Living Among the Tombs

Luke 8:26-39 

Jesus had been teaching in his “home” territory of Galilee. It is in this region, throughout the gospels, Jesus spends most of his time teaching and preaching. But then he does something strange, he gets in a boat and heads across the sea into Gentile territory. The scriptures never tell us why, we do not know what Jesus was thinking, or what his intentions were when he crossed the sea. In fact we do not even know what he intended to do, because once he got there he is detained before he gets anywhere and is asked to leave before he can even move much past the shores of the sea.

While he is crossing the chaotic waters of the sea, a storm arises. The sea swells, the wind kicks up, and the waves overwhelm the small boat. As the storm rages on all those who are in the boat begin to fear they are in danger. And just when all is lost, Jesus’ speaks and the wind, and the waves to cease. He speaks the storm out of existence. Jesus has power over the storm and the sea. And all those in the boat now know he has authority over the powers of all chaos, and destruction, which is what the sea would have represented to all those who bore witness to Jesus’ actions that day.

As soon as he gets out of the boat, a man intersects his path, basically blocking his way. The man is naked and is clearly not in his right mind. We are told that he had been living among the tombs; that he was possessed by a myriad of demons and is so unsafe that the people of the town have kept him chained and is being constantly monitored by guards.  This man is living outside the community. He is cut off from friends; he is cut off from family; he is cut off from himself. He is imprisoned both mentally and physically. He is not to be trusted and must be kept constantly under surveillance and chained least he do something to disturb or disrupt the community.

This man inhabits the grave, he is among the tombs. He is a Zombie; not quite living and not quite dead. He is one of the living-yet dead; one of the dead yet still alive. He lives yet he is walking among the dead. He is living in death.

If there was ever a symbol of oppression, enslavement, and dentation; of someone who is cast out, unwanted, or sent away, in this gospel this man is it. This man is all of these, he is oppressed inside and out. He is enslaved to the demons within and is chained by those around him. He lives under guard. Nobody wants him near him, he is not allowed within the walls and he is cast away. He might as well be dead, and in fact the dead are the only ones who will allow him to live among them, because, being dead and all, they have no say. 

 The man calls out to Jesus, naming him as the son of the Most High God. That is the demon sees Jesus for who he truly is. Jesus is not merely a rabbi, not simply a good teacher, he is more, so much more. He is the son of the one and only living God who stood on the watery chaos before all time and spoke the universe into existence at the dawn of all things. Jesus just proved he can speak a storm out of existence and then suddenly this man, this demon, declares he is the one who spoke all things in to existence. All those on the boat just bore witness to the authority Jesus has over the powers of chaos and destruction and then here comes one who declares Jesus is the one through whom all things were spoken into existence. Even the demons, in gentile territory know who Jesus is and the power and authority with which he comes.

Jesus asks the demon his name and they declare themselves to be many. Calling themselves “legion,” which is a unit of measuring the amassed enemy forces of Rome. They are not only declaring their numbers but they are declaring that they see themselves as a force standing in opposition. In case there is any confusion as to their goal and their purpose here, they present themselves as enemies of Jesus, as well as the man whom they inhabit.

Jesus commands them to leave and they set to bargaining. “Do not send us into the abyss,” they say. The word they use is interesting it is not only the word used for the place of the dead, Sheol, the pit of the old testament writings, but it is the word used to describe the chaotic waters of pre-creation; the chaotic forces of “the watery deep” over which the Spirit of God hovers before the beginning of all things. It is also the very word used just a few paragraphs before to describe the wind and waters of the sea which have just obeyed Jesus. So the demons ask to not be thrown into the “the deep,” the waters (which obey even Jesus) and ask to instead be allowed to go into this nearby herd of pigs. Which they promptly use to, now get this, throw themselves into the sea.

Jesus has control over the waters, has control over the demons, can allow them to go where he chooses, and in the end has control over where they end up. Jesus ultimately has authority over all things. All that frightens, all that destroys, all that sets itself against him, all that declares itself to be an enemy him and those who follow him or come to him for wholeness and healing, Jesus has authority over it all. There is nothing with more power; nothing over which Jesus cannot exercise control or over which he does not have authority. Jesus has it all under control . . . literally.

So now enter the swineherds; they saw what happened and are none too happy about it. Jesus in the very act of setting this man free of all that bound and enslaved him, has ruined their economics. Jesus has disturbed the status quo, and “GDP” of that region. In Jesus’ economy, bringing one person to wholeness and healing, setting the captive free, restoring a person to community and allowing them to live into who they were created to be, is more important than the “bottom line” every time.

These swineherds, don’t see things quite the same way. Jesus has disrupted their lives and their way of life and this makes them afraid. Their power and their privilege is being threatened and they must sound the alarm. They go into the city and the country to let everyone know what kind of funny business is happening down by the lake near the tombs. They return with a crowd, armed with torches and pitch forks, not really but they come with the same intent, that is to drive out this man who is threatening their way of life, who sees the freedom of this one man as more valuable than the economics of the region. They intend to send him away. (As if they have the power or authority to do that to one who has power over the forces of chaos and creation.)

When they arrive, they find Jesus teaching and the man has been set free of his demons. He has been cleansed and made whole. He has been restored to sanity, restored to himself. For the first time, perhaps in his whole life he is truly alive. He is clothed, in his right mind and he is sitting at Jesus feet. That is his is sitting in the place of a disciple, listening and learning.

When we first see this man he is a symbol of oppression, enslavement, detention, of all who are outcasts, tossed away, treated with fear, and abandoned in our society, he is now a symbol of redemption and holiness. He has found wholeness and healing, community and acceptance. He is free. He is has been released to be himself. And best of all he is sitting at Jesus’ feet the place of one who is willing and ready to learn, of one who is a disciple. His life has been transformed, turned upside down, no turned right side up, by Jesus and by sitting as a disciple, he is committing to be one who will learn from the one who can do this for him. This is what holiness looks like people, this is what we Nazarenes want for people, for ourselves and for everyone who lives in our world; wholeness, healing, restoration, redemption, complete abandonment of all that once was and a deep commitment to the things of Jesus and all he stands for – holiness, of heart and life.

The swineherds and all who returned with them see this, and as if watching Jesus cast a legion of demons into a herd of pigs and then seeing that herd of pigs throw themselves off a cliff into the sea was not scary enough, apparently seeing a once raging lunatic, in his right mind, unshackled from all that once bound him, set free from all that enslaved him, sitting peacefully in his right mind, listening and learning from the Jewish rabbi from across the lake, is the most frightening thing they have seen all day. And they insist that Jesus leave immediately. Jesus, not being one to stay someplace he is not wanted gets in his boat to sails back across the sea.

The man begs to go with him, to continue to listen, to continue to learn. Jesus is the one who set him free, this is the one who made him whole, who restored his life, who rescued him and saved him from literal demons, he wants to go where ever Jesus goes. He will follow Jesus to the ends of the earth. He will follow Jesus along any path down which Jesus might go. He will even go across the very abyss that just swallowed up the demons who have been tormenting him, if that is where Jesus was going.

