Paul: Recycled Saul

Paul: Recycled Saul

May 8, 2022

Acts 9: 1 - 20

Prefabricated concrete slabs were the preferred building materials in East Germany, beginning in the 1960s.  This communist country faced a severe housing shortage, so concrete slabs were used to build shoe-box-shaped residential apartments in a quick and economical way.  The advantage of these slabs was that they could be used as the building blocks of a variety of structures, from high-rise towers to rows of low-rise apartments.

After East Germany and West Germany reunited, the demand for these ugly but economical apartment buildings began to drop, and by 2006 there were about a million unoccupied units.  While many of these apartments were being renovated to meet a demand for more attractive housing, others were being torn down, and still others were falling apart.

Enter two young architects, the Biele brothers.

These two were looking at the apartments and seeing more than just the dwindling remains of communist culture.  They saw raw materials.

The brothers took the concrete blocks from demolished apartments and recycled them into single-family homes.  They got the slabs for nothing more than the cost of hauling them away, and then their workers bolted the plates together, cut out windows, and put a finish on the exterior.  These recycled slabs allowed for construction savings of up to 40 percent.

The result was a house with an attractive look that reflected both German and California styles.  The one limitation to building with those blocks, according to the architects is that “There’s nothing round.”  You can’t put a curve into a slab of concrete.

The story of Saul’s conversion takes on a new look when it is seen through the lens of this innovative recycling effort.  Saul is as solid and strong as those plain and simple apartments when he takes a stand against the Christians of Damascus — he is “a member of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew born of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless” (Philippians 3:5-6).

Saul stands tall against members of “the Way” — the group of Jews who have come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah.  He hits the road for Damascus, “breathing threats and murder” against those brand-new Christians, and pledges to capture them, tie them up, and cart them back to Jerusalem for trial (Acts 9:1-2).

But a surprising thing happens on the road to Damascus.  A light from heaven flashes, and Saul falls to the ground, like the implosion of a high-rise concrete apartment building.

A voice says to him, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?”  He asks, “Who are you, Lord?” … and the reply comes, “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting” (vv. 4-5).

At this point, you might expect Saul to be pulverized.  After all, he is a zealous persecutor of the church, one who has endorsed the killing of Stephen and engaged in “ravaging the church by entering house after house; dragging off both men and women, [committing] them to prison” (8:1-3).

You wouldn’t blame Jesus for sending Saul to the scrap heap.

But instead, he recycles him.

“Get up and enter the city,” says Jesus, “and you will be told what you are to do” (v. 6).  Saul pushes up from the ground, but he can’t see a thing.  His companions lead him by the hand to Damascus, and for three days he lives with his blindness, neither eating nor drinking.  Then Jesus contacts a disciple named Ananias, a man who is completely unenthusiastic about providing any assistance to Saul.  “Lord, I have heard from many about this man, how much evil he has done to your saints in Jerusalem,” says Ananias — clearly, he would rather condemn Saul than care for him.

But Jesus has big plans for this persecutor of the church.  He tears Saul down, but he doesn’t tear him up — instead, he recycles him into an apostle.  “Go, for he is an instrument,” says Jesus to Ananias — an instrument to bring Christ’s name “before Gentiles and kings and before the people of Israel” (v. 15).  The strength, intelligence, commitment and eloquence that Saul had before his conversion is preserved, and it is put to a new use.

Saul was solid before.  And he’ll be solid again.  But not without a complete renovation.

Ananias follows the guidance of Jesus and makes a visit to his assumed enemy.  The Holy Spirit goes to work, like a builder reshaping the concrete slabs of those concrete apartment buildings.  Immediately, something like scales fall from Saul’s eyes, and his sight is restored.  He gets up, is baptized, and begins to eat some food.  His strength is regained, and within days he is proclaiming Jesus in the synagogues, saying, “Jesus is the Son of God” (vv 17-20).

Saul is even given a new name — Paul.

The good news of this story is that nothing is wasted by God.  Every strength, talent, insight and experience we have — whether secular or sacred, rough or smooth, bad or good — can be a building block for God to use.  God doesn’t destroy the raw materials of the lives we have lived, but instead God recycles them and refashions them into something new.  We shouldn’t hate ourselves for being a building block in a communist apartment building or an active persecutor of the church.  We shouldn’t beat ourselves up over selfish choices and destructive decisions we have made in the past.

Jesus doesn’t want our regrets.  He wants our raw materials.

Today’s Scripture is an invitation to renewed living.  For some, this will mean turning a passion for contemporary music into a commitment to play in a church praise band.  For others, it will mean recycling a skill for administration into a position on the board of the local homeless shelter.  For still others, it will mean taking the pain of an unhappy childhood and transforming it into a passion for youth ministry.

