On the Way to Wonder

Romans 8 is central in Paul’s letter to the Romans. Paul traveled the Roman Empire by foot, sharing his story and the message of the Gospel, the good news of a way to be right with God, the supreme God and creator who revealed himself through incarnation in Jesus Christ.  Groups of believers sprung up but Paul was often railroaded out of town leaving the small groups in towns, often impacted by false teachers, and with no written Word to refer to.  Plus Paul was imprisoned.  Had he lived today, I would imagine he would have been an expert using email, following up on his peeps.  Those early letters form a core part of the New Testament after the Gospels that tell the story of the life of Christ.  The letters talk more about the Christian lifestyle.  Christianity is not just a statement of what is believed to be true like the pledge of allegiance but it is also a whole lifestyle.  This week we will look at five letters to five churches in big cities of the empire and Paul’s advice to those young believers.  We start with Rome and Romans 8.

         In the 90s, we stood before the high court of Kenya and the judge, with a policeman on each side, pounded the gavel down and declared, “From this day forward, this child will be known as …..”  In that moment life changed for two young children who were adopted into our family and for us.  Adoption is a big word to us.  My husband was adopted and our five children now have two more siblings.  The adventure started.  Likewise at baptism or at the point of conversion we are adopted into a spiritual family.  We still live in this world but we also belong to another world, another reality.  We become a child of God.  As a child learns to obey parents and care for siblings, becoming part of a family, even so we learn to obey the Holy Spirit and we learn what it means to be part of the family of faith. “The Spirit you received brought about your adoption to sonship. (v 15)”  We are not slaves living in fear but children claimed by God.  The chapter ends assuring us that nothing can separate us from the love of that Father.

         Adoption is a difficult relationship to navigate.  We bring our “past” with us and often the doubts that we are truly wanted or loveable.  We grow into an adoption.  The chapter closes with that fantastic assurance of God’s continual love and presence but most of us probably do not have to put our lives on the line for our faith like those early Christians. Some of us are fairly skeptical of a statements like that but the truth is that God is committed to us and we can count on that.  The epic hero is committed to making the epic story turn out best for all.  THAT is epic hope!  Blessings.

”As I think back over this week and the life of the apostle Paul, the song I would like to focus on is “Unto Thee O Lord” written by Charles F. Monroe in 1971.  The Internet knows little about the hymn writer who put Psalm 25 to music.  Maranatha singers made it popular in the 70s when I was a young adult.  The Apostle Paul would have been familiar with Psalm 25, originally penned by King David.

         Paul was the archenemy of early Christians.  He was there at the stoning of Stephen, the first martyr, and was commissioned by the high priest to hunt down Christians.  On the Damascus road he was miraculously saved through an encounter with the risen Christ.  Paul was instrumental in starting churches all along the Mediterranean Sea and up to Rome.  He was the person who went to Jerusalem to hammer out with the elders some of the very basics of Christianity.  Circumcision would not be required.  People do not have to become a Jew first.  Gentile believers were Christians on equal standing with Jewish believers.  During Paul’s travels he faced persecution, stoning, imprisonment, shipwreck and more.  It was not easy.  I can imagine him saying Psalm 25:

¹ To you, O Lord, I lift up my soul.
² O my God, in you I trust;
    do not let me be put to shame;
    do not let my enemies exult over me.
³ Do not let those who wait for you be put to shame;
    let them be ashamed who are wantonly treacherous.

⁴ Make me to know your ways, O Lord;
    teach me your paths.
⁵ Lead me in your truth, and teach me,
    for you are the God of my salvation;
    for you I wait all day long.

⁶ Be mindful of your mercy, O Lord, and of your steadfast love,
    for they have been from of old.
⁷ Do not remember the sins of my youth or my transgressions;
    according to your steadfast love remember me,
    for your goodness’ sake, O Lord!

⁸ Good and upright is the Lord;
    therefore he instructs sinners in the way.
⁹ He leads the humble in what is right,
    and teaches the humble his way.
¹⁰ All the paths of the Lord are steadfast love and faithfulness,
    for those who keep his covenant and his decrees.

¹¹ For your name’s sake, O Lord,
    pardon my guilt, for it is great.
¹² Who are they that fear the Lord?
    He will teach them the way that they should choose.

¹³ They will abide in prosperity,
    and their children shall possess the land.
¹⁴ The friendship of the Lord is for those who fear him,
    and he makes his covenant known to them.
¹⁵ My eyes are ever toward the Lord,
    for he will pluck my feet out of the net.

¹⁶ Turn to me and be gracious to me,
    for I am lonely and afflicted.
¹⁷ Relieve the troubles of my heart,
    and bring me^[a] out of my distress.
¹⁸ Consider my affliction and my trouble,
    and forgive all my sins.

