"The Attitude of Christ" (Phil 2:1-11)

Not Playing the Same Game

This spring I’ve gotten my first taste of coaching soccer as an assistant coach for my nephew’s soccer team. At our first practice, it became clear that some of our players had a bad habit that would need to be addressed immediately. Namely, using their hands to control the ball. As you probably know, “no hands” is a fundamental rule in soccer. You can use your feet, your thighs, your chest, your head—but not your hands. If this bad habit persisted in any of our players, then we would have a real problem on our hands. They would effectively be playing a different game.

In one sense, Paul and the Philippians (the Christ-followers to whom he writes in Philippi) are dealing with a similar situation. They are not playing the same game as the world around them, and it’s causing a real problem. (Paul wouldn’t be in prison if it weren’t.) Twice in his letter to them, Paul encourages the Philippians to “live as citizens”—not of Rome, but of a different world (cf. Phil 1:37; 3:20). If you listen to the Greek words that Paul uses here—politeuomai and politeuma—you can hear what he’s getting at. Following Christ means living by a different politics. To be clear, Paul’s not talking here about partisan politics. He’s not telling the Philippians they need to move to the right or to the left, that they need to be more Republican or Democrat. He’s telling them that following Christ means they don’t even play that game.

Which begs a big question, “Okay, then. What game are they playing?”

The Old Game

1    If then there is any encouragement in Christ, any consolation from love, any sharing in the Spirit, any compassion and sympathy, 2 make my joy complete: be of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. 3 Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves. 4 Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others.

Christ-followers who lived in the Roman empire daily faced significant social pressures, if not outright persecution. When they went to the market, they were often required to burn incense before an altar of Caesar and to declare, “Caesar is lord”...which is an awkward thing to do and say if the confession of your faith is “Jesus is lord.” When their neighbors or friends hosted social gatherings, the meat that people would eat together was often first sacrificed to a Roman god, which again put Christ-followers in an awkward place—if they ate the meat, would others assume they put their faith in the god to whom it had been offered? Beyond these common situations, Christ-followers often sidelined themselves from other popular activities—like attending the local sauna or the games at the coliseum—because these pastimes frequently celebrated sexual promiscuity and violence. By not playing the same game that their neighbors played, many Christ-followers earned confused and suspicious looks from others. “Who are these weirdos?” (Imagine how today we might look on people who never go to the gym or the movies, and you’ll get an approximate sense of how Christ-followers were seen back then.)

The raised eyebrows and disapproving frowns that Christ-followers endured, the shameful rumors and disgraceful gossip that they withstood—not to mention the risk of actual imprisonment, as Paul  himself has suffered—all of this forms the backdrop to Paul’s words of encouragement in today’s scripture. Notice how the first two verses are a call to unity. Essentially, “stick together, be strong!” There is a fundamental truth here: community gives us a strength we do not have on our own. If you’ve ever been a part of a book club or an exercise group or any other sort of regular group activity, you’ve likely experienced this truth. The support and accountability of others help us to do what we could not on your own.

But Paul’s words turn quickly from encouragement to warning—specifically warning against “selfish ambition” and “conceit.” I’m reminded of a phrase that appears sporadically in the book of Judges to describe the gradual disintegration of the people of Israel: “And everyone did what was right in their own eyes.” It is a dynamic that threatens any community. When personal preference becomes more important than the interests and well-being of others, division and conflict quickly follow. The church is no stranger to this experience. The so-called “worship wars”—hymns or praise songs, organs or guitars—have divided congregations for years. Similarly, ambitions of “church growth”—which means growth measured by bottoms in the pew and by bucks in the plate—have resulted in many spiritual casualties, as ministries and members not deemed profitable or productive have been sidelined.

Paul’s warning against ambition and conceit, however, is not only about the potential for division and conflict, which would themselves be quite detrimental for a church that is already swimming upstream against culture. Paul’s warning is also (and perhaps more importantly) against “playing the old game,” which is to say, the game that they used to play but stopped playing. The game of ambition and self-importance. The game of competition and conflict. The game of trying to climb the ladder. That is the game that the world plays—the world of the Roman empire 2,000 years ago, the world around us today. But according to Paul, Christ-followers don’t play that game.

So, if the old game is selfish ambition, what is the new game? What is the game we Christ-followers are playing?

“The Mindset of Christ”

5 Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus…

“Mind” here refers not to what you think, but how you think. If you’ll remember, a moment ago Paul was calling his audience toward unity. This should not be confused with uniformity. Thinking the same thing would be uniformity. When a couple centuries later the Roman empire and the church join forces, there is a push toward creeds and doctrinal statements, which seek uniformity. “Let’s all think the same thing.” 

Paul is inviting his audience not to think the same thing, but to think the same way. Personally, I think the word “mindset” or “attitude” is a better translation for what Paul is getting at: “Let the same mindset (or attitude) be in you that was in Christ Jesus.”

The Franciscan priest Richard Rohr gets at this “mindset” or “attitude” of Christ with a provocative theoretical question. I’d invite you to chew on this long after today’s service: “Is it better to be right in the wrong spirit, or to be wrong in the right spirit?” Personally…I think it is better to be wrong in the right spirit. Which is to say, how we think (about others, about ourselves, about the world) is more important than what we think. How we think—our mindset, our attitude, the spirit in which we live—is what aligns us with Christ or not. Christ whose mindset or attitude was not ambitious but meek, not haughty but humble, not controlling but caring, not bitter but benevolent, not oriented toward productivity but patience. Christ cares less about us getting it right (what we think), than about us treating others right (how we think of others). Some of the most Christlike people I know have intellectual disabilities. They couldn’t recite a creed or a doctrine of faith to save their life. But they would treat you better than most people would. Their mindset, their attitude—humble, simple, meek, trusting—how they think is more aligned with Christ than anything you’ll find among the sharpest financial or business or political minds.

Not Grasping

Paul follows this fundamental instruction—“let the same attitude be in you that was in Christ Jesus”—with what most scholars and historians agree is the oldest recorded Christian hymn. Indeed, it is quite likely that the words we’re about to read were composed before any of Paul’s letters, before any of the gospels, before anything else in the New Testament. It is rich in meaning, but for today, let’s read it in the context of Paul’s invitation to have the same attitude as Christ. In other words, let’s read it asking, “What is a Christlike attitude?”

6                 who, though he was in the form of God,

                                        did not regard equality with God

                                        as something to be exploited—or “grasped”  (we’ll come back to this word)—

7                 but emptied himself,

                                        taking the form of a slave,

                                        being born in human likeness.

                    And being found in human form,

8                                     he humbled himself

                                        and became obedient to the point of death—

                                        even death on a cross.

9                    Therefore God also highly exalted him

                                        and gave him the name

                                        that is above every name,

 10              so that at the name of Jesus

                                        every knee should bend,

                                        in heaven and on earth and under the earth,

11               and every tongue should confess

                                        that Jesus Christ is Lord,

                                        to the glory of God the Father.

If there were any doubts that Christ—and his followers—play a different game than the world plays, then they are put to rest with this hymn. The world—with its “selfish ambition” and “conceit”—is all about upward mobility. Life becomes a game of climbing the ladder. Getting to the top. But in this hymn, we see the opposite from Christ, whose game is humility, who is all about downward mobility, who descends continually—from the form of God to the form of a human to the figure of a criminal crucified on a cross. To be clear, this hymn is not promoting self-punishment or self-debasement. Rather the point is solidarity. Christ descends in order to be with us, every one of us, even us who are on death row, even us whom society has judged and shamed and put to death. Because of Christ’s radical descent, there is no experience that can separate us from him. His descent is for the purpose of companionship with every single one of us, no questions or conditions.

Biblical scholars point out that one key phrase toward the beginning—“did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited” (and other translations have it as “grasped”)—seemingly alludes to the story of Adam and Eve in the garden. Whereas Adam did regard equality with God as something to be grasped, and so grasped after the forbidden fruit, Christ does the opposite. His attitude, his mindset is not about “grasping.” It’s about companionship. It’s not about moving up. It’s about being down to earth, being connected with everyone.

“Downward mobility” is not a tagline that would sell well in our culture today (and I imagine it was no different in first century Rome). But this ancient hymn insists that Christ’s descent is in fact one and the same as Christ’s glory. God exalts Christ—not because he’s been through the wringer and God compensates him with a luxurious afterlife, but because God affirms what Christ did as what is good and beautiful and true. It is as though God looks out upon all the world and points to Jesus, saying, “Yes, that is the way. That’s the game I want them to play. That’s the pattern, the blueprint, the way of abundant life.”

