Homily: Hope In...

Joint Worship Service East Moline/Milan/Rock Island

First Presbyterian Church, Milan, IL

June 14, 2026

Romans5:1-5

 

Hope In...

 

I had a little bit of online dialogue several years ago with a seminary classmate who was preaching on this same passage, and this subject of “hope” and just what kind of hope we’re talking about here. She was making the point that for us, far too often, hope (despite what Paul says in verse 5) really does disappoint us, or at least it sure seems like it.

And the thing is, she’s right. Hope does disappoint, most of the time.

We hope our loved ones will recover and continue to live among us, and they don’t. We hope the institutions of our society will seek justice instead of merely enforcing order, and our daily headlines make it clear they do not. We hope that we ourselves will truly live up to our best dreams, and we do not.

And Paul still says, right there in verse 5, “hope does not disappoint.” And he’s still right too.

The question is, are you hoping for, or are you hoping in?

We know what it is to hope for – whether it’s the child hoping for a new bicycle for Christmas or me hoping for a clean result every time I go for a cancer screening, we hope for some thing, usually something fairly specific, something good or beneficial or at least not harmful. Sometimes our hopes are fulfilled – sometimes the child gets the bicycle, and my cancer screenings keep being clear after thirteen years – but painfully often we are disappointed. The new job doesn’t come, or it turns out to be a horror show when it does. We send our child into the world and things don’t go well. Maybe they end up back home in disappointment. Our own health fails.

When we hope for, inevitably we will be disappointed. Bodies fail us. Other people fail us.

But we hope in God. And that hope does not disappoint, because God does not disappoint.

God doesn’t promise us a bicycle or a perfect new job or perfect health. What God promises us is God, God’s own self, the love that is God.

As Paul points out, we already know that love because God has shown us that love in dying for us. So, we know God’s love, and that does not disappoint. When others around us disappoint and harm and murder and commit gross injustice, God’s love does not disappoint. When our very world spins recklessly off its axis and the very fabric of our basic living together is trashed and torn by purveyors of hatred, God’s love does not disappoint.

In Matthew’s gospel Jesus warned his disciples that his coming to them was no guarantee of peace; he did “not come to bring peace, but a sword” (Mt 10:34). But here’s the thing; even when the sword has come, even when we are set child against parent, when we are beset by those who mockingly call us brothers and sisters … God’s love does not disappoint.

It may not seem like much; it might not seem like anything more than survival at times, as my pastor friend said, but God’s love is there, holding us up when we don’t even realize it. And that hope, that undying love of God, is where we are not disappointed. 

And for that, Thanks be to God. Amen.

 

Sermon: The Promise Through Faith

First Presbyterian Church

June 7, 2026, Pentecost 2A

Romans 4:13-25

 

The Promise Through Faith

 

 

It was slightly disorienting, upon first showing up at my previous interim church, to see a number of signs, vanity plates on the fronts of cars, and other such displays, quite boldly displaying the word ROMANS typically in all caps. I wasn't really expecting to find the town being such a hotbed of interest in Paul's longest epistle (slighly longer than 1 Corinthians). I'll confess I was mildly disappointed to figure out that it was the name of an automotive dealership and a couple of other businesses in the area.

Quite coincidentally, the Revised Common Lectionary offers up an extensive series of readings from this epistle to the churches at Rome for post-Pentecost study and preaching, and it's worth taking advantage of this opportunity. Because Paul is here writing to a church or group of churches he did not found and has not visited, and also because he's hopeful for some support for a planned journey to Spain (that never happened), this particular letter is much broader in scope than his other letters; those tend to dwell on specific matters in those churches, while here Paul is introducing himself by letter and being much more thorough about explaining his beliefs and actions to a community that only knows him by distant reputation. As a result, the letter is probably the most comprehensive exploration of Paul's message (or the message of the very early church more generally) that we have in scripture.

The Roman church (more likely a group of smaller churches in the city) is relatively typical in some ways of the other churches to which Paul writes; not large, diverse in interesting and sometimes provocative ways for its time, made up of both Jewish and Gentile converts to following Jesus. That latter characteristic means that this group of followers is likely marked by the same disagreement Paul has run into more than once in his travels; the question of whether male Gentile converts should be compelled to undergo the Jewish practice of circumcision in order to be part of the church. Paul had come under attack in some quarters for his opposition to such a requirement, and likely as a result he begins this introductory letter to the Roman churches with an exposition on his view of this subject, a part of which is found in today's appointed reading.

