this time it'll be different

yes this time it'll be different 

In our reading from Acts we find Paul combining everything that makes him so lovable and taking it to the streets in the name of the Gospel. In fact, today’s story from Acts is just perfect for us as we consider what it means to be church now, at this moment in history.

Here’s the cool thing about today’s reading from Acts; the folks Paul is taking the message to, the athenians, these folks aren’t churchgoers who simply haven’t been in to church for a while, they aren’t even former catholics looking for a new church. No, these athenians Paul is preaching to are people who have never been to church at all. 

Paul is preaching to “unchurched” people, the same sort of people we’ve been scratching our head over, trying to figure out how to reach…

Since, as we all know, Paul does such an excellent job at reaching these people and since this sermon series is all about what Church is, let’s take a few moments to reflect on how Paul goes about sharing the faith with unbelievers:

First: Paul uses language these folks would understand; quoting their poets and referring to principals they’d be familiar with. 

Second: Paul doesn’t use language these folks wouldn’t understand; for instance, Paul doesn’t quote the jewish Torah or even say the jewish term “messiah” to these Greek athenians.

Third: finally and obviously, Paul goes to these people, he doesn’t wait for them to get directions, find the service time and then navigate parking-lot. No, Paul goes to where these unchurched folks are and shares the Good News from that place.

There you have it, and we all know what happened after Paul wrapped-up this well-crafted sermon…

Now, if we would just follow Paul’s lead, replicated his example; well, the Church would be in a very different situation right now than our current predicament.

But that’s the rub right there, isn’t it?

This example set by Paul is wonderful; for as great as it is though, we don’t want to emulate it (and that’s the real problem). 

In fact, I was invited to be a part of the synod’s Congregations Together In Mission (CTIM) planning team. As we were considering what the theme would be, we expressed interest in “Evangelism,” only to be warned that we ought to consider something else. 

The problem, apparently, was that if we told folks the conference would be about Evangelism, no one would come. It seems there’s something in us all that doesn’t want to do outreach in the first place…

For as well as we understand how to do evangelism; the truth is we don’t want to do it in the first place.

That’s the real problem; we don’t want to and that’s why no amount of evangelism training will do any good, why Paul’s example becomes little more than that discarded manual on how to put together that frustrating TV-stand.

Can I tell it like it is?

We were sitting outside, having a meal. I had thought we were just having an excursion to the city with our Old Testament professor to see an archeology exhibit.

Then she asked us something. Her eyes were a deep, a cool blue and full of sincerity. She sat on the other side of the table, waiting for us to answer.

She sat there as my classmates were stammering to find words, but my heart was too bust breaking to even begin to try to talk. My heart was breaking because I couldn’t help but remember some specific moments.

The first was in the playground; I had told a classmate I really admired him. This classmate was smart and a good athlete, he was funny and kind. After I had given this compliment, he asked an interesting question.

He asked if I had a dad.

Sputtering I said the Dad, my brother, sister and I lived with wasn’t my real dad. As I tripped over that tedious explanation, another kid broke in and asked, ‘so what then, is your real dad a dog.’

And everyone laughed. Although it was just a playground of no more than 50, it felt like the entire world was laughing at me, that I was all alone. Right then, right there I learned, Don’t do that again - fit in…

Next I remembered another instance that same lesson presented itself; I was a junior in high-school and our house burned down; total loss. It was the first house my parent bought, the house my parents bought to raise a family in, the house they bought to build equity.

As all of us sat in the hotel, wearing donated clothes, our father tried to console us; “really we’re lucky,” he said. “Now we will get a new house, I bet our neighbors are envious.”

And as my dad stood there, with nothing, trying to give us all something, I decided it wasn’t enough. 

I threw myself on that hotel bed crying, “I don’t want that, I just want to be normal.” I just wanted to be normal, to fit in. 

I trusted the power of fitting in to protect me…

That’s probably one of the most embarrassing moments in my life, I remember that ingratitude and I can’t help but blush - can’t help but hope no one finds out I ever acted that way…

The memory that brought everything home, though, the one that was breaking my heart at that table with our Old Testament, professor was from college; the culmination of my need to “fit in.”

After my senior year, I went on a trip with psychology students to Europe. I didn’t go because I was interested in psychology, I didn’t even go because I knew someone in the group, I went because I wanted to visit Europe.

Anyway, in the course of this trip the other students learned I was going to seminary in the fall, that I was going to be the pastor. Then one night some students bought a few bottles of wine and went on the roof to enjoy the evening.

I decided to stay in.

The next morning, this girl rushed up to me. “Oh Ryan,” she said, “you should have been there last night. There was an argument about God and some people were saying there is no God. You should have been there to argue with them.”

