Sheffield Cathedral. Evening Prayer with Hymns (Trinity 8) 10.08.14
Readings: 1 Kings 11.41-12.20; Acts 14.8-20
From the New Testament accounts it would seem that Paul’s words invariably set off powerful emotions and responses in people. So, for example, in our second reading where Paul is speaking in Lystra, there is excitement as the man crippled from birth is healed, but also danger. The reading finishes with Paul left for dead having been stoned by those who saw his message as a threat. We might well wonder why did Paul continue to proclaim the gospel whenever it was, clearly, so dangerous? As we hear in our own day of the intense persecution being faced by Christians across the globe it might well prompts us to ponder why and how they keep going in the face of such opposition?
Some startling figures were published two weeks ago (27.07.14) in an Independent on Sunday article by Paul Vallely entitled ‘Christians: The world’s most persecuted people’. In it, he writes:
‘The Centre for the Study of Global Christianity in the United States estimates that 100,000 Christians now die every year, targeted because of their faith – that is 11 every hour. The Pew Research Center says that hostility to religion reached a new high in 2012, when Christians faced some form of discrimination in 139 countries, almost three-quarters of the world’s nations.’
Let’s think about Paul in the context of his first missionary journey. As he arrives at the city of Lystra, he meets a man who has been crippled, lame since his birth. Paul is speaking, and notices the man, and sees that he has faith to be healed (or saved, Gk). Just as the apostle Peter healed the man in the temple courts (Acts 3), so Paul now heals this man, showing the power of God in his life. Not surprisingly, this causes a stir and the people of the city decide that Paul and Barnabas must be two of their gods come to visit. They swing into action to provide hospitality for these gods, and hurry to prepare a sacrifice to them. Local legend had it that another town had once been visited by Zeus and Hermes, where the gods had found no welcome, except for an old couple, who brought them into their home. The couple was rewarded, but the town was destroyed. The people of Lystra did not want to share in the same fate but only as the priest of Zeus brought bulls and garlands for the sacrifice did Paul and Barnabas realise what is happening. They are horrified that they are being seen as gods and rush into the crowd to stop such an act of idolatry.
Paul and Barnabas make it clear that they are men with a message: men not gods and to stress the point they tear their clothes, in a sign of sorrow, of mourning. It’s almost as if they are also showing their humanness – that they are flesh and blood. Here’s what they say: ‘Friends, why are you doing this? We mortals just like you.’ Nothing too contentious here, me might think. Paul and Barnabas make the point that they are just men, not gods in disguise (s the Lystrans imagined. But they are men with a message – the message they have committed their lives to sharing as they travel across the entire region. And that is where the trouble begins.
‘We bring you good news, that you should turn from these worthless things to the living God.’ The message is the good news – the gospel – a demand to turn around. The Lystrans were moving in one direction; Paul and Barnabas were calling them to take up another. They were barking up the wrong tree and clinging to idols that were worthless. The Lystrans were building their life worshipping a false, small ‘g’ god, who couldn’t do anything. Zeus and Hermes had no power; they were just idols. The good news challenged them to turn from such things to the ‘living God, who made the heaven and the earth and the sea and all that is in them.’ This is the God who should be worshipped. And yet, even in their idolatry, God had not left the Lystrans without a witness. Starting with what his hearers know, Paul points to the world around them, as a witness to the goodness and grace of the living God: ‘Yet he has not left himself without a witness in doing good giving you rains from heaven and fruitful seasons, and filling you with food and your hearts with joy’. Even as the nations turned their backs on God; even as we have spurned God and gone our own way; there has always been a testimony to God’s kindness. It’s what he promised in Genesis 8:22 – ‘As long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night will never cease.’ Jesus says something similar in in Matthew 5: ‘He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.’ (Matt 5:45). The rain is part of God’s common grace, his kindness shown to everyone. It’s a pointer to the Lord. But, and this a big but, even having the signs of God’s goodness all around us isn’t enough for us to know God. These pagans in Lystra had been rained on; they had eaten the crops and marked the seasons; they had even witnessed a miracle of the Lord’s healing in their city, and yet they were determined to persist in the practices so clearly challenged by Paul and Barnabas. And that might just give us pause for thought. Are we any better? Do we too receive from the Lord’s hand and yet worship other gods, as it were? Do we make costly sacrifices to the idols we serve? It might not be Zeus and Hermes, but it might be money, family, health, or power. TV advertisements are a great indicator of some of the idols of our society – youth; wealth; sex; prestige; celebrity, the list could go on and on. The fact is that Paul and Barnabas, the men with the message, confront us as well, reminding us of the need to turn from idols to serve the living and true God – the God of all grace, who has not only provided food in due season, but has given us the gift of his very self in the person of his son, Jesus the Christ. This was the one to whom Paul and Barnabas were point; the focus of the message were sharing, even as the crowd tried to sacrifice to them; and then as the crowd (won over and urged on by the Jews of Antioch and Iconium) stoned Paul. The gospel of Jesus Christ, the message that the kingdom of heaven has come among us in the life of the crucified God was, and remains, a message that challenges the agendas of the powerful and refuses to accept any status quo of oppression and injustice. That, inevitably, provokes confrontation. The powers of this world will not give up without a fight and is why Christians continue to suffer and die for the sake of the Lord they serve.
We, who serve that same Lord, do not face the prospect of violence or death for the sake of our faith, but we do face the challenge to turn away from whatever are the idols that find their way into our lives. Sometimes, in making those choices, we will be judged, criticised, even turned upon by people we considered our friends.
If and when that happens, let us be encouraged by people like Paul and Barnabas and like the countless Christians since for whom faith has exacted a much heavier cost, and keep our eyes focussed on Jesus. In him we find the strength and courage to bear witness to the truth in love, whatever that brings our way.
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