SUNDAY, AUGUST 13 2023 - Villains and Grace
Acts 9:19-
Deborah Laforet
Villains and Grace
Let us pray. May the words from my lips and the meditations of my heart be guided by
your Spirit and be words of wisdom for this day. Amen.
The past few weeks I’ve been talking about heroes. Our summer camp curriculum this
year was called Hero Hotline and it shared stories from the bible that lifted up ordinary heroes.
We discussed the disciples who followed Jesus. We explored the stories of the women who
saved the life of Moses: the midwives, his sister, his mother, and Pharaoh’s daughter. Last week
we heard the story of Jethro, Moses’ father-in-law, who encouraged him to share the load. We
briefly touched on the Magi who listened to God and found their way to Jesus together. When
we open up our bibles, we find a lot of heroes, but the other side of that coin is the villains. Who
are the villains of our bible?
Some might automatically think of Satan, but if we’re looking for ordinary heroes, maybe
we need to stick to the ordinary villains. What about Laban, who tricked Jacob into marrying his
oldest daughter, Leah, rather than the daughter Jacob had fallen in love with, Rachel? What
about the brothers of Joseph, who sold Joseph into slavery out of jealousy? And then there’s
Judas who betrayed Jesus, or Pilate who condemned Jesus to death - ordinary villains who had
their own motivations, their own agendas, and possibly thought they were justified in their
actions.
The last story at our summer camp, the story Terry read for us today, was about Saul.
Saul is one of the most well-known and most revered person in Christianity today. We don’t
know him as Saul. We know him as Paul. Our church is named after this person: St. Paul. But
before he was Paul, he was Saul, and Saul was a villain. Saul persecuted Christians. He was
part of a sect of Jewish people were disapproved of this new group of people who followed
Jesus, calling him the resurrected Messiah or Christ. This sect of Pharisees to which Saul
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belonged believed this group blasphemed their religion, distorting it, dangerously corrupting it.
Saul and others persecuted and sometimes killed these new followers of Jesus.
One day, Saul was travelling down the road towards Damascus with letters from the high
priest in Jerusalem, giving him permission to bring these new followers bound to Jerusalem. On
that road near Damascus, Saul was struck down by a flash of light. The light was so bright that it
blinded him, literally. He was blind for days. The story goes that he heard a voice from the
heavens say: “Saul, why are you persecuting me?” Saul asked who was speaking and the voice
responded that it was “Jesus, the one whom he had been persecuting.” From that moment, Saul’s
life was changed. He became a follower of Jesus. In fact, Saul, or Paul, is credited with
spreading the gospel far and wide and is one of the main reasons we have Christianity today.
Imagine yourself a new follower of Jesus during this time. You know of Saul the
Pharisee because he has harmed other followers, maybe even you friends or family. In one story
we read in our bible, Saul stood by and held people’s cloaks as a disciple of Jesus, Stephen, was
stoned to death. How many people had Saul harmed in his quest to silence these new followers?
How many had died because of his actions? If you were one of these followers, would you trust
this person and his so called ‘conversion’ experience? Maybe Saul was lying in order to bring
out people who were hiding. Maybe he was a spy. How do you trust, how do you forgive,
someone who has done such horrendous things?
Superhero stories right now are so common. We watch movies about Spiderman, Black
Panther, Captain Marvel, Wonder Woman, or even James Bond or Lara Croft. It’s fun to watch
the good guys save the day and vanquish the bad guys. Stories about bad buys converting or
seeking forgiveness and becoming good just muddies the waters. It’s easy to just lock up the bad
guys and throw away the key. It’s easier to paint the villains with one brush and not see them as
complicated people with pasts, with trauma, with different opinions and different values. It’s just
easier to see them as bad.
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In the story we heard, there were people who were astounded that Saul was preaching the
gospel and claiming that Jesus was the Son of God, days after his mission had been to arrest
people preaching the same gospel. They didn’t trust him and a few conspired to kill him.
Revenge? Payback? Maybe it felt like a preemptive strike, thinking Saul would reveal himself
eventually and begin to persecute them again. Whatever their reason, a few of them stood at the
gates to the city and waited to catch Saul as he left.