¹⁹ Consider how many are my foes,
    and with what violent hatred they hate me.
²⁰ O guard my life, and deliver me;
    do not let me be put to shame, for I take refuge in you.
²¹ May integrity and uprightness preserve me,
    for I wait for you.

²² Redeem Israel, O God,
    out of all its troubles.

Blessings as you go through difficult times!

Acts 25-28 tells us of dark days in Paul’s life, one of the sub-heroes in our epic story’s iteration – the founding of the early church.  Saul, one of the chief enemies of early Christians, changes his name to Paul after an encounter with the risen Christ.  As a believer, based in Antioch, Syria, Paul travels with companions around the Mediterranean Sea area sharing his story and gradually heading to Rome.  Paul is imprisoned in Caesarea and offered the opportunity to plead his case before the officials in Jerusalem with his accusers.  Realizing this is a set up for an unfair trial, Paul declares, “I appeal to Caesar!”  He is a Roman citizen and has a right to a fair trial in Rome.  Off he is sent, a prisoner.  But on the ship voyage across the sea, a huge storm blows up and there is a shipwreck.  Paul, the prisoner, is instrumental in saving all from drowning.  Eventually he arrives in Rome. Awaiting trial, Chapter 28:30, 31 ends the book of Acts and our story of Paul, “For two whole years Paul stayed there in his own rented house and welcomed all who came to see him.  He proclaimed the kingdom of God and taught about the Lord Jesus Christ – with all boldness and without hindrance

         Acts is an action packed narrative of the adventures of the early disciples and Christians that gradually produced the early church as God, the Holy Spirit, led and protected their lives.  Some were martyred, all had rough times, but somehow their story spread and the known world was impacted.  It is often in our darkest hours that it is easy to despair and feel like all is lost.  Paul never lost focus on his story, though, and the reality of the God he appealed to.  He did not allow the pressure of others’ opinions mold his identity.  Secondly Paul was able to see the hand of God directing events to a meaningful goal.  That is not a goal of self-fulfillment or health, wealth and prosperity all of which will pass, but a goal of growing God’s kingdom.    Sometimes we pray asking God to open our eyes to the unseen story unfolding in the events of the day.

         At the point of crisis, Paul yells, “I appeal to Caesar!”  Who do we appeal to when we are under pressure?  Where do we turn our eyes and hearts?  Paul appealed to Caesar because he knew God wanted him to witness in Rome.  So what comforts us from the story of Paul.  God never abandoned Paul in his dark hours and Paul focused on that.  God had a purpose in what Paul was going through and was moving Paul to where God wanted him.  God has a purpose in the events of our lives too.  We may not be able to appeal to Caesar of the government but we can always appeal to God who is an even higher authority and is always present by our side.  Blessings.

Acts 16-20 follows Paul’s second missionary trip, this time with another young believer, Timothy.  His home base is still Antioch in Syria but this time he starts to go to Turkey again, is blocked, and ends up circling more north and around the Mediterranean Sea towards Rome.  Again Paul starts with the known, witnessing in the Jewish synagogue as long as people are interested, but then he branches out to the Gentiles.  One morning he goes down by the river to pray and engaged a group of women is discussion.  At another town he was thrown in jail but an earthquake opened the doors and shook off the shackles but rather than run he engaged the guard and family in a discussion that led to faith.  Paul’s group is flogged and Paul has to fall back on his Roman citizenship.  Perhaps we could say, different strokes for different folks.  But always Paul has a support crew some of which travel with him and some to whom he reports and is accountable.  He always seems to work from the friendly and curious with a common framework to the Gentiles who also engage with him.  Gradually it becomes obvious that God is leading Paul to witness in Rome.

         We do not always understand the whys and wherefores of God’s leading and the events of our life.  We worry that we might make a wrong turn but it seems from the readings today that God works in many ways that we don’t understand at the time but which all build our spiritual “resume.”  It seems that what is important is that the Holy Spirit leads as we listen.  Not being a Lone Ranger but being in community and accountable helps keep us on track.  Paul spent some time circling back and encouraging former converts and checking up on people.  These are all good rules of thumb for making sure “our way” is God’s way.

         Perhaps you feel like you need guidance in some area of your life today.  If not guidance, at least affirmation and assurance.  Perhaps reflect.  Are you in the Word?  Are you in fellowship?  Are you in prayer?  Who is partnering with you?  Difficulties do not mean you are out of God’s will, for it may be in your weakest moments, God is the strongest, building you and witnessing to others.  Our epic hero, God, is not sitting off in the clouds watching us struggle with the epic villain, but God is standing there beside us, supporting us, even when we don’t see Him or feel Him.  Blessings on your challenges today.

