Galatians 1:1-12; 1 Kings 18:20-21, 30-39; Luke 7:1-10
I’m sure that you remember that great curmudgeon, Archie Bunker, along with his wife, Edith, daughter Gloria, and son-in-law Michael, a.k.a. Meathead, in Archie’s parlance. Can’t you just see Archie in his recliner and hear him shouting to Edith in the kitchen, “Edith! Get in here! I’m having to defend God all by myself!” That would be the result of some conversation Archie was having with Michael.
I suspect that we have all felt that way at some point in our lives. Someone has made a statement about God, or denigrated God, or denied God, and there’s no one around besides ourselves to take up God’s side of the discussion.
An additional picture comes to my mind. God is in the heavenly office. All of a sudden God calls out, “Jesus, where are you? Holy Spirit, get in here! You’ve got to hear these ridiculous things people are saying in my name. Where do they get this stuff? Don’t they read my Book – all of it and not just their pet verses?” “I know, Dad,” says Jesus. “They say things about me and I wonder whom they are talking about. Don’t they read my blog? Aren’t they following my Twitter feed?” And the Spirit just blows the curtains with its exasperated sighs.
If the apostle Paul were in the room, he would chime in, “Tell me about it. You know how many times I preached in those churches I started, and how many times I’ve had to straighten out their thinking. Their brains are like used up lint roller sheets. No sooner do I tear off a no-longer-sticky sheet and the new one gets clogged with every sort of misinformation imaginable.”
That’s where Paul is as he quickly dives into the heart of his correspondence with the Galatians, not even taking time for his usual prayer of thanksgiving for the readers and their faithfulness:
“I’m amazed that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you by the grace of Christ to follow another gospel. It’s not really another gospel, but certain people are confusing you and they want to change the gospel of Christ.” (Galatians 1:6-7)
Even in his words of greeting, we can sense that Paul was impatient and annoyed:
“From Paul, an apostle who is not sent from human authority or commissioned through human agency, but sent through Jesus Christ and God the Father who raised him from the dead.” (Gal. 1:1)
When challenged, Paul based the credibility of his teaching on the authority of Jesus Christ. In other words, he claimed to be consistent with what Jesus said and did. Those who questioned his message or methods were in danger of questioning Christ’s own message.
Undoubtedly Paul had heard that there were some among the Galatians who were calling his teaching into question. Paul wasn’t going to let that go by unchallenged. Paul carefully worded his rejoinder to them: I was “not sent from human authority or commissioned through human agency.”
That was part of his defense against the Judaizers, the people who kept trying to reintroduce Jewish religious beliefs and practices into the avenues of faith inaugurated by Jesus’ death and resurrection. “Who are you going to believe?” says Paul. Paul, whose authority came directly from Christ, or the people who kept trying to bind up Christ for their own purposes. From whom did they take their authority? Paul confronted the Galatians and told them that they needed to develop a more discerning approach to those who claimed to speak for God.
Paul had spent a goodly amount of time with the fledgling Galatian church to be sure that they knew the full gospel which he was called by Christ to deliver to the Gentile world. This gospel emphasized the new creation which had been brought about through the cross. The sacrificial and atoning death of Jesus Christ was the key to the gospel.
Paul really did preach a new creation. So much was new and transformed and so many of the details of the old, the Jerusalem-based, peculiarly Jewish, cultic practices were simply left behind. These included male circumcision, special dietary restrictions, particular practices for the Sabbath, and conventions about relationships among genders, economic classes, and ethnic origins. All of them had been utterly reinterpreted or done away with by the event of the cross.
The essence of God and the grace of the Christ event simply could not be contained by the cultic practices of the faith that Paul had grown up in. These practices and attitudes were not vessels or means to the grace of Christ; they were, in fact, utterly irrelevant in the context of this non-Jewish, Galatian Christian setting. Moreover, they stood in the way of Christ’s grace.
The perverse ideas of the gospel which other so-called believers brought to the Galatians after Paul had moved on to other mission fields were more than misinterpre-tations of the nuances of the gospel. Paul claimed that they presented a whole new “gospel.” Paul did not posit this accusation lightly. He knew that there was little “good news” in a system of belief that reverses the freedom of Christ, saps the strength of the Spirit, and refastens the shackles of the law.
Paul was adamant that the result of Jesus’ gift of himself was to deliver us from the present evil age. The Greek word for “deliver” can also be translated “rescue.” This is the work of Jesus. He sets us free, rescues us. That was his purpose. Christ not only gave himself for our sins; he also delivers us from the helpless condition where we cannot resist sin (our present evil age) and welcomes us into his kingdom where he is Lord. Paul wanted his brothers and sisters in Galatia to be alarmed that they had exchanged their freedom in Christ for slavery under a system based on human effort.
