Worship Services of First Baptist Church of Lawrence, KS

One the most memorable movies during my growing-up years was Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. As an adult, the movie has some racial undertones and slavery symbolism that you can’t un-see, but these go right over your head as a child. It was about candy and joy and of course, chocolate!

For those who may not remember the movie, it was about a young boy named Charlie Bucket who was one of a handful of children who received a Golden Ticket to enter into the mysterious factory of Willy Wonka (played by Gene Wilder in the movie). One by one, these children are revealed to be selfish or uncaring, and end up in vats of chocolate, or turned into blueberries, other similar punishments. Until at last, the only one left is Charlie, who Wonka reveals gets to inherit the whole thing. The factory, the chocolate, everything is his!

Which is, of course, a movie all about the Holy Trinity? Obvious, isn’t it?

Today is Trinity Sunday, which is a Sunday that many preachers dread every year. They dread the pressure and expectation of taking one of the most complex and unclear doctrines of the faith and turning it into a 25 minute sermon. And if you think it is hard for preachers, imagine the task in front of those who have to do the children’s sermon! Try and explain the Trinity in three minutes or less! With an object lesson, if possible!

And I think that this dread is shared…by preachers on Trinity Sunday, or parents trying to explain it to their kids, or Christians trying to explain it to friends or co-workers who don’t share the faith. Trying to explain the substance and personhood and nature of God is something that seminary professors and big-time theologians have struggled to do over the years, let alone the rest of us!

But let me suggest something perhaps a little radical today. Maybe our job this morning isn’t to explain the Trinity.

I think that part of where this dread comes from is that we think we have to have this airtight, crystal clear, doctrinally sound theological explanation, that sparkles from the pulpit, or wows our neighbors. We think that our salvation depends on some unambiguous theological understanding of who God is…as Creator, as Christ, and as Spirit. With an object lesson, if possible! And maybe a chart. And some long Greek words.

But look at how the Bible talks about the Trinity. It is very much chart-free. And metaphor-free. And even free of the actual word “Trinity.”

But we have seen examples from the lectionary today as a handful of the passages that reference this “multiple” nature of God:

·         The call of Isaiah has this three-fold, singular-yet-plural nature of God, as the prophet is called in the power of this Temple experience.

·         Then Psalm 29 is a creation psalm—it would fit just as well in our Season of Creation at the end of the summer—but again speaks of God in this plural and eternal and omnipresent way.

·         And John 3 is one of the most famous, as Jesus the Son talks about God as Father and references the Spirit.

·         And there are plenty of others. One of my favorites is the baptism of Jesus in Mark especially, and the Two-Way named others, including the first creation story in Genesis one and the spirit of God hovering over the deep, and John 1 and “the Word was with God and the Word was God.”

But, again, there is this distinct lack of tables and charts and complex theological language. These passages seem to point to a truth off in the distance, but one shrouded in a mist. Maybe the point of the Trinity is not to take that truth and package it into something that can be stenciled onto a wall, or printed in a greeting card, or placed on a doo-dad at a Christian bookstore. But the point of the Trinity seems to be that its fullness exists beyond that mist:

·         Like the smoke-filled Temple of Isaiah, where even this prophet, this powerful speaker, this wordsmith, cannot help but say, “I am a man of unclean lips.”

·         Or the psalmist, who finds the best language to describe God comes from Creation, with phrases like “holy splendor” and “flames of fire” and wilderness.

·         Or Nicodemus, who was a wise and learned scholar of his day, who just. didn’t. get it. Who Jesus chides for being unable to understand what it means to be born from above. In Nicodemus’ confusion, Jesus uses language of wind and water and slippery serpents, in conjunction with the words of salvation and eternity.

If these words of Scripture say one thing with utmost clarity, it is this: we cannot speak of God with utmost clarity. Our words cannot be perfect. Our understanding cannot be complete. Even here in Romans 8, Paul, who never shies away from sounding like he has all the answers, shares this language of Trinity that is humble and open and full of mystery. When you don’t know how to pray, when the ways of the world and the ways of God are a mystery, the Spirit will intercede “with sighs too deep for words.” When you don’t understand, you are not alone. When you cannot explain what is happening, the Triune God is with you. The God beyond our explaining is not a God beyond our knowing.

“God with us.” Maybe that’s all the theology you need to understand of the Trinity. The God of “with”… “Jesus with the One he called Father”… “Christ with the power of the Spirit”…God with God with God… is also God with us. The “withness” of God is what you need to remember from Trinity Sunday. God who has always been God in relationship, in community, in family, is the God who invites you into that family, to share that relationship.

Which is exactly where Paul goes in his theological treatise in Romans. At the time that Paul writes, according to scholar Sarah Ruden, a popular form of literature is what is sometimes called “adoption fantasy.” In the midst of a people who were under the thumb of the Romans, often living in poverty and despair, there was a popular genre of story that suggested a form of salvation. The short version of these stories is that a normal nobody—like you and me—would get adopted by a high-ranking Roman official. They would get noticed for their virtue or their giftedness, and this rich Roman patron would adopt this nobody. Instead of giving their money to their own rotten children, they would give it all to this adopted child.

We see a similar story in our own culture. Little orphan Annie? Not abandoned and left in the cruel, hard-knock orphanage, but adopted by the gracious Daddy Warbucks! Or Harry Potter? Not an unloved orphan, locked in a closet by his uncaring aunt and uncle, but a boy with incredible power and true family heritage!

