A RIDE TO THE ZOO AND A STALKING CAT

Dr. Richard J. Henderson April 18, 2010

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Psalm 30 (responsive)
Acts 9:1-6

Introduction

It was the fall of my freshman year in high school and one of those days when Indian summer warms the air like the middle of August. The neighbor's pool, where we spent our afternoons swimming, had been covered over in preparation for winter. But on this day we pulled the cover back from the pool and shoved it under the diving board. We put on our suits and got in one last swim for the year.

We dove off the board into the water. We did cannonballs and belly smackers. It was a great celebration of the end of summer. As we continued with our fun, the pool cover began to work its way out, sliding unnoticed from under the diving board.

As I dove off the board I noticed how much it had moved - just before I went into it head first. My dive landed in the plastic tarp and the water sucked in around me. My hands were trapped by my head. My body was encased in water and plastic. Only my feet were out of the water. I kicked them frantically but it didn't make any difference. I couldn't breathe. I was suffocating head first in water and plastic.

At some point it occurred to me to stop flailing my feet - if somebody wanted to rescue me I was making it difficult. In a short time someone grabbed my feet and pulled me up out of the water. I gasped for air like I never had before in my life. Then I looked up to see that my rescuer was the one guy in the neighborhood who I couldn't stand. He had saved my life.

I grabbed my towel and went home. I ran up to my room and pulled my Bible off the shelf. I flopped down on the bed and flipped open the Bible. It fell open to Matthew 18:6.

"If any of you put a stumbling block before one of these little ones who believe in me, it would be better for you if a great millstone were fastened around your neck and you were drowned in the depths of the sea."

I prayed.

That was my conversion experience.

It wasn't too much later when I realized that that experience was a confirmation of what had been happening in my life since I was a child. My conversion really began when I was a little kid in Sunday school learning Bible stories and developing a relationship with God. That relationship grew as I grew. My conversion wasn't a night and day experience; it was more like the sun breaking through the clouds in mid morning. It has continued to grow ever since.

Author Ann LaMott had a very different conversion experience. She grew up in family that not only didn't believe, they made fun of people who did. She, like her parents, was seriously into alcohol and drugs. She had just had an abortion. She was sleeping with a married man who she didn't really care much about.

LaMott says that the way God called her was like a cat stalking her. She writes, "Everywhere I went, I had the feeling that a little cat was following me, wanting me to reach down and pick it up, wanting me to open the door and let it in. But I knew what would happen: you let a cat in one time, give it milk, and then it stays forever. So I tried to keep one step ahead of it, slamming my houseboat door when I entered or left."

One Sunday she decided to go to church. She had stopped in this Presbyterian church earlier and talked with the pastor. This Sunday she was so hung over that she couldn't stand for the hymns. It was the last song that really got to her. She said, "The last song was so deep and raw and pure that I could not escape. It was as if the people were singing between the notes, weeping and joyful at the same time. I felt like their voices or something was rocking me in its bosom, holding me like a scared kid, and I opened up to that feeling - and it washed over me." She started to cry before the benediction and ran home. She opened the door to her houseboat, feeling the cat waiting at her feet. She says, "I stood there a minute, and then I hung my head and said, '**** it (an expletive I can't repeat) I quit.' I took a long breath and said out loud, 'All right. You can come in.' So, this was my beautiful moment of conversion."

The famous writer, C. S. Lewis, had a very different experience. He says it was clearly a gift from God. He was satisfied with his life. He was not on an anguished search for meaning. He had a good life. But one day God gave him a divine gift - belief and trust. He says that he was riding with a friend in the sidecar of a motorcycle on his way to the Whipsnade Zoo. It was a sunny morning in Sept, 1931.

He writes, "When we set out I did not believe that Jesus Christ was the Son of God, and when we reached the zoo, I did." That is a comical scene for a profound religious experience - here is Lewis, the Oxford scholar, tucked into a sidecar on his way to a zoo on an ordinary morning in England. In those few moments he is convinced about who Jesus is. He will go on to write profound books about faith that help millions of people.

I

All of this says that God doesn't use a standard mold when he calls us to faith. For some people it is a dramatic moment when they turn from darkness to light. God seems to speak to different people in different ways. One conversion experience is not better than another. Can we really judge the way in which someone comes to faith. God speaks in a variety of ways, often using unique means to reach people.

I once filled out a recommendation for someone to a Christian school. The form asked the person to give the time, day and year in which their conversion took place. I looked at that and thought that my answer would have to be the day I was baptized and virtually every day since then. If we have had a dramatic conversion, it is the starting place of our relationship, not the end point. And many people, maybe even most, can't locate a day, time, or year. Hopefully, we all are growing every day.

II

Francis Collins, the scientist who headed the Human Genome Project and who is now the head of the National Institutes of Health, says that his conversion came about because a woman asked him what he believed. He always assumed that God didn't exist and science had the answers to life's questions. But when one of his older patients asked that question, he realized that he hadn't ever seriously explored whether God was real. Her question sent him on an exploration that led him to deep and lasting faith.

Writer Mary Karr says that she turned from "black belt atheism" to Christian faith because some of her friends encouraged her to pray about her alcoholism and the state of her life. At the time she thought praying was so ridiculous that she might just as well swing a dead cat over her head, but nothing else had worked so she gave it a try. She prayed in the morning that she wouldn't take a drink that day, and she prayed in the evening thanking God for helping her not take a drink. She came to faith because she developed a relationship with God as she sensed God's help through each day. She is now a profound, as well as feisty and unconventional, Christian leader. She encourages her New York literary friends to pray, and says they react as if she were asking them to join a secret cult. But she says, "I dare you to try it for just one month. You have nothing to lose and everything to gain."

III

Sometimes God uses us to help other people come to faith. That woman who was Francis Collins patient had no idea she would bring and the conversion of one of the world's great scientists. She was just doing what came naturally for her. That friends of Mary Karr didn't realize what an impact she would have by simply suggesting that Mary pray about her situation. But now this woman who writes some of the finest literature of our day is proclaiming the importance of Christ in her life. We never know how God may be using us to bring about great things.

IV

Paul was converted to Christianity as he traveled to find Christians to arrest and persecute. It's the story of that flash of light and the words of Christ that we read as our scripture this morning. Compare Paul's experience with the criminal who was executed with Jesus on the cross. While one criminal taunts Jesus saying, "If you are the Messiah, save yourself and us too," the other says, "We are getting what we deserve, but this man has done nothing wrong. Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom." Jesus turns to him and says, "Today you will be with me in paradise." This man changes the direction of his life in the last moments he is alive and Jesus accepts him.

Conclusion

God finds us. Sometimes we are lost and searching for answers; sometimes we feel like our life is just fine; but God finds us and draws us close. It isn't that we search for God and finally find him; God is always reaching out to us. Sometimes we realize that and respond. God calls church people and criminals, scholars and pipefitters, writers and accountants, scientists and car salesmen. God wants all of us.

There is no standard way to reach people. God doesn't use "one size fits all." God uses unique means depending on who we are. Not everyone can tell you a year and date and time when they made a decision. The best of those decisions continues every day. Respect the different ways in which people respond to God. Marvel at the creative way God touches our lives. Review your own life for the ways in which God has reached out to you and the times when you have felt drawn closer to God.

We are thankful for the unique and creative ways of God.

Amen

© Richard J. Henderson 2010