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| "The Conversion of St. Paul" Caravaggio, ca. 1600 |
“After this he said to him, ‘Follow me.’” (John 21:19b)
It was 1988. There I was at a gala
black-tie affair at the now-defunct Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles.[i] The courtyard of the
majestic 1921 luxury venue was filled with beautiful people decked out smartly
in handsome tuxedos and elegant evening gowns. We were all dining al fresco that afternoon.
Because we were all flat broke.
Yup. The “affair” was actually an
on-location television shoot for the NBC drama Highway to Heaven. I was hired as an extra on the show because I
owned a tux. Producer/director/writer/star of the series, Michael Landon usually
finished with his extras before noon, but he let us all stay on the set to eat
the free lunch from the production company’s craft services department. There
was a TV and motion picture writers’ union strike that summer. Since Landon
wrote his own scripts Highway was one
of the few shows still filming. Work was scarce around Hollywood. All my fellow
extras were wondering when they’d get another gig. I was teaching in the
theater arts department of a community college, and my classes had been cut
back due to budget shortfalls, so I was pretty worried about my own future.
“You own a tux and you look good in it,”
said one of the extras over a bite of his chicken sandwich. “You could, maybe,
work for a catering company as a waiter.” I thought about this, then replied, “I
also own a lifetime California community college teaching credential and a
master’s degree. I have nothing against honest labor, but I don’t think I’d
enjoy waiting tables at weddings and bar mitzvahs.” A female extra approached
me. “You were a teacher?” she asked. “Why don’t you apply to be a substitute in
the L.A. school district? They always need secondary ed subs. If you get an
audition, you just call in and tell the school you can’t work that day. Lots of
actors are subs.”
That sounded like a pretty good idea to me,
so I got my resume together, marched down to the L.A. Unified School District’s
headquarters, was interviewed and hired in one day, and had time left over to
head to the Warner Bros. studio for another extra gig.
But that day was the beginning of the end
of my Hollywood career. As I look back on it now, over thirty years later, that
was the day God started to prepare me to give up who I wanted to be and become
who He wanted me to be (I’m still not
quite there yet!). I spent the next six years as a special education long-term
substitute teacher in middle schools. I taught learning disabled teens, some of
whom were gang members, some with severe emotional problems, some who came to
class stoned on weed, but all who lived with poverty or some kind of challenging
home life. It was the first time in my life that I’d actually had a
relationship with people from a different culture who didn’t look like me and
who had a very different experience of the “American Dream.”
I now believe that my years in the LA
harbor district barrio were preparing
me for my life in the ordained ministry.
The lessons we have for this Third Sunday
of Easter (John 21:1-19 and Acts 9:1-20) are also stories of preparation. We
see on this Sunday the twin titans of the early church, Peter and Paul. These are
two men to whom God had given tremendous gifts for the proclamation of the
Gospel and the healing of the world. Neither of them, however, was prepared to
share these gifts without Jesus breaking in and preparing them for the mission.
In our Gospel reading, we have this great
post-Easter story of Jesus appearing by the Sea of Galilee (John 21:1-19). Good
ol’ Peter has seen the risen Jesus, but he doesn’t quite know what the next step
should be. So what does he do? He goes back to what he knows. He goes fishing.
But his old life isn’t the same now. He can’t catch anything. It’s not until he
commits without hesitation to Jesus’ instruction that he starts to get results.
Of course, the touching thing about this
story is Jesus’ Q & A with Peter in verses 15 -17. Peter gets a chance to declare
his devotion three times, the same
number of times he denied Jesus on that sorrowful night of our Lord’s betrayal.
Jesus is wiping away Peter’s shame with this, and giving him a mission. He’s
also warning him that this mission will end as painfully for Peter as it ended
for Jesus (vv. 18-19). Now Peter knows what he’s into, but he’s ready to heed
the command of Jesus, “Follow me.”
The first lesson assigned for this Sunday
is the story of the conversion of Paul. Like Peter, Paul had natural gifts
which could be used for the glory of God. Unfortunately, just as Peter was
stuck in his confusion and shame, Saul (who becomes Paul) is stuck in rigid
dogma and hatred. Jesus needs to do some prep work on him, too. This won’t be
as gentle as it was with Peter, who already loved Jesus. No. Paul has to be broken
and made helpless before he’s ready to seek the Lord.
Have you ever wondered about what you are
called to do in Jesus’ name? Have you considered that an unexpected bend in
life’s river—one which sent you shooting down a tributary you never planned to
navigate—just might’ve been the preparation for a mission God had planned for
you all along?
I don’t know that I have enough faith to
say “Everything happens for a reason.” I do, however, think it might be a good
spiritual exercise to look back on the “accidents” of our lives and see how
they set us off in a direction which gave us more wisdom, more patience, more thankfulness,
more compassion, and a greater hunger to do the work of God.
Martin Luther believed in the “priesthood
of all believers.” That is, the work of the dentist, the insurance salesman,
the farmer, or tollbooth cashier was just as holy and noble in the sight of God
as the work of the priest or the bishop. All of us are on a mission from God.
Take some time to see how you’ve been prepared for yours. And then give thanks.
Thanks for checking me out. Until next
time, God bless you, my friend!
[i] Demolished
in 2005, the Ambassador was the home of the famous Coconut Grove Nightclub, twice
the site of the Academy Awards, and the unfortunate scene of Bobby Kennedy’s assassination.
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