Or, you waited so patiently for it…Charlie and the Chocolate Factory! The best known adoption narrative of my generation. This poor boy who wasn’t rich, or powerful, or charismatic, or smart. Those kids all went by the wayside. Willy Wonka chose him! Adopted him as his protégé. To receive his paradise.

Paul asks, what if that story came true? What if we were loved so dearly…not just by a Roman patron, or a family of wizards, or millionaire with a candy factory? What if we were loved so dearly by the Creator of the universe, that we would be adopted into the Family of God? What if we could leave behind the emptiness and the brokenness of the world around us, and instead enter into the eternity of that Family? Of that relationship? Of that love? What if that adoption meant that we were children of God? What if that adoption meant that Jesus—the One and Only—became our brother? What if the Holy Spirit of God dwelt in us? Isn’t that the kind of family that we yearn for in our wildest dreams? The kind of family that Paul wistfully wrote about…that Isaiah glimpsed in that Temple, that the psalmist saw in Creation, and that even old Nicodemus could figure out.

And it’s true. That’s the truth of the Trinity. That God with God with God…is God with us. That we are grafted into the Family of God. That our inheritance is beyond that of Willy Wonka or Daddy Warbucks…it is the eternity of God’s heaven!

There is a song that Gene Wilder sings in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. It is a little silly in parts, but I can imagine the Holy God singing it today, in three-part harmony…

Come with me and you’ll be

In a world of pure imagination

Take a look and you’ll see

Into your imagination

We’ll begin with a spin

Travelling in the world of my creation

What we’ll see will defy explanation…

May it be so! Even as the God that we see defies explanation, it is with the fullness of our hearts and minds and hopes and imaginings that we see that God with God with God…with us…invites us into the eternal love and grace and family of faith, where God waits to bring us home.

The people of God worried about the future before them. Their leader, Moses, had left on a hiking expedition some time ago, and they had caught glimpses of him as he climbed to the top of the mountain. But now the mountain was filled with smoke and fire and trembled with the power of God, and they wondered if Moses would ever return.

In fact, some had given up hope. Many had begun to grumble. They melted their gold down to create a symbol of earthly virility and strength, because they thought they would all be better off if they returned to the old ways. Back to the bondage of requirements and coercion and certainty. Back to the security of slavery to the ways of the world.

Little did the people of God know what awaited them! For before long, Moses would descend the mountain, holding the Torah. The law. The sign of the covenant of God with God’s people. Torah would not be simply a how-to guide, a to-do list, a prescription of “supposed to’s.”

But it would be a description of a life that God wanted for them, a celebration of community and relationship and calling and covenant and justice and purpose, a gift of the knowledge of what life would look like when God’s people lived in right relationship: about how they would treat each other, about how they would honor God holy and above all, about how their bodies mattered to God, about the things that flow out of a Spirit-led life.

As the mountain rumbled and God spoke, little did God’s people know what was in store from the Spirit of God!

The people of God worried about the future before them. Their leader, the Risen Jesus, had left to return to God’s glory some time ago, and they had caught glimpses of him as he ascended into the heavens. But now they were unsure what to do next, how to behave, how to live the life that he had shown them. They hid together in an upper room, peeking outside to see the throngs gathered for the Pentecost festival. From all corners of the globe, pilgrims gathered, while the followers of Jesus huddled together.

In fact, some had given up hope. They were most worried about the structure of the institution…Jesus had chosen 12, so they needed a 12th apostle to replace Judas. They chose Matthias by lot, in an attempt to return to the old ways. 12 Tribes. 12 Apostles. Structure complete. They thought they would all be better off if they simply returned to the old ways. Back to the bondage of requirements and coercion and certainty. Back to the security of slavery to the ways of the world.

Little did the people of God know what awaited them! For before long, The Spirit of God would descend on each of them, empowering them to Gospel ministry. Women and men. Powerful and powerless. Outgoing and reserved. It didn’t matter. At once, they were ALL empowered to tell of the Good News of Jesus to all who gathered for the festival.

It was the sign of the covenant of God with God’s people. The covenant that the throngs in the streets had come to witness to. The sign that they yearned to experience. Every one of them in the streets would hear that good news, in their own language. In their own tongue. Not a how-to guide, a to-do list, a prescription of “supposed to’s.” But it would be a description of a life that God wanted for them, a celebration of community and relationship and calling and covenant and justice and purpose, a gift of the knowledge of what life would look like when God’s people lived in right relationship: about how they would treat each other, about how they would honor God holy and above all, about how they mattered to God, about the things that flow out of a Spirit-led life.

As the room rumbled and God spoke, little did God’s people know what was in store from the Spirit of God!

The people of God worried about the future before them. Their leader, Paul, had moved on, left the congregations in the Roman providence of Galatia, in order to begin more churches, support other congregations elsewhere. Here in the highlands of Galatia, these Gentiles had heard the words of Paul and responded. They fell in love with the stories of Jesus that he shared. They entered into community of service and care and worship. But now, Paul had been gone for some time, and they wondered if he would ever return.

In fact, some had given up hope. Many had begun to grumble. There were “certain individuals” who had come from the home office in Jerusalem and they warned these Galatian Gentiles that there was more to the community of God than they had been led to believe. Some in the congregations had become enamored with the requirements that these certain individuals spoke of. They thought they would all be better off if they returned to their old ways. Back to the bondage of requirements and coercion and certainty. Back to the security of slavery to the ways of the world.

