To love God with all of your heart and all of your mind and all of your soul is to act as if you believe that by following in the footsteps of Jesus you will you find the peace you pursue in so many other past-times and the satisfaction you seek from so many other sources. Carry it in your heart. Then act as if. Fake it till you make it. The Great Commandment is the roadmap for getting there.
The Great Commandment is, indeed, our salvation. Filed under Sermons by Margot. This is a very different sermon than the one I thought I would be preaching this morning. One of them, the year old father of five children— the youngest of whom is ten years old—is not expected to survive the week. Stephens know all to well, as we hear in our final blessing each week, that life is short. Death is all too imminent for Jesus and he knows it. Death puts things in perspective. They address him with saccharine sweetness and fatuous flattery, then slither in for the kill: Jesus is in no mood for playing games.
Show me the coin used for the tax. Under Judaic law, it was unlawful to even carry a Roman coin because of the idolatrous image of Caesar it bore and the inscription proclaiming him divine. Paying tribute to him was out of the question. Under Roman law, it was unlawful to refuse to pay taxes, much less to advise others against doing so. There is no good answer to such a crafty question—unless you happen to be Jesus.
But for the Pharisees? The other Jews in the crowd? Their ears would have been ringing with echoes of the holy scripture in which they were so steeped:. In one deceptively simple but elegant response, Jesus had both indicted the Pharisees for idolatry what were they doing with a Roman denarius anyway? Never mind the meaningless image on imperial coins; you bear the image of the Holy One; the One God; the God of creation, compassion, and mercy; the God of redemption, righteousness, and power; the God of gentleness, generosity, and love; the God of humility, hope and grace.
The God of all that is. So at this time, when the lives of so many of seem shrouded with death, this gospel can re-focus our minds and restore our perspective. We can hear in this gospel not just as an indictment against our false idols, but a life-giving reminder of our absolute beloved-ness before the God who made us and calls us each by name; the God in whose sight each and every one of us is precious.
This is who we are and who we belong to. His word is inscribed on our hearts. So be quick to love and make haste to be kind. Because life is short, and we do not have much time to gladden the hearts of those who walk the way with us—But by the power of Christ working in us, know that we have all we need to gladden the heart of God. Good morning, I am so pleased to be here this morning and to have a chance to stay local and reconnect. I feel a pull toward this parish each Sunday morning, as I am gratefully aware that my name is included in the prayers for my continued discernment and formation for the priesthood.
While I keep current about the parish happenings through the weekly updates and a few parishioners, nothing replaces being here in person. So it is my pleasure to see you face to face. Jesus tells the story of a king who has prepared an elaborate wedding banquet for his son, but none of the invited guests show up, so he dispatches his slaves in waves to retrieve the invitees.
Still, they do not come. In fact some of the invited guests kill the slave messengers. The now enraged king sends his troops into the city to kill the murderers and to burn and destroy the city. If the parable stopped there, it would be so much easier to talk about abundance or the unearned blessings of the kingdom of heaven, but as Margot just read, the parable ends with an unexpected twist.
The king sees one of the wedding guests is not wearing a wedding robe perhaps not surprising as he had just been out on the street before receiving the unexpected wedding invitation. I have a lot of trouble squaring the very vivid and violent description of what God did in the community and to his townspeople. It is discomfiting and does not comport with my experience of a loving and forgiving and inclusive God. The ravaging and destruction of the city does evoke a familiar reference to many jurisdictions around the world where war and protest are underway, and where you have to look pretty hard to find any traces of an irrevocable banquet invitation.
Two weeks ago, I had the opportunity to visit a domestic area of unrest, when I agreed to speak about the Massachusetts health reform experience in St. As I prepared for the trip, I very much had Ferguson Missouri on my mind. From the time I touched down at the St. Louis airport, through checking in to the hotel, I was asking people about Ferguson — and I was discouraged by a cab driver, a front desk clerk and a waitress not to go, each with their own reasons for counseling caution. I found out that there is an Episcopal Church in Ferguson — in fact it shares our own patron saint and is delightfully lead by Father Steve — of St.
A quick search showed that Father Steve has been part of the Ferguson peace marches, so I thought his church would be a good destination, even as I was unsure, yet open hearted about what I would find. I explained my interest in going to their hometown and for about 40 minutes of radiator fixing and race relations discussing, we made a list of several local attractions for me to check out. We also walked around the issues of the rapid racial transformation of Ferguson and the current troubles.
The police department has 53 officers, and only 3 are African American. These statistics alone do not guarantee strife, but they are an important part of the context for what we are seeing on the nightly news. Louis for the record he and all but his older daughter do not have health insurance, just like nearly one fourth of the residents of the great state of Missouri , and we headed out to get a look at the town that has been so narrowly portrayed on television.
Once off the highway we were on Florissant Avenue, a street that I recognized from the press reports. We saw a small group holding signs on a street corner, so I asked the cab driver to stop so that I might meet them. There were only ten people on the street corner when I arrived — white and black, old and young and middle aged, and I asked what they wanted people in Boston to know about Ferguson.