For Paul, that question comes down to how one is "put right with God," you might say, and Paul is quite insistent that it is all the work of God, not anything that humans can earn by any act or any law-keeping. Therefore, in verse 13 and after, Paul emphasizes that, through the grace of God, it was Abraham's faithfulness by which Abraham found favor with God. The first part of this chapter reminds readers that while Abraham was indeed circumcised, that did not happen until after the promise of God had come to him and he had accepted and believed in that promise. It wasn't the act of circumcision that made God look upon him favorably; it was his faithfulness in believing the promises God had made to him, for example, in today's reading from Genesis as well as later passages from that book.

That faithfulness of Abraham is further elaborated in verses 17 and after, as the experience of being promised a child to him and Sarah in their very old age became another example of holding faithful to God's promise despite all the evidence to the contrary, and that "that faith was reckoned to him as righteousness." Keeping the law (which, you'll remember, was still a few generations from being given on Mount Sinai) was not how Abraham was "put right with God." And if that was the case with Abraham, so also to the many "descendants of Abraham" now numbered among the faithful.

All of this was not to denigrate the law, but to point out that it was not designed to make people faithful in the eyes of God; all that the law could do was point out when those descendants of Abraham failed to be faithful. And yes, at the last it does come down to Jesus, in case anyone was wondering; the Jesus whom God raised from the dead, who died in our trespasses and was raised up for our justification.

What might often get overlooked in this passage is that first phrase of verse 15. After his plain statement of how "faith is null and the promise is void" if only adherents of the law are heirs of the promise to Abraham, he makes a rather bracing statement that "the law brings wrath." This looks frightening, to be sure, but in some ways it might be even more frightening than it looks.

Notice that statement again; "the law brings wrath." Notice what isn't there; any indication that we are talking about the wrath of God. It isn't the law brings God's wrath or the law brings down the wrath of God; just "the law brings wrath." So what exactly does that mean?

It's quite likely that Paul is speaking from experience here. In the epistle to the Philippians, chapter 3, Paul reminds those followers of his past:

If anyone has reason to be confident in the flesh, I have more; circumcised on the eighth day, a member of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew born of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless.

(Philippians 3:4b-6, emphasis mine)

 

Here we are reminded of how we first met Paul; the one who minded the coats of those who stoned Stephen to death and approved of that act; who then set out on his own mission to round up and arrest or detain (or, if necessary, kill) those followers of Jesus, not only in Jerusalem but in Damascus as well. We also remember it was on his way to Damascus that Paul's quest was interrupted by the intervention of Jesus himself, in a blinding vision, and Paul ended up becoming one of those followers of Jesus himself.

When Paul says "the law brings wrath," again, it's hard to imagine his own past is not on his mind. He remembered how he had been trained in the law as a Pharisee, he remembered how he had so zealously kept the law to the point of being "blameless"; and he also remembered how that zeal for the law had turned him into a persecutor of the very church for which he now was an apostle of the faith.

While it would be possible to point out any number of examples of this phenomenon playing out in the church today, depending on what streaming services you have available to you on your home television or computer, there are two interesting documentaries that might just point to this consequence of zealous adherence to the law. Currently available on Hulu is The Secrets of Hillsong, a four-part examination of the rise and spectacular fall of the leadership of Hillsong Church, the expansive and wildly popular megachurch operation that started in Australia and spread worldwide. A large part of the story is how those zealous leaders themselves went astray in marital infidelity and abusiveness against women; another part is how, despite its outward projection of welcome and acceptance, it turned out to be not that accepting of women, blacks, and other minority groups.

On the other hand, if you have Amazon Prime Video, you can stream Shiny Happy People: Duggar Family Secrets, about the family made famous by the various "18/19/21 and Counting" TV shows and the extreme theological teachings behind their organization. This came, of course, after the arrest and conviction of one of the sons of that family for obtaining child pornography, and allegations that he abused others in the family. (As if this weren't enough, another Duggar son was arrested on abuse charges just this past March.)

Something about that kind of zealous law-keeping seems to bring out the worst in us. Whether religious leaders or family leaders or frankly anyone caught up in it, it just seems inevitably to turn destructive, maybe even into wrath in Paul's words. It doesn't seem to bring life. It sure does seem to bring a zealous urge to persecute or take down those who don't keep that law exactly the same way you do. It brings wrath.

