Influencers for Jesus

Acts 17:22-31

At the beginning of the service, I highlighted how different the culture was 2,000 years ago compared with today. I also reflected on the idea of the 200-year present in which each one of us finds ourselves. The life I am living today is, in many ways, unrecognisable from when my parents were born—let alone my grandparents.

The world around us is constantly changing, and we should not be naive about the fact that the church is constantly changing too. As people who profess to be growing as lifelong disciples of Christ, each one of us is challenged to think about how we ground ourselves in something as constant as God's love whilst we live through these changes.

Once we ground ourselves in the constancy of the story of God we are called to share that story. Early in the service I mentioned the idea of being influencers for Jesus, or maybe influencers of God. I think this is a way of thinking in contemporary terms to witness to the story of Jesus or share our faith.

When we look at stories that come to us from the early church, we see people doing precisely the same thing. Last week we read from Acts chapter 2, and I reminded us about the miraculous manifestation of the Holy Spirit. Peter's preaching in response to the miracle led people to be baptised, and it changed everything about their lives. There were social, economic, political, and religious implications in the transformation that was taking place.

Fifteen chapters later we find Paul speaking in Athens. Rather than describing a particular experience or appearance of God, Paul is engaging in philosophical, theological, and spiritual conversation. In this sense, I see him using reason and reasoned argument to invite people to come to know the God he has encountered in Jesus.

It is helpful to give a little bit of context for what has occurred earlier in chapter 17. Paul had been to Thessalonica, where he had shared the news of Jesus with the Jewish community there. The response of this group of people had not been good. Paul then moved on to a different city, Beroea. Again, he was speaking to Jewish people who already had a relationship with God, and, in this case, they respond much more positively to Paul’s message.

It is only then that Paul moves to Athens and into a very different environment. It is noted that Paul reacts against the many idols, temples, and statues in the city, and he heads to the marketplace, called the agora, to engage in conversations with people about Jesus. It is in the marketplace that he debates with Epicurean and Stoic philosophers and presents to them his understanding of Jesus.

It is at this point that some of the Greek people who were engaging with Paul decide to take him to the Areopagus (which means Mars Hill), because they are so interested in his ideas. The Areopagus was a seat of power within Athens, with the capacity to determine whether what Paul was speaking about was an approved teaching about the divine.

Whilst I don't think that Paul consciously thought about what I'm about to share, I believe there are several steps in Paul's engagement that might be helpful for us to consider as people who are called to witness to our faith and share it with others. There are five movements that I am going to refer to.

1. Discerning God’s presence.

2. Being innovative in engaging others
3.  Learning about the culture
4.  Sharing the good news, and
5.  Inviting others to belong.

The first thing that Paul does when he encounters the people at the Areopagus is affirm their spirituality and point towards an altar with the inscription, ‘to an unknown god’. This means that Paul was discerning where God might already be at work among the people. Paul is not negative about their spirituality but affirms it and points to it as one of their strengths. He also audaciously makes the claim that the God he knows in Jesus Christ is already at work among them; evidence for this is given in relation to the altar he has named. 

As people of faith one of the challenges for us if we have grown up in the church culture and always been part of the church is that there are significant limitations on our ability to discern God's presence in the culture around us. In fact, often we have a view of the culture as being a place in which God is absent rather than present.

So, on our journey to becoming people who are better at talking about our faith, being open to the idea that God may already be at work in surprising situations—and being able to name that to others—is an important first step.

The second thing that is important about what Paul was doing is that he was prepared to be innovative about where he went and who he spoke with. Paul went into the agora, into the marketplace, to have conversations about his faith. By being open about his faith, and offering reasoned arguments about what he believed, Paul was able to open the door into other councils in which he could talk about Jesus.

For us, this phone is a symbol of the marketplace of our era. Social media, websites, blogs, and vlogs are places where ideas are exchanged. Of course, we know that much of the debate is shallow, lacks nuance, and presents the world as dichotomies or simple binaries. Nevertheless, it is a place where we can share God's love and acceptance of people and look for ways to name how we see God at work—even when people do not appear to have a Christian faith.