I was given some good links to social media outlets that were described as providing an unvarnished and more accurate look at what is going on. I was engaged in an interesting conversation with a young African American man who had left college to take care of an elderly relative in Ferguson. We had been talking for four or five minutes before he told me, calmly and without fanfare that he had been on the receiving end of tear gas a few nights before we met. As we were talking, a police cruiser pulled up behind my cab. When the cab driver noticed, he pulled into the parking lot next to where we were standing.
Nothing inappropriate was said, but it did feel odd if not simply patronizing to have the policeman purposefully giving driving tips to the cab driver. A second police cruiser came into the parking lot and a pedestrian who appeared to have been just walking by came up and began to yell at the officer about what she felt he should be doing with his time. Shop-keepers came out of their stores to see what the growing commotion was, and slowly, with others joining in the shouting, the police officers returned to their cars.
After asking some questions and watching how angry people were, I too got back in the cab and left. The potential for violence was palpable. The chance for misunderstandings was guaranteed! Whether that police officer had honorable intentions or not, no good was going to come from his actions.
And the protestors were so angry. Some were tired and others, the ones I found most upsetting were simply resigned. Before I hopped back into the cab one was saying that every day there is some provocation that results in raised voices, sometimes shoving or other physical contact. I left with the distinct impression that very few people I talked to in Ferguson were accepting divine banquet invitations or were aware of the constant presence of the kingdom of God.
The police officer did not give the impression that he was honoring the divine in the cab driver, and the protestors were actively denying the diving in the officer. My experience of Ferguson felt like a tinderbox, with any spark or provocation threatening an enormous eruption. The relationship between the members of the police force and the residents represented by the people on the corner are dangerous and potentially violent.
My brief time in Ferguson was fraught and ugly. And since my visit on September 30 th , two more black men have been shot by white police officers, one fatally. Because there are not improved relationships or community progress has not been made since the unarmed black teenager Michael Brown was killed, there is no room for public discourse about the actual facts of these shootings. We are assured that the kingdom of heaven is in Ferguson — it is in each of the people I met, available to all of the elected leaders and members of the police force.
The banquet is there, the party is underway, but there is horrible distraction in the streets. The harmony and joy that we know to be present at a wedding party, is available always through the divine in each of us. Since returning from Ferguson I have been struggling to know what role or responsibility each of us has to embody the kingdom of heaven for Ferguson. Perhaps a starting point is to be in touch with the presence of God and the kingdom of heaven right here and right now. Perhaps our response to Ferguson, and our understanding of the wedding banquet parable comes down to the instructions we hear every time we fly and are told we must put our own oxygen mask on before we can assist a fellow traveler.
We have to distinguish ourselves from the wedding guest in the parable who was cast out into the darkness, by being ready for the wedding and delighting in the invitation.
In the quiet and tranquility of Cohasset, there are fewer obvious impediments to our connection to the kingdom of heaven, but they still exist. Consider what keeps you from dancing with delight as though you are at a never-ending wedding reception. Is it a demanding or unreasonable boss? A distant or inattentive spouse? Family expectations or money troubles or poor health, sickness or grief?
What is it in your life that blocks your access to the wedding banquet that God has set for us? Filed under Guest Preachers. My friend Sarah and I have known each other for 24 years. We both have daughters who are only children and Sarah and I are both Episcopalians, so we went to the same church for many years. I was a television journalist who became an Episcopal priest; Sarah was a law student who became a psychotherapist. Now, if hearing me say S-E-X in church makes you uncomfortable I totally understand.
So what my friend Sarah said about money being even harder to talk about than you-know-what really shook me. So here it is Stewardship Sunday, and I get to talk about money with a newly heightened awareness of how totally uncomfortable most of you probably are hearing it. The thing is, I actually enjoy talking about stewardship and money now. But my conversation with Sarah really got me thinking and remembering. It diminishes us, it binds us, it keeps us un-free.
I had my money, you had yours. I forgot that giving is a spiritual practice that takes practice, and gets easier with practice. So go at your own pace. Go at your own pace, but be attentive to the One you follow. Study scripture, pray daily, worship regularly. Practice gratitude, compassion, and kindness. But he had been warned that another and very different field was to be occupied by him, and for which it behoved him, by every form of human discipline, to equip himself.
Experiments upon the gentile population at Tarsus, either conducted by dialogue or more formal addresses, must have shown him how he could best serve the Master in making known His salvation to the pagan world. Though Saul was taught of the Spirit, he was also the pupil of experience; and what he saw and heard in his native province, either in its hilly regions or level shores—the feelings he encountered, the forms of antagonism he met with, the prevailing type of objection which the educated or uneducated heathen mind, Greek, Roman, and aboriginal, presented—must have been studied by him, and must have afforded guidance in his subsequent evangelical labours.
He could afterwards anticipate hostile argument—trace its origin, detect its fallacy, ay, and counterwork it, ere it had time to express itself. In the meantime, the gospel had been carried to different regions by those who had fled into exile after the martyrdom of Stephen. The blood of the martyr had already become the seed of the church. They who sped away for life carried with them the elements of a higher life.
