The Call Story of the Road to Damascus
When we think of the story of Paul, or Saul, on the road to Damascus, we often call this Paul’s call story. Call stories are important throughout the Bible. Throughout the Old Testament, we can see several examples of call stories, and as we study call stories we can see a few common elements between them. Usually the person in question receives an announcement from God or another divine being like an angel. The person often responds with something like “Here I am.” God calls them to perform a specific task or to serve God in a number of ways. Then they usually protest, either because they are unworthy, incapable, or the task is beyond them. Finally, God gives them some reassurance before sending them on their way. Some version of this pattern with some steps repeated or removed can be found with many of the great leaders and prophets throughout the Bible: Moses, Samuel, Isaiah, and others. But when we look for those elements in the passage about the Damascus road, Paul isn’t the one being called here. Ananias receives a call from God. Ananias says, “Here I am, Lord.” God tells him to go heal Saul. Ananias protests that Saul is persecuting the church, and then God reassures him. This is the call story of Ananias more than it is the call story of Saul.
Unfortunately, this is the last we hear about Ananias in the entire Bible aside from one instance in Acts in which Paul is telling the story of his conversion to a crowd in Jerusalem. There is another Ananias, a high priest, who is involved in the narrative of Acts, but this specific character is never seen again. He doesn’t become a great leader. He doesn’t have any recorded prophecy. His call story is about one thing: healing Paul. Ananias receives a message directly from God. Imagine how that must have felt. This could have been the beginning of his career as an apostle, a leader in the fledgling church. He could have walked in the path of the great heroes of old. He could have had an entire book written about him in the New Testament. Instead, he is a stepping stone for Paul, who got plenty of New Testament books to himself. God called Ananias to do one thing, to heal one person, and then to disappear into the history books.
As much as we may feel sorry for Ananias, I think he serves us today for more than simply helping Paul. He is an excellent example of what vocation may look like in a Christian community. His great calling from God is to do one thing, help one man, and that is enough.
In our modern world, we place a dangerously large emphasis on the power and importance of the individual. We expect an individual to be able to take care of themselves. We expect individuals to do everything that is needed by themselves. We expect ourselves as individuals to either save the world or fail in the attempt completely. All of this individualism gets attention at the expense of the community and there are some very negative repercussions.
When we expect individuals to take care of everything, a select few leaders often take on much more work than they are really capable of sustaining. This results in leaders becoming stressed, exhausted, irate, and eventually burning out. In the meantime, the communities they serve become increasingly disconnected from the work they are doing. When one person handles all the organization and preparation, no one else really knows how to do those things or what is even happening. Community projects become brittle. If one or two key people get sick, the whole thing collapses.
On a personal level, when we are obsessed with doing things our own way, we lose our ability to adapt to changes. We cut ourselves off from the insights of others. We dismiss wisdom we don’t agree with immediately. Sometimes, in seeking to serve our neighbors alone, we isolate ourselves from all the good that our neighbors can do for us. We reject being part of something bigger, because we want to make ourselves bigger. We want our name to be remembered more so than that of our community.
If I’m being honest, I am probably the most guilty of this. I want to do so much. I want to be a hero. I want to do everything so that people will look to me as an example of doing good for others. I want to be individually famous. And this tendency isn’t necessarily bad. I think many of us could be better examples to follow than some of the people with fame and fortune now. It isn’t wrong to imagine yourself being a good example for others to follow. Perhaps that will help you to keep a better guard of your own actions, and maybe people will really take some good lessons from your behavior.
Of course, when I think of the people who have influenced my behavior, I don’t think of famous people. The people in my life, my family, my friends, my colleagues, are the people who have inspired me to be better, not the rich and powerful. It was people in my church and friends of my family who taught me to love the Bible, not some movie star or elevated church leader. We are already inspirations for people in ways that we may not even know. God has called us to the community we are in to serve it in our own ways.
It’s encouraging to see Ananias seeming finding contentment with his single mission. He didn’t follow God and become a Christian to be famous or beloved by millions. He followed God because God called him. He did the work God asked him to do, trusting that his small actions were a part of God’s larger story. We don’t need to be the hero. We don’t need to change the world by ourselves. Sometimes, call stories to the supporting characters are just as important. Sometimes, inspiring one person in a lifetime is enough. Independent of each other, we become exhausted trying to turn the world upside down, but we don’t have to be alone. God calls us into service that isn’t heroic that doesn’t get books written about us. God calls us into service in which a lifetime of work leads up to one miracle, and that is enough.