It is so important to understand, perhaps especially in this age of legalistic zealousness thinly disguised as faith, that the promise God gives to us is not one we've earned. We don't "get right with God" by checking off rules on a list or by making any great display of our righteousness. And we certainly don't "get right with God" by checking off a set of beliefs that we will defend with great vigor and maybe a bit of wrath. We aren't justified by what we believe; we are justified by the one we believe in, the one we trust. All of that promise comes of God's doing, and our calling is to accept that grace and then to live that grace (not that law) to others.

For the promise that comes through faith and nothing else, Thanks be to God. Amen.

 

Hymns (from Glory to God: the Presbyterian Hymnal): #49, The God of Abraham Praise; #---, Lord, show us a faith; #506, Look Who Gathers at Christ's Table!; #838, Standing on the Promises

 

Notes on the Hymn Sing 5/31/26

  

First Presbyterian Church, East Moline, IL

May 31, 2026, Trinity A

2 Chronicles 5:11-14; Colossians 3:12-17

 

Notes on the Hymn Sing

 

 

Today actually is Trinity Sunday, on which the church is called to reflect upon the mystery that the same God who is one is also three - "God in three persons, blessed Trinity," as our first hymn of the day puts it. Trinity is an occasion on which an earnest preacher can get tripped on some fine point of doctrine if not careful, ending up somewhere between serious error and outright heresy. Having a hymn sing today, therefore, sounded like a good idea.

The three hymns that appear in the regular places in the service are reflective of the day's focus on the Trinity; they are not among the requests given for the hymn sing. That includes Hymn #8, possibly recognized by some as "the Navy hymn" but in fact a fine Trinitarian hymn. In addition to the five here, there is one more request included in the service, but it seemed useful to place it in the response spot after the offering and let it recur for a few weeks at least.

The first hymn of the sing is a long-familiar one in the church, with its original Irish text dating back to at least the tenth or eleventh century. It takes a particular Irish form known as a lorica, which is a form of prayer for protection; two other hymns in Glory to God, #6 and #543, also take the form and function of the lorica. The Irish text was first translated in 1905, and adapted to verse for singing in 1912, by two Irish women.

(sing, standing)

The next two hymns both come from a twentieth-century  impulse toward a loosening of congregational song from particular forms and structures in place for many decades by this time. The author and composer of this first hymn was quite insistent that the verses were meant to be sung by a soloist or soloists, with the congregation singing the refrain in full. Since I didn't think to acquire a soloist, we will all sing the whole song.

(sing, sitting)

Like the previous hymn, "On Eagle's Wings" comes from that twentieth-century song movement that was rooted in the Catholic church. This one you might remember being included in the presidential inauguration ceremonies of January 2020.

(sing, standing)

Our next hymn harkens back to the earlier twentieth century. Its author indicates that, unlike many popular and long-lasting hymn texts, this one was not prompted by any particular event in his life; it simply grew out of his familiarity with two particular scriptures (James 1:17 and Lamentations 3:22-23), particularly in the King James Version which was most prominently in use in the 1920s.

(sing, sitting)

The story behind the creation of our final hymn in this set has something to say about student-teacher relationships. To wit; the tune was composed by the famous composer and teacher Charles Villiers Stanford as an accompaniment to the familiar hymn text "For all the saints." It caught on quickly and became quite popular, but two years later in editing the English Hymnal, Ralph Vaughan Williams replaced the Stanford tune ENGELBERG with his own SINE NOMINE, which remains paired to that text today. (And yes, Stanford had been one of Vaughan Williams' composition teachers. Gotta wonder how that relationship was.) It took almost seventy years for a hymn editor to suggest to the hymn writer Fred Pratt Green that he create a new text for the tune, and this pairing has become almost as fixed as the "For all the saints" pairing.

(sing, standing)

It is interesting to me that, with the exception of "Be thou my vision" and the Doxology to come later, all of today's requested hymns are from the twentieth century. It's probably just as well that such hymns have their day as ever more texts and tunes are created in these early decades of the twenty-first century.