Little did the people of God know what awaited them! For before long, a courier would arrive, breathless, with a letter from Paul. Congregations would be gathered. The letter would be read. Faces would turn red as they heard the anger of Paul’s words. But tears of gratitude would also be shed, as they heard Paul’s description of the power of the Spirit. Of the fruit that comes when the community sets their eyes on this holy and Spirit-filled life. Not “fruits” with an “s.” Not a plural list of to-do’s, a how-to-guide, a prescription of “supposed to’s.”

But “fruit of the spirit.” In the collective. A cornucopia. A bountiful banquet that is the sign of the covenant of God with God’s people. A description of a life that God wanted for them, a celebration of community and relationship and calling and covenant and justice and purpose, a gift of the knowledge of what life would look like when God’s people lived in right relationship: about how they would treat each other, about how they would honor God holy and above all, about how their bodies mattered to God, about the things that flow out of a Spirit-led life.

As the letter rumbled and God spoke through the words of Paul, little did God’s people know what was in store from the Spirit of God!

The people of God worried about the future before them. Their congregation had been through so many leadership changes in the last few years, and so much had changed in their church and their little university community in the hills of northeast Kansas. The world was changing around them, and they wondered what these changes would mean for their church and their faith.

In fact, some had given up hope. Many had begun to grumble. They remembered the church of years before, decades earlier. If it had worked then, why wouldn’t it work again? They thought they would all be better off if they returned to the old ways. Back to the bondage of requirements and coercion and certainty. Back to the security of slavery to the ways of the world.

Little did the people of God know what awaited them! For before long, a small band of leaders would climb aboard a plane and fly to the tiny island nation of Haiti. There, they would find themselves, and eventually their church, changed by the very power of the Spirit of God. In Haiti, they would meet missionaries of incredible faith and trust in God’s power. They would see Kingdom work as they dug holes for the foundation of a school, and fell in love with a people and a purpose. And on Pentecost Sunday, sweating in the open-air sanctuary at the end of a dusty Haitian road, they would see the power of God. As a clueless and ineffectual preacher stood in front of that Haitian congregation, they watched his translator, a young woman mentored and chosen for her gifts, turn his words into Gospel power. As the Church celebrated its birth at Pentecost, this team of Kansans watched the birth of a preacher, a pastor with a vision and a dream to change the world for God.

And through the next decade, the partnership with these missionaries, with this country, with this preacher, has changed this congregation forever. Not with a tired how-to guide, a to-do list, a prescription of “supposed to’s.” But instead, their partnership with these Haitian missionaries, the school they built together, and new understandings of what it means to join God at work in the world would be a catalyst. It would be a description of a life that God wanted for them, a celebration of community and relationship and calling and covenant and justice and purpose, a gift of the knowledge of what life would look like when God’s people lived in right relationship: about how they would treat each other, about how they would honor God holy and above all, about how all bodies—including black and brown bodies—matter to God, about the things that flow out of a Spirit-led life.

As the Haitian preacher rumbled with power, and God spoke through her, little did God’s people know what was in store from the Spirit of God!

The people of God worry about the future before them. Their way of being church, of practicing their faith, has been disrupted and forever altered by a global pandemic and desperate attempts to keep people healthy in its wake. Now, with some predicting that one in every three churches in the United States will close, and the other two in three churches visibly shaken, some wonder if “normal” will ever return.

In fact, some have given up hope. Many have begun to grumble. They think they would all be better off if they return to the old ways. Back to the bondage of requirements and coercion and certainty. Back to the security of slavery to the ways of the world.

But in the midst of the fear, there are those who are excited about the future church that awaits them! They gather together on Zoom meetings, in Sunday school classes, at youth group, and on Sunday evenings. They sit together for hours as a leadership team…praying, dreaming, listening to comments and questions and hopes and dreams of a congregation, asking what it means to be reshaped.

Their work is not simply to create another how-to guide, a to-do list, a prescription of “supposed to’s.” But they are busy seeking God’s call on the “future church,” asking what kind of life God wants for them, celebrating community and relationship and calling and covenant and justice and purpose, eyes open to the a gift of the knowledge of what life looks like when God’s people live in right relationship: about how they will treat each other, about how they will honor God holy and above all, about how their bodies—and the bodies of all of God’s children—matter to God, about the things that flow out of a Spirit-led life. They are busy “ReShaping Church,”…or really paying attention to the ways that God is ReShaping it!

As the world around them changes and rumbles and God speaks through it all, may we celebrate on this Pentecost Sunday that we cannot even imagine a fraction of the power that is in store from the Spirit of God! May it be so! And may we have eyes to see!

You foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you? It was before your eyes that Jesus Christ was publicly exhibited as crucified! 2 The only thing I want to learn from you is this: Did you receive the Spirit by doing the works of the law or by believing what you heard? 3 Are you so foolish? Having started with the Spirit, are you now ending with the flesh? 4 Did you experience so much for nothing?—if it really was for nothing. 5 Well then, does God supply you with the Spirit and work miracles among you by your doing the works of the law, or by your believing what you heard? 6 Just as Abraham “believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness,” 7 so, you see, those who believe are the descendants of Abraham. 8 And the scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, declared the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, “All the Gentiles shall be blessed in you.” 9 For this reason, those who believe are blessed with Abraham who believed.

