Lenten Bible Study, Easter Day; Acts 28

Acts, Chapter 28 (NRSV)

If this morning was a bit warmer, I would be sitting here, watching the sunrise over the water of Wickford harbor with my windows open. And if the wind were just right, I believe I would be able to hear the hymns of Easter praise carried from the sunrise service at Old St. Paul's church. We have been journeying together for the forty days of Lent and the seven days of Holy Week. And today we have arrived at the shore.

In the final chapter of the Book of Acts, Paul too arrives at his final destination. He arrives on the shore of Malta, coming out of the waters of the surf, just as God had promised him. He finds help among the people of that island and eventually makes his way aboard another ship, makes for the coast of Italy and sails north along it. After a few more ports he arrives in Rome. The whole action of the latter part of Acts has found its conclusion in these verses. When Luke abruptly ends the story, Paul has spent two years (which is six months longer than the statue of limitations on his arrest) preaching and teaching about the Way in the City.

The greek language does a much more efficient job of communicating the nature of action than English does. There are more tenses of verbs used in Greek than in modern English and this allows a single word to communicate with more nuance than we are used to reading. Luke does just this sort of thing when he writes in verse 14 "so we came to Rome" and then again in verse 16 essentially the same. This difference is that in the 14th verse Luke uses the imperfect tense, which indicates an action that is ongoing but not completed. In the 16th verse Luke uses the aorist, which signals the full past tense. If you like reading detailed textual studies of manuscripts you can see that the scribes who copied these manuscripts down through history were a little bothered by the strange use of the imperfect in verse 14. Even modern translators aren't quite sure what to do about it. The best scholars think that Luke means to say by the use of that odd tense that he, Paul and the others had arrived in the districts that were under Rome's administrative control. The Forum of Appius and the Three Taverns is still about 34 miles from what we today would call Rome. They arrived in the Roman countryside, but not yet the City itself. And that understanding makes sense to me, at least as we read the text in a historical way.

But I'm rather taken this Easter morning by the two part of arrival at the final destination as a symbol of our own voyage. We too have arrived this morning at Easter, but we do so imperfectly. We are here, but we are not finished with our journey. We are baptized, but we are still wandering in the wilderness. We are proclaiming the Resurrection and the end of the power of death, but we still watch our loved ones die. The Kingdom is breaking in upon us, but it has not yet fully been revealed. Today is Easter Day in the imperfect tense.

We have truly arrived, but we have not completed our journey. There are a few more verses and perhaps, like for Paul, a few more years yet to go for all of us. This yearly pilgrimage through Lent toward Easter is a symbol that we are still travelers on the Way. We have arrived at the outskirts, but there is still more to come.

If you ever have had the chance to read C.S. Lewis' book "The Final Battle", the last of the Narnia books, you might recognize this idea. In Lewis' book, even after the world of Narnia has come to its judgement and end, the people of God are not yet done with their journey to the promised places. They must still go higher up and deeper into the new land they have found.

Those two verses in the final chapter of Acts, with the odd grammatical construction, seem to me the most fitting focus for our thoughts this Easter morn.

I pray God's fullest and richest blessing on you and those you love as you journey onward from this place. Go well!

 

+Nicholas

Easter Day 2013

Lenten Bible Study, Holy Saturday; Acts 27

Acts, Chapter 27 (NRSV)

Sitting here at my desk, watching the sun rise over Narragansett bay, I find myself struggling to not get caught up in the eyewitness details of Paul's final sea voyage. The language and images are very familiar. A ship, caught in the teeth of a winter nor'easter, begins to break apart in the heavy waves. Cargo and tackle are thrown overboard, sea anchors are dropped and soundings taken. All details that anyone here in the Ocean State would recognize. But this is more than a sea adventure. This is an allegory about the Church and a proof of God's power that is particularly resonant on this Holy Saturday morning.

To the ancient Israelites the sea represented the forces of chaos. The sea's protean surface recalled the state of the cosmos before God began to order Creation and the story of God's people began. The psalms sing of God's power in setting the sea within bounds that it could not escape. The people of Israel were desert people and as such they had little interest in sailing and treated all water with respect, awe and a little fear. (We hear echoes of this in the language of early Church that describes baptism as a drowning and a death in the waters of chaos.) To the gentile nations along the Mediterranean coasts the sea was their highway, but it was mercurial and could turn in an instant on anyone - particularly on anyone who angered the gods.