But instead of allowing this man to follow him, Jesus sends him away. Sends him back into his town, back to his community, back to all the people who knew him as the naked, lunatic who lived among the tombs, who needed to be watched and guarded, who needed to be chained and kept track of lest he bring his chaos into their lives. Jesus sends this man back to his friends and his family, to live among them. To show them what it means to be restored, to be made whole, to be saved by Jesus. Jesus sends him into his community to tell them what Jesus had done, to be a living reminder, a living proclamation, a living witness to the way which Jesus could change lives, to the healing which Jesus could bring, to the restoration Jesus offers.

In this passage Jesus stands against the forces of death and chaos. Jesus shows us that he can bring restoration and wholeness. Jesus declares his authority over all the powers of darkness and oppression in this world, pushes back all the enslaves, and all that is an enemy to light and love, to wholeness and healing, to freedom and restoration. In this passage Jesus stands for all that is right and good, stands for freedom and against oppression, Jesus pulls close those who are marginalized, who society pushes away, to all those who are told to keep out, to stay away, you are dangerous, to all who are chained and imprisoned, who are forced to live lives of surveillance and guarded least they bring their chaos into our mundane lives.

The swineherds and the crowds, stand against all this. They are upset because Jesus commits this radical act of moving to restore this man to wholeness and community, to give him his life back and free him from slavery. Jesus has messed with their economics. They are fixated on the money and loss of income which has occurred because Jesus reclaimed this man’s personhood and his dignity. They would rather ask Jesus to leave than to allow Jesus’ radical inclusion to infect the rest of their community or the rest of their world.

When this man is faced with his own healing and the restoration of his own life, his first reaction to draw as close to Jesus as possible. To sit in Jesus’ holy presence as long as possible, to go where Jesus goes and be where ever Jesus is. And he is allowed to sit, learn, and to draw close but he is then send out, send back to his home, back to his community back to his neighborhood. He is sent out to bear witness to share the goodness he has gained with those around him. To bring wholeness, to bring love, to bring freedom and restoration to all the places he goes.

One of the hardest ideas for us to grasp a hold of as Chrstians is that holiness contaminates the brokenness of the world around us by bringing wholeness and healing where ever it goes, not the other way around. Too long Christians have held themselves apart lest the world around us infects us. But we come offering healing, we come standing for justice, we come shouting that the slaves are set free, that those who are sent away are embraced, that those who are cast away are invited in. We are here to unchain the captive, to bring freedom to the imprisoned. We are here to speak of the radical love of Jesus, who dares to love the naked, the chained, the imprisoned, the enslaved, the outcast, the foreigner, widow, the orphan and all those who are forgotten, ignored, and abandoned in the world around us. The brokenness of the world does not infect us. We are the contagion that spreads through the world infect it with wholeness and healing of Jesus Christ.

Jesus frees this naked, lunatic who lives among the tombs and gives him a place at his feet among his disciples. He brings the one who is cast out close. Jesus give him a place when he had not place. He then sends this man out to bear witness, to share with his friends and his neighbors what Jesus had done. No one is outside the love of Jesus.

We are called to bear witness to all Jesus has done, to declare what Jesus declares to go back to our cities, out towns, into our neighborhoods, sharing the radical love of Jesus with those who we meet by loving everyone, by showing the radical inclusive love we experienced in Jesus with anyone, with everyone one we meet.

The Comfort of the Trinity

John 16:12-15

As the daughter of an army officer, saying, “Goodbye.” Is something I know how to do. Before I was 12 years old I lived in eight different houses, five different states, and one other country. And have added three more states, and six more houses to that list since I have become an adult. As of three years ago, every day I live in the parsonage, is the longest I have ever lived in one place.

One of my very early memories is from when I was four years old. I remember leaving the apartment in Germany, the first place I remember living, and being taken to some friend’s house. It was my last night. That night when we went to bed, I said, ”Goodbye,” to the first of many friends I would remember saying, “Good bye,” to throughout the course of my lifetime. We gave hugs and said our, “good byes.” And my four year old brain tried to grasp what it meant to never see somebody again. Forever ,was beyond me, but the permanence of these final moments in Germany were etched in my young mind and the poignancy of them are not lost on my adult self. I would say my farewells again in Oklahoma when we left for North Carolina, then again when we move off of the army base. They would be said again when we left North Carolina, then again when we left the first house we lived in, in Maryland. I said then, said, “Good bye,” to many people and to my whole childhood when I left to come up here to Quincy, for college. And when I left for NTS, I was leaving all my friends once again. And it continued to happen when I graduated from Seminary and I took my first Church in Kansas and then again when I came here 10 years ago.

In the pre-social media, pre-email, pre-everyday internet world, when getting on the “World Wide Web” took a special disc and involved what can only be described as irritatingly grating sounds of the 80s and early 90s, of my childhood, “Goodbye,” was pretty much forever.

To say I know how to say, “Goodbye,” is an understatement. It was such a reality in our lives growing up that the first time we lived somewhere for more than four years, my mother started getting restless and ill content and it took her a while to realize that her mind and her body did not remember how to stay put. It took her while to settle down and realize where they were in Maryland to stay and it would actually really and truly be home. Learning how to stay was probably as hard for us, as learning how to say, “Good bye” is for other people.

This passage, which we have before us this morning, is a part of Jesus’ farewell speech to his disciples. Jesus is saying, “Good bye,” to his disciples and preparing them for his death and his ultimate departure from this earth. As Jesus is speaking, I can imagine the disciples sitting there shifting uncomfortably. Passing nervous sideways glances at on another across the table, “What is he getting at?” “What does he mean?” “Is he saying what I think he is saying?” “Did he just say he is leaving us?”

As the speech moves on, you can see the disciples shifting from foot to foot and becoming noticeably distressed. Jesus clearly telling them that he is leaving them. He is going away, never to return. What is going on?

This speech would probably have made them all feel more than a little uncomfortable. And would give them reason to worry, and make them a little bit anxious. What does it mean to be a disciple of an absentee teacher? How can they continue to be disciples without anyone to disciple them? What will the future hold? What is the way forward?

When I think about my Dad, I think about all the, “Goodbyes” we said over the years, when I went to college, when I went to Seminary, every time I came to visit and left, every time he visited and then left. He would give me a big hug, kiss me on the check and say, “Love ya.” Every time, but that last time, but I know if he could have he would have given each us big hug, a kiss on the cheek and one last, “Love ya.”  Goodbye. This is Jesus’ hug, and kiss on the cheek–to his disciples. His last and final “Love ya.”

In this farewell speech, Jesus gives us a glimpse of the Triune God. Jesus explains, just as all that the Father has, belongs to Jesus, Jesus has all that is Fathers, and the Spirit will declare all that has not yet been revealed to them when the time comes. The Spirit will be their comforter and their advocate and their teacher, sharing all that belongs to the Father and declaring the things to come about Jesus.

Jesus tells us that he has much to say, but it cannot all be said here and now, some things must be said later, when they can be heard and understood. And this later task will be left to the Spirit and the Spirit can do this because the Spirit knows what Jesus has to say. The Spirit will declare to them what the Spirit hears from Jesus. The Spirit will declare the things that are to come, will share the things Jesus has yet to say, but cannot say here and now. They will not be left hanging, forever not knowing. The Spirit will tell them what they need to know and in doing so will join them in glorifying Jesus.