The first persecution of the church led to its first missionary enterprise. Throughout the Acts the primary agency of the Lord Jesus is uniformly recognized. What Christ did when among men, is told in the Gospels; what He still did when removed from men, is told in the Acts. How He governed when present, is described in the one group of narratives; how He governs when absent, is rehearsed in this book. The Christ of the Gospels is a present and tender friend—the Christ of the Acts still preserves the same character; is near, though He is away; loves, though He has left; and guides and controls, though the heavens retain Him.
The scenes of this history, in which apostles preached, wrought miracles, or suffered, belong to Christ as really as the synagogue at Nazareth where He was rejected, the shores of Gennesaret where He wandered and strewed deeds of mercy on His path, the hamlet of Bethany where He enjoyed His friends, or the garden of Gethsemane where He met His agony.
News of the immense success of the gospel at Antioch had reached Jerusalem. The mother-church might not claim a formal jurisdiction, but it was startled and perplexed, as well as delighted, by the intelligence. If the heathen were admitted, it should like to know on what conditions, and by what authority? The benevolent and self-denied Cypriot came to Antioch, and his mind, if it had been in any doubt, was at once relieved. There was neither disorder nor unwarranted innovation. The noble spectacle filled his mind with unutterable gladness. He saw the grace of God; that is, overlooking the minor means and subordinate instrumentalities, he detected the workings of divine power.
The gospel is an embodiment of His grace, and they who believe the gospel, get that grace for their heritage. When Barnabas looked around on so many converts, and knew what their convictions were; when he saw the synagogue forsaken and the groves of Daphne deserted; when he beheld the sanctified intelligence and changed lives of the Christian multitudes—he could ascribe the phenomenon to nothing but the grace of God.
It is true that the inner workings of grace are invisible, and that Barnabas could not see into the heart; but with the results before him, he at once recognized the cause. Were the grace of God implored, would it not still descend, reviving the church, and conquering the world? The exalted Lord will not deny it—He will bow His heaven, and pour it down in rich effusion. Lord, let Thy grace come down in its majesty, so that Thy saints may rejoice in it, and that sinners may feel its sweep.
Let the means of grace verify their name as vehicles of divine and saving influence. When Barnabas saw the spectacle, he sympathized with it. Earth had nothing for him so rich in pleasure. The power in gracious operation was divine; the subjects wrought upon were the noblest—the souls of men—precious beyond computation; and the results, partially gained, and to be in the end fully realized, were the loftiest and best that God can achieve, or man can experience.
Barnabas could look on neither with indifference nor envy. He rejoiced, for he saw the cause of Christ so prosperous after the dark season of persecution, and, after it had bled at Jerusalem, achieving such conquests in one of the prime strongholds of Eastern heathendom. That cause was endeared the more to them who had suffered for it; and while it lay at home under the frown of the priesthood and the ban of the Sanhedrin, it was rapidly and surely, and without molestation, planting and spreading itself in so renowned a spot as the third city of the empire.
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When the deputy of the metropolitan church had reflected on these circumstances, we may imagine what a glowing despatch he would transmit to Jerusalem. But Barnabas felt that there was duty laid upon him. He was not only to report to the mother-church, but immediate obligation also pressed upon him. He must improve the opportunity, and preach; and the burden of his preaching was the duty or necessity of perseverance.
He might be afraid that this outburst of enthusiasm might not last, that among a giddy and susceptible people such novel sensations might speedily subside. Therefore he addressed himself to the one remedy. For continuous faith alone is continuous safety. One must not only flee to the refuge, but abide in it, that he may escape the storm. The race must not only be begun, but the racer must hold on, for he must grasp the goal ere he get the garland. There needed such decision among the Gentiles. Society was pervaded with idolatrous usages, and the ordinary interchange of civilities was tainted with them.
The heathen was reminded at every step of the religion which he had left—its altars, temples, and gods were on all hands. Nor was the Jew less powerfully surrounded with seductions. Hallowed associations mixed with all his memories of ancestral glory and worship. Great names were inwoven into the history of his ceremonial, and the archives of his country were, at the same time, the records of his faith.
They had possessed the rod of Moses and the sword of Joshua, the throne of David and the lyre of Isaiah. What Barnabas therefore impressed on the whole assembly was earnestness and tenacity, or resolution, at all hazards, to cleave to the Lord. What beauty and power in the thought—to cleave to the Lord; not simply to cling to their profession, or to adhere to an abstract or historical Christianity, but to cleave to the Lord—the living personal Redeemer—away from them, but yet with them—the one living source of blessing and object of fellowship.
Theirs was to be a personal attachment to Him whom the gospel depicted as the centre of evangelical truth and the occupant of their hearts—Him to whom homage was paid as being of all others the most worthy of it, and to whom service was done as having a claim beyond all others upon it. What folly—lingering by the fountain without tasting of its rill; lounging in the porches of Bethesda, but careless of the troubling of the waters! One needs not to be surprised either at the joy of Barnabas, or the practical course he pursued, when an insight is gained into his character.