23 Now before faith came, we were imprisoned and guarded under the law until faith would be revealed. 24 Therefore the law was our disciplinarian until Christ came, so that we might be justified by faith. 25 But now that faith has come, we are no longer subject to a disciplinarian, 26 for in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith. 27 As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. 28 There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus. 29 And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to the promise.

Imagine a new Christian, someone who was just starting to get excited about following Jesus, who didn’t know a lot about God, but was on fire and excited about Jesus. But then, other people started talking to them saying, Jesus is great, but make sure you don’t do this list of sins and no-nos, or yes, Jesus is great, but make sure you are following these six steps to stay on the right path. Jesus is great, but make sure you’re following my church’s version of Jesus and not that church’s Jesus. And instead of continuing to be excited about Jesus and the love of God and consumed by the Holy Spirit, they start becoming consumed with following the right rules, their focus turns to making sure they don’t fall into a list of extra-bad sins, instead of remembering God’s extravagant love and grace, judging others becomes a way of life. This person was so excited about Jesus, but while they were trying to follow Jesus, other people got in the way and started leading them towards their version of Jesus and truth instead of the Jesus who is Truth. It's pretty easy to imagine something like this happening.

Something similar was happening to the churches in Galatia. Paul came and preached the good news about Jesus and they were excited and ready to follow Jesus, but then Paul left to go someplace else, and other teachers came in saying, “Yes, Jesus is great, but what also is important, is following the law--men, you need to be circumcised and everyone should follow the Jewish dietary rules.” The people in Galatia were Gentiles, they had never followed the law before, but these teachers spoke with such authority and seemed to know what they were talking about, so the people in Galatia started focusing on following the law and lost their focus on Jesus.

When Paul found out about this, he was quick to put them back in their place. My version of his rant goes something like this—You fools! Who pulled the wool over your eyes? Did someone put you under a spell? I told you clearly and at length about the crucified and risen Christ, you experienced the power of the Holy Spirit in your lives, but you are acting like you have forgotten all of this. It was the Holy Spirit who began a new work in you, why are you turning to the law now, thinking that the law would continue the work of grace and love that the Holy Spirit established. It just doesn’t make sense! You should have stuck with the Spirit.

The Message version reads, “Something crazy has happened, for it’s obvious that you no longer have the crucified Jesus in clear focus in your lives.” And throughout this week, I have been wondering, what would it look like for us to refocus our lives on Jesus?

The past fourteen months have been filled with unexpected, hard challenges that most of us never imagined. Our focus had to shift to learning a new way of life and a whole new pandemic vocabulary—social distancing, quarantine, isolation pods, mask wearing. Now, as more people are being vaccinated and the research of how COVID spreads become clearer, our focus is able to shift again, away from pandemic life, and onto something new. Perhaps this could be an opportunity for us to refocus our life on Jesus, and today’s Galatians passage gives us some ideas on how to refocus our lives by remembering three key ideas.

First, Paul wants us to remember that the Holy Spirit is active in our lives. From what Paul says, it seems as though the Holy Spirit was active and flourishing in the churches of Galatia, miracles were happening and people were turning to Jesus. But when false teachers started coming in and emphasizing the importance of the law, focus shifted to following the law in order to gain favor with God, instead of remembering it was God’s grace that brought them to God in the first place.

Today, we might not have the law to contend with, but there are plenty of other things to take our focus off of the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives. While sometimes well meaning, we are good at making extra qualifications to be a good Christian. Just check social media, and you will get a wide array of opinions on what it looks like to be a real Christian. You can’t be a Christian unless you are a part of this political party and passionate about this issue. In order to be a good Christian, you should follow this Bible reading plan, only read this version of the Bible, and listen to this podcast every week. All Christians should read their Bible every morning before putting your feet on the ground—that is how you need to start your day. The lists can go on…

But when we make lists of rules and qualifications about how to be a Christian, we are leaving the work of the Holy Spirit out of our lives.

Because what might be a life-giving Bible reading plan for you, could be overwhelming and guilt-ridden for someone else. What could be an informative, insightful writer for one person, could be harmful and triggering for another.

God made each of us uniquely and so each of us relates and connects with God differently, and that is okay. In fact, that is good because it gives us a bigger, fuller picture of God as we learn from one another, trusting that the Holy Spirit is at work in each of us.

So instead of trying to find the right list of rules and practices to be a good Christian, we need to intentionally invite the Holy Spirit into our lives. And this will look differently for each of us, but perhaps it could begin with a prayer, inviting the Holy Spirit into our lives once again. One prayer for this that I have come across comes from a book called Common Prayer: A Liturgy for Ordinary Radicals, and it goes like this, “Stir us to rise each morning expecting to encounter you and be caught up in your work.” “Stir us to rise each morning expecting to encounter you and be caught up in your work.”

The second thing Paul invites us to remember is that we are children of God. He reminds us of Abraham, who believed in God, listened to God’s call on his life, and was blessed. Paul tells the Galatians that it was not the law that started the people of God, the Israelites, it was the faith of Abraham. The law came later. First, Abraham believed and put his faith in God and God said from Abraham, all nations were to be blessed, Jew and Gentile alike. Paul reminds us that we are all children of God if we just believe.

Believing in God does not mean we are going to live perfect lives. Abraham definitely didn’t—at times he doubted and questioned God and tried to make his own plans when he didn’t think God was acting fast enough—but God continued to work through Abraham. Believing in God puts us on the road to experience God’s love and grace.