All the rituals that had been foisted on the Galatians after Paul’s first time with them did not square with the gospel which Paul had preached and taught and lived for them and among them.
We could wonder if Paul thought that he had failed to teach them strongly enough. We could wonder if the Galatians had been paying sufficient attention to Paul, that they had only caught some of the topmost ideas but hadn’t drunk in the deep meanings of Paul’s teaching. We could also wonder if the Galatians were by nature a bit gullible or capricious, blowing in the wind of whatever the latest ideas were circulating. After all, if those ideas came from someplace out of town, they had to be right.
Whatever the cause, it seems apparent that the Galatians had failed to fact-check the gospel ideas that were presented to them after Paul had left them. In their euphoria for Christ they seemed to take in everything that came along. Paul was amazed at how easily the Galatian believers had deserted the good news of the gospel of Christ for the bad news that they subsequently had been taught. Paul’s use of the word “deserted” was well placed. It was a military term meaning AWOL (absent without leave). The people who were deserting the true gospel were deserting Christ. They were turning away from the discipline of grace to the undisciplined world of works – rituals, practices, meaningless activities that simply fill time and space. The other gospel was without grace, without hope, and ultimately without Christ.
Paul wasn’t worried about alternative viewpoints of interpretation; he was warning the Galatians about turning from the truth to lies, from what was right to what was wrong. The apostle wasn’t fazed about competing in popularity with other messengers. He wanted it understood that once the truth of the gospel had been declared, all amendments were false. C. S. Lewis wrote, “One of the great difficulties is to keep before the audience’s mind the question of Truth. They always think you are recommending Christianity not because it is true but because it is good.”
Jesus Christ has made the gift of salvation available to all people, not just to Jews. And faith in Christ is the only requirement for salvation. Beware of people who say that we need more than simple faith in Christ to be saved. When people set up additional requirements for salvation, they deny the power of Christ’s death on the cross, Paul says to fact-check the gospel. Accept no substitutes. The grace of Christ is more than enough for everyone of us. We need nothing else.
Thanks be to God.
General Resources: Gregory H. Ledbetter, “Homiletical Perspective,” Feasting on the Word: Preaching the Revised Common Lectionary (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2010), Year C, vol. 3, 87-91; Life Application Commentary, “Galatians.”
Unless noted otherwise, all scripture references are from The Common English Bible, © 2011 www.commonenglishbible.com.
Copyright © 2016 First Presbyterian Church of Waverly, Ohio. Reprinted by permission.
Proverbs 8:1-4, 22-31; Romans 5:1-5; John 16:12-15
There is a story about a individual who was approached by a traveling evangelist who earnestly asked if the person had found Jesus. The person answered with all sincerity, “No. I didn’t know he was lost.”
Our theology is filled with the struggle to answer the question about relating to God. Do we seek and find God or does God seek and find us? In truth it is probably both. The psalmist says, “I raise my eyes toward the mountains. / Where will my help come from?” The psalmist answers his own question by saying that his help “comes from the Lord” (Psalm 121:1), and apparently not the hills. In another psalm, the psalmist can’t run away from God. “Where could I go to get away from your spirit? / Where could I go to escape your presence?” And the answer is: nowhere (Psalm 139:7-12).
On other occasions, God seeks. After Adam and Eve discover that they have a wardrobe malfunction, they hide from God. God calls out, “Where are you?” (Genesis 3:9). After Cain kills his brother Abel, God asks Cain, “Where is your brother?” (Genesis 4:9). Jesus sought our Peter and Andrew and James and John as he was collecting disciples. He invited himself to Zacchaeus’ house for lunch. And he sought out the Pharisee Saul on the road outside Damascus.
The reality is that sometimes God is looking for us and sometimes we are looking for God. But as the psalmist suggested, if we can’t get away from God, then what is absent is not God but our awareness of God.
This is Trinity Sunday, our annual attempt to think equally about the three persons of the Godhead: Father, Son, and Spirit. It’s hard to do, for most of us have an affinity for one of the three faces, as it were, of God. Most all of us drift into a heavier relationship with the Father or with the Son or with the Spirit. It’s hard not to. After all, we see creation, but not the Creator. Jesus said that no one has seen the Father except the Son. And the Son is the Word made flesh and blood. Jesus also told us that no one sees the wind, only the effects of it. That’s how the Spirit operates. Believers with a mystical bent understand the Trinity as a dance among the three persons. And it’s one of those dances where the dancers are whirling so fast that it is a blur. None of the three are identifiable at any given point. Yet the dance is a magnificent spectacle for the senses.
This dance is really an invitation. Not a fancy engraved invitation requiring an equally formal response, but a heartfelt, passionate beckoning, like the once romantic scene of a lover standing in the doorway of departing train car beckoning her lover to join her while there is still time for him to catch the train. She calls out, “Come away with me!”