His goodness had been already seen in his sale of his possession, when the first Christians kept free table in Jerusalem. Few can achieve greatness, but goodness is within the reach of all. A calm and uniform confidence possessed his soul, gave him the image of his Master, and won him his surname. But Barnabas felt the work growing upon his hands. Unaided and alone, he was not a match for the crisis.
He longed that during the bright hour the harvest should be gathered. He had none of that littleness of mind which, in order to monopolize the praise, could not bear the presence and labours of a rival, and he took a step which immediately brought him into a secondary position. He who had introduced Saul to the church at Jerusalem, and been his good genius, soon became his subordinate colleague, and is overshadowed by the greater soul, as Melancthon by Luther, and Beza by Calvin. He had gone from Jerusalem to Tarsus, and thither Barnabas went in search of him. Barnabas must have known him somewhat intimately, and it may be had been associated with him in academic study.
Saul may have been absent from Tarsus, labouring in some quarter of the province of Cilicia, but Barnabas at length found him—pointed out this sphere of labour as one specially adapted to him; and Saul consented, and accompanied his patron to Antioch. The eager spirit of Saul would need no urgent solicitation.
It would spring to the scene in anticipation of earnest labours among the Hellenes and Hellenists—the renewal of the work of Damascus and Jerusalem. And they twain laboured for a whole year with uninterrupted energy, and drew large assemblies round about them. Our object in this volume is to illustrate the oral addresses of the apostle. Now, though the topic of his sermons at Antioch is not formally given us, we are at no loss to infer what it was.
It must, indeed, have been the same as at Damascus and Jerusalem, for the one kind of preaching alone could enlighten and save. The preacher did not vary in his themes. Christ and Christ alone, and in Him salvation, only and fully, and of universal offer and adaptation, was his unvarying subject. Speculation and hypothesis, ingenuity and rhetoric, had no place in his addresses, but the plain, direct, and vivid exhibition of Christ. It was the story of salvation by the cross—the life and death of the Son of God. It was not opinion about Him, but what He really had been.
It was not what conclusions might be formed of Him, but what He was, and what He did to redeem the world. But the twenty-sixth verse supplies us with another and distinct proof of our statement, that Saul preached Christ, and nothing but Christ, at Antioch. They got a distinctive epithet from the name Christ. Simply because that name was so often on their lips; because Saul preached Christ, and Christ was the burden of all his addresses, and they believed Christ, and so often spoke of Christ; because Christ was the word that of all others marked them out as a class, from their fond and familiar use of it—they were naturally named Christians.
So effectually and repeatedly did Saul preach Christ, so thoroughly did his preaching identify his party with Christ, that the name was imposed upon it as a new and distinct religious class. And though it does not hold a place in the nomenclature of the New Testament, yet it was well bestowed. The name originated among non-Christians, and was used by them.
What, indeed, more appropriate than to name after Christ that body of men of whose creed Christ was the core; of whose prayers Christ was the plea; of whose praises Christ was the burden; of whose preaching Christ was the theme; of whose life Christ was the pattern; of whose actions Christ was the law; of whose hopes Christ was the foundation; of whose hearts, indeed, Christ was the one occupant? Thus the name arose as a matter of public convenience or necessity, in consequence of the numerous accessions to the church at Antioch, and the special prominence which the name Christ had in all their own services, and in their intercourse with the population swarming around them, in those theatres and baths, or thronging those magnificent colonnades—the resorts alike of business and gaiety.
And is not the title appropriate still? Are not they rightly called Christians whose life springs from their being in Christ, whose ambition is to be like Christ, whose work is for Christ, and whose hope is to be with Christ for ever? Let the coinage of other titles cease—. May we not anticipate the time when names assumed from leaders, or taken from forms of government and ritual, or drawn from points of history or from local origin and predominance, shall merge in this grand catholic designation? Yet strange it is that the other name of the Redeemer should give title to a class of men whose history has been notorious for audacious intrigue and villany; that those who have named themselves from Jesus, should have been distinguished by unparalleled chicanery and the most subtle and delusive casuistry, so that Christians called after Christ shrink from Jesuits who have so vilely appropriated the name of Jesus—nay, who style themselves the Society of Jesus, as if they were bound to Him by a closer tie, or were self-devoted by a deeper consecration.
Luther and Loyola represent progress and check, action and reaction, in the same epoch of the ecclesiastical world. Idolatry and polytheism were everywhere—vice and misery—life without peace, and death without hope. A thousand altars smoked in honour of a thousand divinities, and the richest fruits of genius were images and temples.
There were gods of the hills, and gods of the valleys; gods of the streams, and gods of the groves; gods of the earth, and gods of the ocean; gods of the sky, and gods of the underworld of death. The sacred sculptures bore upon them the oak of Jupiter and the myrtle of Venus; the eagle of Juno and the owl of Minerva; the trident of Neptune and the bow of Apollo; the lance of Mars and the wand of Hermes. There were erroneous and conflicting notions of duty—dubious and degrading ideas of destiny.
