Our reading
from Acts today is certainly timely and apt.
Timely, as it reminds us that we need to answer God’s call on our own
lives, just as did Paul and those with him in his journeys; apt, in that we
have participated in another telling of that story in our midst.
The story
begins with a vision. Paul sees a
Macedonian asking for help in a dream.
He and those with him pray about it and become convinced that God is
sending them to Macedonia. Luke
describes the difficulty of the journey in a few words. This is not like you and me being asked to
take a cruise ship to your favorite Caribbean island. Remember, the ships were, for the most part,
coastal huggers. Ships were meant to
stay in sight of land. Some sailed
through the night, but many dropped anchor during the darkness to make sure
there were no reefs or rocks to hit.
Anyway,
they arrive at Philippi, one of the bigger cities at the time in Macedonia and,
as Luke notes, a Roman colony. That
little note tells us a lot. Philippi has
patterned itself intentionally on Rome, so the city will run in accordance to
Roman law. It also makes Paul a bit of a
celebrity. Philippi probably did have a
handful of citizens, but in a world with only 100,000 citizens or so throughout
the empire, every citizen was a bit more important to the locals, the further
one went out from the heart of Rome. Out
in the border lands, there was a worry about getting to close to barbarians or
spending time among the conquered who might bear ill will, but this was a town
that intentionally patterned itself after Rome.
Luke says
they remained in Philippi some days, but that on the Sabbath Day they went
outside the gate by the river, presumable to a copse of trees or meadow or some
other distinguishing feature, that served as a place of prayer. We learn a couple important details in this
brief description. First, where do
faithful Jews usually meet to worship God?
That’s right, the synagogue. Next
question: How many Jewish men did it take to found a synagogue? Three?
Good guess. Three is obviously
important to God. One? Ah, we have someone focusing on God’s
immanence this morning. Good. Any other guesses? No?
Twelve? It makes sense,
right? The twelve tribes and all
that. I see the nods. For Philippi to have had a synagogue at this
time, twelve Jewish men would have had to found it. In our language, they would have planted the
church and become the Bishop’s council in the new faith community. That there is no synagogue in Philippi tells
us that there are not enough Jewish men present in the city to plant a
synagogue. Even if there are more than a
dozen Jewish males present, not enough are serious enough in their faith to
start a new synagogue.
Now, and I
know this will shock those of us who buy into the stupid post-modern narrative
that God hates women or the authors of the Scriptures hate women, but who are
the faithful in this story? That’s
right! The women. The God-fearers or faithful Jewish women in
this story are the women. They gather at
the place outside the river gate to pray to God. And what does “misogynistic” Paul do when he
learns about them? I know, it’s
shocking. He goes out the gate to the appointed
place to pray with them!
I know I am
preaching to the choir in this place—you are here worshipping God on a holiday
weekend and attend a church with women in leadership—but do not forget these little
stories when someone confronts you with the idea that God hates women or that Paul
hates women or that the authors of Scripture hate women. God made women in His image and has used women
repeatedly to advance His purposes in the world!
While praying
and worshiping with the women, Paul shares the Gospel with them. In response, a woman named Lydia,
responds. As an aside, I want you all to
note that she is a woman of means. She
is the seller of purple cloth in Philippi.
All the aristocrats in the city will have to come to her for their
purple. Did I mention that the city
patterned itself after Rome? She has a
nice monopoly, and she does not seem to need a man to take care of her at
all. In any event, echoing the story of
Cornelius with Peter, Lydia and her household are baptized by Paul, and she
provides Paul and his fellow travelers with hospitality during their stay in
Philippi.
A couple
lessons should jump right out at us this morning. First, aside from the reputation Paul has
about hating women among post-modernist scholars, what prompts Paul to go to
Philippi? It was quite a journey, and it
had no synagogue. From a purely
pragmatic perspective, Paul should have no reason to expect an audience hungry
for the Gospel to be present in Philippi.
Why does he, then, go? That’s
right! God. God speaks to Paul in a dream and tells him
to go there. Don’t forget, Paul wondered at that, right? He discerns with those with him whether it
was God or just a dream. For reasons
left unwritten by Luke, the group is convinced they should journey to
Macedonia. Second, who does the real
evangelization in the story? It’s not a
trick question. Who opens Lydia’s and
the other hearts to the Gospel? That’s
right! God.