We may not know that poignant love scene, but we are all to familiar with voices calling out to us. After all, this is an election year. And while the fields have narrowed, the voices beckoning our attention, our curiosity, our support, our votes are not getting softer and more coaxing. They are becoming more strident, more caustic, more bull-hornish. And we still have more than five months to endure it before the vote is taken and the next four-year cycle begins its crescendo.
On a more friendly note, a circus midway comes to mind. There are the all the amusement booths with their barkers: “See the tallest man on earth.” “See the bearded lady,” “Step this way to the greatest show of exotic flora and fauna under one tent.” “Throw the ball and knock the milk bottles over; win a prize.” “See the masked bamboozler swallow not one, not two, but five flaming swords.” And so on and so on.
That is the image the collector of Proverbs has given us. The reading begins with the image of Lady (or Teacher) Wisdom standing up and hollering an invitation for us to come to her, just like the circus barkers or politicians do. Madam Wisdom cries out “atop the heights along the path, at the crossroads...by the gate before the city.” Like the ever-present prescription medication or political ads, Wisdom seems to show up everywhere, expected or not. What is she doing? She is beckoning us to something infinitely better than the seductive invitation which was offered in the previous chapter.
If you haven’t read Proverbs 7 recently, do so, knowing that it is at least “R-rated.” The invitation there is that of a vamp, a hooker, a street walker. And it doesn’t take a whole lot of imagination to know where that liaison will take a person.
While the invitation of the seductress may have its thrill and immediate and short-lived gratification, the blessing that Wisdom offers is for the long-term.
In the verses that were omitted in the reading, Wisdom admonishes her hearers to acquire for themselves prudence, intelligence, instruction, and wisdom. Those are lasting blessings for any person. When we pick up the reading again, Wisdom is again speaking out to the crowds, enticing them to listen to her. She is establishing her credentials. Wisdom isn’t ashamed to admit how old she is. She literally is “older than dirt” to borrow a popular expression. She came into being before everything else.
The Lord created me at the beginning of his way, before his deeds long in the past. I was formed in ancient times, at the beginning, before the earth was. When there were no watery depths, I was brought forth, when there were no springs flowing with water. Before the mountains were settled, before the hills, I was brought forth; before God made the earth and the fields or the first of the dry land.
The Hebrew verb for “brought forth” may also be translated as “whirl, dance, or writhe.” We are back to the image I suggested earlier to describe the interaction of the Trinity. If that isn’t enough, in verse 30 Wisdom says of her time with God at creation, “I was beside him as a master of crafts.” In essence, Wisdom says, “I am not a Jill-Come-Lately. You can trust me. After all, I have been with God from the very beginning. In fact, I was God’s helper, working right beside the Creator. My references are impeccable. Listen when I speak.”(1)
So Wisdom was part of creation’s architectural team, just as John described Jesus in the gospel prologue: “The Word was with God in the beginning. Everything came into being through the Word, and without the Word nothing came into being” (John 1:2-3).
At the close of the passage, Wisdom shouts one more claim that knocks our socks off:
“I was having fun, smiling before him all the time, frolicking with his inhabited earth and delighting in the human race.”
That’s not the picture of Wisdom that usually comes to mind. When we say the word “wisdom,” don’t we often imagine a stern, pursed-lipped person, a killjoy, or a solemn judge in black robe? That definitely is not the picture of wisdom here. Wisdom is not dour drudgery; Wisdom is joyous laughter, dance, and play.(2) And what’s more, Wisdom rejoices in us, in humanity – you, me, all of us, the ones who have long since come and gone and the ones yet to come.
Wisdom sounds like the kind of person you would want to hang out with, stop in to Starbucks for a cocoa double latte, extra cinnamon. And Wisdom might appreciate it if we followed her on Twitter and retweeted her posts.
Imagine this scenario:
I was out shopping yesterday, and whom did I run into? Wisdom. Yeah, there she was. She called me over and we began talking, Wisdom and I. Then, I went down to the courthouse, and there she was again, making a plea for justice in a courtroom where somebody had been unjustly accused. After that, I dropped by the school, and she had gotten there before me, She was calling for students and teachers alike always to seek truth. Then I went for a walk in the woods, moving along the trail in quiet meditation. Wisdom snuck up on me and said, “Now that we are alone, I have something I want to share with you, a present I want you to enjoy. You know, I have been around a long time, really before the beginning of time. I have been whirling and dancing with God all along. I am God's delight, laughing and playing. I want you to know the lightness of spirit and gladness that come when you welcome me. Will you set aside those thoughts, words, and deeds that make life heavy and sad for you and others? Will you come and laugh and play with me? Will you come and dance with me? Will you?”(3)
Don’t you think we need to lighten up and stop making our God into something that God isn’t. We do not worship a stingy God who grudgingly gives gifts and who grants forgiveness as a divine grump. Not at all. The triune God – God in Community, Holy in One – is a joyous, dancing God who pours out overflowing gifts to humanity with gladness.
