Sermon: Macedonia

 First Presbyterian Church

May 25, 2025, Easter 6C

Acts 16:6-15

 

Macedonia

 

“Macedonia” is the name applied generally to a region of southeastern Europe, on the Balkan Peninsula. That more general region includes two current political entities with the same name: a region in northern Greece, and an independent nation once a part of Yugoslavia. Historically, Macedonia was perhaps most famous as the home and kingdom of Alexander the Great, from whence he set out to conquer the world. In later years the region was a significant province in the Roman Empire.

One of the important cities in that Roman district was Philippi. First founded by one of Alexander’s successors, the city was re-established during the Roman Empire. It was the site of the climactic battle of Marc Anthony and Octavian, successors of Julius Caesar, against his assassins Cassius and Brutus. Under Octavian (later known as Augustus) Philippi became a city for retired soldiers and was slightly modified by the addition of a Roman-style forum and the division of land among the soldier-colonists, becoming in effect a “miniature Rome.”

It was into this territory and this city that Paul and his fellow travelers were more or less forced by the Holy Spirit in today’s reading, an event which marked the first known foray of early Christian proclaimers of the Gospel into what we now define as “Europe” – a fact much more interesting to us today than to Paul and his co-workers. For us, a church like most Presbyterian churches made up of mostly white European stock, it’s an origin story. To them it was all Roman Empire, but Philippi, due to its unique origins, might have been just a little more Roman than other places on their journey.

To say that Paul and his company (which now included Silas and also Timothy, who had joined the group earlier in this chapter) were “forced” into Macedonia isn’t really a stretch. When the party had sought to move towards Asia (not the continent we know today, but another Roman province occupying what we would call western Turkey), Paul had been “forbidden by the Holy Spirit” from proclaiming the Gospel there. They tried to go to another region “but the Spirit of Jesus did not allow them.” 

What does that even mean? Luke doesn’t give us any details here, but don’t you wish he had?? Whatever form these divine roadblocks took, Paul and Silas and the whole traveling group were stuck in a place called Troas, wondering what to do next. 

Think about this. They were prevented from moving forward. They were “forbidden,” they were “not allowed” to go. Those are very strong words. We modern Christians have this perhaps overly catchy phrase about how “when God closes a door, God opens a window” – maybe you’ve heard it? We tend to forget about the door-closing part of that phrase in our eagerness to get to the open window, but we do need to pay attention. If Paul and Silas – the great missionary team of the book of Acts, and most prolific proclaimers of the good news – had doors divinely slammed in their faces, we need not think we can just make up our minds and charge off in whatever direction looks good to us. Whatever path this church or any church seeks to discern for itself and for its future, that particular church needs to be ready for some doors being shut in our faces. (Apropos of nothing, this can also apply to pastors seeking a call.)

At this point comes the dream, or if you prefer, the open window. A “man of Macedonia” (you know how in a dream you just know who someone is, even if you have no reason to?) appears calling the group to come to that region and “help us.” It’s a fairly meager dream as Luke describes it, but given all the preventing and forbidding that has been going on so far it sounds like a great positive, and Paul and his party undertake the voyage. This was no short journey. The trip involved several ports of call and a couple of days’ sailing, before a short overland journey to Philippi, that leading Roman city and old soldiers’ home.

And once they got there … “we remained in the city some days.”

Again with the delay. Really, one might be excused for wondering if God is really with these folks or just messing with them.

Up to this point Paul’s usual practice had been to seek out a synagogue when arriving in a town to speak first to the members of that synagogue. Frequently many would be receptive to their word, but others would reject it, and sometimes violently. In Philippi, though, it doesn’t appear that Paul and Silas and company found one, hence they “remained in the city” for those several days. Finally, somehow, they got wind of a gathering, outside of the city gate and down by a river, that might be what they were looking for.

Well, sort of. What they found was a group of women led by Lydia, a wealthy woman (a dealer of purple cloth was inevitably wealthy) described as a “worshipper of God,” a term sometimes used to describe persons who were not part of the synagogue of the time but took an interest and directed their worship towards the God represented in the synagogue (similar to the centurion Cornelius from last Sunday's reading). So where was the man of Macedonia from the vision? Anyway, Lydia received the gospel with her whole household, and then pretty much took over, prevailing upon Paul and Silas and the whole party to stay in her home for the duration of their stay in Philippi. You know the folks who can do that kind of thing? They won’t take any of that nonsense about you staying in a hotel, we’re going to put you right up in the guest rooms and let’s make sure you’ve got everything you need while we’re at it? That was Lydia. Real Presbyterian Women energy.

So Paul and his party intended to go into Asia, perhaps cover some familiar territory with the familiar territory of the synagogue in doing the work of the gospel. Instead, they ended up in an entirely new place, much more in the heart of the Roman Empire, working without their usual safety net, and in the care of an independent woman of means. So much for best-laid plans. 

And yet, if we truly want to seek God’s vision for the church – this individual church or the church universal – we’d better be ready for something similar to happen. 