One of the hurdles that all of us probably need to get over is that, for far too long, we have treated our faith as a private matter. Whilst faith is personal to each one of us, personal does not mean private. The idea that we're not supposed to speak about our spirituality or religion is something being imposed on people of faith by a culture that wishes to reject God, spirituality and religion generally. One consequence of this is that we need to grow in maturity and understanding, and in our capacity to engage intelligently and sensibly with others in a reasoned way as we speak about who Jesus is for us.

This brings me to the third aspect of what Paul does. In his opening argument with the people in the Areopagus, Paul has already presented a connection between the God he knows and the unknown god. As he continues to speak, Paul quotes from two Greek poems.

He uses the phrase, “in him we live and move and have our being”. This phrase is more than likely borrowed from the sixth-century poet-philosopher Epimenides. Epimenides was likely referring to Zeus when he said this. Despite the origin of this phrase, it is a phrase that many Christians relate strongly to because we understand our lives are hidden in Christ. And, that Christ’s life is hidden in ours through the power of the Holy Spirit.

The second phrase that Paul uses is: “For we are indeed his offspring.” This comes from the poem Phaenomena by Aratus, written around the third century BCE. I want to share the preceding lines of this poem so that you can see what Paul is doing here more closely.

Let us begin with Zeus, whom we mortals never leave unspoken.

For every street, every market-place is full of Zeus.

Even the sea and the harbour are full of this deity.

Everywhere everyone is indebted to Zeus.

For we are indeed his offspring... (Phaenomena 1-5).

In this instance, again, Paul is making a correlation between a god from another religion and the God that he knows in and through Jesus Christ. Paul was a Jewish teacher and lawyer by background and would have understood very clearly the ideas contained within the Ten Commandments about there being only one God. Despite this, Paul makes the claim that the God he knows is the same God that the Greeks have encountered as Zeus. This is innovative and radical thinking as Paul engages with sharing his faith in a different cultural context.

It is at this point that Paul names that the way they have understood God is missing something. This is where Paul begins to witness to Jesus. It is missing the person of Jesus Christ. The good news of Jesus that he is God who walks among us. He has lived and died and risen and ascended. This news transforms our reality.

Later, when Paul goes to Corinth, he makes the comment that when he came there, he knew Christ, and Christ alone. I suspect it is his confidence in knowing Christ and knowing that, in God, Christ was reconciling all things to himself that allows him to leverage the possibility that God is at work in the world in ways that people may not be aware of. His job is to bring the centrality of Christ into these situations where people are spiritual and devout but have not yet come to the fullness of faith in Christ.

This leads me to the last aspect of what Paul does: he invites people to come to know Christ, and into a greater sense of belonging to God in creation.

As an apostle, Paul was seeking to influence others so that they came to know that they belong to Christ. To return to what I said at the beginning. Each one of us, as a lifelong disciple of Christ, has a role to also become an influencer in the name of Christ. The move from being a follower to a sharer of the gospel is the move from being a disciple to an apostle. The word apostle means one who is sent.

Each week, you who are living in the 200-year now of your existence can be an influencer for Jesus everywhere you go. At the end of the service each week, I stand here and invite you to stand with me as I say a commissioning and a blessing. The commissioning part of what I say is to send you out into the world to live a life of faith, sharing that with others and bearing Christ’s light in the world. A colleague and friend of mine once said in a sermon: at the end of the service, we are not sent home; we are sent out. We are sent out to live as Christ’s witnesses in the world—to be Christ’s influencers.

To recap the process: as lifelong followers of Christ, we can seek to discern where God is already at work in the world around us. We can look for opportunities and innovative ways to engage the people we encounter in conversations of faith. We can lean into the culture, which reflects the context of people's lives, as a touchstone they might connect with as we talk about our faith. We can speak about the centrality of Jesus at the heart of our faith, and the way we know God. And we can invite people to a deeper sense of belonging in the world and in community as they begin to follow Christ as well.