Jesus is saying, Good bye, but he was not just saying Good bye, peace, and then just leaving his disciples. He is letting them know that he is leaving but not leaving them alone. He tries to explain what is about to happen and prepare them to go on in his absence. And Since Jesus is a part of the Triune Godhead, Jesus can do something no other person before him or sense has been able to do, that is leave completely, but not really be gone.

Following the resurrection, Jesus ascended to Heaven but the Spirit remained. One member of the Triune God left, but another stayed behind, so although Jesus left the disciples, he did not leave them alone. It is this going away but remaining as the Spirit, which Jesus is explaining in this passage. Jesus wants to comfort his disciples by assuring them before he leaves, that although he is leaving, they will not be alone. They will not have to sort this out on by themselves. They will not be left to their own devices. The very Spirit of God which spoke out of the Burning bush, lead the Israelites through the desert, and comforted Elijah in the silence, would come to them.

We live in a scary world. It seems we cannot go more than a month or two with a school shooting, or a house of worship being bombed or some other tragically terrifying event happening in the world around us. In fact we live in a society which capitalizes on our fear. Car alarms, home security systems, schools holding active shooter drills, there are guards at the elementary schools and whole states where the general populace is so afraid that they enact conceal and carry laws.

And least we here in Cambridge, come to believe that this is a secular mindset and something that does not affect we Christians, I was recently speaking with a pastor friend at district assembly and she was telling me that she recently found out that nearly a quarter of her congregation carry guns into worship each Sunday. We are afraid, afraid to let our children play in our neighborhoods, afraid to walk at night, afraid of what cold possibly happen should we let our guard down. We live continually trying to figure out what unexpected atrocity we might need to come to expect next.

When Jesus looked at his disciples that evening, he did not just looked those there in the room, but the eyes of our savior looks down to through the centuries and looks at us and says, You are not alone. Be comforted, I am not leaving you alone. I have not left you alone.  In a world where loss, anxiety, and fear are great there is no shortage of those in our midst who are in need of reassurance, the kind of reassurance Jesus gives his disciples here.

Jesus lives continually in community. The Godhead, the very Triune nature of God assures that Jesus is never alone. And Jesus speaking from this place of belonging, and communal security, tell us that he has come to earth, walked with and has in all ways experienced the aloneness which comes from being human and so he assures us he does not leave alone. We are not alone.

Jesus is not alone because the Father, Son and Spirit are one, three together forever participating in the relationship we call the Trinity. And as a part of this Triune nature, Jesus assures us although Jesus is no longer with us, God is not leaving us, God will remain, the Spirit will walk with us, guide us direct us, comfort and lead us.

Jesus looks at us, Jesus sees we are frightened, anxious and lonely and he reaches out to us in his final hour lets us know that we are not alone, we are never alone. The Spirit is with us, guiding us, leading us and saying all the things to us Jesus would say to us, if he were here, because in reality through the Spirit’s presence, Jesus is here. God is here.   

Here in this world, that seems so far from God and all things that are “godly”, God is here. 2,000 year ago, Jesus may have returned to the Father, but God did not leave this earth, the Spirit remained, leading, guiding, teaching, and joining us in worship of God. We are not alone. God is here, always here with us, forever with us.

Pentecost: The Miracle of the Church: Acts 2:1-21

The Resurrection is the heart of our belief. The Resurrection defines the primary belief of the Church. We are Christians because Christ rose from the dead. It is the single most important event in all history. Then 50 days later is Pentecost. Pentecost is the day which gives definition to the Church. The Church is who the Church is BECAUSE of Pentecost. The events which occurred on the Day of Pentecost, following the death, resurrection and ascension of Jesus Christ, are the events, which put into motion the very existence of the Church today. It is true that we are not the Church without the Resurrection, but it is also true that we are not the Church without Pentecost.

Pentecost was a Jewish feast. One of the seven major feast of the Jewish year. So when the scripture says, “When the day of Pentecost came. . .”  It is not saying, “When the day which would later be called Pentecost came. . .” It was Pentecost, when the events we as Christian have come to associate with Pentecost occurred.

Pentecost was a day the disciples would have known and would have celebrated. Pentecost takes place 50 days after Passover, which means that the events of Pentecost occurred 50 days after the Resurrection. It was a harvest festival, also known as the Feast of Weeks. The events we have come to associate with Pentecost are not what the day of Pentecost was originally about, but because they occurred on this well-known Jewish holy day, we call the events that occurred that day, ‘The Pentecost’. So on the seventh Sunday after Easter; we celebrate the Christian holy day of Pentecost.

Before Jesus ascended, he promised to return, which is what we celebrated and remembered last week on ascension Sunday, but he also made another promise. Jesus also promised that he would send the Spirit to us. In John’s gospel we are promised that the Spirit will be our advocate, but elsewhere we are told the Spirit is sent to guide and to give us the power needed to carry on God’s work here on Earth.

The day of Pentecost marks the day that the Church became the Church. Not only is it the day that the Spirit fills believers for the first time; but the events of this day result in the first post-resurrection converts to Christianity. This is the first time the disciples go out and share the Good News of the Gospel of Jesus Christ with people who had not previously followed Jesus while he was here on earth. The Church really truly becomes the Church when it is reaching out to the world around it and drawing others in.

The book of Act is a written record of the beginnings of the Church. Throughout the Easter Season we have looked at several of the beginnings found in Acts. The beginnings of the disciples going out beyond Jerusalem to share the truth of Jesus and the resurrection, the first Gentile Christians, the first Gentile Christian community, the first movements of the gospel into Europe which is representative of the Gospel moving beyond the Mediterranean and truly moving into all the world. But of all these beginnings, which are recorded throughout the book of Acts, begin with one event, which occurs on the day of Pentecost. This is the beginning of all the other beginnings we have studied these past few weeks.

Right before he ascended into Heaven, Jesus, tells the disciples to go to Jerusalem and to wait for him there. So they went to Jerusalem and waited. Waiting is not easy but sometimes we are called to wait. But they did not just wait. They did not just sit around and do nothing. Act tells us, following the Ascension; they went immediately to Jerusalem and devoted themselves to prayer. They waited and they prayed. But not only did they pray, but they also did the things they needed to do to make sure that they would have leaders among them. They elected from amongst themselves someone who would serve as an apostle in Judas’ stead.  They came together, prayed, waited and prepared themselves to be ready to receive the power Jesus promised. They did not sit around idle wondering when God would come. They did what they knew to do, while they waited. They prayed and prepared themselves, so they were ready when the Spirit came upon them. So when the day of Pentecost came when the Holy Spirit would give them, they were ready to receive the power Jesus had promised.

As they were gathered that day, they were waiting and they were praying and the wind came, and the tongues of fire alighted on them, they burst out of that room and flowed into the streets. And then a miracle occurred among them and through them. They were able to speak languages they did not know and people heard them speak in languages they were not speaking and everyone no matter what language they spoke or where they were from was able to hear the truth of the Gospel of Jesus Christ that day.

Once they were ready, once they had prayed, once they had prepared themselves, the spirit came and every last one of them, who had been doing all these things, went out from that room. They came busting out from that room; they flooded into the streets and shared about Jesus.

