Conversion of St Paul (Acts 9.1-22; Matthew 19.27-30)
Catherine Gibson
‘He is an instrument whom I have chosen’
What we usually call the ‘Conversion’ of St Paul is not conversion as we commonly understand it, from one faith to another or from atheism or agnosticism to belief; Paul never considered that he abandoned Judaism. It is a movement from one level of belief to a deeper understanding of the same religion, with a new revelation of the nature of God. In this sense, most of us gathered here will have been ‘converted’, whether through a life-changing spiritual experience or through a continual deepening of understanding: or, very likely, a combination of both. Indeed conversion, for Christians, is a lifelong process!
From an early age, Saul had been consumed by zeal. He could have said, with the psalmist, “The zeal of thy house hath eaten me up.” His role-models would have been some of the fiercer of Old Testament characters, like Phinehas, who slew an Israelite for bringing a Moabite girl into his tent, or Elijah, who killed the four hundred prophets of Baal after he had defeated them in a contest to prove whose god was the real one; or like the Maccabees, who had courageously resisted the attempts of Antiochus Epiphanes to crush Judaism and impose Greek culture upon Israel, enduring terrible martyrdoms, as well as memorable victories. Saul came from a family of Pharisees, and he was probably just a teenager when he was sent from his home in Tarsus over two thousand miles south to Jerusalem, to study under the famous Rabbi Gamaliel.
From what we read about Gamaliel in Acts, Saul was much more extreme than his teacher, and it seemed to him that true service to God demanded that this new heretical Jesus-movement should be stamped out.
Everyone’s faith journey is unique, and I find it not only fascinating but spine-tinglingly inspiring to hear of the different ways in which God works with each person. In the hope that it may afford some encouragement, I’ll recount some of my own, which, so far, has comprised three ‘epiphanies’ and many promptings and drawings towards God in between.
Growing up in a church-going family in the nineteen forties-to-sixties, I developed in childhood an attachment to Anglican worship and a desire to know Jesus. But it was when I was about fifteen that I came across George Herbert’s poem, “Love Bade Me Welcome” in an issue of a weekly encyclopaedia, and found it opened up to me a new possibility of relationship with Jesus: a Jesus you could argue with, but who would always have the last word in his infinite love for you. I began using Herbert’s poems in my prayers.
When I entered the first year of sixth form, our English Literature studies included a chronological poetry course, and I found myself growing increasingly excited by nature-poetry. This reached a climax with Wordsworth, and although the area I lived in was fairly urban and scarred by industry, I had a favourite evening walk through farmland overlooking a wooded valley. One evening, I was walking at sunset while still puzzling over some lines of Wordsworth that haunted me:
“I have felt
A presence that disturbs me with the joy
Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime
Of something far more deeply interfused,
Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns,
And the round ocean and the living air,
And the blue sky and in the mind of man,
A motion and a spirit that impels
All thinking things, all objects of all thought,
And rolls through all things.” [Lines written above Tintern Abbey]
I didn’t know what Wordsworth meant. It wasn’t something I had ever experienced, but I was fascinated by it. Then, as I gazed across the valley to the woods on the other side, I – saw – although not with my physical eyes – something like a mist rolling down the hillside and crossing the valley until it enveloped me. It was the sense of a Power and I was absorbed into it.
I stayed there a long time, and came back evening after evening. I couldn’t exactly replicate that first experience; but I learnt that if I stilled myself and concentrated intensely on the scene before me, or on details within it, I could regain that wonderful sense of union.
After that, my Christianity and my more Pantheistic faith grew side by side. Now I knew from experience that God was a reality: and when my faith encountered serious challenges at university, I could remind myself of this. It had come at exactly the right time.
However, through my twenties, the mystical experiences faded, and I wasn’t surprised: they did for Wordsworth, too. But the deeply committed Christianity of one work-colleague and the atheism of others made me begin to feel I should decide where I stood. When I was twenty-nine, I decided to try to keep Holy Week as fully as possible. Between my own church in Bradford and the neighbouring ones, there was something going on every evening of the week, either services or music or drama, and I did very well until Good Friday. But that afternoon, instead of attending the Three Hours Devotion at my parish church, I joined the family in watching a ‘swords and sandals’ epic film on TV. Afterwards, I was filled with remorse, and a sense of having missed an opportunity. I don’t remember Easter Day; but on the Monday, at breakfast, I noticed in the pew leaflet that there was Morning Prayer. I raced the ten minutes uphill to church, expecting to slip in behind a few other worshippers, but there was only me and the Vicar. To my horror, he invited me to sit opposite him in the curate’s stall, where I felt increasingly unworthy to be. But the sunlight was streaming into the chancel, and I – saw – Jesus standing there, bidding me welcome and putting aside my protestations of guilt just as in Herbert’s poem, “Love”.
I was filled with joy, and became deeply committed to my church community; but I mistakenly thought that this sense of Christ’s presence would last for ever, and that the times when I couldn’t sense him were brought on by my failures in prayer. I often suffered from depression, and attributed these moods to his absence.
Twenty years later, here at St Margaret’s, I was suffering from a particularly bad bout of depression. At the beginning of November, our High Mass was a Healing Mass; and for the first time in my life, I went to receive the Laying on of Hands for myself rather than for someone else. Afterwards at the door, Fr Alan Brown, who was our Curate at the time, and still a Deacon, shook hands with me and asked me, “How are you?” as if he really meant it; but I automatically replied “Fine” before I could stop myself. Later, I worried that in the circumstances that had seemed like a brush-off, and I dropped him a note explaining the real situation. Then I felt extremely embarrassed and regretted it. The following Sunday, at the Peace, he came down my row, took my hands and said, “Thank you for your note, Catherine. I’ve been praying for you.” At that moment, I felt as though struck by lightning, and my whole being was shot through with intense light for about thirty seconds. I was filled with a joy beyond anything I had ever known: and it seemed as though the “Love Bade Me Welcome” experience was reprised in an instant. I have never suffered seriously from depression since then!
It’s a very helpful exercise, every so often, to look back over your own faith journey, and see where, with hindsight, God has been drawing you or prompting you in certain directions. I’d like to conclude by inviting you to pray this famous meditation of John Henry Newman:-
God created me to do Him some definite service. He has committed some work to me which He has not committed to another. I have my mission – I may never know it in this life, but I shall be told it in the next. Therefore I will trust Him. If I am in sickness, my sickness may serve Him. If I am in sorrow, my sorrow may serve Him. He does nothing in vain. He may prolong my life, He may shorten it. He knows what He is about. Amen.