When Jesus heard this he was amazed at him, and turning to the crowd that followed him, he said, "I tell you, not even in Israel have I found such faith." Luke 7:9
 
I want to start today by setting the scene, by getting clear about the backstory – on several levels.

To begin with, we have entered a new liturgical season: the Season after Pentecost, aka Ordinary Time, which gives the suggestion that this time of year – stretching all the way from now until Thanksgiving – is unremarkable, ordinary, not exciting, nothing much going on in the life of the Church, in the Scriptures, in our lives as Jesus’s followers. After the sequence of following Jesus’s life and ministry through Advent and Christmas, the Season after Epiphany, Lent, Holy Week and Easter, the Ascension, the gift of Spirit at Pentecost, and even the great mystery of the Trinity which we celebrated last week, things do seem ordinary; perhaps we need a bit of a breather. And yet this is also the season that focuses on the work of the Spirit in the life of the Church – and that means us: the Body of Christ, the People of God. This is the time of year that asks us how we are going to put what we know and have learned and loved about Christ into action. It’s as though our spiritual bones have been grown and stretched through living Jesus’ life with him; now our spiritual muscles have to catch up, they have to be worked and exercised if we are to have any strength of faith.
 
The second point of our backstory to get clear is that we are in Year C of the lectionary – the third year of our three-year cycle of readings. We started Year C back in Advent, and have been hearing from the Gospel of Luke for the most part, with readings from the Hebrew Scriptures and the Christian Testament that support the Gospel. Now we are moving into that time when the Old Testament readings will follow in course, telling large swathes of the story from one week to the next. In Year C those readings will all highlight the prophets and their ministries. It’s important to remember that in the Old Testament, prophets were messengers of God – not fortune-tellers, not clairvoyants, but people who had been called by God to steep themselves in prayers and the divine presence so they could listen for the word or message that God wanted to be spoken into particular situations. They usually addressed the leaders of God’s people so they could be guiding in making decisions that would keep the people as a whole in a faithful relationship with God, that would keep them in the covenant.
 
The backstory of today’s reading from 1 Kings is that Elijah was a prophet and wonder-worker from the northern kingdom of Israel during the reign of King Ahab, in the 9th century BC. Earlier in time Israel and Judah (in the south) had been one united kingdom, under the leadership of David, and his Solomon; and it was during Solomon’s reign that the Temple had been built in Jerusalem, in the south, to be the home of the Ark of the Covenant, and the focus of worship for the whole nation. But the coalition and the dynasty of Solomon’s sons finally fell apart, and south and north each went their own ways. The Israelite kings pursued policies and alliances that ran counter to the ways and worship of Yahweh, Jehovah, the Lord God. King Ahab married Jezebel, a foreign princess and priestess of the Canaanite fertility god Baal and his consort Asherah. And he built many shrines to Baal, and put many priests of Baal on the court payroll – all in a nation that was supposed to have a faithful covenant relationship with God.
 
Elijah took the lead in opposing Ahab and Jezebel and in calling the people back to the worship of Yahweh alone, and there were a number of skirmishes in that long-running struggle. But finally, as we hear in the reading today, Elijah has called for a direct and public face-off with the priests of Baal. There were 450 of them, and only one of him. The idea was to see whose god is indeed listening to and answering prayer, and powerful enough to show up in the lives of the people.
 
Now, the story of this encounter is very long – thirty verses; that’s why we read as a dialogue this morning. And the lectionary editors suggest that we could omit verses 22-29, but that leaves out the Baal priests’ attempt to call down fire on their sacrifice – the whole point of the contest. And it would also leave out Elijah’s mocking of them – surely one of the snarkiest lines in the Old Testament: "Cry aloud! Surely he is a god; either he is ‘meditating’ (OT euphemism for being in the bathroom), or he has wandered away, or he is on a journey, or perhaps he is asleep and must be awakened." Another reason for reading the whole passage is because life just takes time, faith takes time; as we tell our own stories of faith and our journey to know the Lord we know that it has ups and downs, ins and outs, and that our life of faith and relationship with God cannot be put in a 30-second container, like an ad for dish soap.
 
So the priests of Baal have failed to have their god respond in any way to their prayers. Elijah, on the other hand, shows his faith and trust in the Lord God first by suggesting the contest, and second by upping the ante by dousing the entire sacrifice and altar with water three times, just to make God’s response seem all the more dramatic. And that’s exactly what happens – Elijah prays, and God sends fire from heaven to consume the sacrifice, and all the people standing and watching are convinced and say “The Lord indeed is God.” Elijah to an enormous risk, went out on a huge limb, in order to call the people back to God through his very dramatic action. Had he failed, he would not just have been disgraced, and the people unconvinced, but Elijah would no doubt have been put to death by the king’s order.
 