 

 

Sermon: The One With All the Languages

  

First Presbyterian Church

May 24, 2026, Pentecost A

Numbers11:24-30; Acts 2:1-21

 

The One with All the Languages

 

 

One of the things that sometimes needs to be set straight about Pentecost is that no, this is not the first time the Holy Spirit is invoked in scripture. Today's first reading provides one such counterexample, as a stressed-out Moses pleads for help and God invokes that Spirit to be bestowed upon seventy elders of the people of Israel so that they might share some of the burden of leadership. That Spirit's appearance is made manifest in an outburst of frenetic prophesying, one that spills over to include two men back in the camp, not numbered among those seventy. Joshua (in a typical fit of church leadership) wants to have those two men silenced and that unexpected outburst of Holy Spirit squelched, but Moses (in a typical fit of pastoral weariness) stuffs that idea, crying out that he wished everyone could prophesy. It's not how we typically expect to see the Spirit play out, to be sure, especially since this prophetic outburst is only a one-time thing, but it still serves to remind us that the Holy Spirit is not a new thing as the disciples show up for this Pentecost morning.

While the Holy Spirit isn't new in this case, there are certainly some distinctive features of this particular Spirit-event that are worth noting on this one day of the liturgical year when the Spirit comes to the forefront. The Ascension of Jesus got all of four words in the ancient creeds ("he ascended into heaven"), and in one case the Holy Spirit doesn't do a lot better. The Apostles' Creed, one of the oldest statements of faith in Christendom, has this to say on the subject:

 

I believe in the Holy Ghost...

 

That's it. Thankfully the Nicene Creed does a bit better, giving a whole paragraph to the subject. The church has some history of not really paying attention to this particular member of the Trinity, perhaps to its own harm; it is the Spirit most of all that is the most direct participant in the day-to-day life of the follower of Christ, and it is this Pentecost in-breaking of the Spirit that marks the ongoing truth of this presence and participation.

Since we last heard from this group, we know that they have indeed remained inJerusalem as they were instructed. Acts also mentions in an interesting aside that they elected one of their number to replace Judas, the traitor against Jesus whose grisly death is reported in an aside. And they have waited, probably wondering what exactly they were waiting for (as noted last week). Now they're about to find out.

The description itself lingers: "a sound like the rush of a violent wind"; "divided tongues, as of fire"; and then, the sound of all the languages.

Let's be clear; this group of followers is speaking languages they don't know, but that other peoples outside of Judea or Palestine do speak. Ecstatic utterances in tongues that require interpretation (what we commonly call "speaking in tongues") come later in Acts; this event is one of miraculous speech and hearing.

Those tongues matter because just outside their windows there is a crowd of folks gathered in Jerusalem for the festival of the harvest that was Pentecost in the Jewish tradition, a group ripe to hear something good each in their own language.

Have you had that experience of being in a crowd with people speaking any language but your own? The particular challenge of this was pressed home for me many years ago when I was in Quebec City for a conference back in my academic days. The conference itself was held in English but going out for dinner or frankly anything else meant being among French speakers. While some also spoke English well enough to understand me, that wasn't always the case. I'm horrible with languages, and French is one of my worst. At least in this case the worst that came of it was that I declined the sugar I very much wanted for my coffee.

These people were Jews from, as a Judean would have seen it, all over the world. The list of locations provided here literally denotes a whole range of nationalities from the east, north, west, and south of Jerusalem, a way of evoking that which we sometimes metaphorically call "the four corners" of the world. Before these followers of Jesus get sent out into the world, the world has come to them. And because of this outburst of the Holy Spirit, the world at the windows is able to hear good news, each in their own language.

This is not always a thing the church or the world has taken to heart. The Western world in particular has a particular imperial history of forcing their own languages upon those peoples whom they encounter, or frequently whom they conquer. On the North American frontier, those seeking to drive out or subjugate the Native peoples made a very specific and fixed point of pushing to eradicate the languages those so-called "savages" spoke. An Indian, in the vernacular of the time, could only be tolerated if every trace of "Indian-ness" was driven out of them, and it was presumed that one of the surest ways to do so was to take away their language, especially in the "Indian" schools that appeared on those frontiers. (I first learned of these schools while down in Lawrence, KS, where one such school was eventually changed into the current Haskell Indian Nations University, there were two such schools in Illinois in the late 19th century). The students at such schools were forbidden to speak their own language, being forced to speak English, or possibly French in Canadian schools. This, of course, was in addition to numerous other oppressions visited upon them, quite literally as a means of separating them from their families and their peoples for good.