Being a child of God is one of the most precious titles we are given, and I think we often underestimate its importance. I know it’s meaning hasn’t fully seeped into my being yet. How would my life change if claiming that I am a child of God took precedence in my life? If I remembered that my value stemmed from being God’s beloved child and not my job, bank account, grades, or friends? How would my anxieties and fears lessen if I was able to fully embrace and realize that I am a part of God’s family and that only happens because of God’s grace and love in Christ Jesus? It would be life changing, and Paul wants us to remember and latch on to that identity.

And lastly, Paul tells us we need to remember our baptism, that we have been made new and are clothed with Christ.

Going to a Presbyterian school and interning at an Episcopalian church, I was surprised by how often they talked about and remembered their baptism. We might have "Baptist" in our name, but I think we could learn something from other denominations in remembering the meaning of our baptism as a visible sign of God’s grace and becoming a part of God’s family. When you walk into my seminary’s chapel, there is a large clear glass bowl filled with water, encouraging us to remember our baptism as we enter. Frequently, worship leaders would go to it, scoop up the water, and pour it back in so we could hear the sounds of our baptism.

One of the gifts of believer’s baptism is that we can actually remember our baptism. Dying to ourselves as we enter the water and emerging as a new creation, one with Christ. And perhaps even feeling new, changed, and cloaked in the Spirit as we walked out of the water. When I taught this spring’s baptism class, we talked about how baptism was a visible symbol of a person’s decision to believe in and follow Jesus, but that it was also a symbol from God that God would always love us, that God would always be with us, and that God calls us God’s beloved child.

Through our baptism, Paul suggests that we are given new clothes to wear--the clothes of Christ. Robert Grosseteste says that “a bodily garment is fitted for the one who wears it, whereas a spiritual garment shapes its wearer.” In baptism, we are united with Christ, clothed with Christ, so we can become more and more like him.

And Paul says this should bring unity among the people of God. Paul quotes what many scholars believe to be part of a baptismal liturgy used at that time-—“that there is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female, for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.” And this liturgy was a play off of a common prayer that Jewish men would say in the mornings, where they would thank God that they were not a Gentile, a slave, or a woman.

The early church is proposing something radical—those hierarchies are no longer at play; a man is not better than a woman, a master is not better than a slave, Jews are not the only ones with access to God; for we are all one in Christ Jesus. It is tempting to say that in Jesus Christ differences are erased, but I don’t think that is the case because God created this big, beautiful world full of diversity so we can see and experience our big, beautiful God as we were all uniquely created in God’s image. No, in Christ and through our baptism, we now have something bigger than our differences to unite us—the transformative love and grace of God.

What a picture Paul has given us in Galatians 3 of what a life re-focused on Jesus looks like!

It is a life in the Spirit, where we remember that God is actively working in our lives, that life with God is not as much about what we do as it is about what the Holy Spirit does in and through us.

It is a life where we know and claim that we are children of God, that our value lies in God calling us a beloved child and not what the world says.

And it is a life with Christ, through our baptism, which unites us together and transforms us to become more and more like him. May it be so! Let’s pray…

God of Abraham and Sarah, God of Hagar, God of Paul and Mary… thank you for inviting us into a new life with Christ Jesus. Thank you for your reminders today that the Holy Spirit is actively at work among us, and we invite you, Holy Spirit, intentionally into our lives once more, that we may expect to encounter you and be caught up in your work daily. Thank you that you call us your children, that no matter what our earthly families look like, we can rest knowing that we are a part of the family of God, so we are never alone. And thank you for our baptism, that we are clothed and united with Christ, transformed into a new creation where hierarchies fall and all are one through Christ Jesus. May we become a little more like you, Lord Jesus, everyday and be transformed into the people you created us to be. Amen.

Benediction: May you go today remembering that you are a child of God, united with Christ, expecting the Holy Spirit to work in and through you this week. Amen.

I love road trips. I always have. When I was a kid, it was trips to see Grandparents down the country roads in Illinois. When we got married, Kimberly and I would drive across the country to B&B’s in small towns or out in the country. When we had kids of our own, we would strap them in the car seats and head to Kentucky or Arkansas, or one big Clark Griswold trip out to South Dakota and Montana and Nevada. Of course the mother of all road trips was our sabbatical a couple of summers ago, when we put several thousand miles on the minivan in one summer! And over the years in ministry, I remember fondly youth trips to Green Lake or Colorado or down to Georgia to camp. Veteran youth leaders will tell you that ABY and GaGa ball and the like are great, but there is nothing like the bonding experience of a road trip.

I would suggest that Luke must have been a big fan of road trips, too. Remember how he reported in Chapter 9 that Jesus “set his face toward Jerusalem.” The teaching and healing ministry of the Gospel takes place on the road, as he and the disciples travelled from Galilee to Jerusalem. And now, in the short few chapters since Jesus’ Resurrection, we have all of these road trip stories. Easter evening, Jesus meets travelers on the Road to Emmaus…it is in the journey that Christ appears to them. Stephen doesn’t take a road trip, but his famous sermon—the one that makes everyone mad enough to kill him—is all about how God never really wanted the Temple and was fine in the tabernacle, wandering from place to place on a holy road trip. And—spoiler-alert!—in the next chapter we are going to read about a guy named Saul who is once again on the road, this time the road to Damascus, where some things might happen. For Luke, there is power in the road trip, in the energy and relationship built on the journey. The ministry of Jesus and the Church of Jesus takes place in the dynamism and motion of the journey.