In the Gospel we see a similar kind of risky faith. A Roman centurion, a Gentile, one of the despised military leaders of the occupying imperial force, sent a delegation of community leaders he had worked with to ask Jesus for help in healing a household slave who was ill. As they were talking, the centurion sent another messenger: “Master, you don’t have to go to all this trouble. I’m not that good a person, you know. I’d be embarrassed for you to come to my house, even embarrassed to come to you in person. Just give the order and my servant will get well. I’m a man under orders; I also give orders. I tell one soldier, ‘Go,’ and he goes; another, ‘Come,’ and he comes; my slave, ‘Do this,’ and he does it” (The Message). The centurion had no guarantee that Jesus would entertain his request, that he would not be rejected out of hand. And perhaps he ran the risk, from the Roman point of view, of foolishly stooping to the local customs, being disloyal to the Roman imperial code. But he clearly knew from what he had heard about Jesus that here was power, and compassion, and his request was worth the risk on behalf of this slave whom he seemed to value. Indeed, the man was healed, and Jesus was very impressed with the centurion’s faith, so far than any of his own people.
 
And that’s one of the real hallmarks of faith – it is risky; the outcome is not assured by any means. It entails putting your hopes and plans, and sometimes even your life, on the line – trusting that God has your best interests at heart and wants you to be intimately involved with his purposes. Even when – or especially when – life seems to be falling apart, we are called to put our trust in God, to exercise risky faith; not foolish faith, but risky faith with no guarantee of the outcome except that we will always be held, loved, valued, and cherished by God. It was true for Elijah, it was true for the centurion, and it is true for you - now, today, tomorrow, next week, and on and on. God’s purposes for us and for this world are before us, and we are called to embrace and be embraced by the faith of Christ which will sustain us always.
 
Let us pray in these words from Henri Nouwen:
“Dear God,
I am so afraid to open my clenched fists!
Who will I be when I have nothing left to hold on to?
Who will I be when I stand before you with empty hands?
Please help me to gradually open my hands
and to discover that I am not what I own,
but what you want to give me.”
― Henri J.M. Nouwen, The Only Necessary Thing: Living a Prayerful Life
 
Victoria Geer McGrath
All Saints’ Episcopal Church, Millington, NJ
Second Sunday after Pentecost
May 29, 2016

On the sabbath day we went outside the gate by the river, where we supposed there was a place of prayer; and we sat down and spoke to the women who had gathered there. Acts 16:13

In this Easter season, we’ve been reading through the Book of Acts as our first lesson on Sundays, as we do every year – not the same set of passages each year, but a total of eighteen readings, spread out over the three-year lectionary cycle. We read about the very earliest history of the Church in Easter season, because these are the people who were living and working and worshiping in the earliest days after the Resurrection; they were the ones forming the community of believers who followed the Risen Christ.

Last week we heard about the Apostle Peter and the experience of the first Gentile person to come to faith in Christ without first becoming Jewish: the Roman centurion Cornelius. And you may remember that was a big hurdle for the apostles to get over. This week we have the account of the first person on the European continent to become a Christian: Lydia, a Greek business woman who traded in luxury goods - purple cloth.

The Apostle Paul was on his second mission trip. He had already made a two-year tour of the island of Cyprus, and the area of Asia Minor (modern-day Turkey) called Galatia, in the western part of the region. Whenever he would go to a new community, he would always go first to the synagogue, to connect with his fellow Jews when he could. After that, he would reach out to any Gentiles who seemed interested in speaking with, anyone to whom the Holy Spirit led him.

On this second journey, Paul and Silas, his traveling companion, left Jerusalem and headed north along the eastern end of the Mediterranean. Then they headed northwest into the various regions of Asia Minor. In the town of Lystra they met Timothy and recruited him to serve on their missionary team. Paul planned to go into the area of Bithynia, up on the Black Sea coast but (as he said) “the Spirit of Jesus did not allow them”, so they ended up in Troas, a town on the Aegean Sea. Here is where our story picks up.