How shall a sinner be just with God, was a question which could not be solved, and the relationship of man to futurity was unbrightened by life and immortality. That there is no God at all, but highest nature working divinely and impersonally, was the thought of some; that everything is God, or a necessary evolution of his nature and a portion of him, was the dream of others. That the present system is bound up in fate, was the conjecture of one class; that it is the offspring of chance, and without superintendence, was the vanity of another class.
Grecian tastes and studies, Roman roads and conquests, arts and laws, commerce and literature, could not impart the requisite spiritual benefit. After Antioch, Cyprus is formally visited. Antioch had indeed become the metropolis of Gentile Christendom, and it was faithful to its position when it organized the first formal missionary enterprise. It had in it certain prophets, or living depositaries of sacred truth.
The prophets in the New Testament stood to the early churches nearly in the same relation as do our printed Bibles to our modern churches. They spoke by authority and without error, and gave to their audiences such details as occur in the gospels, and such illustrations and precepts as are found in the epistles.
These religious exercises might have had such an end in view—perhaps the inquiry who shall go for us, and where shall the first experiment be made? The call of the Holy Spirit was a separation from their brethren and their settled labour. The work to which they were set apart was that missionary tour recorded in the following chapters—from Antioch to Cyprus; thence to Perga and Antioch in Pisidia; thence to Iconium, Lystra, and Derbe, and back through these towns; then by Pamphylia, Perga, and Attalia to Antioch, where they gave the church which had sent them a report of their labours.
Barnabas and Saul were sent of the church, and they were sent of the Spirit: Their qualification was the gift of the Spirit; but money to defray necessary expenditure was the contribution of the church. The church prayed for them, too, ere they left. The missionaries were to do His work, and they prayed Him to bless it; to speak His truth, and they prayed Him to seal it; to build up His church, and they prayed Him to prosper it; and to fill up His reward, and they prayed that His beauty might rest upon his servants.
Evangelistic work hitherto had been sporadic in nature, the mere result of circumstances, or the prompting of spiritual instinct. The church had made no direct effort to carry the truth abroad; it thought more of conserving it than of spreading it. The spirit of Judaism still reigned. It did not go in quest of proselytes, but proselytes might come to it. It might accept such as sought it—it did not go out and seek them. But Antioch has the signal honour of sending out the first heralds of the cross. It felt what were the wants of the world, and sought to supply them. The Spirit selected Barnabas and Saul, and the church cheerfully separated them for the work.
The two preachers, so commissioned, and so well furnished too, left the city, passed down to its seaport Seleucia, nigh the mouth of the river, and set sail for Cyprus, an island about a hundred miles distant to the south-west, and the summit of whose hills might be seen by them from the moment they embarked.
The vessel which carried them bore in the highest sense the fortune of the world. As she flew through the waves, and the opposing current sent the white spray over her, the two strangers felt that her course was not fleet enough for their earnest anticipations. They were inagurating a new era, and commencing a work which should be repeated in many an age and in many a country, until every people shall have its sanctuary, and every tongue be enriched by its version of the scriptures, and the world bow to the happy and universal reign of the Lord Jesus.
Cyprus was chosen for good reasons. The evangelists landed at the nearest port, that of Salamis, on the east of the island, and commenced operations. There were many Jews in Cyprus—it was close upon their own country, and was a garden of rare fertility and beauty; and when Augustus leased its copper-mines to Herod, crowds from Palestine had settled in it.
Salamis had a number of synagogues, while other towns usually had but one. There Barnabas and Saul preached the word—the revelation of Jesus Christ, the doctrine of salvation by the cross of Christ. It is also to be borne in mind that numerous proselytes must have been in those synagogues, for paganism had greatly lost its hold, and the unsatisfied spirit of many sought refuge in Judaism. While there was profound indifference on the part of the majority, there was also with others a restless searching after some other and higher object of confidence and homage.
Thousands were powerfully attracted by the purity and simplicity of the Mosaic faith and worship, for it presented so noble and striking a contrast to the crude idolatries and licentious indulgences round about them. Such minds were the more easily impressed by the gospel, for they would find in it a history without parallel, doctrine that spoke to their inmost longings, and ethics that realized the loftiest ideal of human obligation and destiny.
Preaching in the synagogues reached this class of the community, besides bringing truth into contact with the Jewish mind. A preference was given to the Jews in the delivery of the message—the ancient heritage of the Lord is first saluted with the gracious offer. How could it have been otherwise? Barnabas and Saul visited many places, and went through the whole isle as far as Paphos on its western shore, and above a hundred miles from Salamis.
The Roman proconsul was at Paphos, a place infamous for its temple and dissolute worship. But Cyprus, originally an imperial province, had before this period been handed over to the senate. At Paphos the gospel came again into contact with the magic of the East. Already it had confronted Simon at Samaria, who professed himself a convert for the sake of initiation into a knowledge or possession of what he deemed its occult powers; and here it met Bar-Jesus, who sought to oppose it with selfish and quick-witted hostility.