Sea voyages were fraught with the interference of the gods. It was customary to sacrifice to the gods before the voyage began and during the voyage the crew and passengers were all very intentional in avoiding an behavior that might anger a god. At best it was hoped the gods would not notice the people pushing out into deep water because if they did they might unleash the winds and send a great storm to destroy the boat that represented the traveler's island of safety. Just as we read in the story of Jonah, when sailors discovered that a particular person on board a ship had angered a god, they felt no remorse in heaving that person overboard to suffer the god's wrath directly.

In the early church the symbol of the Church was the boat. The story of Noah and his safe passage in the ark while the created order was being destroyed by the rising force of the waters of chaos was read as an allegory of the Church that brought the faithful safely to the new Creation that God inaugurated on Easter Day. Isn't it striking that we still call the main hall of a church building the "nave", a word which comes the latin word from ship "navis"?

When you read the details of this sea voyage in that light, there's much more here than just a grain ship, carrying prisoners to Rome, being destroyed by an winter gale. Paul proclaims that this particular storm represents no judgement on the part of God, just a poor judgment on the part of the ship's owner. And the God who Paul proclaims is going to intervene to save all the people on board the ship. It's proof that this God has power over chaos, is greater than the pagan lord of the sea, and is actively protecting Paul and his companions. To the pagan cultures of Paul's time, this would have spoken volumes.

But look also at the how God uses the ship in the story. The ship carries the whole company through the storm though it is scoured by the wind and the waves, loses much of its cargo and tackle and in the very end breaks apart just before they find a safe shore. I'm rather taken by the image of the jettisoning of anything superfluous as the ship tries to hold together in the nor'easter. There doesn't seem to be much reluctance on the part of the ship's crew to get rid of anything that wasn't helping. Paul spoke to them all in the midst of the storm with a promise from God that no one would be lost. But the ship would not be saved. Yet it played its appointed role in bringing people to safety.

What parallels are there for us in this tale and our present experience of the Church this Holy Saturday morning? I expect that you are recognizing many. God has promised that we all would be saved, and we try to trust in that promise in the midst of great storms. We too are being asked what we need to lose to be able to keep moving forward toward our goal. We too are being told we must eat the food that gives us strength to see our voyage through to the end. We too have heard an angelic message. And there are so many more…

On Good Friday the church naves were stripped and bare. The storm broke upon us. This morning we awake to gray skies and silence. We are reduced to the essentials needed for our journey. But the shore is in sight. We need to make our way through the surf, through the water to reach the goal.

Keep all this in your mind tonight if you attend an Easter Vigil. Listen and remember the role the water plays in the stories. Watch the light come into the darkness. And find the shore underneath your feet even as you are dripping from the holy water of baptism.

Lenten Bible Study, Good Friday; Acts 26

Acts, Chapter 26 (NRSV)

In this, the final of Paul's defenses of his ministry, there are some additional details added to his recounting of the events on the road to Damascus where he had his vision of Jesus. In a few places in this account, Paul intensifies the language he uses to tell what happened. The light he saw for instance is "brighter than the sun". "We all fell to the ground" is a slightly different version than what we read in the first account back in chapter 9 of this book where it is reported that the companions hear the voice but it is not mentioned that they fall to the ground or see the light. The main story is not changed, but it is more dramatically told.

But the most interesting addition to the account is Paul's inclusion of the phrase that he hears Jesus using, "Why do you kick against the goads?" That phrase, commonly found in classical literature (Aeschylus and Pindar for example), was how one described what it was like to resist the will of the gods. Paul's use of it, which was probably intentional, resonated with the audience before whom he was speaking. Prior to this vision Paul had been an observant Pharisee and had persecuted the Christian believers. Having heard the voice of God from heaven, he changed his beliefs and his direction. It's exactly how the Hellenistic world would expect a man to respond to the urging of his god. And Paul's experiences preaching the Gospel of Jesus served to verify to his hearers that this was an authentic encounter with the divine.

