If “The Book of the Acts of the Apostles” had a sub-title as well as that familiar title, it might be something like “the continuing story of the Gospel of the Kingdom of God on Earth, as the followers of Jesus start looking, acting and sounding a lot like him.”
In this story of the early church,
the followers of Jesus – in what they say and do, and even in what happens to
them, look and sound exactly like Jesus does in the stories of the
Gospels. Their stories sound alike, over
and over again. Until it becomes clear
that really Jesus – or at least, the Christ, is not gone; the Spirit that
filled and shaped Jesus and made him who he was, now fills and shapes the
community of his followers.
In this reading, Paul preaches the
good news and does great wonders in the city of Philippi. For his efforts he is falsely accused,
arrested and shackled in the deepest part of a prison – sealed in a living
tomb. In the middle of the night,
though, God hears his prayers and songs and sets him free – raises him up again
to live freely in the world, to keep preaching and doing the work of the
kingdom.
He slammed the
door behind him. Hard.
It was a heavy,
exterior steel fire door. I imagined the
whole building shaking with the force; the sound of it shattered the Sunday
peacefulness of the neighbourhood.
With six quick,
angry steps he reached the public sidewalk.
Oblivious to others around him he turned right, strode to his car,
unlocked the door, got in, closed the door, started the engine, pulled into the
street and drove away. Not recklessly. But clearly not stopping or coming back to
whatever disappointment, disagreement or conflict he had left behind.
He was a
friend. Still is, I imagine, any time I
run into him. He is also a priest. It was the side door of his church that he
slammed behind him that day. And some people
of his parish that he drove away from in such quiet rage.
That’s not what
you expect of a priest and a minister of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. To end an argument or a difference of opinion
by slamming a door and leaving. I knew
there’d been ups and downs between him and some of the congregation. It was not uncommon for him to commit
passionately to some cause or other that at least some members of his parish
did not support at all, and I wondered if whatever this fight had been about,
it might be the final nail in the coffin for his time at that church.
But it
wasn’t. Whatever died that day for him
and some of his people, death was not the last word. Even with whatever human frailty everyone
suffered that day, he and his people continued together in ministry and mission
for at least another 5 or 6 years. In
the end, they were together for maybe 20 years in total. And together as parish and priest they did a
lot of good, faithful stuff – stuff they honestly and happily celebrated and
gave thanks to God for at the end, and still gratefully remember.
When God desires
something to be, when God is stirring and leading, when God is weaving the
stuff of life – both the nice and the messy stuff, together towards some good
end, it’s good to know that our humanity, our frailties and weaknesses, our
disorders and dysfunctions and even our apparent dead ends are not a
barrier. Are no hindrance to God
accomplishing what God desires to accomplish.
And maybe at times are exactly what God most graciously uses to weave
what must be woven.
We worry about
ourselves as people who God relies on to get God’s things done in the
world. We know our weaknesses and
limitations. We struggle with what we
can and cannot do. We fret about the
smallness of our faith, the thin-ness of our hope, the limits of our love. We know how “un-Christian” we can be – judgmental
and unforgiving, angry and combative, indifferent and self-centred. We know how dead and lifeless we can feel. And often it’s we who are our own worst
accusers, our own harshest judge and jury, the ones who dig our own grave and
conclude it’s all over.
But still God
calls us. Still God puts us in
situations of crisis and need. Still God
draws us into relationship with others who are looking for a friend, looking
for help, looking for a way through whatever they are stuck in or away from
whatever they are bound to, looking for love and someone to help save their
life.
And in those
situations and places God uses us as we are – raises us up from whatever tomb
we think we are in, to do what needs to be done.
Because the point
is not that we be perfect and always good.
Not that we know all the answers and have all that others need. Not even that we always be nice, polite and
well-behaved. That’s not the Gospel of
Jesus, nor is it the kingdom of God.
The point is that
in and through us God does good things.
And regardless of who and how we are at any moment, we can be open to
what God is doing through us to heal the world where it’s hurting, and to set others
free from what binds and enslaves them.
