Bethlehem/Newfolden, MN and Nazareth/Holt, MN
May 1, 2016
Easter 6/Acts
16:9-15
In the name of Jesus.
Amen.
Many moons ago when I was a wee little lad in Sunday
School I loved stories like this one in Acts 16—stories of Paul the intrepid
missionary, criss-crossing the ancient world, preaching the Good News and
winning persons for Christ.
Paul, seemed like a super-hero to me: always marching from triumph to triumph, the infant
church growing by leaps and bounds…
Only later, as I began to explore the Bible more
slowly and closely and in greater depth—did I come to realize these stories in
the Book of Acts are more complicated than that.
The Apostle Paul didn’t always get to where he thought
he was going. He was often sidetracked,
bushwhacked, pushed away, thwarted.
What this morning’s reading from Acts fails to mention
is that before Paul had his famous vision in the night—a vision of a man from
Macedonia, pleading with Paul to “come over to Macedonia and help us”—what
might be easy to miss here is that the invitation into Macedonia was preceded
by two failed attempts to reach other destinations—to Asia first, but that
didn’t happen….and then to Bithynia, but that was a bust, too! (Acts 16:6-8)
Paul in the power of the Holy Spirit, understood these
two failed attempts as ways that God was in fact directing him elsewhere….which
is a good reminder that missionaries like Paul encountered obstacles and closed
doors at least as often as they were welcomed with open arms.
Nevertheless, the point is worth pondering, that
missionaries like Paul had to take “No” for an answer, more often than we might
guess.
Only after hearing a “No” or even a series of “No’s”
did the mission proceed….and where exactly did Paul end up?
In the most unlikely of places: down by the riverside outside Philippi,
surrounded by a bunch of women.
THIS
was the journey’s goal that God had in mind for Paul? Really?
Who’d have ever imagined that Paul had to bypass Asia and skirt around
Bithynia, just to get to Philippi and a gathering of women in prayer—women
trying to make their way in a man’s world!
We must take the full measure of all the borders that
Paul and his entourage were crossing here.
Pious Jewish men in Paul’s day often prayed a prayer of thanksgiving
that went like this: “I thank you Lord that I was not born a
slave, a Gentile or a woman!”
And
here was Paul—risking life and limb on the Mediterranean Sea just so he could
hobnob with a bunch of Gentiles who also happened to be women.
But this is exactly how it was meant to be. God directs Paul and company to persons on
the margins of life in that day, women who are often left out of the historical
record, women eager to hear the Good News about Jesus…women who, in fact,
became the foundation of the church in Philippi.
One of these women is actually named here--Lydia, who
seems to have done rather well, living in a man’s world. Lydia was an entrepreneur, a dealer in
expensive textiles, high-end merchandise that favored the rich, rich color
purple. Lydia, whoever she was, was a
businesswoman who headed up her own household.
And when she heard Paul speak about Jesus, she
believed what she heard and was baptized, along with her whole household….and
then (as Eugene Peterson puts it in his wonderful paraphrase[1] of Acts) “in a surge of hospitality” Lydia
invited Paul and his fellow missionaries to stay with her for a while.
In other words:
Lydia’s house became the mission center for the Christians of Philippi
who became the most beloved of all the churches Paul founded.
Who would have guessed? That after facing obstacles and closed
doors, Paul’s missionary meanderings would lead him to Lydia’s doorstep,
starting a church with the women’s group first—women living very much in a
man’s world?
But
really—isn’t that just like God, to work in such a fashion!?
God, the God we know best in Jesus Christ, never
shrinks back from obstacles. God loves
maneuvering around or walking through closed doors. God in Christ is just no good at taking “No”
for an answer. God prefers, really
prefers “the scenic route.”
And God gets the biggest kick out of working with the most unlikely of characters. If some group is living on the edge of human society, if some persons hang out there on the margins—God in Jesus Christ is always making a beeline for them, seeking them out, finding them, taking up residence with them, working in them/with them/through them.
We
see this right in the story of Jesus. As the gospels tell that story Jesus is
always on the move, forever encountering strangers, most often heading straight
towards all the wrong crowd. It’s as if they—the
pitiful sick ones, the most notorious sinners, the accursed outsiders—were the
objects of Jesus’ most ardent affection.
We
see this in the long, long story of the church. Rodney Stark, a sociologist of religion,
contends that one of the reasons the Christian movement grew in ancient times
was that Christians didn’t hightail it and flee when plagues were killing off
people in droves. Early Christians
stayed with the sick, cared for the dying, risked catching the same disease
with them—and the world took notice!
We
see this in the global church, especially in places
like our companion synod in India. There
is a reason why so many members of the Untouchables, the Dalits—those below the lowest rung of India’s
social ladder—have embraced Christ and his church. It’s because the Dalits see in Jesus a
kindred spirit, a fellow Dalit, despised by the world, good-for-nothing, edged
out of society and hung on a cross.
We see this much closer to home, right here in northwestern Minnesota. Folks in the great coastal cities who make
up the bulk of the U.S. population consider us “flyover” territory—that vast
midsection of our continent that busy folks are forced to fly over to get from crowded
New York to sprawling Los Angeles.
Even here on the territory of our synod, I know what
folks say about your part of our territory, the area north of Highway Two. I visit with pastors from other parts of the
country and seminarians eager for their first calls, and I point out this very
area on the map—and many of them look at it and say: “You
want me to go way up there? Why,
there’s nobody up there—on the maps it doesn’t even look inhabited!”…..to
which I love to respond: “Yes, indeed, there are people up north
of Highway Two….fine people, good salt-of-the-earth folks you could come to
love—and they could come to love you…..and guess what: there’s another whole country called Canada
just north of us!”
This missionary journey of Paul that we get a brief
glimpse of here in Acts 16—this missionary vocation to which Paul was called “worked
on him,” profound shaping his faith and sharpening his proclamation. By constantly calling Paul to the edges, the
very margins of society in the first century, by plopping Paul down in places
like that prayer gathering of women just outside Philippi….God made Paul see
that God allows no obstacles to stand in his way, that God has a thing for
those living on the edges of life, those who for all the world look like losers—they,
they are the special objects of God’s deepest affection.
Which is why, in one of Paul’s greatest epistles, he
could write words like these: “Consider your own call, brothers and
sisters: not many of you were wise by human standards, not many were powerful,
not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to
shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God
chose what is low and despised in the world, things that are not, to reduce to
nothing things that are, so that no one might boast in the presence of God. He
is the source of your life in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God,
and righteousness and sanctification and redemption, in order that, as it is
written, ‘Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.’” (I Corinthians 1:26-31)
In the name of Jesus.
Amen.
