A baptism message about action packed justice, feeling worn and waterbeds

 Acts 16:6-15

Years ago, on a visit home to see my parents, my mom borrowed my car and when she saw me later she told me that that my steering wasn’t aligned. 

“Can’t you feel how the car wants to drift to the right?” She asked me.

I had noticed that the car had a tendency to want to veer to the side as I was driving it. I had to make an effort to pull the wheel back to the center in order to drive straight on the road. It was probably dangerous although I don’t remember that occurring to me at the time. It was something I needed to get fixed.

The book of Acts, which we’ve been hearing from the last few weeks tells us the story of the apostles and their travel around the Eastern Mediterranean sea.  In today’s bible story, the Holy Spirit has a clear course that she has set for Paul and the team.  The road is paved right there in front of them. But, the group wants to pull off course head up into Western Asia.  

The Spirit of Jesus, as the Holy Spirit is called in the book of Acts, apparently has other plans. The apostles listen and go to a city called Philippi.  Philippi sat on a 700 mile major Roman highway that ran along the Aegean sea called the Egnatian Way. It was a massive feat of engineering build of huge stone blocks. The city was in a great location and surrounded by excellent farmland.  It was a jeweled city for Rome. 

But, I can see why the apostles might not have been excited to go there. The city was very strategic. Rome worked hard to make everything in it as culturally Roman (and not as culturally Jewish) as possible.  While it wasn’t as snazzy as Rome, there was glitter and glamour. (All hail to the Holy Roman Emperor).

When Paul arrived in the city with his entourage, he found the place steeped in roman powers and values. And that’s when the showdown begins. 

You’ll hear next week the story of the enslaved girl that tells fortunes and makes a lot of money for her owners. Paul liberates her and then he’s thrown in jail for it. That is, until God thunders in and releases Paul and Silas from jail with a mighty earthquake.  

The story line will continually ask us: Who has more power? The mighty forces of Rome or the Holy Spirit of Jesus? 

Back and forth they go in the next few stories in Acts, throwing Paul and Silas in jail, freeing them, empowering leaders and infuriating them, challenging systems and shaking the solid Roman values that people stood on, upending plans and laying new track.  There’s arguing, there are riots, people are arrested, people are emboldened. There are shipwrecks and stormy seas. Trials and jail cells. The story actually says a little further on from today’s reading that they were “turning the world upside down.” 
While Acts records the exciting travel log, other books in our New Testament are letters that Paul wrote while the plot was unfolding. And in these letters, to the Philippians, the Galatians, the Romans and others Paul implores folks to radically love one another, to welcome one another, empty oneself in service to each other. 

The life of faith is challenging.  Perhaps it’s a not a wonder that Paul and his traveling companions attempted to veer off the course the Spirit had laid out before them. The life of faith then was challenging and it’s challenging today.  

The life of faith today asks us to hold a mirror up to ourselves and reflect on where we’re cracked and where we’re being called to level up and serve more graciously, forgive more deeply, love more fiercely, struggle for justice and open our hearts.  All across this world, There are people crucified by our current world order. Some people are valued more than others.  There were heart wrenching shootings last weekend, there is a senseless war grinding in the Ukraine, there are broken medical care systems around the world. Two years ago when covid descended on us we all rallied around this cry of “we’re all in this together” which has splintered into civil conflict and contempt for each other. We’re quick to anger, quick to judge and running low on steadfast love.  The holy spirit calls us to carry the light of Christ into this storm.  We’re not called to follow what is convenient, to veer off course, change the channel, or turn away. We’re called to follow Jesus, just like Paul and the apostles did. And this isn’t always easy.

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In the spirit of real talk and honesty, I’m going to share that I have been feeling a little run down lately. It’s for a variety of reasons.  I read our sacred stories week after week and I think about what I’m going to share with you, and this week, I read and reread this story of Paul and the apostles who changed course and headed into the storm, and I marveled at their tenacity.