This story,
just like Cornelius’, ought to remind us of the freedom and joy we should have
and encourage us to live our faith as God calls each of us. I spoke a couple weeks ago about the general
who joked about the “yabuts.” His
audience wanted to believe, but each had an excuse or a qualifier. Adventers are much the same. How many of conversations center around the
idea that you, in particular, are ill-suited to God’s particular call on your
life? How many? If I preach that God is using you in your
daily life and work, which we believe and pray every week from our beloved BCP,
how many conversations do I sit through listening to someone explain why they
are particularly not prepared for this calling or that calling?
Some will
protest to the point where they will say “It’s easy for you, Father. You have been trained.” And how many times do I respond with a word
more closely aligned with skubala? I was
not trained for 90% of the stuff I share with y’all. I’ll let you all in on a little secret since
you dragged yourselves to church on a holiday weekend, most of the time I am
winging it. Don’t scoff. Listen.
Do you think I intended to teach the Ten Words at the Y so well that
those men would find their answers to the New Zealand tragedy in that teaching in
my absence? Of course not. Ask any folks at my last parish about the
fight against slavery. Who forgot Communion? Who forgot oil for healing? The professional!
The big
difference between me and you is experience.
I have experienced God’s power and grace too many times in my life not
to believe He will show up in ways I cannot ask or imagine. Jim asked Thursday night who all had seen
miracles. I shared with Jim my most . .
. significant, but I also shared with the group I see and hear of God at work
all the time. And that is part of the
problem, right? We do not do the things
that God is calling us to do for fear of failure or distrust in ourselves, and
so we never see God’s redeeming power at work in our lives. We focus too much on what can go wrong rather
than trusting God to redeem our mistakes and make them go incredibly well. There’s a spiral, of sorts, at work in our
lives. The more obedient to God we are,
the more He seems present and at work in our lives; the more we fight Him, the
more distant He seems. When I share
these stories with you in Bible studies or sermons or individual conversations,
I do because they are your stories, too!
My sermon illustration for today is a perfect example.
Three years
ago, a long-haired, flip flop wearing, tattooed guy came through the office
door asking to speak with the pastor. You
all now know him as James Harvey, of the missionary Harvey family for which we
have been praying for a couple years.
Some of you know more of the story thanks to Bible studies and other gatherings,
but James felt the call of the Holy Spirit to stop in and greet the pastor. James was not too thrilled with this
prompting. Everything he knew about
Episcopalians taught him we were little different than Unitarians with Popish
worship. For a baptist’s minister’s kid,
we were kind of the perfect storm or hot mess to be avoided. Events at Advent at the time made him a
welcome visitor, from my perspective. I
thought his reason for sharing was weird, but I’d had plenty of reason to trust
God in the past. So I did. Thanks to James’ openness and obedience, I
have had a lot of good Wednesday afternoons ever since that first visit. His practice now, don’t forget he’s the son
of a Baptist minister, is to join us for Wednesday worship as we remember the
life and witness of a saint, and then he and I spend time sharing where we have
seen God at work in the world around us and praying for one another and our
families.
The reason
I bring that up is that, in part due to James’ efforts, you have a modern Lydia
story to share. If you will recall three
years ago, I shared with you that James and his missionary team were headed to
the Tonka valley in northern Siberia to try and convert Urdu folks to the Gospel. Now, understand, I am using the best I can do
in English. This valley in northern Siberia
of which we speak has both a proper Urdu and Russia name. The Urdu people living there are one of those
unreached people groups about which missionaries like to tell the Church. It may seem weird to us that a people can be
unreached in this day and age, but there are several out there. This group lived in a valley which measures
winter snowfall by the feet and makes the windchills of the northern plains
seem rather balmy.
I used some small amount of Discretionary
funds to help offset James’ expenses—that is your part of the beginning of this
story. Some of the money Adventers gave
me to use to serve others in God’s name went to his work.
Upon their
arrival, James and his team discovered a house church meeting in a mechanics
bay in the valley. They went from “how
do we find converts and plant a church” to “how do we support what the Holy
Spirit is already doing?” They asked the
pastor what he needed to better serve his people. He asked for some training, some prayer, and
some help digging a new bay. So they
helped train him, prayed for him, and dug him a new bay.
Imagine
their disappointment about a year or eighteen months ago when they discovered
he had been called home. He was having
to go back to Turkey or Afghanistan or wherever his family lived because of the
family’s need. The missionaries were
fearful the house church would fold. It
was losing its pastor, its meeting place, and most of its membership.