God wastes nothing when looking for people to do the work in the world.

Author Dean Merrill was visiting a Lake Michigan port with a friend, and together they were looking at a ship that was nearly a block long.  It had a gaping hole, several feet wide, from bow to stern.

“What happened?” asked Dean Merrill.

“Just an overhaul to enlarge capacity,” the friend replied, pointing toward workers who were climbing around on the sliced freighter.  “They cut the thing right through the middle, jacked up the top half, and now they’re welding pieces to fill the space.  When they’re done, that ship will carry almost twice as much cargo as before.”

Dean Merrill was fascinated, and in his book The God Who Won’t Let Go he wrote that “human beings get ripped apart as well.”  Think of the man who broke his marriage vows or betrayed a friend’s secret … the woman who bore an illegitimate child or mishandled corporate funds … all the people who made undeniable mistakes or whose future seemed ruined by a single fateful act.  “They become bigger people in the end,” he discovered.  “The painful surgery has enlarged their capacity to serve.”

Each of us has talents, insights and experiences that can be recycled by God for ministry and mission.  The apostle Paul had a gift of eloquence that was used first for anti-Christian rants, and then for the proclamation of the gospel.  The slave trader John Newton saw the depths of human depravity firsthand, and his insights led him to write “Amazing grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me!”  The Amish of Lancaster County had the excruciating experience of watching their children die of gunshots in a one-room schoolhouse, and they used this agonizing event to take a stand for forgiveness and nonviolence.  God can take all the raw materials of life — even the most painful and inexplicable events — and recycle them in ways that advance God’s will.  Like ships being cut in half and jacked up, or buildings being torn down and rebuilt, we can find ourselves being transformed in ways that enlarge our capacity to serve in places that we never expected to go.

If we are going to follow in the footsteps of St. Paul, we have to be willing to be reshaped by the hands of God, our “Master Builder.”  This means letting go of our former shapes and styles and entering into a new way of life.  We are challenged to change from Pharisees to apostles, from worn-out apartment buildings to beautiful single-family homes, from self-centered individuals to God-centered instruments of ministry.

But at the same time, we can embrace the fundamental goodness of the building blocks that God has given us.  Our strengths, our talents, our insights, and our experiences are as solid as the concrete slabs that were being recycled into new houses in Germany.  The reworking can sometimes be painful, and the reshaping can be difficult to endure, but in all of these transformations God is doing the remodeling that is required.  As Paul says to the Philippians, “it is God who is at work in you, enabling you both to will and to work for God’s good pleasure” (2:13).

With God, nothing is trashed.  Instead, it is transformed.

            First sermon I heard after Sylvia’s death, I was here in Mt. Salem Church.  Pastor Kevin had no idea that I would be here.  In his sermon he touched me as neither he nor I expected.  I can’t quote him, but I can’t forget what he said:  Sometimes God has to knock us down to get our attention.  Personal crises may be God’s way of reaching us, God’s route to renew us, God’s process for recycling us.

            Did God have to make Sylvia die in order to get my attention – in order to get me to recommit myself to doing the ministry that I had danced around for years?  Did it take Sylvia’s death to make me finally decide to put reaching the unchurched with a relevant approach to the gospel into the front and center of my life?

            I am not comfortable with the idea that God causes crises in our lives just to get our attention; that does not strike me as love.  But I do believe that God walks with us during our crises and loves us enough to guide us back into meaningful lives.

That is to say, in the devastation of Sylvia’s death, God helped me heal and find new purpose in my life by recycling my retired ministry into the ministry that I might have started doing intentionally fifty-five years ago.

The crisis of shrinking membership -- that seemed to be heading us toward closing our doors and quitting -- may be our congregation’s opportunity to be recycled not just into revived ministry, but into renewed ministry.  We seem to me to be ready to be recycled.

Like ships being cut in half and jacked up, or buildings being torn down and rebuilt, we will likely find ourselves being transformed in ways that enlarge our capacity to serve in places and ways that we never expected to go. 

Let’s let God work with me and with us as we explore our recycled ministry – as we explore our renewed life and mission.

Just as God led Saul into Paul, God is walking with us, directing and leading us into a new style and emphasis.  Let us follow God’s guidance into the recycled Mt. Salem Church.

                                                                                    Amen.

 Sources:

Dumiak, Michael, “Cement bloc: Builders recycle the stuff of communist-era Berlin.” Fast Company, September 2006, 39.

Merrill, Dean. The God Who Won’t Let Go. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1998.

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