I
had a good belly laugh about that; no guts no glory; that was stomach-churning;
let’s belly up to the bar; and that was gut-wrenching.
The
most important phrase I was taught as a teen was “the way to a man’s heart is
through his stomach,” which is dreadful advice for surgeons. I heard that comment so often, I actually wondered
if it was in the Bible. It’s not. My grandmother had me convinced that men
could be manipulated into anything from a new fridge to a marriage proposal
with some careful application of a roast beef dinner followed by a generous
slab of pie. Food was a way to get power
through manipulation for her.
And
if you look at the oldest known works of Christian art, you might wonder if
that’s the same religion as we practise today.
There were plenty of pictures of fish, grapes, wine, bread and suppers
but no crosses. Abundance is mentioned
or hinted at throughout the gospels, water into wine, the feeding of the five
thousand, the parable of the banquet to which everyone is invited. And several times, Jesus, a carpenter, has
the audacity to teach fishermen how to fish.
When they follow his instructions, as usual there is tremendous
abundance. Enough Food for all, freely
shared, no strings attached.
One
of Saul’s first indications that the Christian community was radically
different than anything he had ever known before is that they fed him. He was a dangerous man; he had a fire in his
belly to persecute these blasphemous people, and he breathed out murderous
thoughts against them. He was happy to
be famous for hunting them down, and was so notorious that the good folks of
Damascus could not believe he meant what he said. How could someone go from one extreme to
another so fast?
It
would be like some local businessman who makes his or her reputation on being
anti gay, anti muslim, racist and calling organizations like Good Samaritan or
the Youth Emergency shelter a bunch of bleeding heart Communist propaganda
showing up here and wanting to get baptised.
My jaw would certainly drop and I certainly wouldn’t be the only one to
have my stomach in a knot if that happened.
Surprisingly,
that flip flop is exactly what happened.
Both Peter and Saul struggled with pride; they thought they knew what
was best for the people of God. They
arrogantly assumed they could do anything they liked. But like a punch to the gut, they came face
to face with their vulnerabilities.
Peter betrayed Jesus in the temple while warming himself by a charcoal
fire and Saul became blind and completely dependant upon others for his
survival where before he had been a healthy and energetic youth.
Life
is like that; we get the horrible diagnosis or our life takes an unexpected
turn or something happens that we just don’t know how to cope with and suddenly
we find ourselves crying tears of gut-wrenching sadness as the very future we
dreamed of unravels completely.
Peter
was ashamed, Saul was helpless and confused.
Both took risks and opened themselves to a different way of seeing the
world. Peter found not just forgiveness
at the charcoal fire on the beach, but a commission to step into the
desperately needed role of leadership.
Saul changed his name to Paul and found a community so loving,
forgiving, generous and healing that he did his best to set up other
communities of generous abundance from Greece to Turkey and back, pouring his
restored energy into loving people instead of executing them.
We
still have people who would rather live in fear of their neighbor than live
with hopeful love. We still have people
here in Canada who think it’s okay to discriminate against people of color because
they can get away with it. There are
still people who encourage each other to live lives of suspicion, anger and
even hate because of the remote possibility that they will lose all they have
to ‘those people’ who are different than them.
But
we are also in this story. We are the
Ananias folks who say, ‘really, God? You want me to have a conversation with
that person? That angry neighbor, that teenager who spray-painted my garage,
that fellow who yells at everyone in the grocery store or on Facebook?’ We are the ones who might just one day be
called out of our safe community to feed someone who is hurt and lost and
sick. Someone different than ourselves
who is hungry and empty inside and reaches out, as unbelievable as it may seem,
to someone like us for help.
Ultimately
everyone needs to eat, everyone is hungry.
But everyone, even the stubbornly fearful and angry racists, can find
new life in the story of abundant blessing through Jesus who feeds us and
shapes us into a radical thing. A
community that believes in the transformative power of love. May that love that rescued Peter and Paul
from lives of fear continue to transform us into friends of Ananias, brave
followers of Christ! May we be gifted
with a bellyful of bravery that inspires us to dance that love to all who meet
us. Amen, halleluiah!
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