Such Jewish impostors, false prophets by old Hebrew statute, abounded in the empire; trading in imposture, pandering to the wily or to the weak-minded. Through that superior religious knowledge which every Jew possessed, or by that quackery which esoteric associates kept secret among themselves, or even by mere trickery and vulgar fortune-telling, they often contrived to obtain both secret and open influence over ignorant, inquisitive, or superstitious minds. Many of the higher classes among the Jews practised these arts, as is shown by the abundant references of the Talmud.
It would not have the sun, as he rose upon it—and it chased the meteor, flitting through the marshes. Throughout the Roman empire religious conviction was shaken; the state-worship no longer impressed; spiritual delusions were breaking up, and in this transitional state impostors found ample scope for the exercise of their ingenuity, and profited by it. He had seen the folly of idolatry, and may have revolted at the filthy Paphian worship, consecrated lust. His soul was groping in darkness, scarce knowing what it yearned after, and uncertain where and how to find the object of its desires.
To a mind under such painful and distracting apprehensions, any doctrine claiming divine authority is welcome, and the theology of this Jewish magician must have to some extent commended itself.
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It brought with it the great truths of the unity and spirituality of the Divine Being—a refreshing doctrine to a mind wearied out with the very names of numberless divinities. But he was not satisfied, and the same desire that brought him under the power of Elymas, and upon which Elymas had traded, led him to send for the preachers of a new religion—to learn what other novelties they introduced, or what deeper mysteries they might expound.
It was not speculation or philosophy that his soul thirsted after, but an oracular intimation of duty and destiny. He would not be chilled with Stoicism, nor lulled into Epicurean indifference. His anxiety was not to hear hypotheses, or be amused with reverie, but to have something said to him of his religious interests, something which referred itself to a divine source, and brought with it supreme authority. The addresses or conversations of the evangelists produced a deep impression on the mind of the proconsul.
The sorcerer who had arrogated to himself the Arabic term Elymas, or wise man—wizard—a term still applied to the Mahometan doctors in the Turkish empire, could not suffer those impressions to be deepened, but sought by every means to disturb and remove them. His selfish schemes would all vanish if his patron should yield to the teaching of the two strangers. Such an issue must at all hazards be prevented, and therefore the impostor withstood the apostle, and sought to prejudice the mind of the governor against him.
How he strove to keep his ground is not known; but, perhaps, if the rebuke of Saul have any special reference to the mode of his antagonism, it points to sophistry and malignant insinuation; perversion of facts, and wilful misinterpretation of doctrines and motives; an attempt so to picture the faith in its proofs, precepts, experiences, or results, as to induce the deputy to dislike it, suspect its teachers, and refuse their message. The contest was, whether Elymas the sorcerer or the truth of Christ was to have the ascendancy over the mind of the insular governor.
It was to disentangle itself from all those superstitions which, from Syria and Judea, had overspread the empire. The apostle Peter had already unmasked another Simon, and a few years later the Ephesian converts burned their costly books. Banished from Rome again and again, those spiritualists maintained a place in it, for they were feared, and yet courted; and while they were frowned upon, they could not be dispensed with. Saul, henceforth to be named Paul, has been during this mission rising to a full conception of his apostolical dignity and prerogative.
Intensely conscious of his position and what it involved at that awful moment, and looking on the wizard with an eye that read his soul, the anathema burst from his lips. It was no idle rebuke—his word came with power. The magician might be appalled at the fulmination, but could scarce expect such an instant retribution. Filled with the Holy Ghost—armed with a supernatural power to chastise the incorrigible—Paul said: O full of all subtilty! He understood the weak points in the character of Sergius Paulus, and knowingly plied him with such objections as should most powerfully tell upon him.
Such subtilty is not penetration, and such casuistic ingenuity soon imposes on its possessor, and he comes to have faith in his own coinage. And all mischief—facility of evil-working; he was clever in his mischief. Elymas, in a similar spirit, had persuaded the proconsul that highest wisdom dwelt with him—the knowledge of God and of the way of life. And surely error in the guise of truth, or death wearing a mask of life, is the devil, or the child of the devil.
He might pervert it so as by it to oppose Christianity, or use it as a principal engine to perplex the mind of his victim, so that it might repel Christianity. He contrived either to give a crooked turn to the right way, that it might lead in an opposite direction, or he hoped to make it such a labyrinth that none could find their way in it save such as paid him for the clue to guide them. Strange that his earliest miracle should be one of doom—the infliction of such a blindness as in the moment of his conversion had come upon himself. He could not but compassionate the guilty wretch, as he saw him gradually losing the power of vision, gazing around him with wild eyeballs, and groping in dismay.
The miracle is described with awful precision. His moral sense was blunted, and in attempting to sway Sergius Paulus, it was the blind leading the blind, while he needed to be led himself. He might profess to work by the finger of God, but the heavy hand of God fell upon him, and its shadow extinguished his vision. His sin might be read in his judgment. His boast was of insight, but he was taught that he saw nothing. Abimelech wished to add Sarah to his harem, and sterility was the penalty of his household. Paul had risen to the dignity and authority of his apostolate.