What happens in today's scripture is the complete and total opposite of that act of emotional violence. Those seekers who came to Jerusalem, thanks to the working of the Holy Spirit, were welcomed in their own languages. They weren't stripped of who they were, weren't denied their own humanity and worth, in order to hear the gospel. One could even say that this Holy Spirit outbreak was for these listeners, the ones who heard the commotion of that sound like a violent wind and wondered what was going on, as much as it was for these followers of Jesus, or maybe even more so.

We don't really know how it worked from here forward, as the believers (including possibly those who became believers on this day) were scattered from Jerusalem into, well, all the world. There were certainly going to be language barriers to be faced as these followers of Christ spread further and further out from Judea. But these followers knew from experience that the Holy Spirit would find a way for them to communicate with those waiting to hear the gospel.

Do we actually believe that? It can be a scary thing to find ourselves in a world where, more and more, it seems like most folks out there aren't speaking our "language," whether literally or more figuratively. While Pentecost can mean an awful lot of different things in the life of the church, sometimes it can be hard to remember that the Holy Spirit has experience with helping Christ's followers find the right language to speak, if we will listen and submit to that work. It might be disruptive, and it might take us out of our comfort zones, but it has been done, and it can be done.

At the same time, the Holy Spirit also has that experience of preparing those who listen, those who seek to hear, those who call upon the name of the Lord, to be able to hear that word in their own language and to be ready to respond.

For all the languages, and the Spirit's ability to speak them, Thanks be to God. Amen.

 

Hymns (from Glory to God: The Presbyterian Hymnal): #289, On Pentecost They Gathered; #291, Spirit, Spirit of Gentleness; #280, Come, O Spirit, Dwell Among Us

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sermon: Now What?

First Presbyterian Church

May 24, 2020, Easter 7A

Acts1:1-14

 

Now What?

 

The waiting is the hardest part

Every day you see one more card

You take it on faith; you take it to the heart

The waiting is the hardest part

 

I can't possibly tell you how much fun it was for this novice pastor when Scripture and circumstance came together in such a fashion that I was finally able to quote a Tom Petty song lyric in a sermon given in that singer's hometown of Gainesville, Florida.

Waiting is one of those things that is easy to overlook unless you're in the middle of it. For example, accounts of D-Day focus on the crossing of the English Channel, the fierce battles to hold the beach at Normandy and finally to move inland against ferocious enemy fire. Less often recalled are the weeks and months of planning and preparation and, yes, waiting, for weather to be better, for the Channel to be crossable. Yet without the patience to endure that time of waiting and preparation – had the invasion been launched against an impassable crossing or impenetrable weather, D-Day would have come to naught (and who knows how different history would look?).

No matter our eagerness, no matter our desperation (or what seems like desperation), no matter what, there are times when we simply must wait.

This is where the followers of Jesus find themselves at the end of today's reading from the book of Acts. A lot has happened in these few verses, where the author Luke has filled in a few details that he didn't include in his first account of the Ascension, at the end of his gospel (including that Jesus spent forty days with the disciples, not just one). The disciples ask a question (one that demonstrates that they, after all this time, really don't get it), Jesus brushes it off, offers up the promise of verse 8 that also includes a charge that will change their lives forever (if they haven't already been so changed), and is lifted up to heaven. Some angels (we think?) chastise the disciples for staring up into the sky (which seems unfair to me; it's not every day you see something like this!) and promise that one day Jesus will return the same way they've just seen him depart.

With those words ringing in their ears, the followers make the short trip back into Jerusalem, return to the "room upstairs" where they have been staying (maybe the same "upper room" where they had that last supper where Jesus broke the bread and shared the cup and gave them that new commandment about doing in remembrance of him, but we don’t know for sure), and there they waited.

Waiting for…what? It's entirely possible, maybe even likely, they didn't know what they were waiting for.

Jesus had told them to wait, way back in verse 4. He told them to wait for "the promise of the Father." In the next verse he tells them that they will be "baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now." (This is an echo of a promise from the end of the gospel account, Luke 24:47, in which Jesus says that repentance and forgiveness of sin is to be "proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem") A couple of verses down back in Acts, just before he is lifted up, he makes that big promise that "you will receive power…and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth." And finally there was that angelic promise that Jesus would return one day just the way he had left.

