From the Book of Acts:
The magician Elymas (for that is the translation of his name) opposed them and tried to turn the proconsul away from the faith. But Saul, also known as Paul, filled with the Holy Spirit, looked intently at him and said, “You son of the devil, you enemy of all righteousness, full of all deceit and villainy, will you not stop making crooked the straight paths of the Lord?”
(From the Daily Office Lectionary – Acts 13:8-10 – September 6, 2012)
As I look at life, crooked lines abound. It’s what human beings do. Bar-Jesus (as the magician Elymas is also named in the Book of Acts) may have been making the straight crooked with evil intent, but I suspect that most human beings just do it out of habit, out of an inability to do anything else, out of (maybe) some sort of primate instinct to make a mess. My mother used to admonish me, in a lot of circumstances, “Don’t get bent out of shape!” At sixty years of age, I have come to suspect that there is no way to avoid life getting bent out of shape! Crooked lines abound.
Way back when I was in college I had a good friend whose job was taking care of the animals used in our psychology department’s experimental work. He took care of pigeons and rats and cats and all sorts of critters, including some kind of monkeys (don’t ask me what kind . . . I don’t think I ever knew). I remember once visiting him at work and watching the monkeys play. Someone had given them a length of copper house wire (that thick 12-gauge stuff) and they were happily bending it into a mass of crookedness, then trying (unsuccessfully) to straighten it out.
That, it seems, is what happens in life. We get our monkey hands on things, even things that are straight, and we bend them up. And then we can’t unbend them on our own. Have you ever tried to straighten a bent-up mess of wire by yourself? Can’t be done. But there is an old rabbinic proverb, “God writes straight with crooked lines.” With God’s help, things can get straightened out. Wire, lives, relationships, paths to salvation. I don’t think Paul really had to worry about Elymas; God can take care of God’s paths. It’s our crooked lines that we need to worry about; with God’s help, we need to get them worked out, straightened out, or at least a little bit untangled.
One of my favorite prayer resources is the book Celtic Daily Prayer from the Northumbria Community in England. In it there is this lovely prayer picking up on the rabbinic proverb, acknowledging the bent-out-of-shapeness of our lives, and seeking God’s help with straightening things out:
O God,
I cannot undo the past,
or make it never have happened!
– neither can You. There are some things
that are not possible even for You
– but not many!
I ask you,
humbly,
and from the bottom of my heart:
Please, God
would You write straight
with my crooked lines?
Out of the serious mistakes of my life
will You make something beautiful for You?
Teach me to live at peace with You,
to make peace with others
and even myself.
Give me fresh vision. Let me
experience Your love so deeply
that I am free to
face the future with a steady eye,
forgiven,
and strong in hope.
Amen.
====================
Father Funston is the rector of St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Medina, Ohio.
A couple of days ago I talked about Cornelius’s conversion from pagan to Christian through some time spent as a pious not-quite-proselyte Gentile. In today’s reading Peter defends his decision to baptize the Gentiles (Cornelius and his entire household) with this great question, “Who was I that I could hinder God?” It certainly shut down his critics!
Judaism is not a missionary religion. It is, however, a proselytic religion. This means that Jews don’t go looking for converts, but those who come to them interested in becoming Jews are instructed and initiated; these initiates are called proselytes. Cornelius might have become a proselyte, but we know that he was not because if he had been, Peter would have had no issues with seeing him, meeting him, eating with him. Peter did have those issues initially, but then was shown the vision of unclean animals which he was told to eat. Peter interpreted that vision to mean that he should not treat non-Jews as unclean; it was the beginning of the Jewish Christian church welcoming non-Jews (“Gentiles”) as members.
Saint Stephen, one of the first deacons of the church, has just preached a sermon in which he has reminded his hearers, Jewish authorities in Jerusalem, that the Jews had a history of mistreatment of prophets, Their ancestors, he has said, “killed those who foretold the coming of the Righteous One, and now [his listeners] have become his betrayers and murderers.” No wonder they were angry with him.
This short passage from the Book of Acts describes the sort of world Jesus intended. Not just the sort of church . . . . the sort of world, the sort of human society, a complete community in which no one claims private ownership (it’s all God’s remember) and where there are no needy persons because what is needed is distributed equitably.
These are the words spoken by the great crowd of Jews and others who thronged the streets of Jerusalem for the Festival of Shavu’ot when the Twelve, empowered by the Holy Spirit, begin to tell the story of Jesus in languages they had never before spoken. Shavu’ot is a celebration with both agricultural and historical significance in Judaism. It is known as the “festival of the first fruits,” a harvest feast when the first fruits were brought as offerings to the Temple; it is also known as the “festival of the giving of the Law,” a celebration of the handing down of Torah on Mt. Sinai. It was called Pentecost, a Greek word meaning “fiftieth”, because it always falls on the fiftieth day after the Passover. That year it fell on the fiftieth day after the Resurrection and, thus, the Christian feast of the Holy Spirit carries that name, as well.
