Psalm 36:5-10
1 Corinthians 12:1-11
Acts 9:1-20

Since this is an all-in-church Sunday with our children present for the entire service, I thought I'd begin today with a story, about something that happened many, many hundreds of years ago to a man we heard about in our lesson from Acts.

Along a cobble-stoned alley of ancient Damascus, there once lived a shoemaker named Ananias.(i) Like others of his generation, the little cobbler went to his synagogue (where he worshiped) each week to pray for the birth of the Messiah:"How long, Almighty God? How long do we have to wait?" But then one Sabbath evening, some Galileans arrived at the synagogue door. Though dusty and tired from their long desert journey, the newcomers lifted their hands high above their heads: "Brothers and sisters! We bring glad news! God has raised Jesus of Nazareth from the dead, that we might have eternal life ourselves!" There was an awkward silence. One of the scribes murmured: "The chief priests in Jerusalem have sent word: 'Beware of rabble-rousers who claim that a poor crucified carpenter is the Messiah.'" Then an old man stood up and yelled at the newcomers: "You are a disgrace to the people of Israel!" As Ananias sat there and watched the ushers literally throw the men outside, a great sadness crept over him when would the Messiah come?

He slipped out the back door and found the Galileans lying in a nearby gutter, laughing. Ananias suggested timidly: "If I were you, I might not be so happy being tossed into the gutter." One of the men wiped a gash on his forehead and smiled: "Now that the Messiah has come, I wouldn't mind being tossed head-first into a pile of garbage." There was something about these men that intrigued the poor shoemaker. "Tell me more about this Messiah," he asked. And so, after he had listened awhile, Ananias decided to become a follower of Jesus himself.

What an exciting time to live - the news of the empty tomb still rang freshly in the ears of the men and women. With each passing day new miracles happened. "Did you hear? Jonas the weaver has believed in the Messiah, and now his whole family has received the Holy Spirit!" "Incredible news! The blind man who begs by the old stone wall - well, now he can see!" Yet, miracles never visited Ananias. He stitched strips of leather on his workbench and mused: "After all, I'm only a simple cobbler who can hardly read the alphabet. A shoemaker must be content to sew sandals for the glory of God."

Ananias' prayer times were also very ordinary. There were no startling revelations - only a quiet gentle Presence. But then one noontime, just as he set down his tools, something very unusual happened. A whisper rose within his heart: "Ananias!" The startled shoemaker tripped over his workbench and landed on the clay floor; he listened silently; the only sound was the wild pounding of his heart. "Ananias!" This time the little cobbler knew who had spoken. He glanced upward: "Here I am, Lord." The voice came with a deep quiet authority: "Arise and go to Straight Street, and at the house of Judas ask for a man from Tarsus named Saul. He will be praying. In a vision he has seen a man named Ananias. You are to place your hands on him so that he may see again."

Ananias winced. Forgetting to whom he spoke, the poor cobbler scrambled to his feet: "Lord! Many have told me about this man, about all the terrible things he has done to your people in Jerusalem. And now he has come to Damascus to arrest anyone who even calls upon your name!" There was a long silence. Ananias looked upward. "Lord?" Silence. The shoemaker awkwardly shuffled his feet. "Lord?" Ananias sighed and respectfully bowed his head. Then the voice spoke again: "Go, because I have chosen him to be my servant, to carry my name to Gentiles and kings, and to the people of Israel. I myself will show him all he must do for my sake."

Ananias stumbled down his dirty alleyway. As in a dream, he wandered toward the wealthiest quarter of Damascus. Then the shoemaker knocked timidly on the door of Judas and waited until a huge gate was opened a crack. A skeptical servant peered out, and Ananias tried to push past him: "Please, sir, I must see a man by the name of Saul!" At first the servant was startled by the frantic little shoemaker, but be quickly recovered: "See here! The servant's entrance is around back ... of all the nerve!" Just as the servant slammed the door, Ananias swung his leg into its path. This actually worked in his favor, since the volume of his voice markedly increased, echoing throughout the neighborhood. "Ahhhhhhhhhhh! My leg!"