The hymn concludes on a wildly, defiantly hopeful note. It insists that one day God will not be the only person to recognize Christ’s greatness—everyone else will too. Everyone will be brought to their knees. And not because their arms have been twisted in a game of cosmic mercy. But because their hearts have been pierced with the goodness and beauty and truth of Christ. And so it is that they will no longer declare “Caesar is lord” but rather “Christ is lord.”

May it be so now in our lives—until the day when it is so in all the world.

Prayer

Humble Christ,
Whose downward mobility confounds the world
…
May your way bring us to our knees
In awe and wonder
And inspire us to live with the same attitude,
Not grasping to be right or to be powerful,
But letting go to be with each other,
Especially with the last and the least among us.
Amen.

"A Good Work" (Phil 1:1-18)

“God Intended It for Good”

Toward the beginning of the Bible, there is a story about the strange way that God works in our world. It’s the story of Joseph and his brothers. You might remember how, early on, Joseph’s brothers become envious and resentful of Joseph for the way their father, Jacob, seems to favor him and for the way Joseph flaunts his favored status. Joseph’s brothers sell him into slavery , and as a result he endures many hardships. But through several fortuitous turns of events he rises to great power in Egypt and ends up saving the Egyptians and many others, including his own family, from a horrible famine. Although he reconciles with his brothers, they harbor doubts about his sincerity. When their father, Jacob, dies, they fear that Joseph will take his revenge, and so they throw themselves at his feet and declare themselves to be Joseph’s slaves.

But Joseph responds, “Do not be afraid! … Even though you intended to do harm to me, God intended it for good, in order to preserve a numerous people…. So have no fear; I myself will provide for you and your little ones” (Gen 50:20-21). Many readers have interpreted Joseph’s words as a declaration of God’s providence, a pronouncement of the way God powerfully manipulates events toward the good. They envision a God high in the clouds, pulling invisible strings. According to this interpretation, “everything happens for a reason.” God is a masterful orchestrator, causing seemingly bad events—such as the brothers’ selling Joseph into slavery—only to turn them later to the good.

Personally, I am not persuaded. Such an interpretation seems ultimately to justify evil behavior. It uses the logic that the ends justify the means, that God may cause bad things to happen (like hurricanes or genocide) in order to achieve a good end. But this seems to me like the way of the world, where a desirable end like profit can justify something bad like the neglect of people, where a desirable end like military victory can justify something bad like the collateral damage of innocents. I do not see this ends-justifying-the-means logic in Christ, who forgives unconditionally no matter the end, who gives without expectation of a beneficial return. No, I do not think the favorable outcome of Joseph’s story is the result of a divine puppeteer, who causes things like family separation and unjust imprisonment in order to save many people from a famine. I think the favorable outcome results from Joseph’s choice to live as God lives: with trust, with patience, with forgiveness. Think about it this way: God could have engineered events precisely as they happened in the story, and yet if Joseph had chosen not to forgive his brothers, it all would have been for nought. God did not cause bad things in order to achieve a good end. Joseph chose God’s way in the face of bad things, and God’s way redeemed the situation toward a good end.

To say God was not pulling the strings is not to say that God had nothing to do with the way things turned out. God had everything to do with it! The only difference is, in this interpretation, God is not the cause of everything that happens. Rather God is a call in everything that happens. A call that Joseph heeds. To trust, to be patient, to forgive. In this way, Joseph’s story becomes a picture not of God’s providence—not of God masterfully pulling invisible strings, causing events to align just so—but rather a picture of God’s grace, a picture of God’s gift or possibility hidden in every situation.

One does not have to say that everything happens for a reason or that God is the cause of everything to be able to affirm the even more profound truth that God can use anything for good.

“I Thank My God”

1   Paul and Timothy, servants of Christ Jesus,

To all the saints in Christ Jesus who are in Philippi, with the bishops and deacons:

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

3   I thank my God every time I remember you, 4 constantly praying with joy in every one of my prayers for all of you, 5 because of your sharing in the gospel from the first day until now.

You wouldn’t know it from these opening verses…but Paul’s letter to the Christ-followers in Philippi is written from prison. Of all Paul’s letters, this one is commonly identified as being his “letter of joy.” Eighteen times throughout the letter he expresses his joy or refers to the joy of others.

We see in these opening verses the foundation for Paul’s joy, namely gratitude. “I thank my God every time I remember you” (Phil 1:3). Now, I don’t think Paul is thanking God as an invisible puller of strings, as someone who providentially brought Paul and the Philippians together. I think his gratitude has instead to do with the depth of their relationship, with the love that has drawn them closer to one another and to God.

To put Paul’s gratitude in the simplest terms: when Paul looks backwards, he sees God. In the love that has drawn him and others into community. In the patience and trust that has kept them strong in trying times.

I’m reminded of a line in the Big Book, the book that Alcoholics Anonymous and many other twelve step groups regularly recite. “We will not regret the past nor wish to shut the door on it…. No matter how far down the scale we have gone, we will see how our experience can benefit others.” Paul has a checkered past, for sure, but when he looks backwards, he sees not his own shame but God: how has God has changed him, used him, brought him into the abundant life of the gospel and into community with others who are also on the Way. And he is so grateful that even in a place like prison, he can share his joy.

“Grace”

6 I am confident of this, that the one who began a good work among you will bring it to completion by the day of Jesus Christ. 7 It is right for me to think this way about all of you, because you hold me in your heart, for all of you share in God’s grace with me, both in my imprisonment and in the defense and confirmation of the gospel.

In these verses, Paul turns from the past to the present. He discerns God’s handiwork in the Philippians; God has begun “a good work” among them (Phil 1:6). He explains that he thinks this way because the Philippians share with him in “God’s grace” (Phil 1:7).

Paul’s words paint a very different picture of life than the one that predominated back then (and predominates still today). The popular picture of life (then as now) is that each person makes plans and then either achieves them or doesn’t. Of course there are twists and turns along the way, but we like to think we’re in control and our lives are either a success or a failure.

But Paul’s words suggest that our lives are God’s work, that we are dependent on grace. And grace is just a religious word for “gift.” What Paul is saying, I think, is that at every turn in our lives there is always a divine possibility. Even in the worst of circumstances, such as your brothers selling you into slavery, God is there, desperate to turn a bad situation toward the good. Not with a flick of the divine wrist and a tug of some invisible string, but with a call to choose life: to trust (rather than despair), to be patient (rather than hurry and worry), to forgive (rather than seek revenge). God’s grace—God’s possibility—is always there for us to choose.

“Harvest”

8 For God is my witness, how I long for all of you with the compassion of Christ Jesus. 9 And this is my prayer, that your love may overflow more and more with knowledge and full insight 10 to help you to determine what is best, so that in the day of Christ you may be pure and blameless, 11 having produced the harvest of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ for the glory and praise of God.

If grace looks backwards with gratitude for how God has used the past or can use the past, it looks forward with hope toward growth. Paul’s prayer for the Philippians is that their love would grow and that they would yield a “harvest of righteousness” (Phil 1:11), which is to say their growth would bear fruit.

It’s worth drawing a contrast here. The typical worldview—namely, that we are in control of our lives—tends to look backwards with regret and forward with fear. There’s regret for what has been lost in the past and fear for all the ways things could go wrong in the future. But a worldview of grace, which sees God’s gift around every turn, looks backward in gratitude and looks forward with hope toward growth. Everywhere it looks, grace sees God’s possibility.

“For Christ”

12   I want you to know, beloved that what has happened to me has actually helped to spread the gospel, 13 so that it has become known throughout the whole imperial guard and to everyone else that my imprisonment is for Christ; 14 and most of the brothers and sisters, having been made confident in the Lord by my imprisonment, dare to speak the word with greater boldness and without fear.

15   Some proclaim Christ from envy and rivalry, but others from goodwill. 16 These proclaim Christ out of love, knowing that I have been put here for the defense of the gospel; 17 the others proclaim Christ out of selfish ambition, not sincerely but intending to increase my suffering in my imprisonment. 18 What does it matter? Just this, that Christ is proclaimed in every way, whether out of false motives or true; and in that I rejoice.

Yes, and I will continue to rejoice….

Paul’s words here make me think of the therapeutic tool—you may have heard of this before—that distinguishes between “got to” and “get to.” It is a little trick to help reorient our attitude. Imagine that you are with you are with your family on a road trip, and you hit traffic. There’s no way around it. You’re going to be stuck in the car for an hour longer than you expected. The typical reaction is, “Oh man, we got to wait here in traffic for another hour. What bad luck.” But if we change the “got to” to “get to,” it becomes something like: “We get to spend an hour longer together. We could talk, we could play a game, we could learn more about what’s going on in each other’s lives.”