The blindness inflicted on his evil genius for endeavouring so malignantly to prevent the true light from entering into his heart, proved to him that Paul was no pretender, and that the doctrine which could take so sudden and signal vengeance on its opponent, was armed with a power that betokened its supernatural origin.
He was awe-struck, and was unable to refuse his assent. Thus judgment and mercy have been often associated. BARNABAS and Saul had gone to Cyprus, but their relative position was changed during their residence in the island; and in the record of their departure from it, Paul occupies the place of honour and prominence. The conversion of Sergius Paulus seems to remind the historian that he of Tarsus then assumed, and afterwards bore, the similar name of Paul; and that with the proper commencement of his labours as the apostle of the Gentiles, the native Hebrew name of Saul is for ever dropped.
The subsidence of Barnabas into a subordinate position may have offended his nephew Mark, and been one of the reasons which induced him to desert the enterprise and return to his mother at Jerusalem. Then crossing the great table-land of the country, they entered Antioch of Pisidia—a city, the ruins of which have been only recently discovered. What induced them to make this visit we know not; perhaps they anticipated that this second Antioch would be as rich in its spiritual harvest as the first Antioch on the Orontes. Paul at once rose, and, waving his hand, solicited the attention of the audience.
It has been asserted with some show of probability, that on this sacred day the portion of the law read was the first chapter of Deuteronomy, and the corresponding section of the prophets, the first chapter of Isaiah. The discourse of the apostle grew out of the scripture which had been repeated, and he takes from it some of his historical allusions. In the synagogue of Nazareth Jesus read the scripture for the day, and proceeded to expound and apply it; but the apostle speaks after it had been chanted by the appropriate officer, and introduces such ideas and associations as the word which they had heard must have stirred up within them.
His audience was composed of Jews and proselytes—men of Israel by birth, and those that fear God—those of other nations who had renounced idolatry for the spiritual worship of Jehovah. The historical exordium of the apostle is brief but pointed. But, behold, there cometh one after me, whose footstrap I am not worthy to loose. And first, be it remarked, the leading feature of this portion of the address is—what God had done for the nation.
A series of divine benefactions is detailed, culminating in the gift of a Saviour—Jesus. Each of these divine interpositions was a salvation for the time; each hero and legislator had been a saviour; but this great salvation was now finally sent. Israel did not choose God, but God chose them, and chose them neither for their numbers, intelligence, civilization, nor piety.
It was by no spirit of independence or heroism that they formed themselves into a nation; but God organized them. Their origin was of His sovereign choice, without aspiration or effort of their own. They did not take up arms and beat back their oppressors. Their own courage did not secure their independence, as Scotland did at Bannockburn, or as when the Swiss peasantry repelled the legions of Austria. They departed from Egypt without so much as striking a blow for liberty.
When they left they did not sharpen their swords, but they buckled on their kneading troughs; they did not carry a spear, but only a staff in their hand; for plagues in succession smote Pharaoh and his people, and in their panic they let Israel go.
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The Lord brought them out—another divine interposition. Their leader was not a conqueror with a sword, but a shepherd with a crook. And, being brought out, they were utterly helpless. They did not sow, they did not plunder sown fields. The sands of Arabia could supply nothing more than a scanty herbage for their cattle. For about forty years, that is, thirty-eight years, were they in this predicament. But the manna fell around them, the water gushed from the rocks, and quails flew into their camp.
The cloud by day and pillar of fire by night protected them.
PAUL THE PREACHER
The divine oracle was with them, and the divine hand was round them. One day of their own will would have brought them into jeopardy. Like a nurse with a weak and wayward child, so was Jehovah with them in their wanderings. They marched at length to the eastern bank of the Jordan, and under Joshua, crossing it, took possession of the country. The Canaanitish heptarchy was subdued, and the land divided equitably and by lot. They fought, indeed, against the aborigines, but their own bow and sword did not gain them the victory.
In such an army idolatry was as fatal as cowardice, and disobedience to God as bad as treason to the general. In the promise given to Abraham ten nations are mentioned as then existing, but some of those earlier aborigines had been dispossessed by the Canaanites. He divided their land by lot, as recorded in Joshua, the old Doomsday-book of the nation, and the charter of their inheritance. The lot was a direct appeal to God, and was so sanctioned by Himself.
Joshua died, and the nation again and again sank into anarchy. Each tribe had its separate and independent jurisdiction, and the principle of federal unity was not fully recognized nor acted out. Judges or dictators were occasionally raised up as exigency required, but they seldom had power over the entire country. And even that form of provisional government was of God, not the result of their own political sagacity. This period lasted four hundred and fifty years, as may be computed from the book of Judges; and it was also the popular chronology, as may be seen in Josephus.
The nation had ceased to feel the power of faith. On a similar principle they had already taken the ark out into the camp, as a palpable token of the divine presence. They, therefore, in demanding a king, rejected not Samuel, but God. This shepherd-king was the most illustrious occupant of the Hebrew throne. Primarily, it refers more to his official than to his personal character—that he should vindicate the theocracy, put down idolatry, make no political compromise at variance with the Mosaic law, and confer on the nation the possession of the whole territory which God had given Abraham in charter.
