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Risky Faith and Fire from Heaven

5/29/2016

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Picture
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


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Trinity Mystery

5/22/2016

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We have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand; and we boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God. And not only that, but we also boast in our sufferings. Romans 5:1b-3a
 
I enjoy reading mystery novels. They always have a way of engaging my mind, as well as my emotions, and while they are certainly recreational reading, they are usually more purposeful than a mere diversion. Because good mysteries, the classic ones – think Arthur Conan Doyle, Dorothy Sayers, G.K. Chesterton, P.D. James – are not merely an intellectual puzzle to be solved, but they diver deep into the muck and mire of human nature. In fact, Miss Marple, one of Agatha Christie’s beloved sleuths, credits her ability to solve mysteries that seem to elude the local constabulary to her keen observation of life in her small English village. She has seen and known the follies, the failings, and the strengths of humanity “up close and personal” in her neighbors. And at the conclusion of these mysteries, the pieces do not generally fall into tidy categories wrapped up in neat packages. While the murderer is found out and usually bought to justice, there are often open questions, characters whose somewhat lesser sins and crimes slide out from under official notice, and those who sacrificially take on the sufferings of others.
 
In many ways, God is a mystery, and never more so than on Trinity Sunday, and when we contemplate the three-in-oneness of God. In some ways our language for each Person of the Trinity is direct, and personal. We speak of God the Father, like a loving parent, the Source of all goodness. We say God the Son, referring to God coming into human life, God “with skin on”, in the life and death and resurrection of Jesus. And we speak of the Holy Spirit, closer than life and breath itself. All so familiar, direct – and yet we also know that it barely penetrates the depth of who God is, and how these Three Personas (hypostases in Greek) are woven together in an inner reality of love, mutuality, and inter-dependence. The mystery of God is not a wall to keep us out, but a labyrinth of love, drawing us deeper and deeper into the heart of God.
 
That labyrinth is a life-long journey which begins at baptism, as we are washed in water in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, as we join Christ’s death and resurrection to God’s New Life, a mystery of power and joy. Along the way we are nourished by Christ’s own Body and Blood in the Eucharist, the meal that draws us into Communion with God and with our fellow believers – the whole Body of Christ though out the world and history. Our life in God given shape by our reading of the Scriptures – our own personal daily devotions and our public reading and reflection in worship. And the mystery of God’s life in us is tried and tested, challenged, confirmed, and enlarged as we live the reality of our faith in the world – where we are often carried to places and situations that we could never have imagined or anticipated. And always, always the mystery of our life in God is undergirded by prayer, which weaves us into the fabric of God’s love and truth. No matter where we are, no matter what we are doing, no matter what time it is - work time, sleep time, church time, exercise time, house-work time, driving, child care, or going out time – it is all God’s time. As Christians we don’t have separate categories of our lives, we don’t put our faith in a box, it’s not confined to Sunday mornings and bed-time prayers. One of the mysteries of God is that life is whole, one, a unity – at least that’s how God sees it, and what it is at its best.
 
St. Paul describes it in the letter to the church at Rome: “We have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ the Messiah…and celebrate the hope of the glory of God. That’s not all. We also celebrate in our sufferings, because we know that sufferings produce patience, patience produces a well-formed character, and a character like that produces hope.” In other words, there is nothing that happens to us in life that is outside of God’s loving embrace and cannot be turned to God’s purposes. How is this so? It is part of the mystery that is God who is the creator and author of all life. And because all life belongs to God, our lives and our faith are to be outward-facing, encountering the other, God at work in one another, being vehicles of hope and healing and love. And we are called to work with God to repair the world, grounded in real people’s real concerns. We are to make sure that our hope and love has “skin on”; we are, after all, apprentices to Jesus the Master who is God Incarnate.
 
And the Spirit who is closer than life and breath? That sounds so quiet, so docile – yet just last week in the celebration of Pentecost we spoke of the Spirit coming like flames of fire, in speech that is strange and glorious, like a rushing mighty wind that blows where and how he will, without asking our permission! The Holy Spirit is powerful, and intimate; fiery, and like soothing ointment; sometimes a stiff gale, and yet constant and tender. When the wind of the Spirit is blowing, often all we can do is hoist our sails and go, if we are to go with God who sustains and inspires the world, a mystery both incomprehensible and inviting, “a deep but dazzling darkness” as the poet Henry Vaughan has said.
 
How do we, then, ordinary people, trying to follow Jesus, trying to do the best we can, connect with, and enter into the mystery of God the Three-in-One, the Holy Trinity? We do it best by prayer. Not a prayer that tries to describe or puzzle out or encompass every aspect of God or every bit of Trinitarian theology, but a prayer that is simple enough and roomy enough to hold us, and the world, in God’s embrace. And here is one such prayer:

Father almighty, maker of heaven and earth:
Set up your kingdom in our midst.
Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the living God:
Have mercy on me, a sinner.
Holy Spirit, breath of the living God:
Renew me and all the world. Amen.~  N.T. Wright

Victoria Geer McGrath
All Saints’ Church, Millington, NJ
Trinity Sunday
May 22, 2016


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Writing Our Chapter

5/8/2016

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The jailer called for lights, and rushing in, he fell down trembling before Paul and Silas. Then he brought them outside and said, ‘Sirs, what must I do to be saved?’ Acts 16:29-30
 

People can be imprisoned in all sorts of ways – you can be put in jail for breaking the law, and in some parts of the world you can be arrested and imprisoned for expressing views about politics or human rights that threaten the ruling government. Illness can imprison a person – particularly debilitating illnesses that rob you of mobility or mental functioning. You can be an emotional prisoner of a bad relationship, entrapped in domestic abuse. You can also be hemmed in, constricted by another person’s low opinion of you and your capabilities – particularly if you are a child, and the other person is a parent or teacher; you can come to doubt your own self-worth. Another variation of that is the belief that our value as human beings is found only in our economic status and our ability to produce income. Then there is the prison of addiction in any of its various forms. There are many different prisons we might find ourselves in.
 