Yet it's quite likely, if the disciples were honest with themselves, that they had no idea what any of those things meant. So, not much to do but follow Jesus's orders, and wait.

The eleven disciples aren't alone at this point. Luke observes that "certain women" were joining them, including Jesus's mother Mary, who hasn't shown up in Luke's story since the trip to Jerusalem back in chapter 4 of the gospel, where twelve-year-old Jesus got separated from the family and took up residence as the Temple's youngest visiting scholar. We can guess that the "certain women" probably included at least the same women who had shown up at certain points in the gospel narrative, such as Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, an unknown woman named Joanna, and others who were mentioned in Luke 23-24 as coming to the tomb to prepare his body with spices only to find the tomb empty. Also, Jesus's brothers are now included in the company.             

And…they wait.

Biblical scholar Beverly Gaventa makes a wonderful point about verse 14 in its original Greek. The verb for the first part of the sentence actually has a root meaning of "persist"; read this way the first part of the sentence tells us that "these were all persisting together."[i] Persisting together. Now that's an image, made all the more powerful with the addition of the words "to prayer." Persisting together to prayer.

Prayer's never a bad idea, of course, but perhaps in a time of "nothing to do but wait" it's all the more powerful a recourse. I suspect, though, that we're not talking about any old kind of prayer.

There is the kind of prayer that is familiar from your average church service, like this one – spoken out loud, directed toward God, with some statement of praise or petition at its core. We speak the Lord's Prayer together, or there's an opening Prayer of the Day or a Prayer for Illumination before the scripture is read. In Prayers of the People there is a space for prayer that does at least outwardly consist of silence, in which we are all invited to lift up prayers of intercession. Those are all good and needful prayers, but I suspect that's not necessarily the prayer this little company of Jesus's followers was most in need of praying in this time.  

Several years ago the best-selling author Anne Lamont authored a book that developed the idea that most prayers can be boiled down to one of three essential prayers, which were encapsulated in the book's title: Help Thanks Wow.

That's not a bad summary of prayer, and one could argue that the Lord's Prayer actually summarizes all three of those facets quite nicely. Still, though, I'm going to suggest there's something slightly different at play in the followers' persisting together in prayer during this waiting time, and maybe that might need to be a large part of our prayer in our own current waiting time. How's this for a prayer:

Now what?

Yes, Anne Lamont could probably argue it's a kind of "help" prayer, but I think there's something different at play. It's not a prayer about getting help with some specific thing. In fact, it isn't necessarily a prayer where we ask for much of anything at all.

It's not a prayer about getting back to normal or returning to anything, not about restoring or regaining or re-anything at all. The primary principle of this prayer is to wait for that promised baptizing with the Holy Spirit (whatever that means), for that power (whatever that means). Somehow, we trust that there is something wrapped up in Jesus's words that we don't understand or grasp in any way, but we trust, somehow, that whatever is behind it really is the Lord's doing.

Now what? We wait. We persist together. We pray. We can't say for sure exactly what we wait for, or what we pray for. But we wait, persist together, pray. And what happens?

To be continued.

Thanks be to God. Amen.

 

Hymns (from Glory to God: The Presbyterian Hymnal): #264, At the Name of Jesus; #---, When they saw their Teacher lifted; #260, Alleluia! Sing to Jesus

 

 

---

[i] Beverly Roberts Gaventa, Acts (Abingdon New Testament Commentaries Series, Abingdon Press, 2003), 68.

 

Sermon: You Had Me Until That Resurrection Bit

First Presbyterian Church

May 10, 2026, Easter 6A

Acts17:16-34

 

You Had Me Until That Resurrection Bit

 

 

Paul found himself in Athens as today's reading begins, and it wasn't exactly his idea. First he had been run out of Thessalonica on a rail, then when he and his partners seemed to be making headway in Beroea, some of his opponents in Thessalonica found out and traveled there to stir up opposition and (hopefully) violence against Paul as they had in their own town. The newly-hatched community of believers in Beroea got Paul out of town fast, while his partners Silas and Timothy stayed behind to help get everything back in order. Ultimately Paul was deposited in Athens, more or less with the instruction to sit tight and stay out of trouble. As you can imagine, Paul was not the type who had even the slightest inclination to stay out of trouble.

