The Rev’d Ivica Gregurec

Conversion of St Paul. 25 January 2026.

Readings: Jeremiah 1:4-10; Psalm 67; Acts 9:1-22; Matthew 19:23-30

The Feast of the Conversion of St Paul is not a celebration of certainty,
but of interruption.

Paul’s story is not about a man who finally got God right. It is about a
man whose confidence was shattered – and whose faith was remade.
The Church keeps this feast not because Paul was perfect, but because
God is relentless in grace, willing to meet even our most sincere
wrongness with light.

Saul of Tarsus is introduced to us in Acts not as a villain in his own mind,
but as a faithful Jew. He is learned, disciplined, and zealous. When he
persecutes the early followers of Jesus, he believes he is defending the
holiness of God and the integrity of Israel. This matters deeply,
especially if we are to hear this story responsibly.

From a Jewish perspective, Saul is not “converted from Judaism” to
something else. He is acting within a long Jewish tradition of passionate
devotion to Torah, shaped by the conviction that false teaching about
God must be resisted. His world is one in which claims about a crucified
messiah are not merely strange, but dangerous. The Hebrew Scriptures
themselves warn against false prophets and idolatry. Saul believes he is
being faithful.

And it is precisely there – in the midst of sincere conviction – that God
interrupts him.

On the road to Damascus, Saul is stopped by a light that does not
simply illuminate, but overwhelms. He falls to the ground, blinded,
undone. And the voice he hears does not accuse him of ignorance, but
asks a question: “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?”

Not: Why are you wrong?
But: Why are you harming me?

This is the first theological shock of the story. Jesus identifies himself
completely with the community Saul is persecuting. To harm them is to
harm Christ. The risen Jesus is not distant from human suffering; he is
bound to it. This is deeply incarnational theology. Even in glory, Christ
remains vulnerable.

Jeremiah’s call story helps us understand what is happening here. God
says to the prophet, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you.”
Jeremiah resists – he is too young, not ready – but God insists. God’s call
precedes understanding, consent, and preparedness. Paul’s conversion
is not God changing God’s mind about Saul; it is God claiming what has
always been known.

From a Jewish perspective, this resonates strongly. The Hebrew Bible is
full of reluctant prophets – Moses, Jeremiah, Jonah – interrupted by God,
not affirmed in their comfort. Paul stands squarely in this prophetic
lineage. His experience on the Damascus road is not a rejection of
Israel’s God, but a destabilising encounter with that same God, now
revealed in the crucified and risen Jesus.

Notice what follows. Saul is blinded. He must be led by the hand. The
man who thought he could see clearly is rendered dependent. This is not
punishment; it is transformation. God does not merely correct Saul’s
theology – God reshapes his way of seeing.

And God does so through community. Ananias, understandably fearful,
is sent to Saul. Healing comes not directly from heaven, but through
human touch, through obedience offered with trembling. Conversion
here is not private enlightenment; it is reconciliation.

The Gospels are full of similar encounters with Jesus. Ten cured lepers
are sent to show themselves to the high priests in the temple of
Jerusalem. Their healing is not a private personal event – a proper re
introduction into the community is needed. Also, two blind men (in
Matthew’s gospel) cry out, “Have mercy on us, Son of David.” Jesus
asks them a startling question: “Do you believe that I am able to do
this?” Faith is not certainty; it is trust enough to ask for mercy. I wish to
challenge us today: if we ever think that our faith is so strong that we can
(or do) claim high ground or judge from our perspective others, I would
invite us to re-consider and see if this is what we are called to have.
When two blind men’s sight is restored, they are told not to make a
spectacle of it – because true healing is not about self-display, but about
reorientation.

How come, therefore, this feast day might inspire us?
First, it challenges triumphalist readings of Paul’s writings. Paul’s
conversion is not a warrant for Christian superiority over Judaism. The
Church has often misused this story to imply that Judaism is blind and
Christianity is sighted – a reading that has fuelled centuries of
antisemitism. That is a distortion of both Scripture and history and
particularly important today, in the International Holocaust Memorial
Day. The apostles, seating on the thrones and judging the tribes of Israel
should never be seen as an image of triumph or superiority, but as a call
to children of God of all covenants to live faithfully the true calling that
God has entrusted to them.

Paul never ceased being a Jew. He understood his experience as a
calling within Israel’s story, not a rejection of it. For Christians, this
demands humility. Our faith does not cancel God’s covenant with the
Jewish people. God does not revoke promises.

Second, Paul’s conversion invites us to examine our own certainties.
Saul was wrong, not because he lacked conviction, but because his
conviction had become violent. This should make us cautious about any
faith – including our own – that becomes incapable of self-critique, or acts
from the place of hatred, violence or exclusion. Conversion, in its
deepest sense, is not about changing labels, but about turning again
toward the living God.

In a world fractured by religious conflict, Paul’s story speaks powerfully
to interfaith dialogue. True dialogue does not begin with winning
arguments, with proving who is wright and who is wrong, nor with trying
to find the lowest possible denominator, but with listening – with the
possibility that God may interrupt us through the other. Ananias and Saul
both have to risk encounter. Healing happens on the far side of fear.
Psalm 67 gives us the horizon: “Let the nations be glad and sing for joy.”
Not because they are all the same, but because God’s justice and mercy
are wide enough for difference. Interfaith engagement is not about
erasing boundaries, but about seeking the common good under God’s
light.

Finally, this feast speaks to the Church’s mission. Paul emerges from
blindness not triumphant, but humbled, changed, and sent. His life
becomes one long response to grace. Conversion is not a moment to
commemorate, but a posture to inhabit.

As we gather at the altar today, we do so as people who are always, in
some way, on the road – sometimes confident, sometimes blind, always
in need of mercy. The Christ who interrupts Saul still interrupts us: in our
assumptions, our fears, our inherited hostilities.

And when Christ does so, he does not destroy us.
Christ calls us by our name.
Christ restores our sight.
And he sends us – not to conquer, but to witness; not to dominate, but to
love.
May we, like Paul, be brave enough to be interrupted by grace, realising
that nobody is beyond repair or without hope.
Amen.