While staying overnight in Troas, Paul had a vision/dream of a man in the region of Macedonia, just across the straights, pleading for Paul to come and help them…whatever that meant. So Paul, Silas, and Timothy got a ship the very next day and eventually landed in in Philippi – an important Macedonian city and a garrison town for the Roman army. For the first time, Paul was on European soil. He stayed in town for several days, but there is no mention of what he did or who he met. Then the account tells us that Paul went outside the gate, beyond the walls of the town on the Sabbath day. He went to the river “where we supposed there was a place of prayer; and we sat down and spoke to the women who had gathered there.” Why Paul supposed there might be a place of prayer there, we do not know, except that people throughout the ages and throughout cultures have found inspiration, solace, strength, and peace near water: rivers, lakes, oceans, streams, springs, and wells. Perhaps Paul’s efforts in town had been frustrated, he’d come up empty-handed in looking for people who were receptive to hearing the Good News of Christ, and so he was willing to step outside his comfort zone and outside the walls of Roman power, and seek other, less-likely people. And he was led to Lydia.

She is described as a worshipper of God, already drawn to the One God of Judaism, as opposed to the pantheon of Greek and ancient Near Eastern deities. She was a dealer in purple cloth – a very expensive commodity – so she was a woman of means, used to dealing with buyers and sellers, probably a shrewd judge of character, with the ability to weigh the truth (or lack thereof) of what she was being told. Lydia and her friends had gathered for prayer, and Paul goes ahead and preaches to her and the others, not being put off by the fact that they were a group of women. Lydia hears what Paul says and responds eagerly; she and her whole household ask to be baptized. Her quick response to Paul’s message may well be a sign that the Holy Spirit was already at work in her life and in her heart. She just needed to hear the specifics of who and what Jesus was so she could complete the trajectory her life and faith were on. Not only was the Spirit at work in Lydia before she had ever heard of Jesus; the Spirit was at work out ahead of Paul, preparing the way, guiding him, calling him in that dream to Macedonia, where he was indeed needed.

And look how Lydia responded further. She didn’t only put her faith and trust in Christ and begin to live as a baptized follower of Jesus’ Way. She prevailed upon Paul and his companions to come and stay with her, at her house; to make it the launching pad for the rest of Paul’s mission in Philippi, the center of the new church there. Lydia’s hospitality was more than offering refreshments and entertaining guests. Lydia made sure that she was going to learn as much about her new faith and way of life as she could; she created a space and an opportunity for Paul’s ministry. No doubt Paul, and the new Philippian church, benefited from her generous financial support, as well.

Why is this important for us? How is this not just ancient history, part of Bible trivia? This encounter between Paul and Lydia is full of risk, and trust, and the work of the Spirit. Paul was trying his best to be faithful to where God was leading him, but he wasn’t getting anywhere, until he listened to that dream, and until he stepped outside the walls of the Roman garrison and found Lydia and her friends. He had to be willing to take the risk to follow Jesus on what might have seemed like pretty slim information. And Lydia, for her part, had to be willing to risk that what Paul was saying was true, to trust that the depth and meaning of life that she had been seeking in worship was finally coming to fulfillment. They both had to trust the Holy Spirit was active and at work ahead of them, calling them both to deeper and truer relationship with God. That takes wisdom, and discernment, and paying attention to the sorts of things we often ignore or devalue.

As we think about our own context, our own day and age, there are many places people gather to try to connect with God, to deepen their spirituality – even if those places are often not in church on Sunday morning. How many people do you know who talk about the satisfaction – the spiritual fulfillment or peace – they find in a yoga class; walking in the woods; gathering with others to paint or make music; gardening; volunteering in a literacy program or with Habitat for Humanity; getting together with good friends for coffee or a glass of wine and deep conversation? And they are right…. these are all absolutely places where God is present and active in the lives of people – maybe in your life, too.  And so for us – Jesus’ followers – we need to know that it is good and right for us to take the risk, when we meet and friends and neighbors in these settings, and share a bit about what faith in Christ means to us, why we give our love and loyalty to Jesus. When we speak this way, we are not trying to convince anyone to be Christian, we are not trying to prove them wrong or ourselves right; but we can honestly and respectfully and confidently share what is of deepest importance to us.

And most of all, we can pray and trust that the Holy Spirit goes before us, invites us into places of hospitality and relationship and truth, and gives us wisdom and guidance when we seek to honor Christ – especially when it feels risky.

Let us pray.
Holy and Life-giving Spirit, help us to see you at work in the world about us, to go with courage and confidence to the places, people, and relationships you send us to, knowing that you are with us always, and that there are hearts and minds all around us longing to hear of your love and grace. In Jesus’ Name we pray, Amen.

Victoria Geer McGrath
All Saints’ Church, Millington, NJ
Sixth Sunday of Easter
May 1, 2016