That this is the meaning of the phrase may be learned from the language of the book of Kings. And when you look at David as a hero, king, or saint, and analyse the various features of his character, and dwell on his generosity and prowess, his forbearance toward Saul, and his love toward Jonathan; when you reflect that though he sinned, and sinned so grievously, he repented, and mourned and wept in the bitterness of his heart; when you think that but for his fall and his penitence those psalms had never been composed—those sighs and moans of a broken heart, which have been the voice of every age in the church, the language of its sorrow, and faith, and hopes; when, in short, you judge the son of Jesse by his age and position—the true standard of judgment: But a Saviour more worthy of the name had recently been raised—Jesus—who, himself a nobler personage, had achieved a mightier deliverance, and at a more awful cost.
Nor did He come without a prior announcement. His herald prepared the way for Him, according to ancient prediction. Few ventured to challenge his divine commission, and therefore the apostle introduces his testimony. His was a baptism of repentance—it accompanied a profession of repentance, and also of faith in a coming Messiah—repentance being at once its condition and its lesson. The persons baptized vowed to prepare themselves for the great advent. John, with all his popularity, maintained his humility, solemnly disclaimed being the Messiah, asserted the high dignity of his successor, and that he was unworthy to stoop to unstrap His sandals.
And then Jesus came and wrought out salvation—a salvation not confined to the age in which it was secured, or the territory on which it was achieved. The previous salvations were confined in their efficacy. They affected but the generation who enjoyed them, and the exploits of Gideon, the feats of Samson, or the equitable administration of Samuel could not be transplanted to distant regions. If men wished to receive Jewish benefits, they must travel to Jewry; there alone could such blessings be of old enjoyed, and not in Cyprus or Asia Minor.
But to Jew and Gentile the word of this best and last salvation had been sent; it could be enjoyed in Pisidia not less than in Palestine. It came to them; they needed not to go to it. The nature of their greatness are made known through their deeds. Such are the ways of God, and of what God expects of us. We began this series last week with one of the oldest and greatest—the calling of Abram and Sarai by God to pick up their lives at Ur in Mesopotamia and relocate to Canaan by way of a place called Haran, from which this sermon series takes part of its name.
We pick up today with the story of Moses at the burning bush. Moses is itself an Egyptian name, because as a child, Moses's Israelite mother set him adrift in the Nile to save him from Pharaoh's purges of the Israelite boys, and he was in turn discovered and raised in Pharaoh's own household. Moses subsequently went into exile after killing an Egyptian, and we pick up with him here as a shepherd in the service of his father-in-law, Jethro.
Well, that clears things right up! Only God can accurately describe God. God is made known by expressions of those virtues, and we are mean to see those expressions in our own lives. God is, and will always be, the very best, but it is not God who appears before Pharaoh. It is emphatically not a role that Moses wanted, and one that he spends a great deal of the following chapter trying to plead his way out of, and really, understandably so. He killed a man and expected to live out the rest of his life in exile from his former existence as a prince of Egypt.
He became their champion. He was the one to represent them, and he did so movingly. We do not always get called by God to do that which we think we have signed up for, either. Our circumstances change, the communities around our churches shift, and as much as we might want our church to feel like a time capsule, in which only the bare minimum changes from year to year, we know that this is not a sustainable way to be church. More is required of us. This is never what they signed up for. But they have taken on new roles as our nation's consciences with grace and composure.
We cast about, then, for our own freedom as a parish—freedom from insecurity, freedom from fear, and freedom from a mentality of scarcity. We have been blessed with an incredible story and space, and as poor as we may sometimes feel, we must remember in those moments that spiritually, we truly are not. It is easy, far too easy, to forget the feeling of being blessed. That ease is why spiritual disciplines are needed of us, for while negative reinforcement tends to turn into stone, positive reinforcement often evaporates into the ether. So even though I will no longer be here several weeks from now to cheer you on, I hope that you will continue cheering each other on with that positive reinforcement that comes from a belief that your Christian faith still has a role to play in our community.
I hope that you will continue to see what is best, and bring that to the fore, during the transition period you are about to undertake. For I realize that this upcoming interim period will require strength that I imagine will at times, feel herculean or Olympian in nature. You may wonder or even worry if you have such strength in you at all. Rest assured, you do. I have faith in this church to do what is right by God, by the Holy Spirit, and by the Body of Christ.
I have faith in what is the very best of us. That faith does not, and will not, change after I leave. I will always be praying for you and cheering you on from afar. I continue to believe that God is calling you to be something new and freeing, that, whatever it is, might unshackle us from feelings of scarcity and back into faithful abundance.
It is a big task, but nowhere near as big as what God is asking of Moses here, to free a people from not just spiritual scarcity, but physical and existential scarcity that comes from being enslaved. Moses, understandably, thinks that God has picked the wrong person.