And so there should be no surprise when we read today about Phillip, a master of the road trip. After Stephen’s death, he started on the road north to Samaria where he preached to Simon Magus and the Samaritans. And now he is on the road south out of Jerusalem, on yet another road trip. As I read it, it may not feel like a long trip, but remember that the Bible and especially the book of Acts collapses time, so that while this story only lasts a few verses, Justo Gonzalez suggests that it might have taken hours or even days. The Two Way folks loved playing around with the road trip in this story a little bit, talking about the Ethiopian must have stopped at the gas station in South Jerusalem on the way out of town. It must have been a Phillips 66 (get it?) and he probably picked up a Slim Jim and a pocket copy of the book of Isaiah to read on the way home to Ethiopia. There really is something for us to discern about our journey of faith, our walk of faith, from what we see in this story. What can this story teach us about our faith? There are three different characters, if you will, that make up this story. Let’s look at what each one teaches us.

The first character to look at more closely is the Ethiopian Eunuch, who I think has something to teach us about the experience of the outsider. Now, we have to be careful assuming too much about this man. Luke doesn’t give us much backstory, or too many details. But it seems to me that part of why he is included in this narrative is his outsider status:

•             Whether it was the fact that he was an Ethiopian, kind of a catch-all category for all non-Egyptian Africans or simply those with dark skin, which would have made him a racial minority in Palestine.

•             Or perhaps it was the fact that he was a eunuch, a sexual minority, potentially naturally-castrated and thus considered safe enough to put into position of authority around the Queen, or potentially forcible castrated in order to make him “safe.”

•             Or perhaps even his role as a government official, which made him a kind of unpopular cultural minority, like the hated tax collectors who had authority over the people.

•             Or some scholars think that he is what some call a “god-fearer,” someone who believed in Yahweh, but didn’t take part in religious practice, perhaps for some of these other reasons; today we might call him “spiritual but not religious” potentially even inviting scorn.

•             Or perhaps even all four of these categories were relevant, meaning that he was quadruply an outsider!

To me, it feels like he saw himself as an outsider because as he read this passage from Isaiah, and engaged in Philip in conversation about it, he asks a fascinating question: “What is to prevent me from being baptized?” From being included. He somehow knew that there were reasons, and likely he had heard them his whole life. Philip must have known them, too. He could have given this man a valid Bible study, based on the book of Deuteronomy, that told him exactly why he couldn’t be included. Why he couldn’t be baptized as a eunuch and non-Israelite and an outsider. What is to prevent me? The Bible says so!

Which is a question that a lot of Christians ask, even today? The figure of the Ethiopian eunuch is one that many identify with, especially those who see themselves as outsiders. Racial minorities connect with the fact that he is from Ethiopia. LGBTQI persons connect with the eunuch’s sexual minority status. Or anyone who feels outside of the accepted norm of the church: as single parents or divorced persons or those choosing or not able to have children or choosing or not able to get married. So many have read this story and heard the reasons why they must be excluded, including “the Bible says so.”

But look at Philip’s response here. Take a look at Character Number Two in the story. Again, Philip could have come at the Ethiopian with some hard-core Bible study. But instead of an aggressive stance, Philip seems to follow the rule of “listen first; talk second.” He gets this feeling, this prompting to walk along that road, and then another feeling/prompting to walk up next to the man’s chariot, and so he does, and hears him reading out loud the book of Isaiah. He doesn’t walk right in with an agenda of conversion, or a script to read out loud. Phillip simply shows up and listens first. And then, he talks. But even then, he begins with a question: “Do you understand what you are reading?”

And the dialogue begins! For Philip, the good news does not come as a pre-packaged speech to deliver to this man, in order to convert him and put him in the win column. It is the beginning of a conversation. To help him understand his truth, and eventually for Philip to share his understanding of the truth. Notice that Philip doesn’t listen first and listen second, simply idling until the Ethiopian figures it out for himself. Philip has something to say. But he doesn’t unload a Roman Road or Four Spiritual Laws or anything learned in a Tuesday night training session. He listens to the man and his questions. And when the time is right, he speaks. Remember that like Stephen, Philip is one of the Seven, one of the Hellenistic, outsider Jewish Christ-followers, who was put in charge of the food pantry and followed the food pantry right out the door. As an outsider himself, he was able to understand and speak truth to the outsider Ethiopian. Because it became a dialogue, he was able to understand and be understood.

A helpful word for those of us 2,000 years later that feel like we want to share the good news of Jesus, but aren’t sure how to do it. Listen first and speak second. The Evangelism committee talked about this just this last week, asking how we can encourage those conversations. You know, we live in a world that is hurting and angry and afraid and not sure what to do next. A lot of folks are feeling left out. If we approach these conversations with a willingness to listen and learn, then maybe, the Spirit of God can use us. We can speak our truth, and listen as other speak theirs. Philip teaches us that for the good news to take root, it takes dialogue, patience, and a willingness to listen.

So, we have talked about two of the three main characters of the story, but there is a third. Besides the Ethiopian and Philip, the third voice we hear is the voice of the Spirit of God. You know, I don’t think it is an accident that all these big moments take place on road trips in Luke and Acts. Because I think that Luke is making a theological point about how God works.

