Start:Stop - The Long Road to Damascus

The Conversion of Paul by Hyatt Moore

Hello, my name is Phillip Dawson, welcome to our Start:Stop reflection from St Stephen Walbrook, when we stop for a few minutes and start to reflect on a passage from scripture.

This week the church celebrates the conversion of St Paul. The feast, on 25th January, also marks the end of the Week of Prayer of Christian Unity.

The drama of Paul’s road to Damascus experience is told in Chapter 9 of Acts of the Apostles, but also in Paul’s own words in his letter to the Galatians - a letter he wrote to defend his mission to the gentiles, under attack from Christians from Jerusalem who wanted gentile converts to the faith to observe Jewish practices and laws. 

In the letter, Paul’s first hand account of his experience suggests that while his encounter with Jesus on the road to Damascus was life-changing, the process of his conversion, which we celebrate this week, was only just beginning. 

Bible Reading - Galatians 1.13-2.1

 

You have heard, no doubt, of my earlier life in Judaism. I was violently persecuting the church of God and was trying to destroy it. I advanced in Judaism beyond many among my people of the same age, for I was far more zealous for the traditions of my ancestors. But when God, who had set me apart before I was born and called me through his grace, was pleased to reveal his Son to me, so that I might proclaim him among the Gentiles, I did not confer with any human being, nor did I go up to Jerusalem to those who were already apostles before me, but I went away at once into Arabia, and afterwards I returned to Damascus.

Then after three years I did go up to Jerusalem to visit Cephas and stayed with him for fifteen days; but I did not see any other apostle except James the Lord’s brother. In what I am writing to you, before God, I do not lie! Then I went into the regions of Syria and Cilicia, and I was still unknown by sight to the churches of Judea that are in Christ; they only heard it said, ‘The one who formerly was persecuting us is now proclaiming the faith he once tried to destroy.’ And they glorified God because of me. Then after fourteen years I went up again to Jerusalem with Barnabas, taking Titus along with me.

 

 

Reflection 

 

Having a “Road to Damascus” experience has become shorthand for a radical and immediate about-turn in the way we live our lives. 

Acts of the Apostles provides the dramatic description of Paul’s encounter with a blinding light, followed by the sound of a voice from heaven that interrupted his journey to Damascus, where he planned to continue persecuting the followers of Jesus. Paul’s encounter with God is followed by his healing and baptism by Ananias and a vision of Jesus himself, who commissions Paul as an Apostle to the Gentiles. 

The high drama is seductive - and perhaps makes those of us who can’t remember the experience of our own conversion to the faith wonder if we were ever on the right road! But as Paula Gooder, Canon Chancellor of St Paul’s Cathedral and a renowned Pauline scholar explains, Paul’s encounter was not technically his “conversion” to Christianity, because at that time Christianity didn’t exist outside of Judaism. Paul turned from one type of Jewish adherence to another. The process of conversion to Christianity took much longer - many years in fact - as Paul’s own, first hand, account of his conversion in his letter to the Galatians reveals. 

The letter itself could be seen as part of that process. Whilst we lack the correspondence which Paul is addressing in his reply, we can infer that the church in Galatia, Christian converts from paganism, had been visited by more conservative Christians (probably from Jerusalem) who sought to persuade the Galatians to adopt Jewish practices. 

Breaking with convention by omitting the traditional niceties at the start of his letter, Paul launches into an impassioned defense of his ministry, explaining how astonished he is that the Galatians are even considering turning to a different gospel from that which he preached. 

At the heart of that Gospel is what Rowan Williams has described as God’s “universal welcome” - a radical new world order in which your position in society is no longer determined by whether you were a Jew or Gentile, citizen or slave, man or woman. These distinctions - and the religious practices which the more conservative Christians in Jerusalem were keen to maintain - are meaningless once we enter the new reality that is life in Christ, through our baptism. 

Paul’s Damascene experience resulted in a reorientation of his life, putting Christ at the centre of everything he thought and did. In Paul’s letters, we glimpse part of his thought process as he works out what that means for himself - and the worshipping communities he helped to found. In the letter to the Galatians we see how he uses his Bible (what we now call the Old Testament) to read scripture in the new light of Christ; rejecting those who sought to impose rules and restrictions on our relationship with God. 

Paul shows us that his experience on the road to Damascus was revelatory but the process of his conversion, which we celebrate this week, was more gradual. His passionate defense of the universal welcome of Christ for all who accept Him as Lord provides hope to all - on whichever road and however quickly we are travelling. 

  

 

Prayer

 

A prayer written by Thomas Merton.

 

My Lord God,

I have no idea where I am going.

I do not see the road ahead of me.

I cannot know for certain where it will end.

nor do I really know myself,

and the fact that I think I am following your will

does not mean that I am actually doing so.

But I believe that the desire to please you

does in fact please you.

And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing.

I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire.

And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road,

though I may know nothing about it.

Therefore will I trust you always though

I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death.

I will not fear, for you are ever with me,

and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.

Amen

 

 

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