They all went into the streets and shared the truth of the gospel, not just Peter; not just Peter, James and John; not just the 12; all of them, all 120 of them left that room, poured into the streets and began to share the love of Jesus Christ with the people who were there. All 120 of them, men and woman, everyone. Not just the ones who were good as speaking (and come on Peter never showed any speaking skills prior to this day). Not just the ones who were trained, not just the ones who were good at it, not just the ones who were “gifted” at evangelism, not just the extroverts, not just the young ones, not just the mature ones, not just . . . name a stipulation . . . not just those. All of them went into the streets and spoke to all who would hear.

And because they were praying, because they were ready, because they were prepared, when the spirit came, all of them went out, because all of them were filled, all of them were empowered, every last one of them. This was not a miracle for just one or two; just for the leaders, just for the best or the brightest, or the most spiritual, this was a miracle that came up on all of them.

Sometimes it is easier to think about God using a special person, a person who in themselves has somehow managed to harness the true power God can give, a prayer warrior, a deeply spiritual saint of the Church, a very pious priest, you know Mother Theresa, but this was not a miracle for Peter, or John or James, or Martha, or Mary, or Johanna, but it was a miracle for Peter and John, James and Martha and Mary and Johanna; for all of them. The Spirit came up each of them, everyone one of them. Each one was empowered so that the whole could be empowered. God came upon each one, and God came upon THEM, the whole of them, gave them the Holy Spirit. This was a miracle that came upon each of them AND this was a miracle that came up the group of them. God empowered the Church. They were gathered faithfully, they were worshiping and celebrating a festival God had called for God’s people to celebrate, they were praying, they were ready, they were prepared and the power of the Spirit came up THEM. This was a miracle for the whole Church, not part of it, all of it, not particular pieces of it, but entirety of it, the whole. God promises to empower not just individuals, not just special people, but the Church, all those who gather.

This means the Spirit empowers each of us; this means the Spirit empowers all of us, this means Spirit empowers US (together). We are the Church. I am not the church; you are not the church, at least not on our own. We are the Church together, the Spirit falls on the body of believers, all together, and it is together the real work of God happens in this world.

I have heard people tell me that, “I’m a Christian, I just don’t go to Church.” It is popular thinking to believe that you can be a lone Christian. You can believe in God. You can pray. You can do good things. But that you do not need to be a part of the gathered body of Christ, you don’t need to actually “go to” Church or be a part of a “church.” It is popular to believe that you go at this Christian thing alone. The fact of the matter is you cannot. There is no such thing as a rogue Christian, out there trekking through the world alone just you and Jesus against the world. God calls us to the Church, to be a body made of many members, made of all the different parts that it takes to be a body. God intends for us to function together. And this is most clearly and distinctly seen on the day of Pentecost. On the day of Pentecost, we do not talk about John receiving the Spirit. We do not talk about the power James received. We do not celebrate how Peter was able to single handedly was able to speak and 3,000 people were added to their number that day because of what Peter did.

We celebrate what happen in and through the Church, the gathered body of Christ, the believers. We celebrate how the Spirit came up the Church. We do not celebrate a miracle performed by a disciple or even a small group of them.  We celebrate because the Spirit came upon the body of believers gathered in that room there in Jerusalem.

We celebrate the forming of the Church. People call Pentecost the birthday of the Church, because it was on Pentecost, when the Spirit came upon the gathered believers and they became the Church. When we celebrate Pentecost, we are celebrating that God called the Church into existence. We are celebrating that we are empowered to come together to do the work and the will of Christ in this world. We are celebrating that God does not call us to do this alone. We celebrating that we are called together. We are called to gather, we are called to worship, we are called to pray, we are called to prepare ourselves and do what we know to do to make ourselves ready because it is when we are together that God empowers us, all of us. Not just the best among us, not just the greatest among us, but all of us. That means none of us is left out. That means that we are in this together. God empowers all of us. God has called all of us; God has called us to work together, to live this Christian life together. God has empowered us to BE the Church; to work together, to do the work and the will of Christ in this world. Let us come together, let us be the people God is calling us to be, let us be the people God is empowering us to be together! Let the Holy Spirit come upon US!

Looking in all the Wrong Places

Acts 16:9-15

One day in the middle of April about 14 years ago. I was tired. I was very uncomfortable. My feet were sore and swollen; in fact I had not worn real shoes in over two months, and was forced to either wear my Tevas for a pair of flip flops everywhere I went. I am sure those of you who have known me for years will find this hard to believe, but I at this particular time in my life I would preach in flip-flops. I had been to the hospital, oh, I don’t know, 5 times already and had been sent home each and every time. So I was well beyond being the “the girl who cried wolf.”  To top it all off I was feeling this way 8 days longer than I had expected, because I was naive and thought “due dates” actually meant something.

I had been tired of this whole grand adventure 6-8 weeks earlier. These final 8 days had seemed simply and absolutely unbearable. I woke up that morning, just like every morning an uncountable number of days, feeling worse than I had on any day previously. I knew that if things did not move forward by tomorrow I would be “evaluated” and a plan would be put in place, but having to endure one more day seemed nearly unthinkable.

Everything I did that morning seemed unthinkable. I remember stopping at one point in the day and catching myself on a door jamb and thinking I can not move. I am just going to sit down right here and not move until I am done with this. Later that morning I was on the phone with my mother and making Mike an early lunch before he headed off to class and I snapped his head off for apparently no reason (it was at this point when my mother began to wonder if today would be the day, but my mother did not say anything to me at the time).

After Mike headed off to class I layed down on the couch and became instantly aware of exactly how uncomfortable I had become. But being a woman who had been to the hospital too many times, I ignored it and tried to take a nap. Around 2 I decided that perhaps this was serious and called my husband who by that time was so intimately aware of what it meant when Kaza thought that “this is it,” that he finished teaching class and promptly showed up at the house at 3:30, finding me there obviously in labor and apologized for waiting. We still were not sure if we should risk going into the hospital only to be sent home again and waited until about 5 to call my Dr and ask what we should do. She told us to hold off a little longer. At this time we decided to watch a movie someone had lent us. I don’t remember much about that movie. Sometime after the movie was over I can remember looking over at Mike, absolutely exasperated and asking, “What exactly are we waiting for?” To which he responded, “I think we are waiting for that.” 

We loaded ourselves up in the car and started on the 20 min ride to the hospital. I had never thought that 20 minutes was too far to be from the hospital, but let me tell you when you are in full labor, and seat-belted into a vehicle the thing can not move fast enough to make even a short trip to hospital bearable. I was checked into the hospital, and ready to go by about 8:30pm. I remember at about 10:30 or 11:00 I thought, I am really going to have this baby today!  And the fact of the matter is I was only slightly off. Most first labors are slow ordeals because this is the first time your body has done this, so I did not actually have Cidra on the 25^th of April in fact she was born at 12:56 am on April 26^th.

One of the things I never knew before I had children was that mothers swap these stories in varying degrees of detail countless times over the course of their lives. Mothers love to tell people the stories of how their children came into this world. And the glory of it is no two stories are the same, every mother has stories about how their children came to be a part of their family. It is something all mothers have in common but each story is unique. Sharing these stories brings us joy and fills our hearts with the inexpressible feelings we had the first time we held that wonderful little miracle of God in our arms.