A bit over
a year ago, some members of the team returned.
Much to their surprise, they encountered a woman they had never met
before. She had taken over pastoring
that church. When they asked her what
she needed, she told them everything.
She had kind of been forced to assume the leadership of that church in
that remote region of Siberia. She had
no training. Heck, she had no Bible in
Urdu. She had no idea what she should be
doing or how she should be doing it. A Lutheran
pastor had agreed to help her when he came through town, but it was not nearly
enough. I should add, he’s had a health
crisis and been unable to visit her for more than nine months now.
Anyway, the team, and all of us who
supported the team, prayed about how she could be helped. Short of missionaries staying there or
bringing her here, what could be done. Somebody
came up with the great idea of purchasing her an i-Phone and teaching her the
stories in the Orality project in Urdu over the internet. How many of us sort of buy into the idea that
smartphones are tools of the devil? I
see a few hands. Here was God giving
folks an idea of how to use a smartphone to spread His Gospel.
That Bible-picture-book
that everyone here has seen, was intentionally done the way it was done. It is not meant for the preacher/teacher to
be an artist. The art was designed so
that little kids could draw it and remember the stories. Many of these unreached people groups of
which missionaries speak are oral cultures rather than written like us in the
west. The picture provokes the brain to
recall the story. If I did a simple
drawing of an ark with sets of two animals on a rocky mountain with a rainbow
over it and a dove with an olive branch in it, what story do you think you
would remember? What details would be
provoked in your mind? I see the lightbulbs
going off.
I know some
of us dismiss James and his work because of his appearance, but his work is
really Gospel. It generally takes years
to translate the Bible into new languages.
Some of those countries confiscate the Bibles when they are
translated. James has a simple looking
picture book that no customs agent ever wants to peruse! Better still, the stories are told from one
person to another. I see the nods, y’all
get the idea. In the case of this woman
in the Tonka valley of northern Siberia, whom we call Lydia because her real
name is too long, someone fluent in Urdu can tell her the story related to the picture
that captures her interest. She in turn
can show the picture or draw it in the dirt for those to whom she is called to
minister. And so on. The discretionary funds with which you have
trusted me have helped that book get published and purchased for folks around
the world, and we helped buy this Urdu woman we call Lydia an i-Phone for
training.
Before you
came to church this morning, how many of you had any idea that you, you sitting
in the middle of Brentwood or Nashville, TN, had supported a modern Lydia with
your thank offerings and gifts? How many
of you realized that God was still going ahead of those missionaries whom He
calls and doing what seems impossible by modern standards? How many of you expected that your gifts and
thank offerings would be used today to help an Urdu woman in a remote valley of
Siberia lead caribou and reindeer herders into a deeper relationship, a deeper
experience with God? Yet that is all our
story today! All of us at Advent have
had a hand in that work. Some of us have
contributed financially; others have contributed by means of prayer.
Sitting
here today in the comforts of this place and this country, you may be tempted
to downplay this story in your mind or corporate faith journey. But ask yourself this important questions: What
do I think those folks in the Tonka valley of norther Siberia think of the pittances
with which we have supported them? What do
I think the missionaries think of the small funding and constant prayer with which
we have supported them? You do
understand their thankfulness to God for your faithfulness, right? You do understand that they perceive of you
as saints—folks who are committed to building up the Body of Christ across the
world!
It’s a cool
thought, is it not? They are thankful
for us. They give thanks to God for us
in languages we can neither speak nor read.
I know, if they only knew us! But
here’s the Gospel my brothers and sisters: God does know us! He knows us intimately! And though we may not yet describe ourselves
as a spiritually mature community of followers of Jesus the Christ, He knows
what we can be! Now, here’s a question
we should all ponder as we give thanks this weekend for those who made such gatherings
possible with the ultimate sacrifice for us, imagine what God could do with us
and for us if we only responded with excited and determined “yes, Lord’s.” If God can reach the remote areas of the
world with our half-hearted efforts or yabuts, imagine what God could do with
enthusiastic “here I am Lord, send me’s.”
Even then, my brothers and sisters, He would accomplish more than we
could ask or imagine. What is it He is
asking of you this day? What dream has
He placed in your heart this morning? What
story does He want the world to know about you and me and this place in His
salvation history?
In Christ’s Peace,
Brian†
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