There are weeks and even seasons when I write my legislators. There are seasons where I dig into books that challenge me to grow. There are days when I seek out and check in on someone who I find disagreeable, or don’t particularly like, or I search for what feels like superhuman patience to confront a challenge in front of me. There are weeks when I make picket signs or meals for people, or when I am the world’s most thoughtful and patient sister or aunt or spouse. These are weeks and seasons when I feel unstoppable. And right now, I’m feeling a little worn out and like I can’t quite get my arms around everything.  

Several days ago, I mentioned this in a group of preacher friends.  I told them that I was annoyed with this action packed reading from acts and specifically, I told them, that I instead just wanted to float on one of those awesome waterbeds from the 80s, to feel weightless and just rest. 

One of my pastor friends--after saying some nice, pastory and encouraging things to me--told me to read the second half of today’s the bible story It’s the part of the story, she said, where Paul and his crew were tired and they found rest and respite with a friend named Lydia next to a river outside of the city. 

Turns out that while the Holy Spirit certainly sends Paul and Silas into difficult ministry situations that require deep love, patience and compassion, the road also leads them to rest and find respite while they prepare for continued ministry.  And this is the life of faith too.

In the book of Acts, people aren’t called “Christians” or “the church.” They’re called “People of the Way.” We, as “People of the way” all have a part to play in this story of God’s activity in the church.  And our part changes from time to time.  

1. Some of us are like Paul when he is pushing into these broken, human systems that need fixing.  Some of us are hard at work patiently loving the difficult people in our midst. Some among us are walking the truth like Mary of Nazareth proclaimed, that the mighty will be brought down and the lowly will be brought up. Hopefully we all find ourselves pushing into this challenging territory from time to time.  

2. Then, some of us are like Lydia.  She was a wealthy, independent woman who provides food, rest and welcome to the justice warriors. There’s a tradition of wealthy, independent women supporting prophets in the bible like the women who supported Jesus or the Widow from Zarephath who, though she was struggling with a famine, managed a household like Lydia and fed the prophet Elijah some loaves of bread. 

3. Some of us are like the apostles who need to rest by the river under the cool shade trees and recharge for the task before them. “Come to me,” Jesus says, all of you who are weary and burdened down and I will give you rest. 

Where do you find yourself right now?  Are you trailblazing like Paul? Are you persistently working for change? Or mending frayed edges?

Or, Like Lydia, are you the hopeful, strong presence actively supporting someone who needs you? Who are you encouraging, supporting or lifting up?  How are you using your resources to take care of folks in need? 

Or, like the apostles, are you pausing for rest? (or thinking about it) Where are your green pastures and still waters? Who is there to welcome you?

What is certain about all of these roles is that wherever we are in the mix, we are all quietly and persistently building a new world together. What is asked of us in each of these roles, as people of the way, whether we are resting or building, is not to check out and not to let ourselves veer mindlessly off course. We all toggle back and forth between these places as individuals and as a church. And together, we are whole.

Today, we will baptize Emilia Anne Dengle into the life of faith. In those baptismal promises, Emilia’s parents, Alex and Jennifer and her sponsors will promise to teach her about this life of faith which both calls us to fight for a new world and to rest. The waters of baptism and the love of Christ are both hard work and the buoyancy of a water bed in the midst of challenge.

When we gather in a while around the baptismal fount, we will renounce the powers of this world that would try to divide and demean us.  We will renounce powers that justify mass shootings and ideologies of supremacy and inferiority based on race. We will commit to living in a such a way that brings about this radical kingdom of God even when it feels like the world is on fire around us.

All of us in this congregation around little Mia today will remember these baptismal promises to share Jesus through the way we live and the things we say. These promises commit to working for justice and peace. And they commit us to taking care of the earth and taking care of each other. And through it all, they will remind us, as they did for those ancient people of the way who sat in the cool shade by the river, that we are each beloved to God. 

"Let me talk you into it" (A sermon about story slams, cherry pies and reluctant actors)

John 21:1-19

You may have heard of poetry slams or story slams.  These are live events where folks share a poem or a great story.  I tell stories for a living. I’m into story slams. 