Now, I’ll confess, I’m suspicious of tools like this. They seem like trite mind-tricks; in theory they might sound great, but in practice they can be quite difficult. Does anyone really expect a group of people cooped up in the same car to rejoice at being stuck in traffic for an hour longer? But I have to admit, even if this tool is more difficult in practice than in theory, it hits upon the solid rock of the gospel. It hits upon the thing that Paul is hitting upon in today’s scripture, namely grace. It hits upon the fact that God’s gift—God’s possibility—is hidden within every moment of our lives, waiting to be chosen, received, cherished, celebrated. It hits upon the “good work” that God is doing in us and in our world, if you would believe it.

Paul may not have known the “got to”/“get to” trick. Instead, he has his own phrase: “For Christ.” “My imprisonment is for Christ,” he says—“I get to be here, for Christ”—and I imagine he would say the same for anywhere else he was. “This is for Christ.” Which is to say, God’s grace is here. God can do something great here, if I believe it.

Our circumstances may seem far removed from Paul, who wrote his letter from a dungy Roman prison. But the truth is, life can get to feeling like a prison wherever we are, particularly when we’re in a “got to” mindset. Paul’s strange joy in today’s scripture could perhaps serve as a spark for us wherever we are, a reminder that our faith is in a God whose grace—whose gift, whose possibility—can redeem the darkest of situations. And so we can look back not with regret but with gratitude, and we can look forward not with fear but with hope for growth, because we like Joseph have faith that God is doing a good work among us—if you would believe it.

Prayer

Dear Christ,
You lived in God’s grace,
Giving thanks for what was,
Even as you looked forward with hope toward what could be
…
May your example
And the example of others like Paul
Inspire us to look for God’s gifts
Wherever we are
And to trust that God can redeem
Anything. Everything.
Amen.

"Rather Strange" (Acts 17:16-31)

Because of a Table

Caleb Campbell grew up in church, but as a teenager he became resentful toward Christianity. At the time, he understood the gospel primarily as a negative message, a list of don’ts: “Don’t do these bad things, or else God will punish you.” But Caleb noticed that many people who went to church were also doing things on the don’ts list: smoking, drinking, dancing, R-rated movies. In his adolescent mind, Caleb decided Christianity was a farce and its followers hypocrites.

One night at a party in high school, a group of tough-looking guys invited Caleb to join them: “Hey bro, come here. Have a beer.” Caleb felt “a thrill at being seen and chosen and eagerly took up their offer.” These guys were neo-Nazis, and before long Caleb had shaved his head and joined their crew, happy to be accepted without a purity test, happy to have found what seemed like real camaraderie. Of course, some other stuff came with the territory: getting into bar fights, heckling interracial couples, proclaiming white supremacist propaganda. But for a while, it felt worth it to Caleb. It felt like a family.

In his 20s, however, Caleb saw cracks in the surface of this happy community. “As I surveyed my skinhead peers,” he says, “I saw they had no real joy, financial stability, or actual strength. Instead, they were running from the law, ruining their careers, and destroying their families.” Disenchanted, Caleb gradually drifted from them and found himself in a lonely place once again.

Today, Caleb is a pastor. He remembers with awe and wonder what changed everything for him. A church had seen his information in the local classifieds for musicians (Caleb was a drummer) and had called to ask if he’d help out with their music. He did for a little while, figuring even if he didn’t believe in Christianity or the church, it was something good to do. But eventually one of the guys on the music team, Seth, invited him over for dinner. And then again the next week. And the next. “No agenda, no pressure,” Caleb recalls. “Just warm hospitality.” Finally, when Caleb was ready to talk, Seth asked him about his anger with Christianity. The floodgates opened. Caleb had so much resentment that it all came tumbling out. Rather than argue with him, Seth simply nodded and agreed. He said, “I share some of your concerns. I think Jesus does too.” Over time, Caleb came to hear a different gospel than he had before. Not the fearful old story of a punishing judge, but the genuinely good news of a God whose unconditional love was changing everything. Caleb’s heart softened, and he became a follower of Christ.

And not, he insists, because of an argument or a debate. But because of a table.[1]

From Contempt to Compassion

16 While Paul was waiting for them in Athens, he was deeply distressed to see that the city was full of idols. 17 So he argued in the synagogue with the Jews and the devout persons, and also in the marketplace every day with those who happened to be there. 18 Also some Epicurean and Stoic philosophers debated with him. Some said, “What does this babbler want to say?” Others said, “He seems to be a proclaimer of foreign divinities.” (This was because he was telling the good news about Jesus and the resurrection.)

Remember how Paul (previously named “Saul”) used to treat with contempt the people with whom he disagreed? How he “breathed threats and murder” against those Christ-following heretics (Acts 9:1)?

We see a completely different person today. The translation we have, which includes words like “argued” and “debated,” can be a little misleading. The Greek words themselves can also simply mean “discuss” or “converse”—one of the Greek words, symballo, literally means something like “to throw back and forth,” suggesting that the dialogue is a friendly game of conversational catch.

What’s most revealing to me is what Paul says in these games of conversational catch. “He was telling the good news about Jesus and the resurrection” (Acts 17:18). That is a far cry from “threats and murder” (Acts 9:1). Paul’s transformation in Christ—“it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me” he writes in one of his letters (Gal 2:20)—this transformation manifests in a dramatic change of attitude. Toward those with whom he does not see eye to eye, Paul no longer shows contempt. He shows compassion. He no longer breathes curses against them, but blessing.

He desires that they hear the good news of God’s love. 

“It Sounds Rather Strange to Us”

19 So they took him and brought him to the Areopagus and asked him, “May we know what this new teaching is that you are presenting? 20 It sounds rather strange to us, so we would like to know what it means.” 21 Now all the Athenians and the foreigners living there would spend their time in nothing but telling or hearing something new.

What do you think sounded “rather strange” to the Athenians?

I imagine the idea of a crucified God struck them as rather strange. In a letter to the Corinthians, Paul himself acknowledges that the crucified God seems like weakness and foolishness to the world (cf. 1 Cor 1).

The Greek tradition is no stranger to the idea of the divine. Greek mythology is full of gods and goddesses. But they behave very differently than the crucified God. They frequently act like petulant children, impulsive and prideful, putting themselves first and giving little thought to the consequences of their actions. What we learn from the Greek pantheon of gods and goddesses, is not unlike what we learn from our popular culture today. Greek mythology teaches lessons like: it’s a dog-eat-dog world. Better to strike than be struck. Better to be feared than loved. If you want peace, get ready for war.

So yeah, when Paul starts proclaiming the good news about a crucified God, whose compassion for the world is so great that he endures death rather than to inflict it on a single soul—I imagine his audience are scratching their heads.

Paul Believes in the Athenians

22    Then Paul stood in front of the Areopagus and said, “Athenians, I see how extremely religious you are in every way. 23 For as I went through the city and looked carefully at the objects of your worship, I found among them an altar with the inscription, ‘To an unknown god.’ What therefore you worship as 

unknown, this I proclaim to you. 24 The God who made the world and everything in it, he who is Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in shrines made by human hands, 25 nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mortals life and breath and all things.

Remember how at the start of today’s scripture, Paul was “deeply distressed” by all the idols he saw around him. On top of that, his audience shows perplexion toward his message, referring to it as “strange.” I imagine that the old Paul (which is to say, “Saul”) would have reacted with bitter accusations and denunciations, telling these idol-worshipping Athenians they were godless and destined for God’s wrath.

But this new Paul, transformed by Christ, begins instead with an affirmation, with words that might even be construed as praise: “Athenians, I see how extremely religious you are in every way” (Acts 17:22). Some readers think that Paul is cunningly employing a rhetorical strategy. He’s buttering them up, ingratiating himself to them, only so he can pull them more persuasively to his side in just a moment.

But what if his words are no strategy? What if they are genuine? To me, Paul’s affirmation of the Athenians’ religiosity is a beautiful expression of love. Remember how Paul writes about love in his letter to the Corinthians: “Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things” (1 Cor 13:7)? Well, here we see Paul believing in the Athenians. Put more colloquially, he’s giving them “the benefit of the doubt.” He believes that they are faithful, even if maybe they have misplaced their faith a little bit. (Paul, after all, is no stranger to misplaced faith, as we might recall from his earlier days as a zealous persecutor of Christ-followers.)

All this to say, Paul builds a bridge between himself and his audience. “We are both people of faith,” he seems to say, before going on—“Let me share a little more about mine.” And then he shares his faith in the one God who created all things.

