The Kitchen Sink
An occasional piece of paper
January 21, 2007
Vol. 10 no. 03.a

Everything But...
           Today is an “away” sermon, to be given at St. Paul’s Anglican Cathedral, auspiciously on “The Conversion of Saint Paul” Sunday. So begins the most famous “on the road” story in world literature. Paul’s direct account from Galatians 1 and Luke’s third rendition in Acts 26 of what happened on the road to Damascus orient our hearing.
           Paul/Saul’s saga is as central to our self-understanding as Christians as the tale of the Exodus in the Old Testament. It becomes our journey, the story that includes us on its path and defines our character. Not too many of us would admit to be as vindictive person as the early Saul was, but what happened to him should have happened to all of us.
           In the turbulent 1960’s, a young theology professor Harvey Cox wrote The Secular City which celebrated the new possibilities of the Christian in the modern metropolis, the city where anonymity was not a curse but a blessing. The book created a lot of discussion for decades, and Harvey Cox was considered to be the theologian of “What’s Happening Now,” always was on the forefront of liberal theology and social justice.
           In the late ‘70’s he came to our town for a lecture series. With bated breath, we waited to hear something really new - it was “Born Again.” Liberals wince at the evangelical insistence upon a “born again” experience, but Harvey surprised us all by stating that to be born again is at the root of all Christian experience. What happened to Saul/Paul was not mere coincidence - somewhere, somehow every one of us needs to be turned around and to begin again a New Life shaped by the Gospel. The Gospel isn’t natural - for some of us it is a gentle turn on the road to Moose Jaw; for others, a lightning bolt outside of Damascus. It’s not our choice.