It is interesting that Paul uses this classical phrase to describe his experience of conversion. He was pushing against the will of God and was experiencing pain as a result. But notice that the pain is not caused by God directly, it's caused by Paul refusing to embrace the purpose for which he was created. Because he would not be true to God's purpose for him, he was cutting himself off from the Truth and from the profound Joy which we experience when we follow the Truth. God's response to this stubborn refusal is not to smite Paul or to curse him in anyway. Actually it's rather the contrary isn't it? Paul is free and has the approval of all while he is actively persecuting the Church. It's only when he seeks to serve Christ that he experiences opposition and personal persecution from his community. It's because he has turned to follow Christ that his is standing in court bound in chains. But Paul understands the difference between the appearance of freedom and true freedom. And it is the true freedom, even while bound that he is attempting to explain to Agrippa and to Festus. And it is this freedom that will take him to Rome and to his death.

Today, Good Friday, we hear how Jesus was bound and taken to his death just outside the gates of Jerusalem. We, like Paul, in rejecting the Messiah, cause God not to smite us, but instead to suffer. God's response to our rejection, like to Paul's, is an intensification of God's love toward us. Jesus, in way no one else ever has, embraces God's will completely in the moment of Good Friday, as hard and mysterious a thing it is for us to understand what that means.

How are we feeling pain in our own lives right now? What is the cause of that pain? Are we too kicking against the goads? Are we resisting God's purpose for our lives? Thanks be to God that very few of us are ultimately called to suffer the same fate that befell Paul or Jesus, and we don't have to fear that sort of end. But how willing are we to rethink where we are in our lives and return to God's purpose for us? Are we willing to find our own unique vocation?

Lenten Bible Study, Maundy Thursday; Acts 25

Acts, Chapter 25 (NRSV)

Paul gives five formal defenses of himself and his actions in the Book of Acts. Today we read the fourth one which is the shortest of the five. By this point you should be recognizing many of the points that Paul makes. He, and the movement of which he is a part is no threat to the civil authorities. He is being accused by people who are disputing with him over particular points of what he claims as their shared religion. Paul is working out of a tradition in the Roman Empire that the State was very reluctant to be drawn into religious disputes internal to the conquered lands. This was a practical stance because the civil authorities sent from Rome could hardly be expected to have enough knowledge to rule wisely in such cases. And bad rulings led to more disturbance of the peace. (And that was bad for Roman business.)

The point being made in this chapter was that Festus thought this conflict was over one issue and discovered it was about something else entirely. The civil realm was unable to understand what was happening in the religious realm unless time was taken and an effort made to learn about the teachings of the faith.

There's a surprising resonance between this moment in the history of the Early Church and the situation in the United States right now. Much of the major conflict in society has to do with the places where the secular world and the religious world are in opposition. The secular world uses scientism as the primary source of its thought and the religious world doesn't. You can see this in operation in the present disputes between the pro-life and pro-choice (which is at its heart an argument over when life begins), in the dispute between evolutionists, creationists and adherents of intelligent design, and in the arguments over the rights of people attracted to others of the same gender and people who find themselves to be transgender. Scientific thought in this day says one thing, religious thought in this day says another in many cases, and the civil authorities are being drawn into the dispute between competing views. The problem, speaking as a scientist and theologian, is that most of the civil authorities don't know enough about either science or theology to be able to judge when good claims are being made by one or both and when they are being used badly.

Stirring the present volatile mix is the decreasing effectiveness of the media in informing society about the basic issues being disputed. The business models of the media are in a moment of rapid change and much of the institutional press is no longer viable. Religion reporters who are trained in religious teachings are very rare. Scientific reporting tends to the sensational. The civil authorities, locked in a moment of deep struggle to gain a definitive advantage over one and another, are not well-served by either.

Paul was facing death because the civil authorities who were trying his case simply didn't know enough about the Way to be able to judge well. Generally Rome would not be drawn into such a dispute. The Founders of this country took a book from that page when they passed the first amendment in our Bill of Rights. But there were times and there are times when the civil authority of a nation must act in such a dispute between differing beliefs. It becomes imperative for them to be informed. But who shall inform them?

In Paul's case, that responsibility fell to Paul. In our day, I wonder if it doesn't also fall to us. We have the resource of an active and well read laity. We have the resource of highly educated clergy. We live in a moment when we can very easily communicate with thousands of people whenever we want to. Who is there better suited or resourced to speak to the world about our faith today than us?