It is important for us to think about our role as people who witness to our faith and as influencers for Christ as we enter the next month or so as a church community. We are going to be intentional in our engagement with the community. Through the “Stories that Shape Us” series we have an author event and a book and plant sale. There will be Reading the Bible in the 21^st Century seminars, and “Play Church”. We will also be starting a Book Club and relaunching out congregation Library. These weeks should provide many opportunities to engage innovatively in listening to the stories that shape the lives of other people and give to us the chance to share why the story of Jesus matters to us. This is our marketplace, our agora.

Paul's first words to Rome

If you can drag yourself back 2000 years and imagine that you are in Rome listening, for the very first time, to Paul’s letter to the community there, I imagine you might have wondered something along the lines, “Who the heck does this guy think he is?”

The opening line of his letter betrays an audacity that we can easily miss:

“Paul, a slave of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God.”

These words are no simple salutation; no common greeting.  Paul’s claim to be a slave to Christ Jesus and called to be an apostle contain echoes of the claims of the Old Testament prophets and their call to be God’s servants and slaves.  Paul is claiming a heritage and authority that reflects these ancient claims and may very well have astounded his first audience in Rome.

Yet, if those early Christians found Paul’s words surprising, it may have been just as surprising to Paul that nearly 400 years later one of the greatest preachers of the early church John Chrysostom, also known as golden mouth, said of this very letter that he read it twice a week, and sometimes even 3 or 4 times a week.

Further, it may have surprised Paul to know that in the early 1500's Martin Luther would be dwelling on Paul’s letter to the Romans so deeply, as he struggled with his faith and discovered in Paul’s words God’s grace.

And, again, at the beginning of the 20^th century, Paul might have been amazed as the Swiss theologian Karl Barth launched his stellar career with his commentary on Paul’s Epistle to the Romans.

Even beyond the walls of the Church Paul’s impact is recognized.  The historian Larry Siedentop argues that the origins of Western liberalism lie in Paul’s concept of the individual. 

And, here now in this small gathering of God’s people at St Lucia we are still reading and contemplating Paul’s words. 

Why?  Well maybe it is as Barth says, at the beginning of his commentary, that “he veritably speaks to all men [and women] of every age”. 

Paul may have never foreseen the impact of his letter to the Christians in Rome and how the influence of his words would spill over into 2000 years of history but maybe it is precisely because he is as he claims, a slave of Christ Jesus, that his words do this.  He recognizes something fundamental about his existence – it is not his own.

The revelation of Christ to Paul on the Damascus road led him to the deep discovery that life was less about who he was as it was about whose he was.  He was God’s and he was God’s in a special way: called to be an apostle.

Now it is my conviction that each one of you is called into a relationship of service with God. In fact I have a sense that all people are called into such a relationship.  Yet, for each one of us the calling to follow and serve Jesus is particular and specific. We are not all meant to be the apostle Paul.  He has a special role at a particular time in history. Paul’s words transcend his time and place in history because they carry an authority that invite us to reflect not about Paul but about the one in whom Paul has grounded his life: Christ Jesus.

It Christ Jesus who is ground zero for the Christian faith because as Barth says in his commentary on Romans:

Jesus Christ our Lord.  This is the Gospel and the meaning of history.  In this name two worlds meet and go apart, two planes intersect, the one known and the other unknown.

In Christ Jesus there is a convergence between our known finite earthly existence and the mystery of God’s eternal existence.  Our earthly existence in all its ambiguity and messiness: life and death; joy and sorrow; good and evil; pleasure and pain; beauty and horror intersects with God’s existence: source of life, origin of being, eternal mystery, love, grace, hope, transcendence and immanence.

Christ Jesus enters history and the life of the world intersects with the life of God in his very person.  This is whom Paul speaks of and like a stone thrown into a pond the ripples of Jesus existence extend out through space and time to touch of all of the creation for all of time, including your life and mine.  And in this God says to us your lives are relevant to me; you are not alone; you are loved.

We heard this amazing good news in the reading from Matthew this morning as Jesus’ birth was described by the gospel writer. 

 

All this took place to fulfil what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet:

‘Look, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son,

and they shall name him Emmanuel’,

which means, ‘God is with us.’