In short, these stories remind us that God is on the road. Journey to Jerusalem. The Road to Emmaus. The Wilderness Road. The Damascus Road. This is more than a literary device. The God of the tabernacle in Stephen’s sermon is still a God on the move. God is dynamic and active and on the road. This theology of dynamism is crucial for us to remember today. Especially out of a pandemic, when we have yearned so deeply to return to a physical space. Let us remember that the Church has always been scattered and sent! The theology of God throughout Scripture is that God is on the move. The life of faith is a never-ending road trip. This physical space is always meant to be a rest stop to the real work of the Gospel, in the workplaces, and classrooms, and ballfields and coffeehouses of God’s world. And let us now add the social networks and virtual spaces and Zoom Rooms. Like Philip, we are called to be responsive and dialogical open to how God is at work out there.

Like Philip, we are called to be on the move!

Do you all know the phrase “if it bleeds, it leads?” It is a way to poke fun at sensational news broadcasts, which seem to believe that if a news story is about a death, or a fire, or a tragedy, or even a dangerous situation, then it should lead the news cycle! Even if other things are happening that have much more impact on the way that people live their lives, “if it bleeds, it leads.”

For the last 2,000 years, I think that the Church has gotten a little caught up in this. If there is one thing you know about Stephen, it is probably the fact that he was killed. Stoned by those who disagreed with him. And the Church has focused on that fact more than much else that he did! He is often heralded as the first Christian martyr. It is hard to find a picture of him that doesn’t somehow involve stones…there are ancient icons that have these rocks hovering by his body…and even Sunday school curriculum shows some pretty graphic, bloody pictures of Stephen. I mean, he is patron saint of stonemasons, for crying out loud! Come on, Church, can we do better by Stephen?

I think we should. While his sacrifice at the end of the story is definitely important, it is not the only important thing that happens. And I think it distracts us from what might be even more important.

First, let’s set the stage. Before we hear anything about Stephen, we learn that there is an injustice happening in the early church. Acts 2 describes that the community sold its possessions and shared everything communally. Everyone shared and everyone received. But by the time we get to Acts 6, we see that this arrangement wasn’t working out for everyone. Scholar Justo Gonzalez shocked me when he suggests that the events of this chapter likely took place six years after the Pentecost. The Early Church has been preaching and growing for a significant time, trying to figure out how to live this communal life of Christ. At this point, they would have all still considered themselves Jewish, but were Christ-followers within that broader faith. Now, a handful of years later, there are inequities. “All were together and had all things in common” is falling short of the ideal. Specifically, there are inequities between two types of widows. As you have heard me say before, widows were often the most vulnerable in the society, as they had no husband to provide resources, nor ability to work for themselves. The Bible, from the Torah to Hebrews, talks about making sure that we take care of the widows and orphans. They are 1 and 1a on the list of vulnerable people that we should care for.

But the Early Church had set up invisible lines between two kinds of widows. There were the widows who were born in Palestine, in what we might call the Holy Land, who spoke Aramaic and were considered culturally Hebrew. Acts calls them the Hebrew widows. Then, there were those who were from outside of Palestine, often called the Diaspora, who were religiously Jewish but culturally more like the Greco-Roman culture that surrounded them.  Acts calls them Hellenist widows, referring to the culture where they came from more than language that they spoke.

The bottom line is that there were insiders and outsiders. Closer to the central hub of Jerusalem, the Hebrew (Palestinian) widows were being cared for with enough food and shelter and attention. But farther away, the Hellenistic widows were being neglected. As much as the Early Church wanted to take care of everyone, and talking about taking care of everyone, and even stormed through the Temple like Jesus did and told the religious leaders to take care of everyone, there were still inequities and injustices. It happens. It always happens.

It still happens. I want to thank the good folks at the Lawrence Journal World for making my sermon illustration easy this week. For those of you who get the paper, you might have seen the same thing that I did. On Tuesday, two big pieces of news landed on the front page.

• The first is the surprise announcement that Brandon Woods will be closing their nursing facility by the end of the year, if not earlier. If you do not live in town, you may not know that Brandon Woods is one of the bigger elder care facilities in the community, and is set up with graduated care, allowing its residents to live as independently as possible, until the need for greater care is required. But now, the out-of-state owners have announced that they will be closing the facility that cares for those greatest needs, and focusing on the independent and assisted living segments instead. The nursing care is just too expensive.
• The second is the announcement that Kennedy Elementary School will be closed next month. Full disclosure, my wife Kimberly teaches at Kennedy, and so I have been able to see first-hand what a special place that school has become especially in the last few years. It is a smaller neighborhood school, and also one that cares for some of the greatest at-risk families in our community. Many of our indigenous families in town attend there, as it is closely connected to Haskell University. Kennedy has made major gains in academic scoring in the last few years, but now, to save money, the school is closing.

