Conversion

God calls to each of us, daily, moment by moment, throughout our whole lives, saying, “Come home. Come back. Come rest.” Come.

We get a lot of practice ignoring that call. Other, more immediate and more physical callings urge us away from God and into ourselves. But that self-absorption doesn’t stop God’s yearning, or ours. And sometimes, when we stop, because we want to or because we have to, we hear that call to Come, and we experience conversion.

Today’s gospel is a collection of conversion stories-stories from when God walked among us and said, Come, follow me, and people from all walks of life, in all circumstances made that leap into unconditional grace.

First, let’s meet Matthew. You might know someone like him. He’s got a job, but he doesn’t really like it. Maybe he works for the IRS and he hears from a lot of angry people who act like he makes the rules. He’s never getting a promotion and he is too old to change careers. He has no real connection to his past and he isn’t enthusiastic about his future, either. Nothing has ever really engaged his passions and suddenly, perhaps because he wasn’t paying attention to anything else, he realized that Jesus is walking by saying, hey-come on-let’s go. And Matthew is so amazed to discover his life is valuable, just as it is, that he just gets up and goes.

Matthew could be a slacker, trapped by too few expectations, or he could be a mid-level executive, trapped by too many – but Matthew heard God’s call and in answering - experienced conversion.

Of course, we can’t all be like Matthew. Some of us need to hear the invitation over and over again before we can believe it is actually genuine, actually meant for us. Some of us are more like those dinner guests or at least feel like the Pharisee’s might be right about us. Sometimes we don’t want to be a bother, sometimes we don’t think we have anything to bring to the table, sometimes we don’t think we were important enough, and perhaps we received the invitation by mistake. Sometimes we need to hear that invitation so many times we just give up. OK already! We say and in that moment of surrender – we are converted by grace.

Still, others might find their conversion similar to the woman who hemorrhaged for 12 years. It takes a lot of fortitude to hang on through 12 long years of chronic illness. But hemhorrhaging could explain any exhausting of our personal resources.

Are we trying to present the perfect life to our neighbors? Are we hiding alcoholism or mental illness in our families so we can look normal? Are we burying ourselves in debt to live in the right neighborhood? Do we stay up late at night worrying about things we cannot control?

If so, we might find ourselves like this woman, no longer able to help ourselves or hide ourselves. And like her, we might use the last of our strength to surrender to hope – to miracles – to grace.

Of course, not everyone is disinterested in their own lives, like Matthew, or consumed by them like the woman with a hemorrhage. And people who have always been at the table hardly need repeated invitations to attend. Some people are like the leader of the synagogue who lost his daughter.

I imagine him as a man who has always done the right thing. He has an even keel and leads a nice, sober and appropriate life. When his daughter dies, he does the right thing, he sends for the flute players, just as expected. But then he does something a little bit unexpected. He approaches God and asks for him to wake her up. He doesn’t offer any excuses or deals. He doesn’t point out that he has always done the right thing or that he has held up his part of the covenant. He comes submissive, a supplicant, and approaches that infinite grace, that miracle so expansive that it can bring about resurrection.

Lots of people come to church every week. They take their turn on the vestry and volunteer in soup kitchens. In fact, if asked, they would say they don’t need a conversion experience because they have been baptized their whole lives.

For some people, who give so much and expect so little, conversion is going to be a miracle as big as the resurrection. Now, I am not saying that if we are devout and follow all the rules that God will suspend the laws of Nature. But for some of us, even if no one else can ever tell, we will experience something just that big.

Conversions like that of the synagogue leader are the hardest to tell. They don’t always have an obvious miracle like his. But they do happen, they must, because while Christianity contains a nice set of rules for living, those rules aren’t enough to sustain a lifetime of service to the kingdom of God.

But we know, even if there isn’t a flashy story, we know when we finally, whole-heartedly succumbed to grace. Succumb not with our intellect but with our hearts. It happens when no practical effort on our part will satisfy any longer, when we can’t act in any other direction than towards God himself.
And when God’s call is answered by his own people, our communion expands, not one by one, as in baptism, but by infinity, as only unconditional grace can do.

Conversion isn’t necessary to practice Christianity. It isn’t a prerequisite of baptism. It isn’t necessary to serve on the vestry or in a soup kitchen, either. You will never find conversion experience on a job application, not even for the priesthood. Yet conversion is the moment when we allow our very selves to answer the call to Come. Come home. Come back. Come, follow me.