God is with us, present with us in history, in the flesh, in Christ Jesus, but more than that through the outpouring of the Holy Spirit is eternally present.  God is with us and so we can say that we are not without God.

This is the good news as we wrestle with conundrums of our lives.  As we confront loneliness and loss, evil and ego, temptation and terror, pain and poverty, suffering and sorrow God is with us, God walks beside in Jesus and has shared the fullness of our human experience.  God is with us and even when we might count ourselves forsaken by God we are not without God.  The intersection of created history with God’s life in Jesus is our source of hope.  

In this discovery of God’s love for us Paul knew whose he was and we can come to know whose we are as well.  Servants of Christ Jesus called into life and called into the love and life of God.

As Paul penned his letter to the Christians in Rome the words of admonishment, of hope, of faith and of grace flowed out into history to teach us about Jesus and who we are as God’s people.  He writes:

To all God’s beloved in Rome, who are called to be saints:

Paul names the people as God’s beloved, beloved just as Jesus himself was beloved.  Not alone or bereft but accompanied through life by God in Christ Jesus and in this made saints, holy people, not by our own action but by God’s presence with us.  We are drawn beyond the division between the created and Creator into the unity of life with God – all of the prior boundaries are being obliterated.

This is why Paul then goes on to say:

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

Once again we drag ourselves back through history to understand the importance of Paul’s greeting.  “Grace”, charis, was a common greeting among the Greek speaking world, whilst “Peace”, shalom, was and remains a common greeting among the Jewish people.  Grace and peace represent once again the intersection of different worlds and of different communities. 

Just as in Christ Jesus God overcomes the division between the divine and the created, so to in Christ Jesus God is calling us into our common humanity: transcending cultural and ethnic and socio-economic disparities God calls us into community with one another. 

One of the key reasons for Paul’s letter to the Romans was to deal with the tension that had emerged between followers of Christ with different background.  Through history, we as Christians, and we as humanity, have continued to struggle to find our common identity.  We have not understood the greeting of Paul ‘grace and peace’ is meant to draw us beyond the safe boundaries of our communities into loving one another just as we have been loved.

This is no less a challenge for us as God’s beloved in our time, to recognize whose we are together, and to know that we are companions with all other people through this life.

This is why today, at the table of grace, we are called to remember that God in Christ is our companion on the journey of life.  Companion from its origins literally means ‘with bread’ and reminds us that in the breaking of the bread together with Christ as our host we are indeed God’s companions, God is with us, we are loved, and we are not alone.  The loving companion that we meet here binds us all together as God’s creatures as God overcomes our divisions: grace and peace.

When Paul wrote that letter to that first group of Christians in Rome, he made the claim that his importance was secondary to one to whom he witness:

Paul, a slave of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God.

Paul’s letter endures for us as a witness to God’s love for and reminds us that though we may not be an apostle like Paul, or a saint like Francis, or a teacher like Martin Luther, or a healer like Mother Theresa, we, each one of you, is beloved and is called into the service of the God who is with you and within you.  God is with us.  God is with you.  Christ Jesus: this is whose we are and defines who we are and this is indeed the good news.

Hope in things not seen.

Reflections on Romans 8, Isaiah 6 & John 3

Hope.

As you read that word ‘hope’ what image builds in your mind?

Say it out loud.

As you hear that word ‘hope’ what feelings well up inside you?

Just sit for a moment with that word ‘hope’: see and feel what it means for you.

Paul wrote to the people in Rome and he reassured them of their faith in the midst of their ambiguous experience of life.  Some had doubts, some experienced persecution, some disagreed about God and their faith, some just worried about how to get by every day, and some worried about their families and their futures.  In this they were not that much different to us.

Paul wanted them to have hope and through the inclusion of his letter to the Romans in the Scriptures we might also then say God wants us to have hope.

Paul wrote:

For in hope we were saved.

Now hope that is seen is not hope.

For who hopes for what is seen?

But if we hope for what we do not see,

We wait for it with patience.

Earlier in the service I challenged us all about how we perceive and understand the world.  

Do we see the glory of God in all things? Do we know and experience the fullness of God’s presence in our lives?  Can we see the promised salvation for which we long?