As I read over this story in the book of Acts this week, I could not help but think that this is yet another birth story. Acts is full of birth stories. Through the account of Peter and Cornelius and the sending of Paul and Barnabas on their first missionary journey we have traced the steps that lead to the birth of the Gentile Church and here with Lydia we find the birth of the Church at Philippi. This is the birth story for one of Paul’s first, most beloved, and most supportive churches. And it begins with the story of Lydia, well like most birth stories it begins a little before that.

Last week we looked at the passage where Peter explained his actions at Cornelius’s house to the council at Jerusalem. Quite a lot has happened since the Jerusalem council decided to heed the message God gave to Peter, concerning the salvation of the Gentiles. At this point in early church history, Paul has already finished his First missionary journey.”   Things had gone so well on that journey that the “Gentile issue” had once again been brought before the council of Jerusalem this time the question was not whether they can be saved or filled with the Spirit but whether or not non-Jewish converts are required to live by the laws God gave to the Jews through Moses. The issue was greatly debated and after a most excellent speech given by Paul concerning salvation by grace, convincing the entirety of the church that “looking like a Jew” was not something they should expect of gentile the believers. The church sent Paul and Silas and several others with a letter to the gentile churches to let them know of their decision. It is with this letter in hand which Paul sets out on what is often called Paul’s second missionary journey.

Paul delivered his letter to the believers in Antioch and the people there rejoiced at the church’s decision. From there Paul headed to Asia Minor, but all along the way his path seemed to be “blocked.” It is at this point, Paul has the vision described in this text. Paul has been trying to bring the good news of Jesus Christ to Asia, but in this dream in which he sees a man from Macedonia, which is basically in the opposite direction of which he has been going. This man pleads with Paul asking for Paul to help “us.”  Immediately Paul abandons his journey through Asia Minor and heads to Macedonia.

Those of us who so happen to be of European descent, we like to make a big deal out of this change of course for Paul. God’s call for Paul to go to Macedonia is almost as important to Christians of European decent and our Christianity, as God’s call to Peter to accept the Gentile believers. This is because this marks a change in the movement of the Gospel from going primarily to Mediterranean, locals into what is now modern day Europe.  People, like me, who can trace their ancestry from European peoples, find it very exciting that God called Paul to bring the truth of Jesus Christ to our ancestors’ way back in the first century of the Church. And in truth it probably is an important move historically which ultimately brought the Gospel to our fair shores here in the USA.

But I am not sure it is any more exciting than Philip taking the gospel to Ethiopia and converting that entire country. Or Thomas taking the long trek to India and bringing the gospel to the peoples of that land. In reality it is just another step in fulfilling the call God placed upon all believers to be witnesses to the ends of the earth. The fact of the matter is through Paul, through Thomas, through Philip and through many others the tight circle of believers who originated in Jerusalem was ever expanding throughout the first century.

Paul is trying to do one thing. Paul is trying to bring the gospel of Jesus Christ in one direction but it is simply not working. And it is at this point that God gives Paul a vision. A vision of a man from Macedonia, and so at this man’s request Paul sets out to Macedonia. He gets to Macedonia and came to the city of Philippi, you know Philippi, many of us have read Paul’s letter to the church at Philippi, more commonly known as the book of Philippians.

Paul gets to Philippi and because it is a Roman city there is no easily found synagogue, so he wanders outside of the city gates and finds a place of prayer. There is a group of women who have gathered there. He approaches the group and begins to speak to them. The scriptures do not tell us what Paul and his companions say to these women, but what they had to say must have struck a cord with at least one them. One of these women, named Lydia, is a God fearer. That is to say she was a proselytite, a person who was not Jewish by birth but believed in and worshipped God. She listened eagerly to what Paul had to say and was soon his first convert in Macedonia, making this woman the first person to become a part of the church which would eventually form there in Philippi. Paul goes toward Philippi looking for a Macedonian man and instead finds a woman.

Not only was Lydia Paul’s first convert in Philippi but she would become the missionary’s benefactor giving him a place to live and a base of operations as he continued to work in her town and found the church which would soon arise there.

Paul was trying to go to Asia and instead God called him to go to Macedonia. God sent Paul a vision in which Paul was called to Macedonia by a man begging for his help. When Paul arrived he did not find this man, instead he found a group of women and it is out of this group of women where Paul finds his first convert.

What amazes me is that not once does Paul skip a beat. He tries and tries to go to Asia and bring the good news of the gospel there and he is thwarted at every turn and then God says, "You know that is not really where I want you to go. I want you to go to Macedonia instead. And Paul is like, “Ok, I’ll go to Macedonia.”  God gave Paul a vision of a man calling him to Macedonia, Paul arrives there and the only people he can find to speak to are a bunch of women, so he preaches to the women. Then it is a woman named Lydia, not a man, who is his first convert. In fact his first two converts are women it is not until after he is jailed and witnesses to his jailor do the scriptures tell us of a man who comes to believe because of Paul’s witness in Macedonia. Paul has one thing in mind and God keeps handing him something different. Paul is not discouraged or distraught that things are not working out they way he imagined them to work out.

So many times when we are doing the work God has called us to do, we get our own understanding of things. We have a plan. We have it all worked out in our heads, how things will work out and as life unfolds, as time goes on, things do not work out the way we imagined them to go. We know God called us to the work of the kingdom; we know our plans are good solid plans. We know these are good things to do. But things do just not seem to go “our” way.

Going to Asia was a good idea. Paul knew God called him to bring the good news to the Gentiles and Asia is just full of them, but things were just not working out there. He tried several times in several different places but it seems God was blocking his every move. And God sends him in a completely different direction.

Paul does not get upset, he does not get discouraged. He does not spout on and on about how God had pulled a fast one on him changing the plans on him at the last minute. He just shakes his head, changes direction and heads off in nearly the opposite direction he had wanted to go and goes to the place God called him to go.

Paul gets there and the people who start accepting the truth of the gospel are not the people he had envisioned. He goes to because a man has called to him across the sea, when he arrives the first and only ones he can find to hear him is a group of women and it is two women who hear and believe first. These were not the kind of believers he had come here to convert. He did not look at what he had and say, “What kind of church can I have with these people?”  Paul took the converts which God brought to him and accepted them and kept on keeping on.

Too often we look at what we have. We look at what God has placed right in front of us and we become discouraged. What can I do with a widow woman who does nothing with her life save sell frivolous material and a crazy sooth-saying slave girl (who was his second convert)?  What kind of church can I start with these two?  Paul looked at what he had and was encouraged instead of discouraged.

Sometimes God is doing amazing things right in front of us, amazing things among us and we look at these little miracles and say to ourselves, “what good is that?” “We really are not any better now than we were before.”  Instead of being encouraged that God is working in ways which we ourselves could never have envisioned, we get discouraged because things are not “going our way,”  which should not at all be a problem when we are trading “our way” for “God’s way.” We had plan, a vision of how things would go and they are going a different way. Things are not going how we envisioned them to go and we get upset, we get discouraged. We downgrade God’s miracles. We don’t see the miracles and the ground work God is laying, which will help us to do amazing things in the future.