Athens did have a synagogue, so Paul went there first, according to his usual pattern. His usual pattern of getting in trouble, though, got interrupted when some of the regulars in the marketplace got wind of what he was up to. Athens had what might be called an active public debate scene, and Athenians of various religious or philosophical systems (including some Epicureans and Stoics, as our author notes) jumped into the intellectual fray. Finally it was decided by the locals that this babbler of foreign deities might at least have something different to say, so he was hauled off to the ancient hill of debate known as the Areopagus.

At one time being hauled off to the Areopagus could be a matter of life or death, but by this time that no longer appears to have been the case. At any rate Paul was granted the opportunity to explain himself before the council there, and this speech became one of his most famous, even if it was one of his least typical.

What stands out about this speech is the degree to which Paul adapted his message to the intellectual and philosophical background of his hearers. He begins by acknowledging the plethora of idols offered up by the city, perhaps with tongue somewhat in cheek. By seizing upon one such idol – the one with the unprepossessing label "to an unknown god" – Paul forms a quick connection with his hearers, and from there proceeds through Athenian thought to approach the idea of a god unlike those the Athenians tended to idolize (and here that word really is being used literally). He quotes from their own literature; the phrase "in him we live and move and have our being" is taken from the ancient poet Aratus (although it was requoted many times in their literature), and the following "we too are his offspring" also appears in Greek literature frequently. And if we are the offspring of this god, it makes no sense to think of this god being reducible to wood or stone, does it?

Things seem to be going pretty well, initially. Paul actually identifies with his audience about as much as possible and certainly shows respect for their own intellectual and philosophical traditions. Still, there's only so far you can go in "accounting for the hope that is within you" before you end up having to say something that your interlocutor will disagree with, and Paul is now to that point.

First there is this notion of repentance and judgment, which wasn't really a part of most belief systems among the Athenians, and probably brought about some grumbling on the part of his audience. But that wasn't the worst of it, not by a long shot. Who's going to be the one who carries out this judgment in righteousness? No less than "a man who he has appointed, and of this he has given assurance by raising him from the dead." This is what broke up the meeting.

Some, as our author tells us, scoffed. Scoffing can take many forms; outright out-loud mockery, or a subtler but more dismissive "pfft" and walking away, or even just an incredulous facial expression. Whatever it was, that element of the audience was gone, intellectually if not physically.

It's important to understand something here. It isn't merely the idea of resurrection as a thing itself that underscores all the mockery. It isn't just about the reaction "bodies don't rise from the dead!"; there is, as would be the case with any good audience steeped in Greek philosophical traditions, an equal if not greater reaction "why would you want a body to rise from the dead?", or perhaps more by the far more succinct expression "oh, gross!" Greek thought (or at least some corners of it) had no particular problem with the idea of living beyond death, but frankly one of the good parts of such a post-mortem life was being free from the physical body. Disembodied spirit was the ideal.

We should be honest here; we're not always free of such an idea. After all, what is reflected in a saying like "shuffle off this mortal coil" besides the very idea of being rid of this broken-down old body? And if we're honest about it, it's not hard to be sympathetic to the idea. After the various breakings-down my body has experienced in the past decade-plus I can understand wanting to be rid of it, and I'm guessing some of you can too.

Paul goes into more detail on this in some of his epistles when he speaks of how "we will not all die, but we will all be changed" in writing to the Corinthians. But here, the event dissolves over this notion that a large part of the audience just can't accept. A large part, but not all; some were curious to hear more, and even a few followed, including one of the Areopagus regulars named Dionysius and a woman named Damaris. Sounds like a mixed result, I suppose, but at least they didn't chase him out of town.

But again, there comes that point when our testimony has to tell the whole story, even the parts that seem wild and fantastical and unbelievable to some of those with whom we share. As we make our way through this season of Easter, that one thing – the whole God-raised-him-from-the-dead business that so offended some of Paul's audience at the Acropolis – is still too much of a hurdle for many moderns to get over. But as Paul put it, again writing to the Corinthians, "if Christ has not been raised, then our proclamation has been in vain and your faith has been in vain." It's hard to make any kind of good news out of a resurrection-less gospel.

And, even in this time with death a far more immediate companion than we normally acknowledge, our hope is still in the assurance that death did not have the last word for Jesus and will not have the last word on us.

Thanks be to God. Amen.