Pointing to the God Already There

26 From one ancestor he made all nations to inhabit the whole earth, and he allotted the times of their existence and the boundaries of the places where they would live, 27 so that they would search for God and perhaps grope for him and find him—though indeed he is not far from each one of us. 28 For ‘In him we live and move and have our being’; as even some of your own poets have said,

                    ‘For we too are his offspring.’

For me, today’s scripture provides a model for how we as Christ-followers might relate to our surrounding culture. Tragically, the prevailing model today seems to be what is known as “the culture wars,” where the idea is that Christianity is losing ground in our culture and must fight back to preserve its dominance in society. Hence the legal struggles and legislative battles and bitter debate, as Christians seek the force of law to impose their way again on society.

But what we see in Paul is not a denunciation of the surrounding culture nor an argument against its misguidedness, but rather the spirit of a companion who begins by affirming the truth he sees. Paul quotes twice here from Greek tradition, both times to shore up his assertion that God is indeed near.

Paul’s response to culture is neither fight nor flight. Instead it is a patient discernment of where God already is already at work in the culture. Paul points out how God is already present. Paul does not presume to bring God to the Athenians. He has already been at pains to emphasize the misguided idea of idols: no one can hold or handle God. Paul’s role is not to introduce the Athenians to God, but to point out where and how they are already acquainted with God—and to invite them deeper into that relationship.

I can’t help but think here of how Caleb was graciously welcomed into the church. How the friend who hosted him for dinner week after week did not try to change his mind or correct his thinking, but rather how he affirmed the truth of Caleb’s experience and suggested that Christ was already with Caleb in this experience. Perhaps Christ was also disappointed with the superficiality and hypocrisy that Caleb saw in much of the church. Perhaps Christ also wanted something more than that. At that dinner table, Caleb discovered Christ was already with him—and it changed his life.

For the Salvation of the World

29 Since we are God’s offspring, we ought not to think that the deity is like gold, or silver, or stone, an image formed by the art and imagination of mortals. 30 While God has overlooked the times of human ignorance, now he commands all people everywhere to repent, 31 because he has fixed a day on which he will have the world judged in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed, and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead.”

It is difficult to read this passage and not immediately imagine a scene of punitive judgment. It is difficult to read this passage and not envisage Caleb’s childhood picture of Christianity, namely “Do what’s right, or God will punish you.”

But I am convinced this is a case of our domesticating scripture according to our own ways. I think that this picture of punitive judgment is one that we humans, who are prone to judge and condemn, have superimposed on scripture. We have made God in our own image. In the gospel of John, Jesus insists, “I came not to judge the world, but to save the world” (John 12:47), and “God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him” (John 3:17). In other words, when the world is “judged in righteousness” by Jesus, it is not for the condemnation of the world but for its salvation.

The Greek word for judgment (krino) refers literally to a process of discrimination or discernment, a process of determining what is good and bad, of keeping what is good and letting go of what is bad. Christ is judge not as a punisher but as the criterion that shows us what is good and what is bad. The strangeness of Christ (whose vulnerable way of love seems weak and foolish) surprises us: what we thought was bad is good. What we thought was weakness is strength. What we thought was losing is winning. As Caleb discovered in his transformation from neo-Nazi to follower of Christ, it is not power and fear that bring life, but patience and compassion. It is not fistfights and force that bring life, but a table and hospitality.

So when Paul calls his audience to repent, it is not with a threat hanging over their head, but with a promise that pulls them forward. He is not breathing “threats and murder” as he did in his earlier life, but “good news.” And the good news? It’s “rather strange.” A crucified God whose forgiveness covers the sins of the world and brings life from death. A crucified God who comes not with contempt but with compassion, not with condemnation but as a companion. A crucified God whose kingdom gains ground on this world not on a battlefield, but at a table.

It is this God who turns lives upside-down in the best of ways: Paul’s and Caleb’s. Yours and mine.

Prayer 

Christ of the cross,
Christ of the empty tomb,
Who is near to each of us,
Whether we know it or not
…
Grant us eyes to see
Your strange spirit
At work in our world,
And hearts hospitable
To others,
That we might affirm your presence with them already
And share the good news of your love.
Amen.

 

---

[1] This story comes from Caleb Campbell, “The Gospel Comes for a Neo-Nazi,” https://www.christianitytoday.com/2025/05/gospel-neo-nazi-skinhead-christian-nationalism-pastor/, accessed April 27, 2026.

"Shaken Foundations" (Acts 16:16-34)

The Gospel Is Not “Nice”

Years ago, when my dad was sorting through some boxes of old family documents, he came across a newspaper clipping from Memphis, Tennessee, where his grandfather (my great-grandfather) had once served as a pastor. The article reported on a recent demonstration of the Ku Klux Klan. They had staked a cross into the front yard of my great-grandfather and then set it on fire. Apparently his preaching had upset some of the folks in his church, and they’d decided to let him know.

This event reminds me of what Oscar Romero says about the gospel. Oscar Romero, who was the archbishop of El Salvador in the late 70s, spoke frequently in support of the nation’s poor, advocating for their basic rights in the face of a repressive military regime. Romero said: “A church that doesn't provoke any crisis, a gospel that doesn't unsettle, a word of God that doesn't get under anyone's skin, a word of God that doesn't touch the real sin of the society in which it is being proclaimed—what gospel is that? … The gospel is courageous; it’s the good news of him who came to take away the world’s sins.” Less than two years after he preached these words, Romero was assassinated at the Lord’s table (in the middle of communion) by Salvadoran commandos who had been trained at the United States School of Americas.

All this to say, the gospel is not nice. It refuses to play by the rules of this world—not only the obviously wicked rule of things like racism or militarism or xenophobia, but also the rule of cultural values like meritocracy and materialism. The gospel does not abide by the rules of this world that enslave and detract from life. Rather, the gospel upsets the present order of the world. God’s good news for the poor and the homeless and the imprisoned—the folks to whom Jesus first announces good news (Luke 4:18-19)—may well be heard as bad news by some people. By the folks who have plenty and still want more. By the folks who call all the shots and don’t want anyone else at the table. 

Free Publicity

16   One day, as we were going to the place of prayer, we met a slave girl who had a spirit of divination and brought her owners a great deal of money by fortune-telling. 17 While she followed Paul and us, she would cry out, “These men are slaves of the Most High God, who proclaim to you a way of salvation.” 18 She kept doing this for many days. But Paul, very much annoyed, turned and said to the spirit, “I order you in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her.” And it came out that very hour.

Today’s scripture opens with Luke (the author of Acts—hence the use of “we”), Paul, and Silas, on a missionary visit in the Roman colony of Philippi. On the face of things, they are recipients of some free publicity. A fortune-telling slave-girl—presumably a popular figure, as we learn here that she turns a good profit for her owners—follows the missionaries around and announces them to be servants of God who are proclaiming a “way of salvation.” Everything she says is true. In our modern age, this might be comparable to having a commercial on prime-time television, or several young influencers name-dropping you on their social media networks. What’s not to like about this unpaid promotion? Why does Paul put an end to what seems like a profitable arrangement?

To put it simply, Paul sees an evil spirit behind this profitable arrangement. No amount of gospel or god-talk—no amount of truth—can conceal for Paul what’s really going on here, namely the enslavement of an individual. This nameless girl is treated as a commodity, not a person. Her owners use her gift of insight to their own benefit, not hers. If I might do a bit of cultural translation here: when Paul demands that the spirit leave the girl, what he is really denouncing is a spirit of slavery. And lest we think here of slavery as a simple moral issue, as a human shortcoming that we’ve since transcended and consigned to the past, it may help to see it (as the book of Acts sees it) as an issue that is inextricable from economic and social forces. Slavery here is a spirit of greed that puts profits above people, a spirit by which profit is sought at the expense of other people (even under the guise of pious god-talk, even under the guise of the gospel).

Today there’s a lot of talk about the idea that our nation is Christian. Not only does this idea neglect the reality that our founding fathers were fastidious to preserve a separation of church and state, lest the very situation that plagued them in England come to plague them here again; but this idea also ignores the very un-Christ-like economy through which our nation first prospered, namely slavery. There is very little that is Christian about this profitable arrangement in our fledging nation grew. And if such an idea stings, it’s worth asking whence the sting. Could it be the gospel that’s getting under our skin?

Unpatriotic

19   But when her owners saw that their hope of making money was gone, they seized Paul and Silas and dragged them into the marketplace before the authorities. 20 When they had brought them before the magistrates, they said, “These men are disturbing our city; they are Jews 21 and are advocating customs that are not lawful for us as Romans to adopt or observe.” 22 The crowd joined in attacking them, and the magistrates had them stripped of their clothing and ordered them to be beaten with rods. 23 After they had given them a severe flogging, they threw them into prison and ordered the jailer to keep them securely. 24 Following these instructions, he put them in the innermost cell and fastened their feet in the stocks.

