Sermon of the Month - August 2008
Change of Scene
1. Macedonian Guidance (from Asia to Europe)
I don’t know if you are familiar with the theories of Continental Drift? Our world is not stationary. Anyone who lives in areas where there are earthquakes or volcanoes is aware of that. Some planets are broadly static. They don’t really change unless something from outside crashes into them. But the Earth has these Continental plates, and over the years they move. Near the fault lines, the pressure builds up and then, eventually there is an earthquake, as the Continents crash into each other, one part of the planet pushed over the other.
Sometimes geological changes are glacial: they move so slowly, you can’t tell they are changing. But if you check thousands of years later they’ve moved a few inches. But sometimes geological changes are earthquakes or volcanoes. When Krakatoa erupted in 1879, it created an explosion equivalent to 13,000 Hiroshima bombs, making a bang that could be heard up to 3,000 miles away in Australia and Mauritius, and destroyed most of the island.
Sometimes change in church life seems glacial – but then sometimes there are earthquakes. In Acts 16 we get a kind of seismic shift, a movement of continents – from Asia to Europe. We also get the shift from reaching Jews, with a few Gentiles, to an almost wholly Gentile church, and a shift from an exclusively male leadership to a more inclusive approach with female leadership, too.
Come over to Macedonia, the man in the vision said. And they trusted this as the guidance of God.
Here is the key theme of Acts 16: guidance.
How does God guide us? How do we know what God wants for us? And how do we follow God’s guidance?
First, let’s see that guidance doesn’t only come in special times, like those we hear in Acts 16, it comes in everyday ways too, like those before Acts 16. The disciples were given their marching orders by the Lord (Go into all the world), and they got on with it. They received his help at Pentecost, followed up people they felt it right to respond to, like the paralysed man, who, as the old joke has it, asked for alms but got legs! They even knew his help during the time of persecution, with God guiding Philip to a very special meeting with an Ethiopian. Later Peter knew guidance in his meeting with Cornelius. God guided Barnabas in his work in Antioch. But that guidance must have included something very ordinary: prodding his memory. Barnabas was with Saul of Tarsus just after his conversion, and will have heard him say how Jesus had given him the surprising commission of bringing the gospel to the Gentiles. Now Barnabas realises this is the time for that. So he travels to bring Saul (later Paul) for what will be vital training and experience for that mission. Then the Christians in Antioch felt guided to appoint Barnabas and Paul to go on that first mission. And so they went to Cyprus. Why Cyprus? Well that was actually where Barnabas was from. Where to go? Barnabas used his common sense and experience. Guidance from God includes doing just that.
Then God guided them negatively. Don’t go to the province in Asia; don’t go to Bithynia. Sometimes that’s how it is: God says No. He says that’s not the right way. That’s not the same as moral guidance. Of course God gives us that as well, often speaking through our consciences. But he can tell us go to this place or don’t go to that one. A friend of mine, a minister, took that advice once. He was in an unfamiliar town, and wanted to go to church. He went into this church that seemed fine outwardly. It seemed very Pentecostal in many ways and he settled in to worship. But after a few minutes he felt God was saying “Get out!” He did so and looked at the church’s noticeboard – which he had not done on the way in – and found that it was something odd – what’s called a “Jesus Only” church, a church that in a way rejects the Trinity.
Another friend didn’t follow the guidance he heard. He was on his way home going through Leicester, and he was about to take a short cut down a little alley-way, when he heard God say “Don’t go that way!” Well I’m afraid he chose to ignore it. Why would God want him to go the long way round? He went down the short cut – and got mugged.
Of course God can guide us away from dangers of various sorts. But Paul and his friends find that God guides them away from preaching the gospel in two places. That’s very striking. Sometimes God will guide you away from something, not because it’s wrong, but because he has something even better planned. That’s what happened for Paul and his friends.
God guides us positively, too. He guided Paul and the others to Macedonia, where he would see even greater breakthroughs. And we’ll see what happened happened there later.
2. Lydia (from Men to Women)
The next story is the story of Lydia. Paul’s strategy everywhere he went was to go first to his fellow Jews, to announce that the Messiah had arrived, that although people crucified him, God raised him from the dead. But in Philippi there was no synagogue. Without ten men you can’t have a synagogue. So instead, he went to where he might hope to find what few Jews there were, by the river. There seem to be no Jewish men at all, but some women, and one of these is Lydia. Philippi was founded by Philip, the great king of Macedon, and unlike Greece, this was a place where women had much greater freedom. It was known for the businesswomen of the city, and Lydia was one of them. She accepted the message of Jesus with enthusiam, and was baptised, as were the members of her household, and she persuaded Paul and the others to set up their Christian base in her home. The church in Philippi had Lydia as its first hostess.
Paul sometimes is thought of as being a bit against women. This isn’t true. It doesn’t stand up if you see what he actually does. He is behaving very differently to the people of his day, in developping very strong friendships with men and women equally, and very positive about all sorts of different leadership rôles and responsibilities for them.
Actually Paul moves from a situation where men alone were leaders to one where women play their part too.
3. The Philippian jailor (from Jews to Gentiles)
Paul and the Christian church moves from Asia to Europe. Asia and Europe, instead of just Asia. Then he moves from men to women in responsible leadership, from men alone to men and women of course.
Then he moves from Jews alone to Jews and Gentiles. Of course there were some Gentile Christians – but not many. That was about to change.
The fact is that Lydia and her household may well have been the only Jews in the church. This was the great new breakthrough. In a place where there were almost no Jews, God blesses them time and time again with the conversion of Gentiles. It starts with the extraordinary tale of the Philippian jailor.
Who was the captive and who the prisoner? The captives should be Paul and Silas, but they’ve got God on their side: an earthquake breaks all their chains. They are free to go, but chose to stay. They are truly free. Meanwhile the jailor knows the rules. Earthquake or no earthquake, if you lose your prisoners you have to die. When Paul tells him that no one has escaped, he knows that so long as they stay, his life is saved. When he says “Men, what must I do to be saved?” I think he meant it quite literally. He thinks they’re bargaining for something. What have I got to do so that you will save my life by staying here in prison? But you can’t ask a question like that to Paul without getting an answer you didn’t expect. Not money, not a special word with the governor or anything else. He tells him about Jesus. Suddenly it’s the jailor who’s the captive audience. Now he’s listening, really listening. He too accepts the good news and is baptised, as is his household, because they had come to believe in God.
Baptism is for Jews and Gentiles who believe in Jesus. And it’s for you, too, if you follow Jesus as your Lord and Saviour.