self-help book? Saul, here we go, this is just what you need, ’The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People’. Or do you think that we could have reformed old Saul by giving him a copy of Dr. Wayne Dyer’s little book, ’Your Erroneous Zones’. We could go up to the man and say, Saul, I can see you’ve been laying eggs all day long, here, this little treatise is exactly what you need to break you out of that nasty habit of martyring followers of Christ. Of course I’m just being facetious. We know that these things would not have worked for Paul. And beloved, they won’t work for us.
Paul had a meeting with Jesus Christ. Our lesson from Acts today tells us, “[Saul] approached Damascus, and suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him. And falling to the ground he heard a voice saying to him, ‘Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?’ And he said, ‘Who are you, Lord?’ And he said, ‘I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting. But rise and enter the city, and you will be told what you are to do.’ ” (Acts 9:3-6) That encounter with Christ caused a change on the inside that redefined not only Paul’s actions, not only his future, but it redefined Paul.
This man – the one who killed Christians, who had them arrested and thrown in jail - went through a conversion that changed him completely. After his encounter with Christ we find Paul saying things like, “For me to live is Christ and to die is gain.” (Philippians 1:21) This man who warred against Jesus said, “I can do all things through Christ Who strengthens me.” (Philippians 4:13) And can you imagine the murderer of the first martyr of the Church saying, “For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us which are saved it is the power of God.” (1 Corinthians 1:18) The change in Paul was something that only God could do. His conversion can only be described as a miracle of God. Our text today says that after Paul’s encounter with Jesus:
And immediately he proclaimed Jesus in the synagogues, saying, “He is the Son of God.” And all who heard him were amazed… (Acts 9:20)
Enter you and me, beloved. We were no less estranged from God’s love and forgiveness than St. Paul. And just like for Paul, we know that God erases our weaknesses and our outright rebellions and sins. People are absolutely redefined – changed from enemies of the Cross – to well loved children of God. Why? Only and simply because Jesus, in his great mercy, caused his light to shine upon us. In the waters of Baptism his presence came flooding into our lives and changed the dry, arid landscape of our hearts to desserts blooming with God’s love and forgiveness.
Our conversion guarantees us that now matter how many eggs we lay, no matter how unlikely it may seem, no matter how unworthy we truly are, in Christ, we are forgiven. And the reason for this miraculous turn-around? Why the incredible conversions? So that God can receive the Glory! - So that his power can be made perfect in our weakness! - So that his light can shine through the cracks in our lives! - So He can receive the praise for the wonderful things that happen through weak vessels.
Paul the Apostle wrote: “And I was still unknown in person to the churches of Judea that are in Christ. They only were hearing it said, ‘He who used to persecute us is now preaching the faith he once tried to destroy.’ And they glorified God because of me.” (Galatians 1:22-24)
God doesn’t lay eggs, beloved. You are no bad egg. Because Christ has won your salvation, through his forgiveness we are much loved children of the Living God. Paul is a wonderful example of God’s power to convert. And so are we. May God receive all the glory for our conversion! Amen!