The city of Philippi learns quickly that the gospel is not nice, that it upsets the proverbial apple cart. And its response is quick and brutal. Because Paul and Silas will not play by the rules of their economy and their society, because Paul and Silas challenge the spirit of slavery that wins profit for some at the expense of others, they are beaten severely and thrown into prison. I want to draw attention to the particular accusation that is made against them, namely that they are “advocating customs that are not lawful for us as Romans to adopt or observe” (Acts 16:21). In plain language, this is the accusation that Paul and Silas are unpatriotic. It remains one of the quickest, surest accusations leveled against anyone who does not play by the demonic rules of a given society. To be sure, pastors and other people who spoke out against slavery in the Confederacy were labeled traitors or turncoats. They were no patriots.

Free Before Their Chains Are Broken

25   About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the prisoners were listening to them. 26 Suddenly there was an earthquake, so violent that the foundations of the prison were shaken; and immediately all the doors were opened and everyone’s chains were unfastened. 27 When the jailer woke up and saw the prison doors wide open, he drew his sword and was about to kill himself, since he supposed that the prisoners had escaped. 28 But Paul shouted in a loud voice, “Do not harm yourself, for we are all here.”

It’s worth remembering that, not long before today’s episode in the book of Acts, it was Paul (then Saul) who was beating and imprisoning others. Now he’s beaten and thrown inside a prison. From a worldly vantage point, Paul’s transformation seems to have been for the worse. It does not pay to follow Christ.

What happens in prison, however, suggests an alternative vantage point for understanding Paul’s new life. The standout moment in today’s scripture is an earthquake that unfastens every prisoner’s chains and opens every locked door. Miraculous, right? “God is good,” a chorus of Christians might proclaim in response to this unexpected turn of events. Paul and Silas were unjustly imprisoned, but God broke them free. Hallelujah, amen.

But look more closely at what happens. Even with their chains undone and the doors unlocked, Paul and Silas do not escape. This is not a jailbreak. They remain for the sake of the jailer. While the businesspeople of Philippi gladly exchange people for profits, Paul and Silas exchange a profitable turn of events for the life of a single person (a person who put them in chains, no less).

So, I wonder if the real miracle happens before the earthquake. I wonder if the real miracle is that, even with their limbs chained and their bodies imprisoned, Paul and Silas are actually already free. Notice what they’re doing before the earthquake. “Praying and singing hymns to God” (Acts 16:25). We read in Paul’s own letters how, even when he’s imprisoned, he gives thanks to God for the opportunities to bring light into the darkness, good news to places of despair (e.g., Phil 1). It would seem he’s doing the same thing in today’s scripture, where the author of Acts tells us that the other prisoners were listening to Paul and Silas as they prayed and sang. Contrary to the mythology of our nation, real freedom is not being able to do whatever one wants to do. It is not the fantasy of endless choice. I think we have enough evidence by now, judging by reports that our citizenry is among the most anxious and depressed in the world, to see that in fact we often become enslaved by our desires, by being able to do whatever we want. Real freedom is not being enslaved by our desires. Real freedom is being able to live well and intentionally whatever the circumstance. Which is what we see in Paul and Silas as they pray and sing in prison. It is almost as though the earthquake becomes but a piece of divine confirmation, showing to everyone else what is already true for Paul and Silas. They are free…even in prison. They are free…not just for their own sake, but for the sake of the people around them still captive to a spirit of slavery.

Transformed

29 The jailer called for lights, and rushing in, he fell down trembling before Paul and Silas. 30 Then he brought them outside and said, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” 31 They answered, “Believe on the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household.” 32 They spoke the word of the Lord to him and to all who were in his house. 33 At the same hour of the night he took them and washed their wounds; then he and his entire family were baptized without delay. 34 He brought them up into the house and set food before them; and he and his entire household rejoiced that he had become a believer in God.

Just as the risen Christ transforms Paul from a persecutor into a peacemaker, so the risen Christ transforms a jailer who brought harm to others into a host that heals the wounds of others. This is the last we see of the jailer, so we can only wonder how his life unfolds from here. But I imagine that just as Paul and Silas would not play by the rules of a society that put profits over people, a society that understood justice to be imprisonment rather than liberation, so too the jailer once he commits his life to Christ.

In the earliest communities of Christ-followers, new converts were often called to leave behind professions that seemed contradictory to the way of Christ. This included everything from prostitutes to government officials (those who “wore the purple”) to soldiers to merchants selling idols and sacrificial animals. For the early church, following Christ could not be isolated to a private piety, a matter solely of the heart. For the early church, following Christ meant living in God’s kingdom, which meant not playing by the rules of a society that opposed God’s kingdom.

This is admittedly a touchy topic. Generally speaking, our society views today Christianity (and other religions) as a sort of cultural add-on. That is, religion does not change your life so much as it enhances it—just like getting a coffee from Starbucks might enhance your day. But what we read in Acts suggests that following Christ will often entail a sharp divergence from commonly accepted values and practices in whatever society in which one lives. I won’t speculate any further on what those values or practices are, but I would invite you to ponder a bit further for yourself. What are the rules by which our culture plays that do not accord with the kingdom of God? What common ideas or practices invite us to see others as anything less than children of God? Where in our businesses, our governments, our technologies, our entertainment industry—where might we see an evil spirit, a spirit that privileges profits over people, a spirit that accuses rather than affirms, a spirit that prefers punishment or retributionn to restoration?

As Archbishop Romero said, the gospel is the proclamation “of him who came to take away the world’s sins.” We might do well to ponder: where does the gospel touch the sins of our society today? Where might we, like Paul and Silas, be called to refuse to play by the rules? 

Prayer

Christ Jesus,
Whose truth sets us free—
Encourage us,
As you encouraged Paul and Silas,
To object to the rule of sin and death
And to proclaim instead
The unruly rule of your love,
In which we all are your children.
Amen.

"By His Wounds" (Acts 9:1-19a)

The Season of Resurrection

Perhaps you’ve heard the story of the children’s sermon in which the pastor patiently plays a guessing game with the circle of children gathered around him. “What’s small and covered with fur and has a big, bushy tail?” Silence. “It climbs in trees.” More silence. “It gathers nuts to prepare for the winter.” Finally a little girl timidly raises her hand. “It sure sounds like a squirrel,” she says, “but I know that the right answer must be Jesus.”

The Easter season is a bit like this little girl’s answer. Easter is the season of resurrection, and so we look for the risen Christ in everything that we see. It is common, of course, to read stories of the risen Jesus himself appearing to his disciples after his crucifixion. (We’ve read two such stories the last two Sundays.) But we don’t stop there. We also read other stories from the New Testament where it becomes clear that the risen Christ lives in his followers. Resurrection is not a reality that ends when Jesus departs. It is a reality that begins…and that grows in the faith of trusting hearts.

Saul the Persecutor

1   Meanwhile Saul, still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord, went to the high priest 2 and asked him for letters to the synagogues at Damascus, so that if he found any who belonged to the Way, men or women, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem.

When the book of Acts first introduces us to Saul, we find him presiding over the first documented execution of a Christ-follower, the stoning of Stephen (Acts 7:58-8:1). According to the book of Acts, that execution initiates “a severe persecution…against the church” (Acts 8:1). And at the heart of that persecution is Saul, who according to Acts “ravag[es] the church by entering house after house; dragging off both men and women, he committed them to prison” (Acts 8:3).

All this to say, Saul seems to be the principal persecutor of the first followers of Christ. He is their chief threat. Public enemy number one.

Christ the Persecuted

3 Now as he was going along and approaching Damascus, suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him. 4 He fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to him, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?” 5 He asked, “Who are you, Lord?” The reply came, “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting.”

In the most literal sense, these words are a contradiction. Paul is not persecuting Jesus; he is persecuting Jesus’ followers.

But that’s just the point for Jesus. He identifies so fully with the human family that when they suffer, he suffers. We heard this already in the gospel of Matthew when Jesus identifies with the “least of these” (Matthew 25:31-46)—the hungry, the homeless, the hurting, the imprisoned. Of course, in today’s story Jesus is referring more specifically to his followers, like Stephen who was recently stoned. Later, Saul-turned-Paul will tell the church that they are “the body of Christ.” It may well be this encounter with the risen Christ that inspires that profound metaphor. Jesus does not ask, “Why do you persecute my followers?” He asks, “Why do you persecute me?” Paul connects the dots to realize that Jesus’ persecuted followers are inextricably a part of Jesus—his “body” here on earth.