Several years ago, the Moth hosted story slam and Auburn Sandstrom got up to share a story.  She talked about that night when she hit bottom.  She had grown up with a comfortable life: undergrad was paid for, she had music lessons, now had a masters degree. But through a series of events, she had become addicted; and that night, she lay on the floor, flooded with anxiety, folding and unfolding a small piece of paper with a telephone number on it that her mother had given her.  “This is the number for a Christian counselor,” her mother had told her.  

Auburn hadn’t been hanging with any particular religion at that point, but she was desperate, and she punched in the numbers. When the man answered, she said, “Hi, I got this number from my mother do you think you could maybe talk to me?”  She heard him shuffling to sit up in bed and he replied, “yes, yes, yes. What going on?” Amber began to pour her heart out to him: the truth about her troubled marriage, her addiction, her fears with her son. She told him everything.  For hours, he sat and patiently listened—and remarked, “tell me more…oh, that must hurt, oh.” 

Auburn made the call at 2 in the morning and he stayed up on the phone listening to her all night until the sun rose and her panic began to subside.  She said she didn’t care what his religion was, but as she began to get a hold of herself, she told him how much she appreciated him. Her mother had mentioned that he was a Christian counselor.  Did he want her to go read some bible verses or something? 

“Auburn,” he said, “please don’t hang up, I’ve been trying not to bring this up.” 

“What?” she asked him. 

“The number you called?” He said. “…wrong number.”

She didn’t hang up on him. 

But, she said, the next day, she experienced what she has heard called “the peace that passes all understanding.” It was this sense, as she put it, that there was random love in the universe, some of it was unconditional and some of it was for her. 

Thinking of this man and the role he played in Auburn’s life remind me that we never know exactly how the Holy Spirit will draw us into Jesus’ mission of love.  

In our story from Acts today we hear of the Holy Spirit drawing Saul into the work of the church.  Saul--also known as Paul depending on if he’s in a Greek-speaking city like Tarsus or an Aramaic speaking community in Jerusalem--had been terrible to early Christians: Vile and violent and it all comes to a head, when he stones Steven to death. It’s terrible. And then, on that Road to Damascus, the Holy Spirit knocks him off his feet and he falls to the ground.  

“Saul, Saul, what are you doing! Why are you persecuting people!” The voice of Jesus calls out.  

Saul loses his bearings there on the road and they have to carry him to someone’s house in town. It’s not until the church leader, Ananias, comes to Saul and reluctantly lays his hands on him that his sight is restored, his perspective is shifted, and he is transformed. Saul becomes not only an apostle of the Lord but a person who wrote all of these important parts of our New Testament and had a very central role in shaping what has today become Christianity.  It was unexpected! for Saul and for the people of the early church.

Most of us don’t get a random midnight call from a person in dire need of support.  Most of us don’t hit the ground in awe at the sound of Jesus’ voice crying out to us.  Many of us do, however, underestimate our own potential as people who have a part to play in the mission of Jesus.  

You know how, when I give announcements at the end of the service, you sometimes think that they’re for anyone else but you?  If I announce that I need 5 of you to bring a cherry pie to church next week, the majority of you are probably going to tell yourself, “well, that’s not for me…someone else will do that.” 

Some of you have heard me say this before but when I worked in Latin America, a Honduran pastor once mentioned to me: “Lindsay, the difference is that in your country, religion is a plaything that people can take or leave. Here, in Latin America it is the heart of what we have.” In one sense, I see where he is coming from.  We have so much control over our lives, we have so much comfort so much agency that it doesn’t always seem to matter if we participate. On occasion, when we lose that sense of control, it bring us to our knees, but often, we’re left asking: does it matter if I show up? Does it matter how I live my life? How I spend my money? How I treat people?