Think about the work God must have done before Paul even arrived in Macedonia, in the heart and life of this woman in order for her to already be a God-fearer and be ready to hear the good news of the Gospel. Not to mention that through her God provided someone who had the ways and means to support and take care of Paul, while he worked to start the church there in Philippi. Lydia might literally not have been who Paul envisioned when he headed to Macedonia, but she was exactly what he needed as he was beginning his ministry there. She was open; she was ready to hear the message Paul had to bring. She had the money and a large enough house to give him a place to stay and room which he could use as his base of operations.

I cannot think of the times in my life when things did not seem to be going the way I wanted them to go. I cannot list all of the times when I saw how God’s plans were laying out before me and I scratched my head trying to figure out what in the world was going on. And I have to admit, at times I got discouraged, at times I was positive the whole thing was unraveling before me. It felt to me almost as if God had taken me somewhere and was leaving me there. Giving me a little wave, saying, well I think you can handle things from here. I am sure you have got it all handled and leaving me there to figure things out on my own.

There have been times when I knew God was leading me and suddenly I saw how things were working out and was positive God had tricked me. This was not what I had bargained for; this was not the way things should be working. I have to confess to you all sometimes when I have felt this way; I was not as gracious as Paul. I whined and complained and told God just how alone and abandoned I felt. Told God how I thought that THIS was not how “we” had agreed things would go. And you know when I have reacted this way to God working out God’s will in my life and the lives of those around me, when I have been discouraged by God’s plan and how it did not line up with my plan, things did not turn out so well. Usually, I ended up not only being discouraged but also hurt and frustrated, because in the end I was working against God’s plan and not with it.

But let me also tell you that at other times I can say I have been a little bit more like Paul. I have, for some reason, been able to see the hand of God at work even when it did not seem that God was working in the ways I would have wished for God to work. And instead of being discouraged I thanked God for working in ways which I could not have even imagined and have accepted the work of God as the best and seen the glory and the grace and wonder of God’s plan. And you know, at these times, when I have accepted God’s work and accepted God’s plan absolutely wondrous, miraculous things have happened.

Paul accepted the change of plans which took him to Macedonia, Paul accepted his first unexpected converts and saw the work and the hand of God all along the way. And the church there in Philippi became one of his most faithful churches which supported him all through out his life and throughout his journeys. The church he founded there in Philippi is one to which he speaks most kindly and most encouraging because it becomes one of the stronger churches in the early church. The work there did not begin the way Paul would have wanted it to, nothing in that journey went the way he had planned but because he accepted the work and the hand of God, even when it did not make sense to him, the work which he did there in Philippi exceeded any expectations Paul could ever have had for it.

When we trust God, go where God calls for us to go, do what God calls for us to do and trust God’s work all along the way, amazing things happen. The early church is story after story of people trusting God in unexpected circumstances. And time and time again the church grows and blossoms and God is able to so amazing things through people. I know that the work God did in the early church is not limited to first century Christianity. God wants to work through us here in Cambridge as well. We might not always get the results we had hoped for. We may not always see God working in the ways we planned for God to work but WHEN we see God working we need to trust God’s work. We need to trust God’s plan and accept the work and the plan God is laying out for us. Take what God gives to us and KNOW that God’s plan is the best plan, that God’s work is the best work and KNOW that when WE go where God calls for us to go and do what God calls for us to do, God will do amazing things in us and through us to further God’s kingdom.

No One is Left Out

Acts 11:1-8 

So two weeks ago we heard the first part of this story, but as with most important things, it is worth repeating. The passage I preached on two weeks ago is where we find the beginning of this story. There we learn how Cornelius, was gentile, who believed in God. He was praying when God told him to send for Peter. Peter was praying when God after seeing a strange vision in which God told him to eat a bunch of things God had forbidden for Jews to eat way back at Mount Sinai when God gave the people the Torah, the people Cornelius sent show up. Peter goes with them to Cornelius’ house, preaches the good news of Jesus Christ. Everyone believes and the Holy Spirit fills them all and Peter, realizing what the vision was all about, baptizes them all and they have a big feast to celebrate.

But now, all the rest of the apostles and all the believers in Jerusalem have heard what happened and they are upset. Peter is breaking all the rules. He is going against everything they have been taught. God came to Peter and Peter was able to see God was at work in the lives of these new Gentile believers but none of the others were there and what Peter did challenges how they have come to see the mission of Jesus. And it goes against their understanding of the Law of Moses and all their traditional understanding of the work and the mission of God’s messiah, who they now know is Jesus Christ.

And I can understand where they are coming from. I am a rule follower. I am told by popular psychology that this is partly because since there is nearly 10 years between my elder sister and myself, that although I am a middles child, I am shaped by many of the things that shape eldest siblings. I am told that one of the many characteristics of eldest siblings is that they have a strong penchant for the rules, following them, adhering to them, believing that there is intrinsic value in doing so. I am not sure if popular psychology is often right or not, but I do know that I AM this kind of person. I believe in rules. I believe in following rules. I see value in them and will often follow them even if I disagree with them.

For example, when I was a freshman at ENC, freshmen had a curfew. But that is not really how it worked. You see really only the freshmen women had a curfew. Since most of the freshman women were all in one dorm it was easy for RA’s to keep track of whether or not the freshmen were in the dorm. An RA who signed up for a freshman floor in the freshman dorm knew they had the added responsibility of enforcing curfew. There was a sign in sheet and you had to sign in before curfew to be counted “in”. There were fines for not being in. The women’s dorm was sectioned off by year, all the freshmen in on wing, all the sophomores in another and the Juniors and Seniors were in a separate dorm all together.

The men were all mixed up in their dorms, freshmen, sophomores, juniors, and seniors all together. So male RA’s had to keep track and remember which of the students on their floor where freshman and which were not and then had to keep track of the freshmen men and whether or not they came in by curfew. But they didn’t. They said it was too hard to keep track of the freshman guys, so many of them didn’t bother.

The result, freshman women had a curfew, the men did not. It was not fair. But simply because it was not fair did not mean that I disregarded the rule. There were ways around the curfew, you could sign in, be sure you were in when the RA checked and then go back out. You could tell your RA you were going to another gal’s room on another floor or in the sophomore dorm. You could sign in and hope that the RA did not notice you were actually not there. But I did not do any of these things. If I did not make curfew, it was usually because I choose to do so and usually did so because I believed what I was doing was worth the $5 fine for missing curfew. And whenever I missed curfew I set the $5 aside to pay at the end of the semester (because you better believe I was going to pay my own fine and not leave it to be sent as a bill to my parents at the end of the year). I was a rule follower and if I broke the rules I was willing to pay the consequences, in this case the price for doing so.

I understand how comfortable rules can be. When you know the rules and you know where you stand. The world is carefully laid out. There lines to follow, a course set out. You know where you are going, and you know how to get there. The world makes sense; it is easy to get around in. I find a certain amount of freedom, comfort, and security in knowing exactly what I should and should not do. The rules are a nice little box into which everything fits and you know if it does not fit inside of the box then, well it is out. Rules make things that simple, that easy. Everything is either in or out.

Peter was a lot like me. He knew the rules. He liked the rules. They worked for him. He had a box that made sense to him. The rules say you don’t eat pork or shell fish, well then no lobster bisque or bacon egg sandwiches for you. That makes complete sense. He could hold that box, he could comfortably live in that box. If God says that eating shell fish and pigs made you not a child of God, well then it must be true. If the rules say you can’t eat with a Gentile, since whenever you ate with a Gentile you ran the possibility of eating something of which God did not approve, not to mention there was a cultural comradory that eating together implied and acceptance of each other, on a deeper level than simply eating together implies to most of us. But Peter obeyed the rules because they were the rules. They were God’s rules. It was that simple. I understand Peter. The rules were nice they let you know where to go, how to get there and what you needed to do to stay on target.