With all her beauty and grace, Wisdom invites us all to walk, laugh, play, and dance into the light of God’s new day. Let’s not be wallflowers. Let’s accept the invitation to God’s dance.
Alleluia!
(1) Jeff Paschal, “Homiletical Perspective,” Feasting on the Word: Preaching the Revised Common Lectionary (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2010), Year C, vol. 3, 27.
(2) Ibid., 29.
(3) Ibid.
Unless noted otherwise, all scripture references are from The Common English Bible, © 2011 www.commonenglishbible.com.
Copyright © 2016 First Presbyterian Church of Waverly, Ohio. Reprinted by permission.
Romans 8:14-17; John 14: 8-17; Acts 2:1-21
Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom has two birthdays: her date of birth – April 21st – and the official holiday marking her birth, usually the second Saturday in June. She had a grand 90th birthday several weeks ago.
The church isn’t all that different from the Queen. It has two birthdays. We don’t really know when the church was birthed. Theologians will offer a variety of possibilities for that. But we have the official birthday – today, the Day of Pentecost – which marks the giving of the Holy Spirit to the apostles. And what a party that was, right there in the middle of Jerusalem. Hijinks and hilarity, celebratory toasts in a multitude of languages, and sheer unadulterated amazement.
I don’t think that they had cake and ice cream, but they did have gifts. In some cultures it is the birthday person who gives the gifts. In a lot of children’s parties today, there are little gift bags for each one attending. But of course there are the gifts for the natal honoree.
The Holy Spirit seems to serve as both attendees’ gifts and as the gift for the center of attention, in this case the nascent church. That’s because the people who were there – apostles, hangers on, and bystanders alike – were the church in that creation moment.
What was really wonderful was that the gifts of the Holy Spirit were tailored with each recipient in mind. You heard the list, They range from Rome in the west to Iran in the east, from the Black Sea in the north to the southern shore of the Mediterranean Sea and the Arabian peninsula and everywhere in between, including the local Judean community. What a mixture of people. They may have been visitors, but when they returned home did they ever have a story to tell.
All those Pentecost tongues of fire represent gifts of the Spirit. Those gifts are among the earliest treasures of the church. You won’t find them in shrines or museums. They won’t be in arks and reliquaries found in ancient churches. These treasures are all around us.
On Pentecost Sunday we celebrate what it means to become God’s heirs, joint heirs with Christ, inspirited expressions of God’s handiwork, and curators of the treasures of the church. God’s creative energy is once again poured out and passed on to the world, transforming it and redeeming it. All those “led by the Spirit” are swept up in this new burst of creativity. Who cannot be changed forever by an encounter with this spirit of adoption?
The church has bequeathed to each succeeding generation a growing collection of treasures. Some are ancient, as in the Roman catacombs. Others are Medieval, or Renaissance, or classical. Others are contemporary. Any cathedral or world class museum may have them. But some of them may be found in less impressive places. I remember being awash with rococo art in Bavaria and Austria and then pleasantly surprised by a simple, almost primitive folk art mural in a small parish church the size of our building.
To start to discover the church’s treasures, a person needs to go to what started out as the private art collection of the Tsars, but today is known as The State Hermitage in St. Petersburg, Russia. It has three million art works on display making it, some believe,“The World’s Greatest Museum.”
There are 24 Rembrandts in the Hermitage. Many people think that “The Return of the Prodigal Son,” which dates from the last tragic years of the artist, is the best of them all. It was Henri Nouwen’s favorite painting, and the basis for his book The Prodigal Son.
In an essay on Rembrandt, Georg Simmel claims that “for the first time in the history of art,” Rembrandt portrays the piety of the soul, not the religion of the church, and in this painting “people are no longer in an objectively religious world; they are subjectively religious in an objectively indifferent world.” Rembrandt's unique achievement, says Simmel, is that “he has captured the religious mood and sense of grandeur as the general element of his works, with light as the visual agent of this generality.” (1)
One personal favorite is Salvador Dali’s 1951 “Christ of Saint John of the Cross,” which hangs in the Glasgow Art Museum. It is the most popular of all Dali's religious works. The figure of the crucified Christ dominates the Bay of Port Lligat. The painting was inspired by a drawing, preserved in the Convent of the Incarnation in Avila, Spain, and done by the mystic Saint John of the Cross himself after he had seen this vision of Christ during an ecstasy. Dali wrote in 1951, “I had a ‘cosmic dream’ in which I saw this image in color and which in my dream represented the ‘nucleus of the atom’. This nucleus later took on a metaphysical sense; I considered in ‘the very unity of the universe’, the Christ!” (2)
Another personal favorite is the “Christ of Glory,” the great tapestry that forms the climactic focus of the interior of the Coventry Cathedral, designed by Graham Sutherland. It features an enormous seated Christ surrounded by the four beings from the vision of Ezekiel, also symbolizing the Four Evangelists, the angel, eagle, winged Ox and winged lion. The tapestry also includes a Crucifixion at its base which serves as the backdrop for the chapel behind the main altar.