“No Body but Ours”?

6 But get up and enter the city, and you will be told what you are to do.” 7 The men who were traveling with him stood speechless because they heard the voice but saw no one. 8 Saul got up from the ground, and though his eyes were open, he could see nothing; so they led him by the hand and brought him into Damascus. 9 For three days he was without sight, and neither ate nor drank.

There’s a popular saying in the Christian tradition, often attributed to Teresa of Avila, that Christ has “no body but ours.” No hands but ours, no feet but ours, no eyes but ours, no voice but ours.

On the face of it, however, today’s story would seem to suggest otherwise. Because the risen Christ intervenes in Saul’s life in a miraculous, seemingly supernatural way, without the aid of our bodies—a blinding light, an unidentified voice. This is not a natural, everyday experience. (If it is, you should probably see a doctor!) It would appear in today’s story Christ can supernaturally do things on his own without our help, without our bodies.

This supernatural view of God, however, has the unfortunate tendency of evicting God from our “natural” world. It leads to the view that there are really two worlds: the “natural” world where we’re left to fend for ourselves and the “supernatural” world (or “heaven” if you’d like) from where God will occasionally stoop down to intervene in our world. At its extreme, this two-worlds view of things is a “pie-in-the-sky” theology. It’s a theology that has lost its nerve, maybe even lost its faith, as it’s unable to see God in this world, unable to trust in the way of God’s non-violent love in this very violent world.

I would like to suggest an alternative, namely a one-world view of things, in which there is no separation between God and the world. In a one-world view, God does not “intervene” in our world. Rather God is continually moving in it, continually “at work in [us]” (as Paul will say in Phil 2:13); God is the one “in [whom] we live and move and have our being” (as Paul says later in Acts 17:28), and God’s great purpose is not an evacuation from one world to another but, as Paul says in his letter to the Colossians, the reconciliation of all things in creation to Godself (Col 1:20). In a one-world view, Christ indeed has “no body but ours,” which is really intended to say not that Jesus is gone (although that is true in a bodily sense) but rather that our bodies—this one world—is the only place where Jesus really matters, where Jesus has any real effect.

If everything I’ve said in the last minute or two seems besides (or beyond) the point, then please leave it behind. Because what I really want to say is this: I strongly believe that Saul’s first encounter with the risen Christ does not happen on the road to Damascus. It happens before then. It happens, paradoxically, at the execution of Stephen. In Stephen’s fallen body, Saul catches a glimpse of the risen Christ. For me, Stephen’s death is the real miracle, not what happens on the road to Damascus (which I think is just the fulfillment or completion of the real miracle). The real miracle is that when Stephen dies, he does not do so with cries of pain and vengeance but with faith and forgiveness. He is truly a disciple, or “learner,” of Jesus. He dies as Jesus died, entrusting his life to God (“receive my spirit” he prays) and forgiving his executioners (“Lord, do not hold this against them”). These are decidedly not natural words to utter as one dies a violent death. If we insist on talking about the “supernatural” in this story, I would point to Stephen’s death. Only a person who has been thoroughly changed, inside-out, by Jesus, could utter such words.

All this to say, I think Stephen’s radical witness at his death plants a seed in Saul’s heart. Saul’s encounter with the risen Christ on the road to Damascus does not come out of nowhere, out of the blue, out of a miraculous divine intervention from on high. No, I think God has already been “at work in” his heart since the moment he caught a glimpse of the risen Christ in Stephen’s extraordinary faith and forgiveness.

Last week, we saw the risen Christ present his wounds to his followers at the same time that he declared “Peace” to them. Perhaps it is more than a coincidence that today Saul first encounters the risen Christ by his wounds. When on the road to Damascus he hears the voice ask, “Why do you persecute me?”, he is confronted with the wounds of  Christ that he first saw in the wounds of Stephen, wounds that he himself administered. And those wounds become an invitation, an open door, into a radically different way of life. For in those wounds he caught a glimpse of God’s way—not force, but forgiveness; not retribution, but peace.

Christ Risen in Another Disciple

10   Now there was a disciple in Damascus named Ananias. The Lord said to him in a vision, 

“Ananias.” He answered, “Here I am, Lord.” 11 The Lord said to him, “Get up and go to the street called Straight, and at the house of Judas look for a man of Tarsus named Saul. At this moment he is praying, 12 and he has seen in a vision a man named Ananias come in and lay his hands on him so that he might regain his sight.” 13 But Ananias answered, “Lord, I have heard from many about this man, how much evil he has done to your saints in Jerusalem; 14 and here he has authority from the chief priests to bind all who invoke your name.” 15 But the Lord said to him, “Go, for he is an instrument whom I have chosen to bring my name before Gentiles and kings and before the people of Israel; 16 I myself will show him how much he must suffer for the sake of my name.”

If Saul’s first encounter with the risen Christ begins with Stephen, then his next encounter with the risen Christ happens with Ananias. The book of Acts privileges us with a glimpse inside Ananias’ heart prior to his visit with Saul. In a vision, Ananias feels compelled by Christ to go lay hands on Saul to heal his loss of sight. From where does this vision, this calling come? Again, I don’t think it comes out of nowhere. I don’t think it’s a supernatural intervention from another world. What’s “supernatural” in this event is not the vision but the very notion of approaching public enemy number one to touch him tenderly so that he might be healed. By our world’s logic, Ananias would have had every right to think that Saul’s blindness was an act of God’s justice, a bit of karma, his evil deeds finally catching up with him. “Serves him right,” the world would say.

But like Stephen, Ananias is a disciple or “learner” of Jesus, who has been so thoroughly transformed by the Jesus way that he has left behind the worldly notions of retributive justice, of God as punishing judge. In Paul’s later language, we might say Ananias had “died” to the world—to its way of seeing “us versus them,” its way of judging and condemning. What we see in Ananias is not the world but the risen Christ. His vision is no out-of-the-blue-divine intervention; it is simply the blossoming of what was already in his heart, namely that as a follower of Christ he would pray for his persecutors and love his enemies.

How the Church “Fights” Its Enemies

17 So Ananias went and entered the house. He laid his hands on Saul and said, “Brother Saul, the Lord Jesus, who appeared to you on your way here, has sent me so that you may regain your sight and be filled with the Holy Spirit.” 18 And immediately something like scales fell from his eyes, and his sight was restored. Then he got up and was baptized, 19 and after taking some food, he regained his strength.

Just to make the contrast as stark as possible: Saul pursued his enemies with threats and violence. He approved of their execution.

Ananias approaches his enemy—public enemy number one—and addresses him, “Brother.”

One commentator muses that today’s scripture shows us how the church “fights” its enemies. The world fights with fists, with swords, with guns. The body of Christ “fights” with tender touch, with trust, with care.

Paul’s “Conversion”: Persecutor to Peacemaker

Readers have traditionally labeled today’s story “the conversion of Saul.” In one sense, this label is misleading. It suggests that Saul (who becomes Paul) went from being a Jew to a Christian. But Saul does not abandon his Jewish faith. Rather he comes to reinterpret his Jewish faith in light of Jesus, who was himself a Jew. At this stage in history, there is no such thing as Christianity. There is simply a movement of Jesus-followers, most of whom are Jewish. It would be more accurate, perhaps, to see this movement as a sect within Judaism, just like the Pharisees or the Sadducees or the zealots.

So, no, Paul’s conversion is not a case of switching sides, of swapping jerseys, of moving from “Team Jewish” to “Team Jesus.” His conversion demands much more of him than simply ticking a different box for religion on the census form. Think about it for a moment. Simply switching sides would not have necessarily entailed a different way of life. Paul could have switched sides but continued playing the same game. He could have decided this Jesus fellow was right, and everyone else needed to be forced—by hook or crook—into the same camp. He could have continued breathing threats and violence, just against a new enemy.

But he doesn’t. His conversion is deeper. More profound. This is not the tale of how Saul the Jew became Paul the Christian. It’s the story of how Saul the persecutor becomes Paul the peacemaker. Because if you think about it, that’s what Paul becomes in the early church. Not only does let go of his violent ways, but he also proclaims the reconciliation of all creation into the family of God: “There is no longer Jew or Greek; there is no longer slave or free; there is no longer male and female, for all of you are one in Christ Jesus” (Gal 3:28). Of Christ, he proclaims: “He is our peace; … he … has broken down the dividing wall, that is, the hostility between us” (Eph 2:14).