Acts 15 shares about a very basic clarifying decision for those early Christians and that challenges us even today as the United States is again a real melting pot of cultures and hence expressions of Christianity.  We have the advantage of centuries but the early Christians saw themselves as a new expression of Judaism, or were they, as they had to deal with absorbing Gentile believers.  It seems like each generation has to decide how to worship as traditions of elders clash with new music, new dress and new ethnicities becoming part of the Church, big C ie the church universal, not our corner structure.

         Paul and Barnabas travel to Jerusalem to headquarters to meet with Peter, “the disciples and the elders.”  We call it the Jerusalem Council.  They wanted to hammer out what is core to Christianity.  Is it grace or race?  Interestingly the leaders were able to boil down their behavioral expectations of Gentiles to four guidelines: don’t eat food sacrificed to idols, don’t drink blood, don’t eat strangled animals and avoid sexual immorality.  No rules about circumcision.  No creeds.  No order of worship.  The dietary rules recognized that life lies in the blood and that our habits are testimonies and perhaps stumbling blocks to others.  Today we boil our faith down to “love the Lord your God with you whole heart, soul and mind and love your neighbor as yourself.”

         So what is core to me today?  Who do I think the church is for?   Do I see it like an incubator for growing people in faith or do I see it like a hospital that deals with all sick?  An incubator probably is protective and more programed.  A hospital has more open doors and specialties to deal with all sorts of challenges. Also core to the text is the call to us to consider how our behavior impacts others.  Are we so busy defending ourselves that we become defensive and offensive?  Oh dear, tough questions.  As we reflect on whom we feel the church is for, may we pray for the mind of Christ and for the flexibility to deal with the challenges of our day!  Blessings for you are part of the Church, big C!

Our reading for today is Acts 13 and 14 that tells of Paul’s first missionary journey.  The church in Antioch, Syria was led by the Holy Spirit in prayer to send Barnabas and Paul on a journey to share their story.  They took young John Mark with them and headed to Cyprus and then around Turkey.  Most of us probably don’t recognize the names of the places nor can we place them on a map.  But we do see that these “chosen” and “set apart” men faced challenges.  They started with the known, the Jewish synagogues where Jews gathered to worship.  Paul, like Stephen, preaches and goes through Jewish history from the forming of the nation in Egypt, through King David, and up to Jesus.  He is no longer jumping off his story but helping them develop a new perspective on their story and how God is working.  King David died but Jesus resurrected and offers eternal life.  When they are rejected Paul and Barnabas turns to the Gentiles.  As long as the people wanted to engage with them, they shared.

         Rejection was one reaction but another was to think they were the gods visiting when Paul healed a lame man.  Both extremes rejection or idolizing were not healthy.  At one point, Paul was stoned and left for dead.  He then started back to Antioch, revisiting new believers and “strengthening” them or checking up on them and teaching them.  Paul reports in and is clear that sharing our testimony can be met with resistance and hardship.  But a network of believers is developing and growing.

         I suspect we tend to think that if God is on our side, life will be good and our troubles will be left behind.  But the truth is that the epic story is not about me and my happiness. it is about an epic struggle between God and Satan.  Our hero, God, is determined to build a kingdom that will eventually be safe and totally under his dominion for his creations that choose to believe.  It is easy to become discouraged when we meet trials and to fear that God has abandon us but it may well be in those dark hours that God is working out his design.  As a parent I remember holding my child by the waist and balancing him and pointing him towards his father to get the child to walk.  Yes sometimes he fell but that learning process and seeing the child develop confidence and not only walk but run was delightful for us parents and for the child.  The kingdom grows by sharing and sometimes that is hard and not always understood.  Paul spoke into the lives of those willing to listen, faced the flack, and reported to his support crew who held him in prayer and kept him accountable.  And here we are today.  May we be faithful in sharing our good news with others and doing our little bit to grow the kingdom.  Blessings in your encounters today.

Acts 9: 1-31 introduces us to Paul.  We first met Paul as Saul, a young Pharisee supervising the stoning of Stephen.  As dedicated as he was against the early Christians, he became one of the most famous early Christians defending the faith.  He wrote many of the epistles, letters, to young Christians in the New Testament.  Paul had the advantage of Roman citizenship from his father plus his Jewish training in being a Pharisee.  He was not from Jerusalem but from Tarsus, a Turkish city known for trade and learning.  Paul traveled extensively after his conversion and earned the title, “Apostle to the Gentiles.”  We will look at his life and the dramatic expansion of Christianity this week.

         So how did this change happen?  Paul, then Saul, left Jerusalem to chase down early Christians. While on the road to Damascus he had a spiritual encounter.  A bright light blinded only him in his party and a voice engaged him.  Saul, knocked to the ground, asked the question, “Who are you, Lord?”  The voice identified itself as Jesus.  I think we call that a worldview change.  Whom he thought was dead and phony is alive and interacting with him.  His world changed and he changed.  Our epic hero, Incarnate God, has entered this iteration even as he did with Abraham in the Old Testament, to impact the course of our epic story.  God has chosen Saul, interacted with him, and Saul became Paul, then telling all about his experience.