But wait a minute!
Are these really the greatest treasures in the history of the Christian church? You don't have to go to The State Hermitage, Glasgow, Coventry, or any other museum to view the greatest art treasures in the history of the church. Pentecost Sunday proclaims that if you want to see the church’s greatest art treasures, GO HOME. STAY HOME. Look all around you. Open your eyes to the acts of service, the acts of grace, the acts of compassion going on all around you by heirs of Christ, the true treasures of the church. Didn’t Jesus himself say:
“I was hungry and you gave me food to eat. I was thirsty and you gave me a drink. I was a stranger and you welcomed me. I was naked and you gave me clothes to wear. I was sick and you took care of me. I was in prison and you visited me” (Matthew 25:35-36)?
While God may give the Spirit to inspire great artists like Michelangelo, Rembrandt, Dali, and others, we know for certain that God sent the Spirit to be born in you.
God sent Jesus to be born in you. In the words of onetime Methodist, Vincent van Gogh, “Christ is more of an artist than the artists; he works in the living spirit and the living flesh; he makes [people] instead of statues.”
God is calling this church to be the greatest art treasure. God is calling you to be the church’s greatest art treasure. In the words of Ephesians 2:10, “We are God’s accomplishment, created in Christ Jesus to do good things. God planned for these good things to be the way that we live our lives.” Or as some translations render it, "You are God’s poem” and others, “You are God’s handiwork,” which really means “You are God’s artwork.”
God’s accomplishments, God’s handiwork, the church’s art treasures come in all shapes and sizes, all colors and ages. In fact, one is only five years old. One day he was walking to Grandma’s house after attending Sunday school. His lesson for the day had been Jesus’ “Parable of the Last Judgment,” and he couldn't get out of his head the teacher's comment, “When you give something to another person, you're really giving it to Jesus.”
Walking through a park, he noticed an elderly woman sitting on a bench, feeding some pigeons. She looked lost and lonely. So he went over to her, sat down, took from his pocket a package of M&M’s, and offered her some. She smiled and took them.
The boy liked her smile so much that, after she had eaten the M&M’s, he gave her more. This time they exchanged smiles and, for a while, they sat together in silence, just smiling at each other.
Finally, the boy got up to leave. As he began to walk away, he turned, ran back to the bench, and gave the woman a big hug. She gave him her very best smile.
When he arrived at his grandma’s house, she saw a big smile on his face and asked, “What made you so happy?” He said, “I shared my M&M’s with Jesus. And she has a great smile.”
Meanwhile, the woman on the bench returned to her little apartment where she lived with her sister. “You’re all smiles,” said the sister. “What made you so happy today?” She replied, “I was sitting in the park, eating M&M’s with Jesus. And you know, he looks a lot younger than I expected.”
Who are the church’s real treasures of art? You are. Each and every one of you are a treasure for the church, just as each of you are a fellow heir with Christ.
It has become a snide expression to say of someone, “He’s quite a piece of work.” But God sincerely says precisely that of you and of me. As the Pentecost Spirit of God rests upon us, we are indeed each one of us pieces of work, God’s work. You, me, and those around us are works in progress that God is creating for his glory. Let us recognize the genius of the Holy Spirit in each of us and be open to the brush strokes of the Spirit in our daily lives.
General Resource: “The Church’s Greatest Art Treasures,” Homiletics, May 31, 1998; http://www.homileticsonline.com/subscriber/btl_display.asp?installment_id=2839
(1) Georg Simmel, “Rembrandt's Religious Art [1914],” Essays on Religion [New Haven: Yale University Press, 1997], 78-97.
(2) http://www.dalipaintings.net/christ-of-saint-john-of-the-cross.jsp
Unless noted otherwise, all scripture references are from The Common English Bible, © 2011 www.commonenglishbible.com.
Copyright © 2016 First Presbyterian Church of Waverly, Ohio. Reprinted by permission.
Luke 24:44-53; Acts 1:1-11; Ephesians 1:15-23
So this is goodbye? The disciples probably weren’t sure. After all, since they said goodbye on that tragic Friday, they had been saying hello to Jesus a number of times. Jesus kept popping into their lives after God raised him from the tomb on that day we now call Easter. He had shown up walking along the road to Emmaus and had allowed himself to be revealed when he broke bread with his fellow travelers. Then he appeared in the locked room where the most of the disciples had gathered for safety and to consider the report of his resurrection. He reappeared the following week to assure Thomas and future generations of followers that his resurrection was real. Then he had breakfast on the lake shore having told the disciples which side of the boat to fish from. And he reconfirmed the call of Peter. We can deduce that he must have spent a lot of time with the disciples in the forty days which had elapsed since the resurrection.