What is our perception of the world? Is it filled with hope?

Paul later wrote to the Corinthians that none of us see clearly: we all see God as through a dark glass or as in a dim mirror.

We do not fully comprehend or experience what God offers but we hope for it.

This is what faith is all about.  The realisation of the distance between life as we experience it and the life God longs for us – in Jesus language it was the coming kingdom.

Yet this coming kingdom of God has not arrived in all its fullness and as people of faith we should hold closely to this truth.

At the beginning of Paul’s letter he reminded the Romans that all people were sinners, all fall short of the glory of God. Like Isaiah and his vision any who come into God’s presence realise this.

None of us have a perfect faith.

None of us has a perfect understanding of life and of God.

None of us respond to the needs of each other perfectly.

None of us loves God or others as we should.

But the good news is that although we do not see or experience it in all its fullness God’s will for us is not judgement but new life. 

This is hope: hope not seen.

The story of Isaiah’s vision and the burning coal which represents his release from the power of sin pre-empts the fullness of what God’s intention for the creation and for each one of us is.  In John’s gospel we read “God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.”

This is hope: hope not seen.

We long for the salvation of the world

We long for a perfect faith.

We long for a perfect understanding of life and of God.

We long for people to respond to each other’s needs perfectly.

We long for a time when all people would love God and others as we should.

In other words:

We long for the peace of God

We long for the coming kingdom

This is hope: hope not seen.

In Romans Paul wrote “Thanks be to God – through Jesus Christ our Lord”

For it is in Jesus our hope is found, it is in Jesus that the past, present and future collide and are made new.  It is he who lived and died and was raised again that transforms and remakes us.

This is such a difficult thing for us who live in this world of enlightened understanding to accept.  We are people who like to think that we are in control, that we know where we are headed and that we can make our destiny.

Yet just as Jesus challenged the lawyer Nicodemus so long ago so Jesus words hurtle through time and space and confront us.

The only way to glimpse God’s kingdom is to be born from above.  It is God alone who shows us what is in store for the creation and for each one of us.  It is God alone who remakes our lives.  It is God alone who came and lived and walked among us as Jesus, who died and yes who rose again, that saves you and I.

Christians, as people of faith tie themselves to hope that they, and that we, believe in but cannot see.   Jesus presence in world means salvation – God saves what God has made.

It is through the Holy Spirit, which works where it will, that we can be drawn into this hope as we receive the gift of faith.

Hope in what we do not see but can only glimpse as God reveals it to us: the kingdom is coming!

We live in a world beset by problems.  We are accustomed to hiding our problems and trials from each other.  We deceive and delude ourselves and each other with the idea that we are in control. Our perception is skewed.

Yet we hope in things not seen.

God made us, God loves us and God is saving us.

Close your eyes, take a moment, dwell on the hope that we have as Christians – a hope in things not seen.

What does this mean for you?

Giving it all away.

How completely and utterly must Paul have loved his kindred?

For I could wish that I myself were accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my own people, my kindred according to the flesh.

Paul’s people were the Israelites and in these words we hear his heart felt cry that they too would know Jesus Christ as he does.

I want this morning to explore with you the depth of faith from which this cry is uttered and to do so I will begin by describing a little bit about Paul and his faith as well as when the letter was written and to whom he was writing.

Having gained a bit of an understanding of the context of the letter I want to dig deeper into the expression and witness of Paul’s understanding of faith in these words.

And lastly, to seek to listen for what God might be saying to us today in our hearing of this story.

So, first to a little bit of history!

Paul was originally known as Saul, a Jewish scholar and scribe by background. Prior to his conversion he had been involved with the persecution of the first disciples of Jesus within the Jewish community.

In the books of Acts he is implicated in the stoning of Stephen and we are told that from that point on, Saul began ravaging the church, entering house after house; and dragging off men and women, he would put them in prison.

Saul’s conversion, including his name change to Paul, occurs when the risen Jesus miraculously appeared before him on his journey to Damascus.