 

Hymns (from Glory to God: The Presbyterian Hymnal): #244, This Joyful Eastertide; #251, Christ Has Arisen, Alleluia; #485, We Know that Christ Is Raised

 

Sermon: In Common

First Presbyterian Church

April 26, 2026, Easter 4A

Acts2:42-47

 

In Common

 

Do you remember “choosing up sides” as a kid?

You know, the group is all set to play some game, but you need to divide into teams, so two “captains” are appointed and then they take turns choosing until everybody’s on a team?

I remember mostly being chosen near the end most of the time. Never have been terribly athletic, although I could hit a little if the game were baseball or softball.

But maybe you remember “choosing up sides” and then playing. Of course, how you chose depended a little bit on what game you were playing. The big stocky guy would be great for a game of pickup football, or for that childhood favorite “Red Rover” where you formed lines and called out one from the other team to dare them to break through your line. I never really thought at the time just how violent a game “Red Rover” was. But anyway, that big stocky guy might not the best choice for a game of pickup basketball (or especially soccer, but we weren't playing that much back then).

So yeah, choosing up sides could sting a little if you were chronically chosen last. Maybe the bigger problem, though, is that in a lot of ways, we never do get over “choosing up sides,” even as we pass from childhood to adulthood and we’re not playing games anymore. In many ways we “choose up sides” when we choose where to live, with whom to socialize or spend our time, certainly when we vote, who we respect or who we scorn. Even the chocolate-covered caramel wafer we might pick up in the supermarket dares us to "pick a side"; are you a Left Twix or a Right Twix? (hold up candy)

And yeah, Christians can be guilty of “choosing up sides” even in the church.

Sometimes it shows up simply in choosing which individual church to attend, seeking out people who “look like us”, or who we know “think like us”. Sometimes it’s all about whatever gain a person can gain from being among that congregation’s members in terms of social status or influence.

Suffice to say that this kind of “choosing up sides” isn’t at all what is at work in today’s reading from Acts. This brief vignette from the life of the early followers of Christ, still not quite a church yet, follows after the Pentecost story and Peter’s subsequent sermon that day (which, due to the quirks of the Revised Common Lectionary, we don't hear for a few more weeks). One of the key points of that Pentecost account was the presence of Jews from points far and near, speakers of many languages, who were first drawn to the event by hearing the disciples’ proclamation in their own varied languages. Aside from the moving of the Spirit in that Pentecost event there was very little reason for those people to be together in that place in that time, much less for three thousand of them to stick around and be part of the still-forming community.

Today’s reading contains another similar point, maybe a little hidden behind the part of the scripture that always gets people on edge.

Particularly among those of a particular political persuasion, verses 44-45 are guaranteed to provoke a pointed reaction. Just the mention of a community that “had all things in common” and that “would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need” is virtually guaranteed to provoke horrified gasps and mutterings of “socialism!” or worse. I’m watching y’all right now, you know, for signs of exactly that.

And yes, I get that this is a shocking thing to see right here in your Bible, and probably downright offensive to that particular political ruling class holding power right now.  But maybe the larger shock, the larger miracle is that this particular community, drawn together by nothing other than the Spirit, includes both the folks with possessions to sell and those without. Rich and poor together, in addition to people of all nations together. Let’s not mince words; we just don’t see that so often in many churches, either of those let alone both.

And all of the things happening in this community described in this passage – together in fellowship and breaking bread, the “wonders and signs” in verse 43, being together in the Temple and in one another’s homes, and yes, the having everything in common and selling stuff to provide for one another – seems to be connected to, and maybe inseparable from, this being brought together in the Holy Spirit. Maybe none of those things happen in a community that comes together by plain old human “choosing up sides.” Maybe it takes being so caught up in the leading and moving of the Spirit that we live and work among a community we would otherwise never have chosen to be ready for wonders and signs. (And if Acts 6 is taken seriously, that didn't necessarily last long, it's as if the community resorted to "choosing up sides.")

As we come together, especially on those Sundays of communion around the table but any Sunday after all, like those followers so long ago, look around. Did we "choose up sides" to be here? Or is the Spirit moving among us and within us and through us, drawing us together for, literally, God only knows what? Who knows what wonders and signs might come?

For whatever comes and for whoever comes, Thanks be to God. Amen.

 

 

Hymns (from Glory to God: The Presbyterian Hymnal): #236, The Strife is O'er; #317, In Christ There Is No East or West; #238, Thine Is the Glory

 

 

 

 

Yes, even your candy is provoking you to choose up sides.