Simply by going to Cornelius, he was exiting his box, he was breaking the rules. But not only did he go to Cornelius’ house but he also ate with him. Eating anything Cornelius gave him would have been outside of the rules his understanding of what it meant to be a good follower or Jesus, it did not matter if the food was kosher, or un-kosher, whether it was pig, crab, horse, or cow. It did not matter whether it was butchered properly or not. Eating with a Gentile was not acceptable. It was simply not a thing Christians to do. You did not eat with unbelievers and by extension you did not eat with any Gentiles (because all Gentiles were naturally unbelievers).

Peter came to Cornelius, accepted his hospitality, accepted his food, accepted him as a person and accepted him as a fellow believer. This was breaking all the rules. No wonder the all the other rule following Jewish Christians (as if there was anything other than a Jewish-Christian) back home were upset and confused by his actions. This was not the hardnosed rule following Peter they knew. Peter was a Jew, who lived by the rules and expected all those around him to do the same. He was not the kind of person to just disregard any of them. Peter would NOT do this sort of thing! Why would Peter accept Cornelius as a believer? Why would he have baptized Cornelius? Why would he have gone to Cornelius, eaten with him?  What would have possessed him to do this? 

When questioned, Peter gives his answer. Nothing would have, could have convince Peter do this thing he had done . . . nothing . . . short of a powerful vision given to him by God. And that is exactly why God did just that. God gave Peter a vision in which Peter is shown all kind of animals, clean as well as unclean and God told him to kill and eat. God then told him to go to Cornelius. And in truth it was God who ultimately accepted Cornelius as a believer and it was just Peter who listened, witnessed and obeyed. God made the rules and God said to break them. God opened Peter’s eyes. Jesus was not just for the Jews, Jesus was for everybody. Jesus was not just for Peter and his favorite people, Jesus was, is for everybody.

This was pretty ground breaking stuff in the first century. Now the Church spends quite a bit of time hammering this all out, figuring out what it means for a Gentile to be a Christian. What it looks like, how they live what it means for them. It took a lot to separate Jewish culture from belief in Jesus Christ. You see early Christianity was embedded in Jewish culture (in much the same way here in the US, being an American is very much embedded in how we understand what it means to be a Christian). So much of what they all believed and what it looked like to be a “good Jew” was pretty much what it looked like to be a “good Christian,” except of course you believed in Jesus Christ. So basically you were a Jewish Christian. It was all wrapped up together, culture, Christianity, loving God, loving Jesus, eating like a Jew, acting like a Jew, living a like a Jew and believing in Jesus were all tied in together. After all Jesus kept kosher, Jesus lived, acted, and dressed like a Jew, for the most part, except when he wasn’t. Except when he was picking wheat and healing on the Sabbath, when he was eating with tax collectors and sinners, going to gentiles’ houses to heal their daughters, and their servants, telling stories about heroic Samaritans and allowing Samaritan women to tell preach to their villages about how he is the Messiah. But other than that he was very Jewish, doing, saying and acting like the Jew he was.

It was not a strange thing for his followers to then assume that they too needed, for the most part to be good Jews, to live and to act like good Jews, even when it came to with whom they spent their time and to whom they shared the Gospel. It was easy for them to overlook or forget about the one or two Romans, Jesus helped, that one Gentile woman he healed or that one Samaritan woman and her who village who believe him to be the Messiah before Peter himself had come to that conclusion. So it is no wonder that as the church is blooming and growing in these early days that they need a little reminder that Jesus is bigger than the Jews; that is Christ’s call is to all the peoples of the world and that God’s plan had always been that through Abraham all nations would be blessed. And since all those first Christians were Jews, who lived like Jews and saw their belief in Jesus through a filter provided to them by their Jewish upbringing and the very Jewishness of Jesus himself. That all Christians my not look like them, may not act like them, may not eat like them.

It begins with the conversion of Cornelius and ends when the Jewish counsel decides that the Gentile converts do not need to keep the Jewish purity laws, but what they are realizing that they cannot expect every convert to look like them, to eat like them, to act like them and to turn into copies of who they are in order to be Christian. In many ways they had to separate what it meant to be Jewish, their culture, from being Christian, their faith, so they could openly accept people who were not a part of their culture into the Faith.

But to get there they had to begin by listening to God, going out and seeing how God moved and worked among people who were different. Peter went because God told him to go. He stepped out of his comfort zone, outside of the box he and the early Christians had created to understand their new faith, their new belief in Jesus and shared the truth of Jesus Christ with people who were outside of that box, who made him uncomfortable, whose conversion made him a little uneasy and when he went where God called him to go, when he did what God called him to do, when he accepted the people God called him to accept, he was amazed how God moved and worked among them. When he saw the Spirit move and work in them, he could not deny that they believed and the God’s gift was for them as well. This blew his mind, this stretched his belief system. This changed the rules, because it broke the rules. God was working and moving in ways that did not entirely makes sense to him, but he was a wise man and was not willing to try to stay the hand of God, to tell God that is not the way things were done. He was skeptical, he was careful, he was leery, but when he saw God moving and working in ways that dud not entirely make sense to him, he joined God and did what God called him to do so that Cornelius and his whole household could come to believe, which was the first step to the gospel being opened up to the Gentiles, which come on let’s be honest allows you and I to be here today.

Sometimes Christianity happens outside of the box. God does not always move in ways that makes sense to us. The things God calls us to do to reach out to our world and share the gospel with those around us is not always easy. Sometimes God breaks the rules. Sometimes God does things that stretch us and calls for us to do things that do not makes sense to us, sometimes god calls for us to eat things we don’t want to eat, to go to people to whom don’t want to go, to go places and do things that challenge what we think is right. But when God calls us to do these things, to go to these people to go to these places we will see God move in ways that will show us that this is not just some half-baked idea but that this is God at work in these places, doing these things in these people’s lives.

The Multi-Faceted Early Church

Acts 13:1-3; 14:8-18

The story of the Church in Acts has always captivated me. These stories of the early Christians’ making their ways in the world without the Christ who had lead and guided the apostles have always connected with me. It is the first book I remember studying in children’s Bible quizzing. I was always fascinated with all the journeys Paul took around the Mediterranean world and was amazed at how much he endured for the sake of the Gospel. Even though I grew up in a congregation that paid little to no attention to the Holy days of the Christian Church, outside of Easter and Christmas, I grew up with my mother. There are so many things I can thank my mother for, so much of my faith foundation for which I can thank her and I think my love and appreciation for the book of Acts, its stories, its characters and its importance in the place of the Church come from her. And it all boils down to the fact that my mother loves to bake. She especially loved to bake cakes. She bakes cakes for everything, even for every day. This is seen in the fact that I have a recipe passed down from her for “snack cakes,” every day cakes that can be put together and baked in less than 30 mins that, because of their ease to make can be baked on any day of the week for any reason, even if that reason was just that she was happy to see you after a long day at school. So, for as long as I can remember she has celebrated Pentecost by taking one of her snack cakes into her three year old Sunday school class, to celebrate the “birthday” of the Church. Because of my mother, I simply cannot remember not knowing that Pentecost marked the birth of the Church. And it there in a simple snack cake made for preschoolers began my deep affection for the book of Acts.