How willing are you to do that? How confident are you in doing that? What would you have to change in your life so that you would be more confident? I am so grateful that you've been faithful in this Lenten Journey this year. Reading the Bible, reflecting on the meaning of the words in their original and present context is the place to begin. Allowing God's Word to form you and the Spirit to transform you is the necessary step to begin this task. Look at how Paul was formed and transformed…

Lenten Bible Study, Wednesday in Holy Week; Acts 24

Acts, Chapter 24 (NRSV)

It's surprising to find an entire chapter of Acts that's essentially a court transcript. Luke devotes this chapter and the next to detailing the case against Paul and Paul's defense. The inclusion of this testimony makes sense if you keep in mind one of the primary themes of Acts, that Christianity is a natural outgrowth of Judaism and poses no threat to the Roman Empire. You will see, as we arrive at the end of the book, that there is no mention of Paul's execution in Rome. The story ends with Paul in Rome teaching about the Way. There are many who think that the reason the latter sections of Acts were written was to lay out a case before the Roman authorities who were to decide Paul's fate. That would explain why Luke will go to such trouble to lay out the specific legal arguments used against Paul and Paul's rebuttal of those points.

Felix is not unknown in history. He was appointed by the Emperor Claudius to the governorship of Judea based in Caesarea in the year 52. Felix was recalled to Rome from his post in 59 by the Emperor Nero. The woman Drusilla mentioned in Acts was the daughter of King Agrippa, who we shall read more about tomorrow. She was Felix's third wife and had been the wife of another King in the region before Felix divorced his wife, persuaded her to divorce her husband and marry him instead. (The Wikipedia article linked above has the succession of wives somewhat confused apparently.) His time in Judea came to an end when he responded in a particularly heavy handed way to a conflict in Caesarea by its populace about whether or not the city was essentially Jewish or Greek. Daggers were beginning to be drawn between the factions, the Jews had won a street brawl and Felix sent in troops to aid the "Greek" faction. Thousands of Jews were killed and the wealthy had their homes where looted by the troops. The Jewish leaders appealed to Rome and Felix was recalled. There's no further mention of him in existing historical accounts.

Given all that, the reason Felix decided to hold Paul in prison for two years becomes somewhat more understandable. He was trying to keep the tensions between factions in the region from erupting into violence. By holding Paul, whom the Jewish leaders wanted dead, Felix was hoping both for personal financial gain or seeking a bargaining chip with which to curry favor if needed. Paul's long imprisonment had nothing really to do with anything Paul had done. He was a pawn being caught up in a game between the powers of the world.

Having people of faith being used as pawns in the political region is not unknown of in our own day is it? Much of the conflict in the Church here in the United States is initiated by people with completely separate agendas from those of the people trying to follow the Way. Churchgoer is pitted against churchgoer as political activists try to create voting factions that will move in a particular direction on one issue or another. As in Paul's day, if you aren't aware of the bigger political picture, you can find yourself getting caught up in the emotions of the argument and falling into the trap of conflict prepared for you.

During Holy Week we remember that what we read is happening to Paul happened also to Jesus. The city of Jerusalem was boiling over as the crowds gathered to celebrate Passover. Pilate was charged with keeping the peace in the city. He didn't know who Jesus was, and didn't care to discover where God was in that particular moment. He just wanted to do what was expedient to keep the violence from erupting. He was canny enough to see that the death of one could prevent the sort of riots that would cause him to be recalled to Rome in the way that Felix after Felix failed to prevent the violence.

How aware are you of when the Church is being used as a pawn in a game? How have you been complicit? How have you refused to participate?

I don't think the Church realistically has the option of completely withdrawing from the secular sphere, though that's certainly been attempted many times in our history.

Lenten Bible Study, Tuesday in Holy Week; Acts 23

Acts, Chapter 23 (NRSV)

When you read the earliest commentaries on the Book of Acts, the odd detail of Ananias the High Priest ordering Paul to be struck, and Paul's subsequent apology to the High Priest, is the focus of much of the writing. It seems an odd thing to fix your attention on, but it seemed to the early writers to be very much out of character for the general arc of the narrative in Acts. Luke seems to be working on showing that Christianity is the legitimate successor of what we now call Judaism. (Modern Judaism is, for the most part, a descendent of the writings and thoughts of the Pharisees.) In this story Paul, rather than confounding the leaders of the Jewish people seems to be apologizing.