After his conversion Paul embarked on numerous missionary journeys through the Roman Empire. The majority of the letters of the New Testament are attribute to him as communiqués sent to those communities of believers that he had established.

Paul clearly understood himself as a missionary, to bring the good of news to those outside the Jewish community as well as those within.

There had been an issue in the early years after Jesus death as to which Jesus message was for: was it simply the Jewish people or the gentiles as well.

The answer that came through was the Jesus message was to be shared with all peoples. It is clear in the book of Acts and within Paul’s letters themselves that whilst some of the Jews converted and the Jewish communities were often the starting point for sharing the message many gentiles joined the faith.

This was no less the case in Rome and there had been some tension within the Jewish community over the issue. Remember Paul’s own background persecuting the first followers of Jesus.

It is commonly accepted that the account of the expulsion of the Jews from Rome in the year 49 by the Emperor Claudius, by the Roman historian Suetonius, is an indicator of this tension.

It is argued that the Jews were expelled because of the emerging Christian movement causing friction within the Jewish community.

The letter that Paul wrote to the Romans is normally dated around 6-8 years after these events and it appears that whilst there were clearly Jews within the community the community also had a large number of gentiles.

This little peek into the history of the situation should help you to understand the position that Paul found himself in. He was a Jewish Christian spreading the good news of Jesus among gentiles and seeing his own people not responding to the proclamation that Jesus was indeed the Messiah.

This leads into my second point: to pick up on Paul’s words and what they say about his faith.

Paul’s faith was rooted in a specific and personal revelation of Jesus Christ that changed his heart from being prepared to hold the coats whilst Stephen was stoned into sharing that very same message which Stephen held on to.

It is difficult for us to understand the shift in Paul’s life in this matter: suffice it to say that it was huge.

It was a complete turn around in his life, his view of God, his behaviour.

The message of Jesus and his understanding of God’s love for him were all consuming. Simply reading his letter to the Romans to this point should open our eyes to this.

Paul understood himself as specially chosen and sent messenger of God’s grace – he was an ambassador for Jesus Christ.

Jesus, whom Paul understood, to have given himself, for the sake of the world to make the world righteous in God’s eyes.

There can be little doubt that Paul had personal sense of his salvation in Christ yet such was his faith that he was prepared to give his own relationship with God in Christ away so that others might believe.

For me this is an expression of what is at the heart of the Christian faith, a willingness to give everything for the sake of the other.

Paul so longed that his Jewish kindred would come to understand and know Christ as he did that he was willing to give up all that had gained in Christ for this to occur.

To jump to another of Paul’s letters for a moment this example of faith in Paul’s letter reflects the very action of God sending Jesus into the world.

In Philippians we read:

"Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death— even death on a cross. Therefore God also highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father."

Just as God gave Christ into the world so too Paul was prepared to give himself and his new life in Christ for the sake of the Jewish people to know Christ.

To me this is the ultimate expression and understanding of the Christian faith it is not about what I get out of it for myself but what is done that others might enter into the peace of God established in Christ.

This brings me to invite you to reflect on your own faith in Jesus Christ. We tend to be self-centred consumers in all of thinking, including in our thinking about faith. The primary question is what is in it for me?

But is that what being a Christian is all about?

Is being a Christian about getting to go to heaven or getting to avoid hell? Which are two different things, one motivated by reward the other by fear.

Is being a Christian about getting blessings from God day by day?

Paul’s example seems to suggest otherwise. Following Jesus means being willing to give up everything for the sake of others so that they too may know the immensity of God’s love and grace. Even to the point of giving up that very relationship so that others might believe.

Here is a commitment to follow Christ who gives up all for our sake that should cause us to take pause and contemplate. How deep is our faith? How well do we understand that grace given to us so freely? How much are we prepared to give so that others might know God’s love in Jesus Christ?

Paul’s message of grace is the message of the Jesus who looked upon the crowd and had compassion. It is the message of God’s abundant generosity that feeds the crowd and has left over’s. It is the message of God’s love drawing us back into the meaning and purpose of our existence.

So as we give thanks and break bread today let us be drenched in that hope and celebrate God’s generosity in the giving of ourselves for others.