I would think that since I enjoy this book so much, have read it and studied in parts and as a whole more than once, that it would no longer hold any surprises for me. But time and time again, I find that I can come to passages I thought I knew well and find things I never thought I knew.

So, before I tell you everything that surprises me in this passage, look it over again. Begin with the first three verses. What in those verses stands out to you? What do you find interesting?

Our passage begins by listing off the teachers and prophets of the Church in Antioch. The list is full of Christians we don’t know; Barnabas, Simeon, Lucius, Manaen, and Saul. What I notice is that these people are all from different places and have different backgrounds. Barnabas, was from Jerusalem, he has already made an appearance in the book of Acts several times and has apparently made his way to Antioch and is now a vital part of that church. Then there is Simeon, who is called Niger, which literally means “black.” This could lead us to believe that at the very least was darker in complexion than most of the people around him. The third person on this list is Lucius, who is from Cyrene, which was in Libya. Then we have Manaen who is a member of Herod’s court. And lastly we have Saul who was a Pharisee from Tarsus, who had once persecuted the Church but is now a vital member of the Church in Antioch.

 What an interesting and diverse group these Christians in Antioch must have been! You have established members of the greater Church as represented by Barnabas. Within this Church both Jews and Gentiles worship together as represented by people with Jewish background or names, such as Barnabas and Simeon, and these are listed alongside of people with names of Gentile origins such as Lucius and Manaen.

It is also interesting to note that this Church does not simply contain Jews and Gentiles from the city of Antioch, but this Church had people varying ethnicities and from various countries as represented by Simeon who is most not from Antioch and from a country farther away on the African continent, as well as Lucius who is noted to be from Cyrene in Libya. But the diversity seen in this Church goes even beyond even this, the passage also makes not of people of varying classes of society, as represented by Manaen, who is a member of the court of Herod, Barnabas, who was a Levite, and also Saul, who is known to have been a Pharisee, as well as a prominent Roman citizen. You can see just from this short list of its leaders the Church in Antioch, was doing its best to minster to and reach out to all the many and varying people who could be found in Antioch. Even before Saul and Barnabas are sent out on their first missionary journey to the far reaches of the Roman Empire to scatter the Empire with Christians far and wide in almost every corner the known world, the Church is already rife with complex diversity. The Church has always been and should always remain a place where people from every nation, from every background, can find a place where they loved, can come to know the Lord God and find rest in the presence of  Christ as found in the body of believers.

Among the leaders of this church is Paul, we all know Paul?  Well, except this is when he was still called Saul. At this point in Acts he has been converted but he has not changed his name. In fact, we don’t know exactly when he changes his name or even why. For many years I believed it was God who changed Saul’s name at the time of his conversion. But Saul goes into the conversion being called Saul, comes out of that whole experience still being called Saul and then continues to be called Saul even up until after he sets out on his missionary journeys. It is Saul and Barnabas who are called to go together. But later it is Paul and Barnabas doing the work of the Lord.

Part way through chapter 13 (in the section we skipped), his name suddenly changes. Saul and Barnabas are sent by the Church and the Holy Spirit in verse 3. They set sail for Cyprus and then suddenly, on the isle of Paphos it is Paul, who was once called Saul who is filled the Holy Spirit and speaks to the Elymas, the magician. Somewhere along the way he changed his name, or more probably, he as he traveled out into the Roman Empire, away from Jewish communities, he was known by his Greek name Paul, as opposed to his Jewish name Saul. It seems like Saul/Paul who is Jewish and also a Roman Citizen has two names. This would have been similar practices many immigrants in the US have today, who have an Anglicized name that they take on, along with their natural name.

I also had this idea in my head that the great Saul/Paul missionary of the Church went out almost immediately. But that also seems to not be true. This passage gives the impression that following his conversion, Saul settled down in Antioch and became an important part of the Church there. And then sometime later, the Holy Spirit prompted that church to raise him and Barnabas up and send them out to spread the good News of the Gospel across the known world.  And so they went.

Throughout chapter 13 we hear tell of all their many successes. It seemed everywhere they went Jews believed, Gentiles believe; people from all walks of life, from every kind of profession and from all corners of the cities, to which they traveled, trust in Jesus Christ and became believers.  

And then they come to Lystra, which seems to be their first entirely Gentile city. They preach there and heal a man who has faith and then everything goes pear shaped. The whole mission turns sideways when the people to whom they are speaking come to believe them to be gods instead of trying to lead them to believe in the One true God through Jesus Christ. They try to correct this misconception but fail, not matter what they do, the people want to make them gods and offer sacrifices to them.

Why would the Bible include such a discouraging story?

How discouraging. What can we learn from this story?

What does this passage have to say to us today?

Sometimes even the best of us fail. We can do all the right things. We can say all the right things. We can do things that worked for other people; that worked in different places; that have worked for us in the past. But sometimes people don’t get it. They don’t understand us. They misinterpret our message and come to think the church and its people are something they are not. There are so many ways the Church, its mission and the Gospel of Jesus Christ can be misunderstood, misinterpreted and ultimately rejected. I do not think we can live where we live today, be familiar with the world around us and not know this. We can do our best, we can say all the right things, we can present Jesus in the most faithful way we know how, but sometimes, more often than we would like what we do, what we say, it doesn’t work. We don’t see people coming to Christ; people are not getting to our God in the way we would like for them to know God.

This passage is here to let us know that sometimes this happens. But it also is here to tell us that we don’t give up when this happens. Paul and Barnabas did not give up their work that day. They did not pack it all up and go back to Antioch and say, we got to Lystra but they thought we were gods, so we got on the next ship home and came back. We can’t ever have that happening again! 

Now they leave Lystra and go on to a couple of other places before coming back and trying again, but they came back, they tried again and they did better next time.

The thing is if these great evangelists of the early Church who are known for bringing people all over the known world to Christ, can try and fail, that tells me that it just might happen to us once or twice. We go into our community; we share the love of Jesus in real and tangible ways. We have seen very little growth because of the work we have done. As far as we know, nobody we have met in the park, who has received a thanksgiving box, an Easter basket, a post-fire comfort care kit, or one of our teacher appreciation baked goods have come to know Jesus or have even started going to Church because of the ways we have reached into our community attempting to share the love of Jesus. I say as far as we know, because we don’t know what seeds we have planted and we don’t know what other Churches may have already or someday will benefit from the prevenient grace God has put into these people’s lives through us. Does this lack of visible positive response mean we give up? Should we stop? Do we decided that no one among the people we minister will ever come to Christ because of the ways we have been faithful to the call of the Gospel we have felt is calling us into the parks, into the schools, in to the family shelter, into the lives all those who receive the many and varied ways we reach into our neighborhood and our city with the love of Jesus. Do we pack it all up, take our preverbal ball and go home? The answer is no. Paul and Barnabas kept preaching, kept teaching, and kept healing, kept sharing the love of Jesus with the world around them and we, even when we “fail” should continue to do so as well.