Friends, we hurt each other all the time. There are people amongst us who are seen as the
villains, and there are people in our family or other circles that feel like the villains, people we
cannot trust, people who are disruptive and disrespectful, people who seem to hurt us or those
around us all the time. Grace is a difficult thing to offer when we are hurt. There is a reason we
attribute grace to God, why we praise the grace that God, the Spirit, the Universe offers to us and
to others. Grace is easy for God, unconditional and abundant. Not so easy for us.
In this story, we encounter some ordinary heroes who rescue Saul from the ill intentions
of those waiting for him at the gate. These disciples who had made the decision to trust in Saul
and in his conversion experience, who had decided to forgive him his past wrongs and give him a
second chance, found an opening in the wall of the city, and lowered Saul in a basket to safety.
I imagine Saul was still in some danger and still encountered others who did not trust him
or were angry for his persecution of Jesus’ followers. In fact, I wonder if this is why he changed
his name, as a way of hiding his true identity as the notorious villain, Saul the Pharisee,
persecutor of Jesus followers.
As we imagine ourselves into this story, who are we? Are we the ones at the gate waiting
to punish Saul or are we the ones lowering him through an opening in the wall? Maybe we’re
both. It’s not up to us to punish who we perceive as villains, but we do need to care and protect
ourselves from those who might harm us. If we are encountering someone who has lost our
trust, who has hurt us or others, who has betrayed us, we need to be cautious. It may mean we
have to cut ties with this person or, at the very least, be friendly, but careful.
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But we can also show grace. That might mean trying to see them as a whole person with
their own challenges and difficulties. It might mean picking them up when they fall down. It
might mean just wishing them well as you part ways and keeping them in your prayers. Now,
me saying these words is easy; I know it’s not that easy in practice. I have experience with
people who harmed me and struggle to know what to do with that. For God, grace is easy. For
us, it’s hard.
So Saul was fortunate to have people who saved him from those who wanted to harm
him. They may have done it begrudgingly, but they did it with grace. They may have had others
advising them against their actions, but they offered Saul that grace anyway. And maybe this
new discovered faith they’d found in Christ Jesus, a faith of peace and forgiveness, helped them
to find this grace for Saul when he most needed it.
Those earlier biblical villains I mentioned: Laban who tricked Jacob into marrying his
older daughter. Maybe Laban needed his older daughter to be wanted as well. Jacob eventually
loved both Leah and Rachel and later had to achieve his own forgiveness from a brother he had
tricked. Joseph’s jealous brothers, who sold him into slavery, regretted this action and later
found the unexpected forgiveness from their brother. Judas and Pilate are people who are
definitely held up as villains in the story of Jesus’ death. The bible doesn’t tell us a lot about
them and their motivations, but we know they were products of their own experiences and of the
culture and society in which they lived.
Are there truly any perfect heroes or perfect villains? Maybe grace is something we all
need from each other. After all, grace is not something we receive because we deserve it. It’s
something we receive when we most need it. And it’s something we can all offer generously, out
of the abundance of grace we all receive from the Divine. For this grace, thanks be to God.
Amen.
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The Book of Acts 9:19-25
(Introduce yourself.)
Our bible stories are filled with heroic people. During VBS, we talked about
the ordinary heroes of the Bible. Today, we will hear the story of the Apostle
Paul. As you may konw, Paul started as Saul and was a persecutor of
Christians. The story we hear today comes just after his conversation when
people still weren’t quite sure to make of this conversation and weren’t sure
whether Saul, who would soon change his name to Paul, could be trusted.
Was it a trick? How could he be forgiven for the harm he had caused? This
is a story about the ordinary people of Damascus who save Paul’s life. I’m
reading from a book called the Acts of the Apostles, chapter nine, the last part
of verse 19 to verse 25.
For several days he (Paul) was with the disciples in Damascus, 20 and
immediately he began to proclaim Jesus in the synagogues, saying, “He is the
Son of God.” 21 All who heard him were amazed and said, “Is not this the
man who made havoc in Jerusalem among those who invoked this name?
And has he not come here for the purpose of bringing them bound before the
chief priests?” 22 Saul became increasingly more powerful and confounded
the Jews who lived in Damascus by proving that Jesus was the Messiah.
Saul Escapes
23 After some time had passed, the Jews plotted to kill him, 24 but their plot
became known to Saul. They were watching the gates day and night so that
they might kill him, 25 but his disciples took him by night and let him down
through an opening in the wall, lowering him in a basket.
May God grant us understanding of our sacred text. Amen.