In reading about
Paul’s time in Philippi, I’m struck this week by how the commentators struggle
with Paul’s outburst of anger at the slave girl following him around in the
first part of the story. The girl is
possessed by a spirit of divination, and her owners are using her to make money
off people who want their fortunes told.
With this spirit she is able also to see that Paul is possessed of a holy
spirit as well, so every day when he goes into the market-place to meet people
and preach she’s there at his side telling people to listen to him.
To the point
she’s becoming quite a nuisance. The
kind of help you don’t really want. So
finally this one day he turns around in anger, orders the spirit out of her,
and frees himself of the distraction she has become. We hear no more about her.
But what are we
to think of Paul’s anger? He seems to
show no concern for the girl because there’s no follow-up conversation with
her, no help for her to live now without the gift that at least made her useful
to her owners, and no invitation to join the Christian community free of her
former way of life. He just wants to be
rid of her, and he is. She disappears.
And Paul, for the
upset he causes and the damage he has done to her owners’ business, is thrown
into jail. Along with his colleague
Silas. The steel door of the cell slams
behind them as the end to a not-very-good day for the apostle Paul in
Philippi. The new community of faith
that was gathering around them is shaken, and suddenly under suspicion and
close scrutiny themselves. Paul did not
act very well that day, and both he and the community around him suffer the
consequences.
Except, when you
continue to the end of the story none of this is a barrier to God doing what
God desires to do in Philippi. God is
bringing liberation of life and of spirit to the people of Philippi. And the very human mess that Paul creates is
exactly what God uses and works through to get the job done – to start touching
people’s lives with the good news of the kingdom of God at work in the affairs
of the world.
A turning point in
the story from being mired in human mess and misery to being open to and embraced
by divine mystery seems to come when Paul and Silas starting singing hymns. In the dead and dark of night and from the innermost
pit of the prison – buried alive, you might say, they sing hymns to God and God’s
servant-son, Jesus. And it’s thus that
in spite of the mess they have made of things, they open themselves and others
around them to the power of God to make
something good of what they have done and where they have got to.
Because the
Gospel of Jesus is not that we are perfect, that we know and have all the
answers, or even that we’re always nice, polite and well-behaved. The Gospel of the kingdom of God on Earth is
that God is at work to heal the world and set people free, and regardless of
who and how we are at any moment, we can be open to what God is willing to do
in us and through us.
I wonder what hymns
Paul and Silas sang that night that opened them to the power of God – opened up
everything really from the chains on their feet, to the doors of the prison, to
the heart of the guard and his family, to the city of Philippi itself in its
willingness to make room for the Gospel and the new community of faith that was
growing up within it.
I wonder if one
of them was the early Christian hymn that Paul actually quotes years later in
the letter he wrote to the Philippian church (2:6-11) and that he seems to
assume they know well.
though he was in the form of God,
did not
consider being equal with God something to exploit.
But he emptied
himself
by taking the
form of a slave
and by
becoming like human beings.
When he found
himself in the form of a human,
he humbled
himself by becoming obedient to the point of death,
even death on
a cross.
Therefore, God
highly honoured him
and gave him a
name above all names,
so that at the
name of Jesus everyone
in heaven, on
earth, and under the earth might bow
and every
tongue confess
that Jesus
Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
In other
words, the way God saves the world and the way Messiah Jesus shows us to
follow, is not the way of perfection, of power and of impeccable reputation,
but is instead a way of humble brokenness, of powerlessness, and of radical reliance
on the power of God to raise up all the loose ends and broken bits of service
we offer at his command, and to weave them together toward some good – even glorious
end.
I wonder, if the
next time we doubt our usefulness to God, the next time we question what we
have to offer anyone, the next time we accuse and judge and close ourselves into
a tomb of our own design, what hymn might help us remember the power of God to
heal us and set free, if we were only to sing it?
What hymn do
you know that speaks of the presence of God hidden in our ordinary, struggling
humanity and the power of God to weave what we offer into something good, if we
only obey the call that comes to us?
Whatever it
is, we should sing it some time and let God set both ourselves and the world
around us free.
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