And Paul’s “conversion” begins in the weirdest, seemingly weakest of ways. It begins with the wounded Christ, whom he encounters in the executed Stephen who nevertheless proclaims forgiveness upon his executors; it begins with the wounded Christ, whom he encounters in Ananias, who as part of the wounded body of Christ receives him in a tender embrace and calls him “brother.”

There is a prophecy from Isaiah that the early church cited time and again about a mysterious figure known as the “suffering servant.” One such citation actually appears in the story that immediately precedes today’s (Acts 8:32-33). Isaiah insists that somehow this suffering servant’s wounds will heal us all: “By his wounds we are healed” (Isaiah 53:5). In today’s scripture, I see just such a healing. The wounds of Christ transform Saul, snapping him out of his distorted, worldly thinking, and showing him a different way, God’s patient way of mercy and forgiveness.

Saul’s real conversion—not from Jew to Christian, but from persecutor to peacemaker—suggests just how radical the Jesus way is. Think about the worldly logic that prevails today, from the schoolyard to the world stage. It’s stuff like “survival of the fittest,” and “it’s a dog-eat-dog world,” and “the one with the most toys at the end wins,” and “better to be feared than loved.” It’s the worship of power. That’s the logic the young Saul followed. (You could be a Jew or a Muslim or a Christian and underneath your religion this is what you really believe. There are plenty of religious people who really believe in this worldly logic of power.) But the logic of the wounded yet risen Christ is antithetical to this worldly logic. It’s stuff like “blessed are the poor and the meek,” stuff like “God will provide,” stuff like “love is better than life” (to quote a psalm), stuff like “all of life is a gift.” In a word, it’s the worship of Love, which is another name for God. (“God is Love” as John says).

The wounds of Christ show us—as they showed Paul—not only the hurtful consequences of our worldly logic. They also show us the way of God…and the way we are healed, if we would believe it.

Prayer

Crucified and risen Christ,
Whose woundedness offers us
An invitation into your healing love
…
Work in our hearts
As you worked in Paul’s,
That we might be
Not conformed to this world
But transformed by the renewing of our mind.
Lead us in the way of your mercy. Amen.

The Story of a Scar (John 20:19-31)

Not a Safe Bet

There once was a young man who fell in love. After some time, he began to wonder about marriage. But he agonized over the idea. How could he know beyond a shadow of a doubt that his beloved was in fact “the one”? So, one day he visited his father and asked, “How can I know if she’s the one?”

His father chuckled, shook his head, and said: “You can’t.”

“What do you mean?” the son asked. “Didn’t you know Mom was the one?”

His father shook his head and said, “Love is not something you know. It’s not a safe bet. It’s something you do, come hell or high water. If I had known everything that would have happened between your mother and me, then marriage wouldn’t have been such a big decision. It would have been about as big a decision as where we’re going to eat dinner tonight. In other words, we know exactly what we’re going to get at each restaurant. But when I asked your mother to marry me…I had no idea what was coming.”

Over the next hour, the young man’s father opened up and shared about several disappointments. He shared how, in moments of misunderstanding, he and his wife had said and done hurtful things, things that had since been forgiven but could never be forgotten. He shared how their desires for the future sometimes conflicted and how they had both given up on some of their own dreams. He shared how raising children and caring for parents had placed a heavy tax on their own time together.

His father said, “No…I had no idea what I was getting into. There’s been a lot of joy, but there’s also been a lot of hurt…hurt that I wouldn’t wish upon anyone. If you look closely enough, you’ll see that this marriage has a number of scars.” He paused here, with a pensive look. Then his face relaxed, and he said, “But a scar is not just a wound. It is a wound that has been healed. And what heals a wound…is love. Every scar that we bear is a story of our love.”

“Love is not a safe bet,” he concluded. “It’s not something you know. It’s something you do. And it changes you, and it changes the world.”

The Desire for Certainty

Today’s scripture is well known particularly for its depiction of a single character, Thomas. “Doubting Thomas,” as he is now known in teh Christian tradition. We all have a little sympathy for Doubting Thomas, because we can all relate to the desire for proof. “Seeing is believing,” as we sometimes say. Or as our youth might exclaim, “Pictures, or it didn’t happen!” But even as we might reserve a little private sympathy for Thomas, we recoil from him too. “Oh, they’re just a Doubting Thomas,” we might say to describe someone who expresses reservations or has not fully committed to an idea. No one wants to be singled out as a Doubting Thomas. We would prefer to be grouped with the other disciples.

But today I wonder: are the other disciples really any different than Thomas? Remember, they have already heard the good news from Mary Magdalene that Jesus is risen. But where we do find them? Behind locked doors. They are too afraid even to leave the house. At this stage, they are just like Thomas. They have heard the good news that love is stronger than death, but they do not trust in it. Just like Thomas, they desire certainty.

Thomas desires the certainty of knowledge, the certainty of proof. “Unless I…put my finger in the mark of the nails…” (John 20:25). The rest of the disciples desire the certainty of safety, the certainty of locked doors and known quantities. They are holed up in a small space, “for fear” of other people, John says (John 20:19). Thomas and the disciples are the same. What characterizes their doubt is the desire for certainty. They both want to know—to know that they will be safe, to know that Jesus has been raised from the dead.

When Jesus speaks to Thomas, he does not chastise him or any of the other disciples for doubting. Jesus is human, after all. I imagine he sympathizes with their natural reflexes of fear and doubt. Instead of chastising them, Jesus simply reminds them all that real blessing is to be found not in certainty but in faith, in trust: “Have you believed [trusted] because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe [trust].” (John 20:29).

A Brief Aside: Of Weddings and Bets

It’s a little bit like the father’s advice to his son, who desires the certainty of knowing that his beloved is “the one.” The father suggests that this desire for certainty misses the point. Love is not about a safe bet. It’s not about knowing what you’re getting. Love is something you do, not something you know.

I find it extremely fascinating that our word “wedding” actually derives from the same root as our word “bet.” In a very real sense, love—whether it’s love that leads to a wedding or just love for your family or your neighbor or your friend—is a bet. But unlike modern gambling, where bets are made on the outcome of things far outside the realm of our responsibility, love is a bet that we ourselves strive to make good on, that we ourselves strive to make true. That it’s a risky bet is made plain in the traditional vows: “for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health….” In other words, this is a bet where we don’t know the material outcome, we don’t have certainty over how things will pan out. But we make the bet anyway because—and this is the wager—we trust that however things unfold, it will be worth it because love is worth it. It boils down to our trust in the way of love. As followers of Christ, we bet—we stake our lives—we trust that love is worth it.

Empowered, Not to Know but to Love

There’s a curious pattern in today’s scripture. Jesus repeatedly does the same two things. He shows his scars, and he says, “Peace be with you.” He does this first with the disciples, and then again with Thomas. What is going on with this demonstration? I wonder if it is a response to the disciples’ desire for certainty. He shows his scars not only as evidence of his identity, but as evidence that love is indeed a risky, uncertain thing. “Here’s what you can expect,” he seems to say. Yet he follows it with a stunning proclamation, “Peace be with you.” In other words: “You have nothing to fear. Look, I was wounded. But these wounds have been healed. They are scars now. Trust me. Love can bear the pain, and it can transform it.”

Jesus is empowering his disciples. But he’s not empowering them as knowers, as people who can plan and calculate and be secure in everything they do. He’s empowering them as lovers, as risky agents of love who can heal and transform the wounds of the world. “As the Father has sent me, so I send you,” he says, meaning that he is sending them outside their locked doors into a perilous world of power struggles and hurt feelings and crucifixion. It’s not that God does not care for them or their safety, but that God cares for the world and has empowered them to help the world in the same way that Jesus has helped the world. When Jesus breathes on them, on this first day of the week, he is doing the same thing that God did at the beginning of creation. He is empowering them with the divinely creative spirit. God empowered Adam, the earth creature, to become a partner in caring for creation. Jesus empowers his followers to become partners in a new creation, companions in welcoming the kingdom of God on earth as it is in heaven.

And right after he breathes on them, he reminds them of their secret power as agents of love. “If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained” (John 20:23). Forgiveness is the strongest demonstration of love. It is what turns wounds into scars. It is risky, and it is messy, and it is the only way our world will ever be healed. If we only ever stay behind locked doors or do what is a safe bet, if we never risk love for others because of all the liabilities that it entails, if we never take the risk of love, the wounds of our world will only fester and we will be further and further divided against every potential threat or difference. And worse, we will never know real love and real life.