Today’s reading from the Acts of the Apostles tells a story about several different kinds of prisoners. Paul and Silas have remained in the Macedonian city of Philippi, after the conversion of Lydia, the first recorded person in Europe to become a follower of Jesus. As Paul and his companions went about the city they ran into a slave girl who was a psychic, who made money for her owners by fortune-telling. She was a prisoner in body, in economic activity, and in her own inner being. Whatever spirit was in her, had possession of her recognized Paul and Silas as being servants of God, and that they had a very important and weighty message of spiritual truth to deliver. And she followed Paul around in public and kept shouting this out.
 
Paul finally commanded the spirit to leave her; and it did – she was free of it. However, that left the girl of no value to her owners; she could no longer make them money with her fortune-telling. We don’t know what happened to her after this; we hear no more about her The owners, on the other hand, were furious; they had lost a very lucrative business. They seized Paul and Silas, dragged them to the Roman authorities (Philippi, remember, was a Roman garrison town) while a whole mob gathered around. They falsely accused Paul and Silas of disturbing the peace and subverting Roman order and customs…not knowing, of course, that Paul and Silas were both Roman citizens. So they were beaten and put in prison – not just in a jail cell, but chained and shackled, as well. They were prisoners in the common sense of the word, imprisoned because they had freed the slave girl from her spiritual bondage, which led to her freedom (we hope) from those who had owned her.
 
In their cell that night, Paul and Silas were praying out loud and singing a hymn, and just at that moment there was a huge earthquake; all the cell doors flew open and hung off their hinges. The jail-keeper woke up, saw what had happened, and assumed that all the prisoners had escaped and that he would be punished for this by the authorities with his own death, and so prepared to kill himself. But Paul stopped him from doing it, tell him that they were all still there. The jailer was very moved; we’re not sure why. Maybe in rapid succession he was fearful of the earthquake, fearful of the escape of his prisoners, and relieved by their presence that he blurted out the first thing that came to mind – a hugely consequential question: What must I do to be saved?

Did he even realize what it was he was asking? Or as the situation was spinning out of control did a truth deep within him finally find a voice – as a different kind of truth had found a voice in the slave girl earlier? For although the jailer was the one with the key to the cell door, perhaps he was as constricted by his role as the prisoners were. His fearful reach for suicide at the possibility of having failed in his job gives us a clue about that. Whatever might have motivated him, he asks: What must I do to be saved? And Paul answers: ‘Believe on the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household.’ Or to put it another way: ‘Put your entire trust in the Master Jesus. Then you’ll live as you were meant to live—and everyone in your house included!’

The jailer and his family were baptized. And the post-script to this passage, the end of the story which was not included in our lectionary reading, is that the next morning the magistrates came with the order to release Paul and Silas privately. But the prisoners claimed their status as Roman citizens and wanted an official apology – after all, they had done nothing wrong, and had been imprisoned on false charges. The official apology came, and their release, along with the request to leave town. Paul and Silas did move on to the city of Thessalonica – but not before they went back to Lydia’s house, and had a final encouraging meeting with the other Christian converts there, brothers and sisters in the faith.

The jailer and his family and the slave-girl found freedom, salvation, in their encounters with Paul and Silas, through the power of the Risen Christ – each in their own way. This was not the end of the road for them, the goal; it was just the beginning of a whole new way of life. Specifically for the jailer, it was a life in service to a very different Master –  to Jesus, who offers freedom, wholeness, and joy.

As we consider how this story from the earliest days of our faith might intersect with our own stories, think about the times and places that you have felt trapped or imprisoned, hemmed in with no place to go. Where did you find hope? Where did you find light? How did the love of Christ come to you, sustain you, free you? Or, perhaps you are currently constricted by conditions you long to be freed from. Where do you hear hope and promise and new life in the story of the slave-girl, of the jailer, of Paul and Silas? For the power of God which was at work in their lives is just as alive, and active, and available for us…whatever our circumstances.

And in the world around us, we see every day the ways that disease, ignorance, injustice, poverty and so many other forceful realities imprison and hold captive our fellow human beings – people whom God took delight in creating, all of us bearing the image of God, all of us of infinite worth and value in God’s eyes. Perhaps you are feeling moved by God, called by the Spirit, to act as Paul and Silas did: to bear the message of hope and promise of a different reality, a different life of faith in Christ. To whom can you offer a word of hope and joy, to be a bearer of freedom and love through what you do or what you say?

This story is our story – the story of our faith, the story of the Church, the story that we who are Jesus’ followers are still continuing to write: the ongoing Acts of the Apostles – that is you and me. How does the story continue in your own life? What will your chapter be?

Let us pray.
Lord Jesus, you have freed us from the prison of sin and despair through your Cross and Resurrection; help us to live daily in your freedom and joy. Inspire us to work, speak, and pray with and for others who need your truth and love in their darkness. Bring us all to the light of your salvation, and may your story be written on our hearts. Amen.


Victoria Geer McGrath
All Saints’ Church, Millington, NJ
Seventh Sunday of Easter
May 8, 2016

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Down in the River to Pray

5/8/2016

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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


 
 

 

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Risky Business

5/1/2016

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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 travelling 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 worshiper 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
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 15 Basking Ridge Road, Millington NJ 07946    phone: (908) 647-0067    email: allstsmill@hotmail.com