Much of the analysis of the passage tries to explain away Paul's words. (That they are so troubled by this incident is a reminder of how much the early Church struggled to come to terms with the fact that many Jews would not accept Jesus at the Messiah.) The commentators argue that Paul is tired and overwrought by the experience of being nearly flogged. Some point out that Paul has been gone from Jerusalem for a long time and he simply doesn't know that Ananias was once again the High Priest. Some such as Chrysostom see Paul attempting to deflect the loss of honor that he has suffered as a result of being struck across the mouth. Some, the Venerable Bede in particular, argue that Paul was prophesying in what he said - that the High Priesthood was about to come to an end. (Which did actually happened in the following decades after the destruction of Herod's temple by the Roman legions.) But it is the commentary of Augustine of Hippo that makes the most interesting point for us as we read this during Holy Week.

Augustine highlights the actual words that Paul speaks; "I did not know […] that he was the High Priest. For it is written, You shall not speak ill of the leader of your people". Paul was a follower of Jesus, whom the Church proclaims as the great High Priest. Once Jesus is revealed at the Messiah, our need for priests to serve as mediators between God and humankind has ended. The whole of the Church, as the Body of Christ, now serves the World in that way. Augustine writes "in the reply, “I did not know that he was the high priest,” he spoke the truth to those who understand him. It is as though he were saying, “I have come to know another high priest, for whose name’s sake I am suffering these injuries—a high priest whom it is not lawful to revile but whom you are reviling, because in me you hate nothing else than his name.” (De serm. Dom. in mont. 1.19.58) Augustine's point is that Paul is speaking the truth when he says what he says. And he is condemning those who are persecuting him for the offense of following the Truth.

I think that recognition that Jesus is the Truth is especially poignant in these days of Holy Week. On Sunday and on Friday this week we will hear an entire account of the Passion read aloud. On Friday, in John's version of the Passion, we hear Pilate ask "What is truth?" (John 18:38) while the Truth of God stands incarnate before him in the court of Roman Law. Pilate misses the deep meaning of the moment. Augustine argues that High Priest and the rest of the court miss the deep meaning of Paul's words as they try him in the Temple Court. They are both so intent on doing what they intend to do that they can't see that, in their action, they are doing the wrong thing.

Being so intent on doing what I want to do, and thus missing what God wants me to do, is something I can certainly identify with in my own life. I struggle with questions like this all the time. At my best I will stop in the middle of a particularly difficult set of decisions to ask myself, "Who is going to gain if I follow my present course, me or God?" I'd like to tell you that I've gotten very good at recognizing God's will in most things. But that wouldn't be true since I don't think that I have been consistently good at recognizing God's will. But God seems to be able to work things out in the end. God is like that. Thanks be to God.

How about you? How have you missed the deep truth that surrounds us all the time? How have you imagined that you were doing the right thing and later discovered that you weren't? And what did God do with that?

What would have to change in you so that you that this sort of thing wouldn't happen?

Lenten Bible Study, Monday in Holy Week, Acts 22

Acts, Chapter 22 (NRSV)
Something that has been mentioned before in the Book of Acts now becomes very important. Paul is a Roman citizen by birth. As we read the story of the riot in Jerusalem which occurs because of Paul's defense of his faith, there are numerous parallels between the "trial" of Jesus and the "trial" of Paul. But at the moment the flogging by the Roman garrison is about to begin, Paul mentions to the centurion in charge that he is a Roman citizen. The action immediately changes. Torturing a Roman citizen without due process is a capital crime in the Empire.

There is great surprise on the part of the garrison commander when he learns this news. The commander had purchased his citizenship - at great cost. Paul was a freeborn Roman, which gave him higher status that the new man who had threatened to torture him. To the readers of Luke's time this would have made perfect sense, though to us it does seem a bit ironic that such a small thing would make such a large difference in how Paul was going to be treated.