And right then a thought jumped into my head - a thought I couldn’t control. Before I could even think or unthink it, I thought, “This is the position I never want to be in.”

Immediately I felt miserable and wished I could unthink it, but it was too late. “What comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and that’s what defiles,” Jesus said.

As our professor waited for us to answer, I couldn’t help but to recall all the ways, if I were being truthful, I had to say ‘I can’t.’

What had happened is that our professor had told us a story about one year her mother had decided the family wouldn’t get a Christmas Tree. The decision to forgo the tree had something to do with a Bible passage, I can’t remember all the details.

The point, though, was that as her friends walked home after school that Christmas, they would always ask where her family’s Christmas Tree was. In fact, my professor would even make excuses for why her friends couldn’t visit - wanting to avoid any further embarrassment of admitted her family had no Christmas Tree that year.

After telling this story our professor stopped, and said she wasn’t sure whether her mom was right, whether a tree really competed with Christmas. That didn’t matter to her anymore, though. What mattered to her was this:

That Christmas she gained a deeper understanding for the embarrassment of Jesus’ birth in a barn. In the end, she was thankful for that year because she learned that following Jesus might entail embarrassment. Then she asked the question: if we aren’t willing to experience modest embarrassment, how will we ever really follow the savior who suffered the humiliation of the cross.

And as she said that, my heart broke.

My heart broke because I remember those connected instances, and many others. My heart broke because I saw, in my own life, all the ways I chose middle-class comfort, over discipleship. I saw, in my own life, how I worshipped the god of “fitting in” over the God who reigns from the cross.

As my heart broke, though, I finally came to a way through those moments. See, I didn’t tell you about the playground, the fire or Europe so you would think ‘poor Ryan.’ In fact, truth be told, sympathy never helped heal those wounds - in fact, sympathy often only made things worse(!).

I told those stories to talk about the subtle ways we turn from the true God, to placing our trust in idols - idols that will fail us, idols that are not trustworthy.

That first lesson I learned on the playground, that if you’re going to worship the god of “fitting in,” then you never do anything to stand out. You do all you can to keep your head down and fit it or that God will abandon you. 

For as often as we tell ourselves that’s just what you do to make it in this life; the truth is we, little by little, end up worshipping the idol of fitting in until the moment comes and someone asks you to share the faith and the best we can do is think “this is the position I never wanted to be in,” and stumble over some words…

Now, as that truth about what a half-hearted disciples I was poured over me, I finally confessed the truth. With those words hanging in the air my professor looked at me and gave me the only Word that’s ever helped, and it wasn’t sympathy.

As it turned out my professor gave me the same Word Paul gave to those athenians today in Acts. She called me to repent, to turn to the true God who rose from the dead, who would never leave me orphaned. She called me to trust the God who was trustworthy.

And in that Word of liberating promise from my confessor, something different broke open inside me.

I am not trying telling you I don’t wrestle with temptations to “fit in” anymore, I am telling you that Paul’s advice is trustworthy. It’s trustworthy because Paul has taken his own medicine, as we say…

Paul knows, for himself that true belonging doesn’t come from “fitting in.” No, true belonging it comes from the God who we live and move and have our being in; the God, as Jesus says, who will not leave us orphaned.

See, that was the lesson I first learned there on the playground, if you’re going to worship the god of fitting in, you’d darn well better fit in, fit in or that God will abandon you.

Paul, though, has come to find that the God who raised Jesus from the dead isn’t fickle, Paul has come to find that God will never abandon us, and that promise has freed Paul.

Listen to Paul’s own words: II Corinthians 12:9-10

Earlier I suggested we all know what happened after Paul gave this intuitive sermon to the athenians, the truth is we only think we do.

Listen to what actually happened: Acts 17:32-34

Some scoffed, some said 'we'll hear you again,' and some believed. 

The idol of getting by tells us Paul never had a hardship, that it was up and up the entire time. What the life of Paul tells us, though, is that God is bigger than scoffing or embarrassment. In fact, in our humiliation we’re actually triumphant because then, well then we’re relying on the God who raises us from the dead.

Amen?

Here’s the thing, it’s never been tips, tricks or the newest method that’s inspired followers to share the Good News. No, the only thing that has ever inspired The Church to seek out the lost is hearing the Word of Promise. So hear it; the God who raised Jesus from the dead is the God who goes to us when we’re lost, when we’re abandoned, when we’re dead; and when everything has abandoned us that God comes to us and names us, to claims us and raises us.

Sisters and brothers; those of you who’ve found yourselves abandoned by those idols, this God who raised Jesus will not abandon you. That’s the Good News; nothing will changed that. 

Amen