Resistance Melts in the Arms of Love

Sunday, May 4 – Acts 9:1-6 [7-20], Psalm 30, Revelation 5:11-14, John 21:1-19

I’m currently reading a book called Why Religion Went Obsolete, by Christian Smith, a sociologist at the University of Notre Dame (see his conversation with Tripp Fuller below). In it, Smith writes about societal movements and changes since the 1990s that came together in a perfect storm that led to traditional religions now being obsolete in the U.S. It’s a compelling and sobering read for those of us in the church.

And I don’t think he’s wrong. I’ve not finished reading it yet, so I can’t tell you how it ends, but he does mention something in his introduction that may be a glimmer of hope.

But for now, I’m still reading the doom and gloom. Smith reveals all the reasons why every generation after the Boomers gets less and less interested in church and more and more resistant to its message. Or maybe indifferent is a better word.

We might be tempted to think that people are just stuck in their stubborn ways. We might be tempted to write them all off, thinking they’ll never come around or that nothing we can say or do will change this reality.

On another level, some people may be resistant to God’s love for completely different reasons. They may think that they’ve strayed so far off the path of goodness that there’s no way they’ll ever be forgiven. Or they may think that they’re just not worthy of God’s love and attention. Either way, their hearts are bolted shut with love-blocking resistance.

I think both types of people – those who resist the message and those who resist the love – are well represented in Saul and Peter.

Look at what happened to Saul. He was so radically turned around that he required a name change to Paul! But when he’s first mentioned in the book of Acts, he’s not painted in a favorable light. In fact, we’re told that he’s “breathing threats and murder” toward the followers of Jesus. He wants them all – men and women included – to be bound and hauled off to Jerusalem for prosecution.

He’s already supported the murder of Stephen and now he’s on a rampage for more. Saul is such a despicable character that Ananias isn’t even sure he wants to help him when God asks.

Paul’s conversion begins with an overpowering mystical encounter with the risen Christ on the road to Damascus. In other words, Paul had an unmistakably convincing meetup with God. Just like Abraham, Moses, and Mary Magdalene.

I see five major parts to this episode. And in many ways, I see the same pieces in stories shared by near death experiencers on YouTube.

Paul’s story begins with a heart completely resistant or closed to Jesus. And then he’s just going about his life – though in a particularly nasty way – and next thing he knows, he’s awash in heavenly light and knocked to the ground.

Next, he has a direct experience of the living God.

The third thing that happens is that Paul’s sense of self is completely shattered. Paul is a Pharisee, highly educated in the law, and a powerful person of high regard. But after his encounter with God, he’s blinded and forced to rely on other people just to get around. He’s reduced to almost child-like dependence.

After this humbling, Paul is healed through Ananias and experiences the Holy Spirit.

Finally, Paul’s sight is restored, he eats, and then he’s baptized into a new life where he’s moved to telling the good news. He declares Jesus as the Son of God and living Christ.

We might say that Paul began as one resistant to the message of love but became someone driven to share what had happened to him.

Peter is more like those who think they are unworthy of God’s love. Remember, he’d denied Jesus three times during his trial and then fled along with almost all the other male disciples into hiding. So, when Jesus shows up on the shore after a night of fruitless fishing, Peter is so afraid that he jumps into the sea. I think it’s because he’s ashamed of what he’s done and feels he’s not worthy of Jesus’ love.

But of course, Jesus loves Peter. He’s not interested in punishing anyone. He shares the bread and the fish in a Eucharistic meal and then asks him three times about his own love.

In a way, it’s as if Peter’s given the opportunity to declare his love three times to completely rewind those three denials.

Like Saul, Peter has his own form of resistance, but when he encounters the living God in the middle of his own life, it shatters that resistance, he is healed by Jesus’s love and goes on to a life of telling the story and good news.

Is there any good news in Christian Smith’s book about the demise of religion? What gives me hope is that he writes of a growing interest in our culture in “re-enchantment.”

What that means is that people are yearning to see the holy, the sacred, within their everyday lives and within this world of sorrow and pain.

When Jesus greets his friends on the shore, they’ve returned to their everyday lives of fishing and trying to earn a living. And Jesus steps into their world. He doesn’t demand that they come to the Temple. He meets them over a meal.

Think of the meaning of these basic elements. The point of the bread and wine in our communion meal is not that Jesus magically turns himself into that wafer and that sip of wine. The point is that if we believe we can encounter God in that bread and wine, if we can see God there in those simple elements, then we can see God everywhere (an idea I first saw expressed by Fr. Richard Rohr). And seeing God everywhere means the entire world is sacred, grace-filled, and therefore enchanted.

It means that the entire world is meaningful, valuable, and loved by God. It means that each and every one of us is meaningful, valuable, and loved by God.

No matter how much we may have hurt ourselves and others. No matter how far we’ve fallen. And no matter how resistant we are to this good news.

Just like Peter, just like Paul, just like King David, and every other person in the biblical narrative, we are human, we are forgiven, and we are loved. And when we meet that loving God in the midst of our own little lives, it will turn our lives around and we will be transformed. Resistance melts in the arms of love; it reorients us and moves us to tell our own story.

It moves us to share the good news of God’s transforming love.