Augustus of Hippo, in his comments on this passage, points out that what Paul valued the most, his relationship with Jesus, and his knowledge that Jesus was the Messiah that the prophets had foretold mattered the least to the crowd and to the Romans. What Paul seems to have cared about the least, his birthright as a Roman citizen, was the thing that the powers of the world valued most highly. There's a clear upside down relationship between what Paul thinks and what the world thinks. Chrysostom sees a further teaching in this moment; God is going to use the birthright of Paul, which Paul only mentions offhandedly to the guard (remember Paul has already earlier been whipped and beaten in other cities), to be the means by which Paul will join Peter in Rome. And it's in Rome that both will be martyred.

There are two things in this account that I think are worth meditating upon. The first is that Paul does not value the things the world values. Paul is running after something completely different. It's hard even today to not imagine a look of triumph on Paul's face as he surprises the garrison commander with the news of his citizenship. But that's a projection of our own values onto the story. Paul does not seem to be concerned about what he is about to suffer. In some ways you have to wonder why he brought the fact of his citizenship up at all. Was he concerned about the punishment is torturer might endure when the truth came out? Did he see that a reprieve might allow him another chance to proclaim the Gospel? We really can't tell. All we can be sure of is that Paul behaving differently than many of us would. What would have to change in us to be able to be like Paul in this moment?

The second thing that I find worth meditating on in this story is that God is going to use this reversal, based as it is on human rather than divine values, to accomplish Paul's final goal of proclaiming the Gospel in the great capital of the Gentile world. Once again God is drawing a straight path using crooked lines. That's something that is writ most large in the events of Holy Week isn't it? God uses our fear, our cowardice, our willingness to hide from the light to accomplish the salvation of the world. The early church used to say that on Easter Day, God used the values of God's opponents to overcome them. The forces which oppose God's will can't in the end succeed because they are fundamentally flawed, they are bent inward on themselves.

How have you seen God using the parts of you that you struggle with the most to do things that in end give you great joy? It's hard to recognize that God is doing that in the moment it is happening, but I find that in hindsight I can often see this principle at work in my own life. Can you see it in yours?

Lenten Bible Study, Palm Sunday; Acts 21

Acts, Chapter 21 (NRSV)

Today in church you will most likely hear the story of the Passion read aloud. In the parish where I will be worshipping, the members of the congregation will be acting out the story in the form of a play. If you've been present for one of these community readings you know both how long the story is, and how powerful the retelling of it is.

We're now in the final week before Easter. The forty days of Lent proper have come to a close and we're in the last bit of the story that leads us to the Triduum. The events that we remember in the proper liturgies throughout this week will retell the story we all know, with all its increasingly difficult details. The whole of Holy Week is observed as a teaching device, much in the same way that the whole Church calendar year functions. We make our way through the seasons, the feasts and the fasts and arrive as different sort of people than when we started. The degree of the difference depends, in my experience, entirely on how much of yourself you are willing to invest in the journey.

The more you can place yourself in the story the more real it becomes. The Jesuits have an entire style of spiritual discipline based on making that happen effectively. And some scholars believe that is why the narrative in Acts, one section of which we read this morning, changes to the first person. For most of the story that we've been reading in Acts, the narrator (Luke) is recounting a series of events that he was apparently not a witness to but which has learned about from people who were. In the parts of the Book of Acts the language seems to indicate that the narrator is part of the story directly.

"We sailed to Jerusalem." "When we arrived, the brothers welcomed us." Is this the part of the story where Luke was actually traveling with Paul and his companions? Is this a part of the story where Luke was given access to someone's travel diary and he, for some reason, decides not to change the way the story is told? And why does the story then abruptly, in all three cases, stop using the first person narrative?

There are multiple answers to these questions. None of them seems to have definitely settled the question. Some scholars argue that Luke was part of the journey and is using his own notes for these sections. Others, believing that Luke was too young at this point to take part in the travel, argue that he is using another person's notes and for some reason decides not to edit the text - perhaps out of respect for the person who originally wrote it. Some scholars believe that this represents a literary convention of the time, a way to heighten the reader's interest. And some, not attempting to answer the why, see in these sections an invitation for the readers of the Book of Acts to enter personally into the story.