Community of Lawrence, where did we go wrong? Like the Early Church, we have somehow managed to say at once that the needs of our most vulnerable, our most at-risk residents, our most marginalized, literally our widows and orphans, is “too expensive.” And I am not going to just point fingers at the school district, or at the owners of Brandon Woods. Just like I said a few weeks ago, this is about “all y’all.” This is on all of us:

• Anyone who has perpetuated the myth that east Lawrence schools are bad and filled with bad kids, and insisted that we draw boundary lines that shrink and starve those neighborhoods, so our kids don’t have to be around “those people.”
• Anyone who has perpetuated the myths that nursing homes are gross or dangerous.
• Anyone who has complained about our schools or our teachers for not working enough miracles in the lives of our children.
• Anyone who has complained about our nurses and medical staff for not working enough miracles in the lives of our least healthy elderly adults.
• Anyone who spends more time worried about a transgender athlete law in Kansas, impacting an estimated 5 or 6 young people statewide, instead of paying attention to the 500,000 students in Kansas who need politicians to pay attention to them.
• Anyone who pushes back on Medicare Expansion or Health Care Reform or the ACA, while across the state, hospitals and nursing homes close their doors forever.

Thank you, Journal World, because if it bleeds it leads, and I am not overstating this—that Tuesday’s paper screams loud and clear that there is blood on all of our hands. And it is the widows and orphans who will suffer the most.

With a similar level of anger and frustration, the Early Church bubbled over. There were insiders and there were outsiders. And the outsiders were getting left out. But that is not the end of the story. Look what happens in response. Again, it is Justo Gonzalez who helped me to see what was at stake here. The Hellenistic, outsider, enculturated Christians cried out for justice, and justice was given. The Twelve Apostles put their heads together and chose to empower seven individuals to bring justice to the community. They prayed about who to choose, found individuals who were sensitive to the workings of the Holy Spirit, laid hands on them (for the first time in the Early Church), and empowered them. And this was more than just creating a committee to look into the issue. This was more than just appointing a token member from the impacted community to some board. They gave these Seven the blessing, the power, and the authority to make sure that justice was done. The word here that the NRSV translates as “waiting on tables” is “diakonia,” which has both a connotation of servanthood and also of financial power. Some translations say “keeping accounts.” They gave them all the church credit cards! In short, Gonzalez writes, they brought these marginalized outsiders into the middle of the power structure and gave them what they needed to make things right. The Church of Jesus is radical in the fact that those who are most vulnerable, most in need, set the standard for the rest of the community. When someone has been marginalized, the Church of Jesus puts them in the center. Which is exactly what they did with Stephen. Sorry, it’s taken half the sermon to get to him, but you had to know why Stephen is important. Stephen is one of the Seven.

Now, let me tell you something about the food pantry. When you work the food pantry, look out. When you stand side-by-side with some of the most desperate and needy in our community, watch out. When you see the vulnerable and afraid and hurting week after week after week, be careful. Because there is a good chance you are going to get set on fire by the Spirit of God. The Twelve told the Seven, “Go take care of the food pantry,” and before they knew it the Seven had disappeared and started preaching the Gospel of a Risen Christ. And that is exactly what happened to Stephen. He saw the power of a God who cared for the most vulnerable in the community, and it set him on fire for the Gospel. He was brought in from the margins to the center, and couldn’t help but go back out to bring more in. From the very beginning, the Church of Jesus followed the food pantry team out the doors, and it changed the way they saw God and the world.

I would suggest that Stephen’s death and martyrdom is really a footnote in the story. What makes the story powerful is what got him killed in the first place. You see, when you go back out and bring the marginalized back in, the establishment doesn’t like it much. People don’t like it when you upset the status quo, when you break down the barriers and boundaries that they have set up. But Stephen, who lived his life by the rule of inclusion and embrace, even asking for forgiveness to the people as they were killing him, demonstrates what we are to be about in the Church of Jesus.

You know, there are two phrases that I have heard over and over again in the last year that I have come to hate.

It sets my teeth on edge when I hear that churches are considering “opening back up.” Because that implies that we have been closed. That implies that we turned the sign around and said we’d be back after the pandemic is over. That implies that this crew out here that you can’t see hasn’t been working their tails off to figure out how to get picture and sound and non-buffering video into your living rooms. That implies that we haven’t been doing Gospel ministry every single step of the way. In fact, follow me. If you want to see what an opened up church looks like, check out our food pantry. Church, you have been open! You have been hard at work. Week in and week out, you have been hard at work, caring for the needs of our community. And just this last week, while I watched some of those volunteers doing their work, one of the case managers for Bert Nash showed up. He works with families dealing with homelessness and housing insecurity, as well as mental health issues. And he said something that has stuck with me: “I don’t know where we’d be without the churches. So many more wouldn’t have made it if it weren’t for your generosity.” That’s you all. That’s following the food pantry out into the world. And that is because we never closed up.

Another phrase sets my teeth on edge:  “back to normal.” Let me make it clear that the last thing I want is to go back to normal. Back to 2019. Back to the pre-pandemic world. Because let’s be honest…was 2019 that great? Were there no outsiders in 2019? No people underfed in 2019? No people underhoused in 2019? No people marginalized and left out and ignored in 2019? No people suffering from mental health imbalances in 2019? Let me say this as clearly as I can, “if we go back to normal, we have failed.” Because God has better than normal in store. God has justice in store. God has restoration in store. God has healing and security and hope and health in store. God has a community who doesn’t make their children walk across 5 lane highways to get to school. God has a community who doesn’t tell their elderly that they are just out of luck. Church, let’s never go back to normal again…God has something better than normal in store. Church, let’s never go back to normal again. Just like the Early Church, let’s follow the food pantry out the doors. Let’s go out like Stephen and find the vulnerable and hurting and put them front and center. Let’s get back to being an abnormal family of love and inclusion and care. Let’s get to work being the Church of Jesus.