Then he heard a deep troubled voice from the inside: "Wait! I had a vision about that man!" Ananias panicked and forgot everything: "Oh, no! ... He had a vision about me! Now I'm really in trouble." The angry servant grabbed the shoemaker's belt and jerked him back inside. There, under an aging olive tree, a sightless man lay on a mat. The shoemaker's fear quietly melted away: "Saul, I have been sent by the Lord Jesus whom you met along the way. He sent me here that you might see again and be filled with the Holy Spirit." Ananias reached out for the sightless eyes, and for a quiet moment, history rested beneath the hands of a cobbler. When he was finished, a man named Saul had become Paul.

Some time passed before Paul began his ministry, and many more years fled by before the world realized the tremendous impact he would have. And so, the little shoemaker never knew what came of that day when he stretched his hands and blessed a man beneath an aging olive tree. At the very end of his life, Ananias looked upward at the sky and whispered: "I haven't done much, Lord. A few shoes sewn ... a few sandals stitched ... But what more could be expected of a poor cobbler?" Once again, that same voice rose quietly within his heart: "Don't worry, Ananias, about what you have done - about how much or how little. You were there when I wanted you to be there. And that, my little shoemaker of a saint, is all that really matters."

"You were there when I wanted you to be there ... and that is all that really matters." You and I never know when God is going to call upon us to do something special. Maybe we're a bit like Ananias, not aware that we have special gifts to be used for others. What was important for him was that he responded, he obeyed, when God called upon him to do something. He didn't think what he did was that great, but he certainly couldn't have done it on his own. Yet, God used him and worked through him, and he became what God wanted him to become, a healing instrument of God's love. But this was only after he obeyed God's command - to go, to reach out, and to touch.

I thought of this story of Ananias as I was reading that part of Paul's letter to the Corinthians we heard today. Yes, this is the same Paul who became a very important follower of Jesus after his encounter with Ananias. Paul talks about the spiritual gifts of many kinds that God gives to each of us, gifts that we're sometimes not even aware we have. One thing he says is this: "To each [of us] is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good." I like how the Good News Bible translates this: "The Spirit's presence is shown in some way in each person for the good of all."

I heard about a woman who goes to visit people living in a nursing home each week. She brings her five-year old son with her. They both sing to the residents there - well the woman sings and the little boy, who doesn't know many of the words, sings along quietly, but he sings because it's something he can do. But he does something else also. Somehow he knows what the residents need, and he knows what to do. He walks over, gives a hug, or stretches out his hand and shakes hands or holds the hands of some of the elderly women and men. And they love it. What he does is a gift, it's a gift he gives, and they receive it cheerfully, eagerly, and joyously. "Grace-gifts are given. We cannot seize them from someone else. We cannot demand them or expect them ..." (ii) but they surely make life wonderful when we get them and when we give them.

All of us have been blessed with gifts of many kinds. We may not always be aware of our gifts or of their impact on others when we share them, but what matters most is that we obey God, that we be there when God wants us to be there. Without realizing it, we celebrated our 160th anniversary on Christmas Eve as I mentioned last Sunday. Pilgrim Church has been here for all these years because God has richly blessed us with so much, mostly the dedicated men and women and children who have responded when they heard God calling them. I am confident that this little corner of God's kingdom will continue here for another 160 years if, by God's grace, you and I and others who follow us will also respond when we hear the call, if we go where God calls us to go, if we reach out, and if we touch others in need. We are blessed with gifts of many kinds. It is not up to us to figure out if they are worthy or not, or to judge whether we've done enough or too little. What's important is that like Ananias with his gift of healing and the five-year old boy with his gifts of singing, hugging, and hand-holding, what's important is that we be there with our gifts when God wants us to be there. That's all that really matters. Amen.

The Pilgrim Church of Duxbury
Rev. Kenneth C. Landall

i Based on Daniel Juniper's, "Ananias the Shoemaker, in "Along the Water's Edge," pp. 63-67.