While I appreciate the truth of the fact that Jesus has no hands but ours, and no feet but ours, in the stories about the early church, like this one with Saul from the book of Acts, it is Jesus, himself, who is working along side of the people. Jesus is doing his own recruiting here in this story.  And Jesus is doing his own recruiting now, here today. For what it’s worth, it is really a mighty strange choice for Jesus to recruit Saul—don’t ask me why does Jesus choose this guy, of all people, to pull into a leadership role. 

All I can say is that involving the least likely candidates to build this kingdom of God is one of God’s signature moves. It’s a through line in our bible: we see it in the stories like the one of Jacob and Esau, or in God choosing to be born into a really unlikely family in Bethlehem, or even in the use of the Roman cross of crucifixion—a most unlikely  instrument--which God somehow turns into a tree of life.

Look at today’s story from the gospel: In this one, Jesus is putting a shepherd’s staff into the hands of Peter who is flustered and ashamed and telling him to take care of the sheep. This is the same Peter who denied Jesus three times near the foot of the cross and is doubting if he is qualified or capable of doing anything in this movement let alone lead the church.

It takes courage to work through that. Courage to participate in what Jesus is calling us to do. It takes courage to participate when you doubt if all of this actually matters, when you feel like you’re not good enough, or when we’re faced with our own shortcomings like Peter, who really doubted if he was qualified. It takes strength of soul to participate in this movement when you feel like your workspace is toxic and all consuming, or when you’re burdened down with a clenching grief.  It takes courage to participate when you’re eclipsed by the possibility of failure—and here, I will say that 15 months ago, I was terrified that I would fail at my role as a parent or a pastor.  Do you know how long it took me to upload sermons to youtube? …Hours! Do you know how bored I was personally attending preschool on line? to tears! And yet, it took courage to press on and do it. 

We’ve been practicing a certain kind of courage for 2 years at home. Two years ago, we didn’t know what this would all bring. There was a point in early of May of 2020 when it took courage to go into a pharmacy and buy Tylenol for my kid.   I needed courage to continue loving my husband who I adore but kind of wanted to kill when we were all locked in together.  I needed courage to reinvent my job.  And you?  You needed courage to do the same.  And courage when your loved ones were not okay.  And courage to keep going when you worried that the world would never get back to normal. 

Even in this last year, it has taken courage to claim the kind of life we desire for our families: to send our kids to school, to come back to church, to apply for new jobs, to reach out when we we’re lonely.  We have drawn on courage like never before these last 2 years. We know what courage is. 

And…we are a little out of practice employing it with people outside of our household or outside of our immediate circles. We are out of practice with engaging with a Spirit that can and will knock us to the ground.   When Jesus says to Peter, “tend my sheep,” Peter could have drifted back to his old, safe life in Galilee.  He could have retreated and returned to what he knew. It was a risk when Jesus looked him in the eye and held out that shepherd staff: “feed my sheep.” But there was power there on the beach in the promise of new life in the risen Jesus.  Dear ones, there is power today in the promise of new life in the risen Jesus today. 

We come here to church and we are fueled for the courageous life that Jesus calls us to. Here in this space of worship we practice how to live in the world. We confess our sin and work at forgiving each other.  We share the peace with each other. We eat at the table together with people who might think differently from us. And then we go from this space and we put it into practice. That practice and way we live our lives as people of th Way strengthens the fabric of this Kingdom of God around us.  It makes our world stronger, it strengthens the chords of love, justice, mercy and joy that run as deep undertones to who we are. It changes us ever so subtly and slowly into who God calls us to be.

Who, dear ones, is God calling you to towards? Where is God calling you to take a step forward?

When Auburn Sandstrom finished her story slam, she said that in the deepest night of despair and anxiety, it only took a pinhole of light for grace to flood in.

We, dear ones, have a part to play in the mission of Jesus.  You may feel unqualified or apathetic, you may wonder if it all actually matters. Sometimes, it calls for us to do things we have never imagined, and sometimes, it calls for us to make a simple pinhole of light for all of grace to come rushing in and the kingdom of God to flood the space around us.