These Pretzels Are Making Me Thirsty

I had a famous reading in church yesterday.  It inspired me so, that I wrote the sermon to go with it.  Maybe someone will want me to preach it sometime.

These Pretzels Are Making Me Thirsty

By Greg Turley

You remember the line from the 90s TV show Seinfeld…. Kramer gets a line in a Woody Allen film ….These Pretzels…. are making me thirsty. 

The gang spends a bit of time trying to capture the essence of this.  No context is given for the line.  At one point George takes a try, and Kramer says  “No, no, you don’t know how to act.”

We can’t agree on how to say a funny line from a TV show, so how are we to determine how to say perhaps the most famous line in the Bible. 

Now it’s not “In the beginning” or “God so loved the world”.  This famous phrase is one spoken directly from above.  It is one directed at one person, who appears to be the only person directly affected by it.  It was said to one of the most influential persons in our Christian heritage. 

Without it, we might not be here today.  It changed the world.

“Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?”

The great conversion of the Apostle Paul on the Road to Damascus.  Acts 9: 1-20.  One of those pivotal points in our church history.  But what did it really sounds like?

Remember, Saul was “breathing threats and murder”, wanting to tie up and haul in to Jerusalem those belonging to the Way.  He was not just doing this for meanness, he desired to get the letter of the law on his side, and had the authority from the chief priests to prove it.

But imagine Jesus looking down at this unlikely target.  Like a high tech camera, the cross-hairs came into focus.  But instead of zapping Saul, Jesus calls out to him. 

Was it a threatening call?  Maybe.  It caused Saul to fall to the ground.  It blinded him for three days and caused him not to eat or drink during that time.  Imagine the sickness it would take you to not eat or drink for three days.

Saul did not know Jesus before this time.  Or did he?  He must have recognized the voice, because he answered “Who are you Lord?” What does the voice of the Lord sounds like?

“I am Jesus whom you are persecuting.  But get up and enter the city , and you will be told what you are to do”.

Contrary to popular thoughts about a deep-voiced, lightning-hurling giant, I imagine that this voice that Saul heard would be one that might be all too familiar to him.  Someone who knew him by name.  Someone who knew just what to say to generate a response.  Someone who just might not be so unexpected after all.

You might think of how you might react to hearing from a parent, from a friend, from someone in your past.  A person who knows you well.

In short, someone who might see something in us that we don’t even see in ourselves.  The Lord said of Paul “He is an instrument whom I have chosen to bring my name before Gentiles and kings and before the people of Israel”.  We say all the time that God sees everything and has a plan for us.   When this voice comes out of the sky,  or like to Ananias, in a dream or a vision, is it really that unfamiliar of a voice that we will hear?

“Saul, Saul”.  That’s my name!  “Why do you persecute me?”  The classic leading question.  When did you stop breaking the law?  It gives the answer before there is a chance to respond.  I know who you are and I saw what you did.

You’ve heard the expression , could have knocked me over with a feather.  In fact this did knock Saul over.   Nowhere to hide.

“But Get Up” – “You will be told what to do”. 

God speaks to us so be ready to listen.    When the Lord chooses to speak to us, he will call us by name.  He will know what he is talking about and so will you.  There will be no doubt as to what is to be done. 

Get Up.

Regain your sight.  Be filled with the Holy Spirit.  And Proclaim Jesus as the Son of God.  

Don’t say no one ever told you so.