The hymn we will sing in a few moments, “Be Thou My Vision,” is rather dangerous if you actually pay attention to it. You know how it starts, right?

Be Thou my vision, O Lord of my heart;

Naught be all else to me, save that thou art...

 

 "Naught," (that is, nothing else) matters but God. If we’re truly going to give ourselves, our prayers, our time, our gifts, our energies, our very being to God’s vision, we run the risk of ending up in unfamiliar places, among people who are unfamiliar and perhaps uncomfortable for us, doing a work we could not possibly have expected. If we’re truly going to be about God’s vision, we have no idea where we will end up. And really, that’s as it has to be. We follow Christ, after all. Christ doesn’t follow us.

This week's lesson really is a lot like last week's account of Peter and Cornelius, but more so; Peter was after all still on that far end of the Mediterranean Sea, close to home, even if he was sent to receive Gentiles. Paul, in today's story, is being not-so-gently prodded to go to an explicitly Roman city, a place he never imagined going, with no safety net, and his group's well-being ended up in the hands of this group of previously unknown women. 

The Spirit gives us absolutely no assurance that our church in five or fifteen or fifty years will look anything like it did five or fifteen or fifty years ago. That’s not the point. The point is to be faithful, and to follow. The church doesn’t get to “go back to” anything. Our call is to be faithful and to follow, even if we end up in places we couldn’t have possibly imagined. We end up at tables with God’s children we’ve never met or never imagined, not necessarily comfortable for us but absolutely who God calls us to serve and love.

Heart of my own heart, whatever befall, 

Still be my vision, O Lord of us all.

 

For the vision that drives us forward, even when we have no idea where we are going, Thanks be to God. Amen.

 

Hymns (from Glory to God: The Presbyterian Hymnal) #375, Shall We Gather at the River; #450, Be Thou My Vision; #757, Today We All Are Called to Be Disciples

 

Sermon: **Those** People

First Presbyterian Church

May 18, 2025, Easter 5C

Acts 11:1-18

 

Those People

 

First of all, let’s make sure we get one thing straight: that’s not a typo in your bulletin. The sermon title is exactly as I instructed Alberta to enter it, so don’t go fussing at her (as I know some of you do). Leave her alone.

It’s printed this way because you need to read it this way. It’s not “those people,” it’s “those people.” You know how the conversation goes: “…oh, one of those people.” The inflection has a world of meaning.

And that world of meaning, and how it gets broken down and exposed, is what you need to understand about this story, a story of Peter making a leap he never expected, in today’s lesson from Acts.

The part we heard a few moments ago is basically Peter’s defense speech, given when he is summoned (a much more sinister-sounding word than merely “called”) before the council of the church in Jerusalem to account for his actions regarding a certain Gentile named Cornelius, whom he had first encountered while staying in Joppa in the days after the raising of Tabitha, (also known as Dorcas) from the dead.

While staying at the home of a tanner named Simon, Peter gets hungry one day. In this case, though, getting hungry becomes the occasion for the Holy Spirit to visit and show a vision to Peter, a vision which called upon Peter to take a step that he could never have imagined taking, one that, literally, charged Peter to do something that went against the way he had been raised and against everything he had ever been taught about scripture.

In the vision, which is recorded directly in chapter 10, Peter sees something like a great sheet being lowered from heaven, containing animals of every kind, including all the creeping things and bottom-feeders you could imagine, and hears the divine voice – at least that’s clearly how Peter hears it, as his reply makes clear in one of the few times in Acts that Peter falls into his "speak first, think later" pattern that happens so often in the gospels: “By no means, Lord; for nothing profane or unclean has ever entered my mouth.” This time, though, the voice of the Lord says virtually the most shocking thing possible: “What God has made clean, you must not call profane.” 

Let’s not try to soften things here. Peter is not wrong or just making stuff up. You can, if you’re so inspired, look to Leviticus 11 or Deuteronomy 14 for a starting point in surveying the amazing and very particular detail on dietary law in the Torah. And this wasn’t minor stuff in Jewish thought of the time. Peter’s response might have been heated, but it was also virtually a reflex – “we don’t do that.” And yet here God is telling him to do exactly that and getting in Peter’s face about it just a little bit – “must not” is never wishy-washy language in scripture, and that’s what Peter has just been hit with.

As if all this wasn’t shocking and destabilizing enough, Peter sees this vision a total of three times. If you remember Peter’s story, you remember that he has a bad history of things happening three times.

Finally, the visions are done, no more sheets full of unkosher food descending from heaven. Peter is left trying to sort out just what he has seen and just what it means. Little does he know that the Holy Spirit has already been at work well before this set of visions. The messengers who come from Cornelius, the Roman – and very Gentile – centurion, are there because the Holy Spirit has already been at work responding to the earnest prayers of a God-worshiper.