         Built on this experience, though, are the interactions with other Christians who come alongside this young convert and are willing to mold him.  Ananias visits three days later and restores Paul’s vision. Back in Jerusalem, Barnabas is willing to work with Paul, the known persecutor who has changed.

         Paul’s core question, “Who are you, Lord?” is answered and confirmed by his experience and by the mentoring of older Christians.  Once he was convinced that Jesus was alive, he became one of the best communicators of early Christianity over the known world, willing to obey even through great hardships.

         Sunday’s Gospel text deals with that same question, Who is Jesus.  How we answer impacts the direction of our lives.  If he is historical, the Bible is a good read. If he is alive and interacting, the question is if we are listening.  Perhaps spending five minutes in the Word, with music or just listening would be a good spiritual devotion for today.  Blessings as he touches your life too.

Acts 10:1-11:18 is the story of an epic hero, God, not only working outside “the box” but shattering the box we often put God in of how we think God works.  Outstanding sermons on Pentecost while challenging us about speaking in tongues, is somehow still familiar for we understand about campaigns.  Individual conversions like the Ethiopian who finds faith through Scripture that touches his condition and resonates into his soul is comforting.  Acts 10, though, shows us a hero who is willing, yet again, to reach into our world to make sure we understand all are welcome in his Kingdom, the kingdom of Heaven.  There is indeed a new iteration beyond the Old Testament and the nation that was built through Abraham.  Our hero is not only defeating our villain but he is also going to build a kingdom that will last for eternity!

         One of the biggest hurdles for the early disciples was the common belief that the messiah was coming to deliver them from Rome and restore the glory days of Israel.  The “enemy” was Rome.  An angel of God visits a Roman centurion, Cornelius, and tells him to invite Peter who is staying in Joppa by the sea.  God is answering the prayers of an unbeliever seeking truth!  The angel also visits Peter, napping on the roof of his host waiting for lunch.  Peter is clearly told to go with the messengers being sent to take him to Cornelius.  Cornelius asks Peter to give the message he is sure from God and Peter enters his house to share, breaking Jews rules.  The Holy Spirit blesses even as at Pentecost.  There can be no doubt that God has spoken and the church that is forming is not just about Jews but also includes the Gentiles – even the Romans, the hated “enemy.”

         So who do we consider impossible for God to reach and restore to relationship with him?  Perhaps there is a wayward child “sowing their oats.”  Perhaps there is that totally frustrating neighbor.  Perhaps there is that person of a different language and customs.  So often we put the word “impossible” across a situation that is totally beyond our ability to imagine.  Often we consider that person, “the enemy.”  God is about breaking down walls or building bridges.   Perhaps a first step is to pray about any situation beyond our control.  God is there working in them and working in us and we can ask God to open our eyes to the impossible he is able to do.  God works outside our boxes and that gives us hope when the skies look dark!  Blessings as you find hope in God.

Acts 8:26-40 zeroes in on a moment in the life of another lesser known disciple, Philip.  There are the great preachers like Peter, Stephen, Paul, and John who seem to be in the public eye and people flock to hear them but there are also the quiet, not so obvious people going about their daily lives.  Philip might be one of those…or you and I.

         Philip feels led to take a trip out towards Gaza, towards the desert.  He does not know why but he obeys.  There he meets the Ethiopian eunuch, the treasurer of the Queen of Ethiopia, returning home after a trip to worship in Jerusalem.  Here is a man who would certainly feel “second class” despite his very respectable job with very important people.  Perhaps we can identify with this feeling of insignificance despite all our accomplishments and efforts to do things right.  The man is reading in the Old Testament, Isaiah, about someone else who was humiliated and died leaving no children.  Those verses touched the man’s heart for he understood.  He would die with no children of his own and knew the humiliation of being a eunuch.

         Our first assignment in Kenya, Grandpa Isendilli was our house worker.  As a youth guarding the flocks he had been grabbed by the other tribe, emasculated and left to die.  He was taken to a mission hospital, lived and became a Christian.  He is probably one of the wisest people I have known.  But he could not sit with the elders.  He married and had children by arrangement whom he raised responsibility but he knew humiliation. That did not stop him from humbly working and enjoying his family.

         Philip was able to explain the life of Christ to the man, who believed and saw a lake and asked to be baptized. We do not know what happened to the man and we hear little more about Philip.  So many moments come and go like that.  We do not know what opportunities will open for us each day to obey those nudgings of the Holy Spirit or to share a bit of the Bible that has touched our life with someone we meet.  This does not mean street evangelism but being transparent with those we meet about our faith if it seems appropriate.  It is easy to dismiss ourselves because we are not the upfront preacher but God is working through you also and your voice counts.  Blessings on your day.