The good news of the risen Christ, is that love can bear the pain that it will encounter, and indeed it can heal it. Wounds can become scars that tell the story of love. If it’s difficult to see this in the risen Christ, then perhaps we can begin with stories closer to us, which are no less real and reflective of God’s love. Perhaps we can look at the saints around us—maybe our parents, or good friends, or mentors—whose love was indeed wounded and yet jubilant and undefeated. For like Jesus, they show us their scars, not as warnings, but as reassurances of love’s power. Like Jesus, they can say, “Peace be with you” as we leave the locked doors and embark on the risky way of love.

Prayer

Wounded God,
Whose love is not a safe bet,
Sometimes we, like the disciples, are afraid.
Sometimes we desire the certainty
Of knowledge or safety
…
Help us to see your scars
As emblems of healing.
Inspire us to trust in your love and forgiveness
And to be agents of your healing.
In Christ, crucified and risen: Amen.

"Supposing Him to Be the Gardener" (John 20:1-18)

Self-Limiting Beliefs 

I recently heard the story of a young man in his 20s who runs into an emergency room with a pill bottle in his hands. He collapses on the floor just as he arrives, and the medical staff hurry to pick him up. Amid his gasping, he exclaims, “I took all the pills, I took all the pills!” They rush him to an operating room to observe him. His vital signs are poor. Blood pressure dangerously low. Heart rate failing. They think it must be a case of overdose.

The doctor looks at the pill bottle to see what he’s taken, but there’s no information on the label. The young man mumbles that the pills were given to him in a drug trial. So the doctor calls the people who are running the trial and asks, “What was in those pills? We need to know so we can help this young man get better.” The researchers ask for his name. After a long pause, they respond, “Oh…he was in the placebo group. There’s nothing in those pills.” Dumbfounded, the doctor returns to the operating room and informs the young man. And within fifteen minutes, his blood pressure, his heartbeat—all his poor vital signs—have returned to normal.

It’s a rather extreme example of a rather common truth. What we believe determines what we experience. The student who believes he’s not a good learner and is destined to fail…he doesn’t study and then fails. The woman caught in an abusive relationship who believes that she’s somehow to blame for the abuse…she stays trapped in the destructive cycle. The young man growing up in the projects who believes he’ll never be able to get a “real” job…he settles for life in a gang, selling drugs.

Is Life Cyclical?

In the ancient world, people understood our experience in cyclical terms rather than linear. What that means is, they saw time as a circle. They saw that things are always repeating themselves. And so ancient mythology is filled with stories that explain these cycles. There are stories explaining the cycle of the seasons, why spring follows winter, and fall follows summer. There are stories explaining the stages of human life, how birth and growth give way to decline and death, how sons and daughters take the place of fathers and mothers. There are stories explaining the cycles of empires, how they rise and fall. The common denominator in all these myths is one simple idea: life repeats itself.

It’s not too difficult to see how this ancient way of understanding our experience persists today. As the self-limiting beliefs provided in the earlier examples suggest, we tend to see ourselves as bound by the patterns of our life, destined to repeat our past. I have a Buddhist friend from Burma who likes to say that we humans are like clay. At the very beginning of our lives, we can be molded and shaped. But as we get older, the patterns of our lives seem to fix in place, getting more and more rigid.

Perhaps we can notice this in the some of the self-limiting beliefs that we tell ourselves: “I’m just a procrastinator,” some of us might say, and so we proceed to procrastinate. Or “I’ve missed the boat” on this or that, some of us might say, and so we give up on an old dream. Or “the system is rigged—why even bother?” some of us might say, and so we resign ourselves to the status quo. Just as the ancient myths tell us that life repeats itself, so our own self-limiting beliefs keep us trapped in a cycle.

Gardens

There are so many things that could be said about Easter. Today, I want to narrow our focus to one element that we find only in the gospel of John. In other words, John has something special to say about resurrection that none of the other gospels do.

It all begins before the crucifixion. We find Jesus in a garden. He could flee if he wanted. He knows what’s coming. But he doesn’t. After he is crucified, we find Jesus in a garden again, this time being buried in a tomb. And then finally this morning, we have Mary mistaking Jesus for a gardener. Now, none of the other gospels make any mention of a garden in any of these scenes. Only John. So what’s going on? Why this emphasis on gardens?

If you’ll remember, John’s gospel begins differently than the other gospels. While Matthew and Luke begin with the birth of Jesus, and Mark with the beginning of his ministry, John goes all the way back to the beginning of everything. “In the beginning was the Word,” John intones, taking us all the way back to when God created everything that is in the heavens and on the earth. And if you’ll remember, in the beginning…was a garden. The world as God intended it. A landscape of care, where everything we needed was provided, and where God entrusted us to care and provide for the earth around us. God entrusted us to be “gardeners” in a broad sense. Gardeners with God. Remember that—God created us to be gardeners who would care and provide for the earth around us.

Of course, we know how that story ends. Adam and Eve do not trust God entirely and seek instead to be in control of things. Their overreach results in a catastrophic breakdown of relationships: between each other, between them and God, between them and the earth. This episode comes to be known in both Jewish and Christian traditions as “the fall,” in which humanity is put under a “curse.” As though we’re doomed to live in conflict. Doomed to live in alienation. Doomed to live in hard, fruitless labor. In one sense, this “curse” that we see at the beginning of our story comes to define our story, to limit it. All those self-limiting beliefs, all those self-accusations—I’ll never break free from this habit, I’ll always be rejected when it matters, I’ll always fall short at the end—are just part of the larger circle of sin that we believe ourselves doomed to repeat.

But another way to read the story of what happens in the garden of Eden—and “Eden” by the way, is just a word that means delight, so that the original garden is a garden of delight—another way to read what happens in the garden is to recognize that the conflict and alienation and hardship that follow from humanity’s failure to trust God is not so much a curse as a consequence. God simply tells the humans the results of their lack of trust—how life will be when they do not live in God’s care and in care for one another.

In fact, the rest of the biblical story can be read as God’s attempt to restore the garden, to renew the original paradise that humanity enjoyed with God and all creation. What else is the story of Abraham, whom God charges to be a blessing so that all the families of the earth might be blessed, than a story of God restoring the goodness of creation? What else is the story of Israel, whom God charges to be a holy people modeling the way of God for all the world, than a story of God restoring the goodness of creation? The problem is that humanity seems to believe itself doomed. It seems to believe itself destined to repeat the past. To live a life outside the garden.

All the Difference

The good news according to John is much more than a tale of isolated resuscitation. It’s much more than a single heroic figure, rising up from the ashes. For John, the resurrection is absolutely cosmic in scope. It changes the narrative completely. It changes the story the world has been telling itself. When Mary encounters the risen Jesus in the garden, her mistaking him to be the gardener is no mistake. It’s part of John’s message: in Christ, we have returned to the garden.

That ancient, deeply engrained way of thinking—that life is cyclical, that we are doomed to repeat the patterns of the past, that we are trapped in a cycle of sin—that way of thinking that has us rushing into the emergency room like that young man, thinking we’re on death’s doorstep…that way of thinking is ruptured in the garden that first Easter morning. It’s no coincidence that Paul refers to Jesus as “the last Adam.” Whereas the first Adam led us onto a path that we felt doomed to repeat, forgoing God’s care in order to wrest what control we could over our surroundings, Jesus as “the last Adam” has broken the cycle and brought us back to the garden. In Jesus—whom Mary supposed to be the gardener—humanity has a clear path, a clear way, to return to being who we are created to be. “Gardeners.” Not just in the literal sense, but in the full sense of people who live in and care for the life of the world around them.

Early Christian paintings and depictions of the resurrection regularly show the risen Christ in a garden paradise, Adam in one hand and Eve in the other. The message is clear: Christ has restored us to paradise. Not just later, in some afterlife, but now, if we would have eyes to see it. These paints show sheep, doves, shrubs, streams of water, starry skies. And at the center: Christ. The good news of Easter is that Christ is alive, and all the world in him. Christ leads us back to the garden.

As we saw with that young man who rushed into the hospital, convinced that his life was ebbing away, the story that we believe about ourselves and the world may make all the difference between life and death. If we believe ourselves doomed to repeat the past…then we very likely will. But in the risen Christ, we discover that our stories of doom are misplaced. God never wanted us out of the garden. In Christ, we receive God’s clear invitation to return.

Friends, wherever you are in life this Easter morning, please hear this good news: we are not doomed to a circle of sin and suffering. Life is not destined to repeat itself. There is a way back to the goodness of life that sometimes seems so distant.

And it all begins with the risen Christ, who restores us to be the “gardeners” we were always meant to be.

Prayer

Loving God,
Who does not leave us doomed
To repeat the patterns of the past
…
May the risen Christ inspire us
To see your garden of paradise in our midst
And to live as your gardeners
In the way of our Lord Jesus Christ, 

In whose spirit we pray: Amen.