So, was this goodbye? It would certainly seem so. Otherwise why would the two men stylishly dressed in white appear and greet the disciples, saying, “Galileans, why are you standing here, looking toward heaven?” (Acts 1:11).
After the amazement of the resurrection, how comfortable it must have been for the disciples to have Jesus around. Every day he is there; it was like old times. The Acts account speaks of “many convincing proofs” (Acts 1:3). Too often we treat Easter as a moment, an event, like opening the presents on Christmas. A careful reading gives a much richer picture. It’s not ham or turkey and the family gathered around; instead, it’s a series of meetings in which Jesus comes to people deeply wounded by grief and spins them around to joyful hope. Every time that Jesus appeared, they must have believed that things would now go on as they had before, even better than before.
Still, there’s impatience. When Jesus takes them out to a hill a few weeks after the resurrection, they ask: “Lord, are you going to restore the kingdom to Israel now?” (Acts 1: 6). Not a very subtle hint of “Let’s get going, Jesus.”
It’s not that simple. Now Jesus was gone. He wouldn’t be back anytime soon. Now the disciples were able to worship Jesus, because he had ascended to the Father. Neither resurrection nor ascension is about human longing for life after death. Resurrection is a call to mission. Nothing is said about the disciples’ resurrection. They are too busy being focused on waiting in Jerusalem. They worship daily in the temple, doing the familiar even though their sense of the familiar and the ordinary has been stretched to the limit and beyond. They stand calmly as Jesus is taken from them, but they also engage in expectant waiting, until the mantle passes to them and the Spirit’s power anoints them for the mission ahead.
In Luke’s first and briefer account of the ascension, Jesus touches on the whole range of salvation history and human reaction to it. The ascension is about past, present and future.
Jesus tells the disciples that “everything written about me in the Law from Moses, the Prophets, and the Psalms must be fulfilled” (Luke 24:44). That’s the entire scripture as Jesus and his contemporaries knew it. We have been nurtured on contemporary values, relatively speaking. Those values may be the ones we grew up in 20, 40, 60 years ago. But that is still contemporary compared to 2,000 years ago.
F. Belton Joyner, Jr., writes that “tradition becomes a feeding tube by which God's work in days long ago is delivered to our own time.”(1) Old is good. It’s comfortable and reassuring. The books of the Law tell how we are to live as God’s people. The Prophets are not shy about telling God’s people that the ongoing predicaments they are in is because have missed the mark. The Psalms share the full range of feelings experienced by God’s people: praise, lament, confusion, doubt, or hope. As Joyner puts its, God has not just arrived at the party! We are not the first to encounter the living God. When we draw on tradition, we are taking cues from those who have gone before us as we seek to avoid dangers and find refreshment.
Jesus does not ignore or downplay the past. He fulfills it as eternal Word present from before creation came to be and he is vaster than all we think we know about him. To deny the past is to deny who God is.
Then Jesus “opened their minds to understand the scriptures” (Luke 24:45). He moved from the past to the present. How does all that we have received apply to the here and now? The disciples had three years of experiences with Jesus interpreting the scriptures outright and highlighting them in parables. But more than that, he lived and breathed the meaning of the scriptures in prayer, in healing, in teaching, in speaking truth to power.
Scripture addresses several questions to the ever-present now:
- Where is God’s truth seen as “real” in the twenty-first century?
- Where is grace being experienced?
- Where is forgiveness being accepted?
- Where is healing breaking through brokenness?
- Where is reconciliation happening?
- Where is the gift of faith being received?(2)
Some of those questions we can answer as a community of faith. Some of them we can answer only as individuals. In other words, where is God in our own life? How, where, and when do we experience the grace-filled presence of God in healing, mending, growing our life?
God provides means of grace, avenues through which God makes God’s transforming presence accessible in this day. The catechisms have long told us that those means are public and private prayer, personal and corporate worship, reading, studying, and hearing the Scriptures, fasting, and frequent coming to the Lord’s Table. When we engage in these means of grace, God ordinarily brings gracious gifts. Luke called it opening “their minds to understand the scriptures.” For us it is allowing our lives to be totally open to what God is doing today.
All this doesn’t end here. Jesus is clear. His instructions to the eleven disciples are direct and simple: “Stay in the city until you have been furnished with heavenly power” (Luke 24:49). Luke sets the stage for Pentecost. The gospel may end in a few verses, but the story goes on. Acts picks up right where the gospel leaves off. It’s like those continuing television shows: “Previously on ‘The Life and Times of the Early Church....” God makes good on God’s promises. If God says power will be given, power will be given! In this sense, says Joyner, the resurrection of Jesus is an appetizer (or foretaste) of a future in which all in God's family are given new life.(3)
A number of churches have used this acronym for their prayer ministry: “PUSH = Pray Until Something Happens.” This concluding reading in Luke’s gospel is definitely leaning into the wind of tomorrow. Something is going to happen.