I think it's the last bit that catches my imagination this Palm Sunday. The liturgical observance of Holy Week, like the prayers of the Stations of the Cross, are meant to be a spiritual tool to allow us to enter into the mystery of the events that happened thousands of years ago. The ambiguity of the accounts, the rough drawn details, the economy of the narration are all meant to evoke a feeling that we are drawn inward and are walking the paths with Jesus and the disciples. We are seeing, with our own eyes, the events unfolding before us. What we do with what we see is up to the action of the Holy Spirit within our lives. For some of us it will lead to a deeper appreciation of what Jesus has done for all of us. For some it will lead us to consider how deeply complicit we are in rejecting God's dream of who we might become. For some it will spur us to take our faith journey more seriously. For some it will be a moment of healing, for others a time of spiritual crisis.

What will it be for you this year? Are you willing to follow the path that the Holy Spirit is laying before you? Are you going to see it through?

I promise you, that if you give yourself up to living into the story of Holy Week as best you can this year, you will be a changed person by Easter. You may not recognize the change at first, but you will be changed. I have seen this happen to so many people. I have observed it in myself - year in and year out.

Lenten Bible Study Day 39; Acts 20

Acts, Chapter 20 (NRSV)
In this chapter Paul takes leave of the work he has been doing in Asia. Paul had spent years in Asia talking about the Gospel, teaching about Jesus and raising up leaders for the young churches he was planting. The account of his work in the region ends with a late night teaching meeting. Paul talks for so long into the night that a young man falls asleep while Paul goes on and on. The falling asleep occasions a fall from a window (probably a second story one). The account in Acts implies that the young man dies as a result, but Paul, when he bends over him, does not pray or call on the power of the Holy Spirit. Paul notices that the boy is still breathing and tell people not to be upset. Then Paul goes upstairs and continues to teach until dawn.

It's that single-minded dedication to his task that is the background for the story told in the rest of this chapter. Paul knows he is being called to Jerusalem - and wants to be there by Pentecost. He is leaving behind the fruits of his labors and heading toward an unknown fate. He tells the people in Asia, as he is leaving, that he is being told by the Holy Spirit that he will continue to experience resistance, persecution and imprisonment as a result of his work proclaiming the Gospel. Recall Jesus' words to his disciples telling them that such will be their fate after he leaves them. Paul's experience is a sign that he is truly doing what Jesus is asking him to do.

In his final conversation with the elders of Ephesus (which could mean he was meeting with priests of that church) he warns them that they too will face conflict, though of a different sort. In their case, the conflict will arise from within the Church. Some of Paul's followers will begin to distort the Gospel message in ways that are meant to attract more followers rather than continuing to be faithful in telling the Truth no matter the cost. I suppose there's a form of comfort for us today in those words too; we have seen similar things in our own history. According to Paul this is what happens within the Church. And Jesus warns about something similar when he is teaching the disciples during his earthly ministry.

Finally Paul kneels with the elders and prays with them one more time, and together they weep at this parting. Perhaps it's because I remember these sorts of partings during my ministry as a priest (elder) that I am drawn particularly to this part of the chapter this morning. I've said goodbye to three churches during that work. The first leaving was much like the last. I was excited at the new ministry that was coming, but I was also dreading leaving behind people who had become very dear to me. In each case I was able to hold it together until the final blessing at my last service. And then, three times, the tears came. They surprised me the first time, and became a comfort in the subsequent leavings. My voice always cracks the last time I give God's blessing to the people who have worked with me in community to further the reach of the Gospel of Jesus. And when I do leave, there remains a hole in my heart for all of them. After nearly twenty years distance from the first leaving, I can tell you that while the tears have dried, the hole doesn't go away. Almost every priest I know is hungry for news of the parishes they have served, what is happening in the lives of the people they have loved and how the community is doing in that place. I can't imagine it's any different for bishops. I've already experienced that longing on the parts of the former bishops of Rhode Island.

But the pain of leaving a community to go forth to new work and ministry isn't unique to the ordained. I've had similar conversations with lay members of the community, who make a point of coming back to visit the church whenever they are back in town, who would rush to coffee hour to hear the news and who continued to hold their former community in their prayers. And I've known a few people for whom the experience of grief at parting is too overwhelming. And they respond to that grief by refusing to reengage a new community partly out of guilt that they were not being true to the community left behind and partly because they can't imagine experiencing that pain again.

