Probably Not, but Maybe

A new reading of Acts 9

For reasons I will perhaps disclose at another time, I have had reason of late to reread the strange set of stories in Acts 9. Taken together they adumbrate a dramatic uptick in the spread of the gospel.

The stories are set against the (till then) unabated seethings of a zealous Tarsean named Saul, and very soon after the stoning of Stephen.

The most familiar part of the story is what happens early in the chapter.

What has most interested me this time around is what happens after that.

In case you don’t remember:

The recently risen Christ appears to a surprisingly unshocked man of Damascus named Ananias (given his reaction, one might think this kind of thing happens everyday). The Lord tells him to make his way to Straight Street, and to look there for a house owned by a man named Judas, whose blinded and rather more troubled houseguest, Saul, has had his own conversation with Jesus on the road outside the city. Ananias is to pray for Saul, who was already so deep in prayer himself as to have seen a vision of Ananias coming to lay hands on him that he, Saul, might regain his sight.

Now Ananias is discomfited. He wants nothing to do with “this man.” He and the rest of the believers in Damascus have heard of Stephen’s death by stoning; they have also heard Saul was on his way with warrants of arrest for anyone who dared identify with the Way and its Lord, and so they hunkered-down, laying low.

But Jesus says go, and Ananias obeys.

Ananias of Damascus is certainly not to be identified with Ananias of Jerusalem, the fellow who along with his wife Saphira schemed to secure for themselves the same kind of public benediction that had been bestowed on one Joseph Bar-Nabas who sold a field he owned and laid the entire proceeds at the apostles’ feet. The couple—not nearly so selfless or genuine in their giving as the Son of Consolation—ends ingloriously for everyone. Short story shorter, Ananias and Saphira sold high, gave low, pocketed the difference but postured as if the gifts were equivalent. Simon Peter saw through the ruse and, well…

I shiver with the memory every time I consider fudging on my pledge.

And neither would we imagine that the homeowner secreted away on Straight Street was that Judas… although, tell the truth, wouldn’t it be interesting if he were?

Yes, of course, “Judas” was at that time anyway a very popular name—who knows how many Judases lived on Straight Street alone (though Jesus doesn’t seem to think Ananias will have trouble locating Saul’s host)—but can we suspend our disbelief for long enough to grant that the scenario is at least conceivable?

After all, we are no clearer on what happened to the Judas after he became a guide for those who arrested Jesus than we are on his motives. Did he hang himself (Matthew)? Did he fall with such force that his belly burst open (Peter via Luke)? Did he hang himself and remain hanging there till his belly swelled and burst (Augustine)?

But–stay with me here—what if he fled from the shame and reproach of the earliest believers in Jerusalem and Judea to take up quiet residence in Damascus? And what if the Risen Lord appeared to him there as he had appeared to the others in Jerusalem and Galilee, whose crimes and doubts were no less serious?

If Jesus stayed in character, perhaps all was forgiven and amends made. If so, Judas would have been as unsurprised as Ananias if Jesus appeared again and told him to make ready his guest room as there was yet another culprit who needed a safe house. Why it would have occurred to anyone to take Saul by the hand and lead him precisely there, to him, is anyone’s guess, but who better to take-in and warren such a reviled person than one who was and would remain reviled?

It would be almost poetic: the two old scoundrels, each of them disqualified from the Lord’s service by any objective standard, but still used by Jesus’ characteristic and gracious recommissioning to accomplish the divine will?

And if it were the same Judas, his circling-up with Saul and Ananias would have added what to the story? Texture. That, at least.

Visions and Voices do things to people, of course, and each of the three had heard and seen enough to blow the tennis balls off their walkabout paradigms. And soon, Annanias is praying, Saul is preaching and Judas is…running something like a first-century CAC. Or Interpreter’s House.

Yeah, probably not. Still, I like the notion.

But why did Jesus insist Ananias pray for Saul?

Saul was already praying for himself. Were his prayers not sufficient to the moment? Apparently not.

One imagines Jesus could have descaled Saul’s eyes without Ananias’ help. He had done it before and more than once. So…why?

Theologically, Origen suggests that our prayers are a crucial part of what we might call the “flow chart,” the index of causes and effects, that accomplish God’s will in the world. God has ordained our prayers as an important kind of cooperation with the divine will and purpose—a piece of the preapproved instrumentation that will facilitate change in the world. As Fosdick put it: some things, not without our thinking; some things, not without our working; some things, not without our praying.

But, again, I think there is more to it than just that.

I don’t know for sure I am thinking it was because Jesus knew Ananias was every bit as blind, in his own way, as Saul; and that Ananias’ prayer—and especially as Judas and Jesus himself completed the circle—would enable the both of them to see beyond the obvious.

All Ananias knew of “this man” Saul was his bad reputation.

All Saul knew was that the Way was not, and because he was “zealous” for the traditions of Jewish faith he was ready to travel, to arrest and bind, to execute if it came to that to nip the wild vine in the bud. As it were.

And Jesus brought them together by vision and voice… command

One way to phrase the deeper reality is that Jesus knew more and better than what either thought of the other, however, and not least the plans he had for Saul to stoke the flames of the wildfire gospel. Ananias would be a part of those plans if he went to the street called Straight and found Judas’ house and prayed for Saul.

Meanwhile, the same gospel that would soon turn the world upside down would rock the paradigms of both Ananias and Saul—beyond the kind of dualistic thinking that, as Fr. Rohr would say by way of the Jerusalem Bible, “obscures God’s design with empty-headed words” (The Tears of Things, 93). They move beyond fear and distrust as they continued to be converted.

Remarkably, when Ananias got to Judas’ house, upon finding him—which is to say, even before he prayed—he addressed Judas’ guest as “Brother Saul.” Jesus’ instructions challenged Ananias’ prejudice, in other words, and began to cure his own myopia.

Perhaps even more remarkably, the rest of the frightened Christians in Damascus would also begin to see that “this man”—who for his part was seeing Jesus, himself and Christians in a new way—was both Jesus’ chosen instrument and, with them, a part of Jesus’ Body.

This little piece of reconciliation in Acts 9 bespeaks our hopes for the world, for our church and ourselves. Intercessions beget confessions which occasion repentance which brings forgiveness and healing to us all.

Call it the Peace of Reconciliations. The Mystery of the gospel for the fullness of time. Starting with Saul, Ananias and maybe even Judas.