I serve a church named for one of our great Christian apostles, Paul of Tarsus. But Paul began as a violent anti-Christian religious extremist. From the perspective of the small Christian community at that time, Paul was a religious terrorist. He took part in the mob murder of Stephen, the first Christian martyr. Sometime afterward he was commissioned to travel to Damascus to seize people from the Jesus movement and to bring them back to face religious persecution. Paul was certain that what he was doing was divinely sanctioned. He is not unlike many violent religious extremists of our own day.
On the way to execute his commission, something happened to Paul. He was blinded by a light from heaven, and he heard the voice of Jesus challenging him. He was changed. He changed from persecutor to follower.
It is worth pondering what it took for Paul to trust his own change of heart. Everything he had ever believed was challenged. His whole public reputation, his community of colleagues, his identity and mission were all reversed by a change of view. That is so hard to do. It is so costly. Everyone who used to be his friend would now be his enemy. And why would anyone in the Jesus community receive him or accept him after what he had done. It was an extraordinary risk for him to trust the light and the voice and to change everything about his fundamental belief orientation.
Right now, we in Arkansas are asking at least two senators in a group of 10 to have a Paul experience. We are asking them to see the light and to change directions. We are asking them why they are making choices that will hurt their neighbors and injure the state that they serve. We are asking them to change the way they see reality.
Last week a super-majority of Arkansas state senators voted 25-10 to fund our state's Medicaid budget. In our peculiar system, that's not enough. Funding programs need a super-super-majority of 75 percent -- 27-8 -- to pass.
Unless two of these 10 senators change their votes, a cascade of problems will follow.
• A quarter of a million of our neighbors will lose health insurance.
• Economic activity of nearly $1 billion a year goes away.
• Arkansas' budget is in the hole at least $143 million next year.
• Budget losses will continue; at least $438 million the next five years.
• Services to at-risk children will be cut.
• Programs for foster children further strained.
• Neighbors with developmental disabilities will not get help.
• Needed highway programs will go unfunded.
• Hospitals will lose payment for thousands of patients they are required to see.
• Some rural hospitals will go under.
• People will be sicker, less able to work, and some will die.
• And, education at every level will be cut.
Nevertheless, it will be hard for these senators to do the right thing and change their vote. They don't believe in government health programs. They don't like government spending. Lots of their voters don't either. It will take a change of heart and a change of identity. Pray that they will see the light.
It's not like defunding Arkansas Works would decrease any federal deficit. The money is already allocated. Arkansas' share will just go to other states who participate in the program.
Defunding will create deficits in Arkansas. And real suffering. And economic stagnation.
It will be as hard for these senators to change their vote as it was for Paul. Their supporters will cry "betrayal!" People who hate government so much that they don't care what suffering they create in destroying it will cry "foul!" Everyone who used to be their friend will now be their enemy.
That's where the rest of us come in. We have to be as generous as Ananias. When Paul was blinded by the light of his conversion, a Christian follower named Ananias also had a vision. He heard the Lord's voice telling him to go to a house in Damascus, find Paul, and lay hands on him so that Paul might regain his sight.
Ananias answered predictably. I know who this man is. He's out to kill people like me. But Ananias trusted the vision, found Paul, called him "brother, and laid hands on Paul, restoring his sight.
If two senators change and do what is right, the rest of us, the majority, have to welcome them with similar generosity.
Commentary on 04/19/2016