Apparently, Cornelius was a Gentile who nonetheless claimed allegiance to the God worshiped in the synagogue community but had not become a Jew. The extent of such dedication was that he was a generous giver and was constantly in prayer, and that “the whole Jewish nation” spoke well of him, according to 10:22. Those prayers got a dramatic answer when Cornelius – at least a day before Peter’s vision – received instructions to send for Peter. Of course, his messengers arrive as Peter is trying to sort through his own vision, one that must have seemed far more nightmarish to him than Cornelius’s to him.

For all his confusion and distress, Peter at least seems to get that his vision must have something to do with these visitors. That doesn’t mean he’s immediately comfortable with what he’s being asked to do; even if the spirit tells him to go with these visitors “without hesitation” that doesn’t mean he’s going with comprehension or ease. Nonetheless he does something quite remarkable, giving them lodging for the night before making the trip with them the next day to Caesarea, a seat of Roman power and a thoroughly Roman city.

Why is all this so remarkable? Well, Peter is associating with those people. The regulations in the Torah about associating with Gentiles and purity are as precise and fixed as the ones about food and purity. You didn’t just have Gentiles in your home, and you certainly didn’t go into their homes and share meals and things like that. Torah was quite clear that one was not to be cruel to Gentiles, and that one was not to abuse them if they were travelers in their land, and that one was to live in peace with them. But there were limits, and Peter, if still a bit uncomfortable as he makes clear in 10:28, was about to do all those proscribed things and more. 

And it was this choice that had caused Peter to be brought before the church leaders in Jerusalem, which is where his account is given that is recorded in Acts 11. Notice how in verse 3 of that chapter, the leaders in Jerusalem had thoroughly failed to understand what has happened; all that they can think about is not that Gentiles have received the word of God, but that Peter ate with Gentiles. As you might have noticed, we today live in a world, and in a church, where God’s work is too often and too easily ignored in favor of humans taking offense.

So Peter has to relate his experience to them. In the end, what finally gets through to the church authorities is that the story is not really about Peter, as much as he is the one telling it. The actions that matter here are not Peter’s, but God’s.

It was God who answered Cornelius’s prayers and instructed him to send for Peter. It was God who gave Peter that strange and disturbing vision. It was God who told Peter directly to go with those messengers from Cornelius. 

And it was God the Holy Spirit who came upon Cornelius and his household, right in front of Peter. Peter was at Pentecost; he knew what it looked like. He knew exactly what was happening. And it happened at the Spirit’s own initiative, without waiting for any cues. The Spirit came upon them while Peter was still speaking, giving what might have been his more-or-less standard introductory sermon. Other unexpected converts had received the Holy Spirit upon being baptized, but not Cornelius and his household; the Spirit didn’t wait. Peter called for their baptism, because after what the Holy Spirit had just done, how could he not?

We moderns really aren’t always any quicker than Peter to catch on to what the Spirit is doing in the world. We are more prone to seek comfort and familiarity rather than be open to those among whom the Spirit is moving. To put it rather bluntly: when was the last time you invited someone to this church who was in some demonstrable way – in race or ethnic background, or class, or orientation, or national origin, or (shudder) even political party – different from you? Clearly we do not reject persons of different races or backgrounds; we have welcomed, we do welcome, we will welcome – but do we invite? Do we take the initiative to reach out? 

The silos in which we live in society can be composed of very nearly anything, not just the classifiers noted above, and we in our homes, our workplaces, our social circles (and most certainly our churches) can fall into the trap of sticking with what’s comfortable, what’s familiar, instead of practicing the welcome of Christ, or following the initiative of the Holy Spirit. But we can’t do that, and not just because – not even primarily because – the church dies if we don’t follow. We’ve got to open ourselves to where the Spirit will lead us because that’s how we follow. That’s how we submit to the Lordship of Christ, not by memorizing rules, but by being active followers of Christ and seeking the guidance of the Holy Spirit always.

We worship a God who does a new thing. We worship a God who makes clean. What God has made clean, we dare not - must not - call unclean.

Thanks be to God. Amen.

 

Hymns (from Glory to God: The Presbyterian Hymnal): #234, Come, You Faithful, Raise the Strain; #---, The Holy Spirit fell; #282, Come Down, O Love Divine

acts 11 1-18

if the same story appears 

in some fashion 

three different times 

in the same book of scripture 

we should probably consider 

that it is a

very important story 

acts 10

narrates the original event 

peter will refer to that event 

one more time 

in acts 15

acts 11 is the defense when peter gets summoned 

(not merely called or invited)

to appear before the council 

of church leaders 

in jerusalem 

they are apparently 

bent out of shape 

over peter’s eating with gentiles 

so what does peter do but

tell the story 

more specifically 

tell the story of what God did

right down to 

the Holy Spirit tripping out

on cornelius and his household 

after all

you have to figure some of them 

had been at pentecost 

there was silence

and then there was praise 

that what God had done for them

God had now done for gentiles too

sadly though 

I can’t shake the feeling 

that even through the silence 

and then the praise 

some of those council members 

were still trying to figure out 

a way to get peter in trouble 

for eating with gentiles