All this is true too for our personal relationships, our friendships and our family lives as well.

But according to what Jesus tells us, and what read in Paul's speech today, that pain is an unavoidable part of being alive and working in this imperfect world. There is nothing else to do but push our way through it. That is part of our call to be faithful to Gospel work we are doing. I imagine the pain is like the soreness of an athlete in training. There is no way to achieve the goal we are reaching toward without the hard and painful work of building our selves up to the task.

But this last Saturday in Lent (for tomorrow we begin Holy Week) perhaps it would be appropriate to spend a few moments remembering. Remember the pain of the parting and the way a new community welcomed you in. Are you willing to go through that experience again if God so calls you?

Lenten Bible Study Day 38; Acts 19

Acts, Chapter 19 (NRSV)
What I notice about today's reading in Acts is the operation of two different ways of interacting with world around us. As the circle of conflict that Paul is encountering grows, he is starting to face increased opposition from the established pagan institutions in western part of Asia. The core of the conflict in this chapter seems to be about the way we interact with the divine.

Earlier in our readings I mentioned in passing the difference between magic and faith. Magic is an attempt to control the world around us, usually by some sort of mechanism that binds greater power to our will.

The story which we read today about the exorcists who started using the name of Jesus to try to cast out demons is an excellent example of this. Jesus' name in this case doesn't represent a sign of a relationship between the exorcist and Our Lord. It's a token of power that the exorcists hear being used by the followers of the Way, and which the exorcists decide to add to their bag of tricks. But as the demons say in response, "Jesus I know, Paul I am familiar with… but who are you?" Using the name of Jesus not in response to the urging of the Spirit, but rather at ones desire for personal gain, doesn't turn out well. It's a magical use. And it's not what God would have us ever do.

Paul's ability to have a relationship with Jesus is the root of "unusual miracles" that are being performed in his presence. Paul is not seeking to do anything for himself. Certainly he is not seeking money in the way that the exorcists were doing. You can see this in action in how the great miracle, the gift of the Holy Spirit, happens in the very beginning of the chapter.

Paul meets believers who had not yet been baptized into a relationship with Jesus. They knew the baptism of John, which was meant to be a sign that pointed to Jesus, but they had not yet encountered the living words. Paul baptizes them in the name of Jesus and then lays his hands upon them. (The laying on of hands by the apostle, which is described a number of times in Acts is generally used as the scriptural warrant for the rite of confirmation by a bishop by the way.) Paul does not call down the Holy Spirit. The Spirit comes when the Spirit decides to come. But in this case the way for the believers to enter into a relationship with God has been opened by the baptism which binds them into relationship with Jesus. Paul's action of laying on of hands represents their being bound in a relationship with the whole of the Church.

Now reread the last part of today's chapter. There's no mention of relationship between the silversmiths and the "image of Artemis which fell from the sky". At least there's no personal relationship, no emotional connection. The relationship is only one of personal gain. The silversmiths sell copies of the image to people who travel to Ephesus. And I'd wager that the people who bought them weren't planning on using them to deepen their emotional connection to their goddess. They most likely bought them to serve as amulets or as a form of spiritual protection. The way those particular cults worked was that you offered something to the god, and if the god decided your offering was sufficient, the god would do what you wanted. That's magic.

Faith, on the other hand, grows from relationship. And relationship is based in a sort of mutuality, a shared engagement with one another and even a vulnerability that simply isn't present in an attempt to control. Faith (trust) finds God active and present in everyday life and seeks to understand what this presence can teach us. Faith expects that God is already active in our lives and does not need to be bribed. Faith receives from God and does not dictate to God. When miracles occur, they are clearly a result of placing ourselves more fully in the presence of God, not as a result of some form of trickery or binding of God.

There are some scholars who argue that Christianity (and Judaism) is not a religion in the strictest sense of the word, but really a philosophy. The argument is based in the ideas that I'm writing about here.
How often to you go to God attempting to make a bargain that you do "this" if God will do "that" for you? How does that work out when you do that? In my case, it hardly ever turns out well. What does seem to "work" is for me to open myself to what God has in mind in any particular moment, and if it turns out to be something I feared, looking to find a way to trust that God was present in the moment all the same. Have you managed to do that at one time in your life? How did that work out?