We have lost that sense of expectancy. Oh, we do expect things, but usually from a cynical bent. We live like A. A. Milne’s Eeyore, that donkey that could find a dark cloud around every silver lining. Something will happen, God’s something, something filled with grace, something that will fulfill God’s plans and God’s promises.
The ascension invites us into that kind of expectation. The disciples worshiped Jesus and “returned to Jerusalem overwhelmed with joy. And they were continuously in the temple praising God” (Luke 24:53).
God is active. In early Christian art, God was depicted by means of a cloud. It’s a presence, a mystery, a force, a power that can’t be described. God was in the cloud that led the way out of Egypt. God was in the cloud at the transfiguration. God was in the cloud that lifted Jesus up to heaven. God has been active. God is active. God will be active, in our lifetimes, and in the lifetimes of believers who come after us, who are prepared by our experiences of God’s presence and grace, and who will share their experiences with still others. “When the Holy Spirit has come upon you, ... you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth” (Acts 1:8),celebrating God’s activity in the past, in the present, and in the future.
Alleluia! Thanks be to God.
(1) F. Belton Joyner, Jr., “Luke 24:44-53 – Homiletical Perspective,” Feasting on the Word: Preaching the Revised Common Lectionary (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2009), Year C, vol. 2, 517.
(2) Ibid., 519.
(3) Ibid.
Unless noted otherwise, all scripture references are from The Common English Bible, © 2011 www.commonenglishbible.com.
Copyright © 2016 First Presbyterian Church of Waverly, Ohio. Reprinted by permission.
Acts 16:9-15; Revelation 21:10; 21:22-22:5; John 5:1-9
The live lilies and flowers have long since departed. Rotten forgotten dyed eggs have not assaulted our noses. But the Easter banners are still flying from the rafters and the lily spray still clings to the cross. Easter was five weeks ago. What gives?
Easter is not a single day that if you blink you miss it. Easter is a season. The Jewish community out of which the early church came observed the Festival of Weeks fifty days after Passover. This marked the end of the wheat harvest as well as commemorating the giving of the Law. It was during the Festival of Weeks celebration that the Holy Spirit filled the gathered apostles in Jerusalem and launched the church. We will remember that occasion in two weeks.
Jesus was crucified by the Roman authorities at the beginning of Passover. During the fifty day period that followed, the apostles encountered the risen Christ several times but for the most part remained out of sight. According to Luke, Jesus was taken up into heaven on the fortieth day after his resurrection. That would be this coming Thursday. We will think a bit more about that next week.
So the season of Easter runs from the day of Jesus’ resurrection to the Day of Pentecost. Throughout this time we remember the power of his resurrection for our lives, the life of the church, and the life of world.
The resurrection of Christ and the birth of the church marked a change in worship. The Jewish tradition had always followed the wording of the Law, which reflected the process of creation. Six days God worked at creating. And on the seventh God rested. So creation itself – primarily human creation – should also rest on the seventh day and do no work. We know the seventh day as Saturday. Christ’s resurrection on the first day of the week, our Sunday, was a new and decisive act of creation by God. So the Christian Sabbath, or as the New Testament Church called it, the Lord’s Day, was celebrated on Sunday.
What that all means is that every Sunday is a little Easter, regardless of what else is going on in the church calendar. We don’t make a big deal of it, but if we didn’t have Christ’s resurrection, we wouldn’t have the Christian faith, the church, or a day of rest as we know it.
Easter is a transformative event. It changed everything. The Book of Acts is the story of the initial extension of the church from a closed-off room in Jerusalem to the ends of the earth. The Book of Acts may run out at the end of chapter 28, but it doesn’t really end. It is a lot like the season finale of dramatic series. Yes, it ends, but there are a number of loose ends that prepare us for the next season.
If Acts is season one of the church, then what season are we in? I have no idea. It is like one of the long running soap operas on television that has gone through countless story lines and generations of characters. Whatever season the church is in, we are in that season. It’s our turn to be the church.
Had we been the writers of the initial church script, we would never have foreseen the church where it is today. The plot line for the church has had more twists and turns and knots and snarls than a skein of yarn mauled by a kitten. How many times has the life of the church been like the ending of a television show I watched the other night and the only thing I could say after seeing the final scene was, “I didn’t see that coming.”
Much of scripture lays the ground for that kind of reaction. Even when we dig deep into our faith and remind ourselves, “God is in charge,” we still don’t see coming many of the things that happen. Take today’s readings for instance.
How about the response that arises to the healing of the long-suffering, chronically ill man who had been physically unable to reach the healing waters in time whenever they were stirred up? The reaction of the religious authorities is not one of praise for the healing, but anger that the man carried his mat on the Sabbath. That’s what we find when we read beyond where the reading ended. I suspect that in his amazement at being healed, the man didn’t take time to neatly roll up his mat, but grabbed it hastily and trotted off. It probably wasn’t all that heavy, just awkward.
Nevertheless he was accused of doing work because he was toting his bedroll. Eventually the authorities found out that Jesus had told him to carry his mat and that meant to them that Jesus was violating the Sabbath rules. Jesus responded that he was simply doing his Father’s work – God’s work. That statement didn’t calm the leaders; it upset them all the more. Keeping strict rein on the rules for the Sabbath was more important than recognizing the gracious healing activity of God. That the healing happened on the Sabbath was a foretaste of greater healing to come.
When we turn to the brief account in the Acts reading, we find that it starts with a radical plot shift. Paul had added Timothy to his team and was making the circuit of churches in the province of Asia – modern day southwestern Turkey. The ministry was going well. He and his companions “instructed Gentile believers to keep the regulations put in place by the apostles and elders in Jerusalem. So the churches were strengthened in the faith and every day their numbers flourished” (Acts 16:4-5).
Then out of the blue – or rather the dark of night – Paul’s itinerary gets changed. He and his friends don’t have a clue what was going to happen, but they proceed on faith. They must have arrived in Philippi mid-week. They got settled in, and since Paul was an itinerant tent-maker, he must have explored what his work opportunities were. Come the morning of the Sabbath, he and his companions decided to go outside the walls of the city in order to find a quiet place to reflect on the risen Christ, sing psalms, and pray.
Along the banks of the local stream, in what we might envision as a kind of park area, he meets the God-worshiper Lydia and her friends. The ever-garrulous Paul quickly started talking to her about the risen Lord Jesus. The Spirit enabled her to joyfully receive the gospel, be baptized, and become a support and hostess for Paul and his band of evangelists.
For Paul, the known spiritual disciplines and sources of divine inspiration led to the unknown. By following the known script they were led to encounters and experiences, and new scripts began to write themselves.
Richard M. Landers writes,
Long before any organized church structure took shape, believers gathered and God's Spirit moved them, often taking them far from the established patterns of their own religious life. Macedonia represents a missionary frontier, and crossing over that threshold is a symbolic and real gesture in support of the gospel's expansive character. Paul and his companions at this point appear stalled and in search of divine guidance, and so this crossover constitutes a tremendous leap of faith.(1)
When the church grows and matures, it is always first led out of its comfort zone. The unknown of Macedonia led to the establishing of church communities in Philippi and Corinth. Paul even wound up in the great cosmopolitan regional capital of Athens, where he eventually debated some of the leading philosophers of the day.
Authentic mission is always a response to a need within the community, not simply the missionary’s need to proclaim. These brief verses can provide individuals and congregations with examples of innovative ministry. And the key is that what makes the ministry detour is prayer and worship.
Yes, prayer is powerful when two or three are gathered in Jesus’ name. The Sleeve Tuggers prayer group started a number of years before we finalized plans to erect this building and move into it. Prayer warriors like John and Fran Hamlin, Betty Armstrong Jenkins, Cy Whitfield, and others prayed us through the challenges that awaited us.
As we head for the end of second decade of the 21st century and the challenges of being faithful in times very different from those we grew comfortable with decades ago, we need concerted praying and worshiping. Paul and companions prayed and worshiped in order to receive God’s call to the ministry. God invites us to pray and worship for the ministry that awaits us to engage the people who need the gospel that Presbyterian Christians can graciously offer, as Paul offered it to Lydia and friends. It is through praying and worshiping that God will lead us to the new chapters of faithfulness that lay ahead of us, for us to be involved in and to lay the groundwork for those who will come after us.
If you are like me, when you are traveling, detours are a nuisance and a delay. Yet we have seen wonderful things while detouring. Detours can be Godsends, purposeful, challenging and rewarding. Through prayer and worship, where will God detour our individual and collective lives? We will have to pray and worship to find out. Maybe we need sleeve-tugging prayer groups meeting every day of the week, morning, noon, and night, on campus and in the community.
May God send us on a Spirit-led detour. And may it be a blessing for all involved.
(1) Richard M. Landers, “Homiletical Perspective,” Feasting on the Word: Preaching the Revised Common Lectionary (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2009) Year C, vol. 2, 477.
Unless noted otherwise, all scripture references are from The Common English Bible, © 2011 www.commonenglishbible.com.
Copyright © 2016 First Presbyterian Church of Waverly, Ohio. Reprinted by permission.