Have you ever done that thing on a public street corner where a couple of people stand there looking up and pretty soon some passing pedestrian, wondering what they are gazing at, will stop and look up, and then another and then another and so on until a lot of people are looking up into the sky at nothing for no reason? I have an image of that in my mind when I read the this passage, although in this case the “men of Galilee” are not looking at nothing for no reason. They are looking at something they can no longer see, except in their minds’ eye, and it is certainly not “for no reason” that they are doing so. Something phenomenal has happened to them; someone they thought had been killed by the authorities had returned from the dead, had eaten with them, talked with them, appeared to them over the course of over seven weeks, and now he had “ascended into heaven.” They had plenty of reason to stand there staring into the sky into which he had apparently gone.
The readings for the Daily Office on a Sunday depart from the daily flow of the lessons for the rest of the week; they are also unrelated to the lessons in the Eucharistic lectionary (especially since our adoption of the Revised Common Lectionary). On Sundays in recent weeks, those who recite the Daily Office have been treated to excerpts, like this, from the Book of Acts. I’ve set out the whole of today’s lesson, instead of simply quoting a verse or three, because of the symmetry of the passage: we start with magic (Paul creating magical amulets of handkerchiefs and aprons) and we end with magic (magicians burning their valuable grimoires). I find this sort of biblical pericope troubling and difficult to handle. ~ Many Christians wear crosses and medallions, carry prayer cards, wear scapulars, and use “prayer napkins” blessed by bishops, priests, revivalists, and television evangelists. The tradition of the church teaches that these talismans derive their power, not from anything inherent in or given to the object, rather from the firm faith and Godly devotion of the believer. But the handkerchiefs and aprons described here by Luke, the author of Acts, seem more like fetishes, given healing powers through what can only be called contagious sympathetic magic; these objects touched Paul, now they heal – the belief or faith of the sick person healed has nothing to do with it. ~ At the end of the passage, we are told that many “who practiced magic” became believers and burned their books of spells. They seem to have done so not through any conversion, but because Paul’s magic was greater than their own. ~ I’ve read several commentaries and sermons exegeting this passage, and all attempt to differentiate Paul’s “sweat rags” (as one might also translate the original Greek) and working aprons from magical talismans, but all, in my opinion, fail. Luke’s story boils down to “our magic is better than their magic.” In the 21st Century, I find that singularly unhelpful! ~ But here’s what this story makes me think about: contagious sympathetic magic is supposed to pass magical power from one person or object to another that it touches; I don’t think that actually happens, but I know that faith can be contagious, passing from one powerfully faithful person to others whose lives and hearts he or she may touch. And that powerful faith can set hearts on fire rather than books (don’t get me started about burning books)! It is neither through magic handkerchiefs nor through burning grimoires that the word of the Lord spreads and grows mightily and prevails: it is through shared faith setting hearts on fire for Christ.
God used the vision of a sheet filled with unclean animals to get Peter’s attention. “Here,” said the voice, “eat this stuff!” That would certainly have gotten my attention! I eat all sorts of things Jews would consider “not kosher” – pork, ham, bacon, crab, lobster, clams, black pudding (I love black pudding!), haggis; none of that would have gotten my attention. But a commandment to eat from a sheet filled with eels or snakes or lizards or insects of any sort would definitely have done so. So I can understand Peter’s rather negative reaction! ~ This vision was metaphorical or allegorical or a simile or something like that. (You’d think a one-time English major could keep those straight.) God wasn’t really telling Peter to eat those things; God was making a point about people. God’s point was to make Peter understand that God had nothing against gentiles, that all are equal in God’s sight. (I’m not sure how, as a gentile, I feel about being represented by eels and whatever, but I suppose God can use whatever metaphors God chooses. . . .) The lesson, obviously, was that Peter ought to be as accepting and admit gentiles into the Christian fellowship. ~ When the voice said to Peter, “What God has made clean, you must not call profane,” those words were meant to have application far beyond Peter and Cornelius (the specific gentile who was about to come seeking baptism). There’s a lesson there for us, too. In Christ, God has made every person in the world equal before him without regard to nationality, ethnicity, race, sex, sexual orientation, hair-eye-or-skin color, right- or left-dominance (and even the ambidextrous)! As Paul wrote in yesterday’s epistle lesson: “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.” (Gal. 3:28). Therefore, we Christians must treat every person we meet with dignity and respect. It’s more than too bad that we don’t; it’s sinful! ~ I may not be willing (or even able) to eat eels or snakes or insects. In fact, the very idea of eating eels makes me go, “Ewwwww!” and get slightly nauseated. But I had better learn to accept every human being as my equal before God, or I suspect that I will not be allowed to stand there myself.
What happened one thousand nine hundred and seventy-nine years ago?
If so, then receive it. [Each congregant was given a bottle of water when they entered the church.] I want you to give your bottle of water to someone whom you think might need some spiritual refreshment; and I want you to accept a bottle of water from someone who thinks you might need some spiritual refreshment. Let these bottles of water remind you that you are a source of refreshment to others, and that through others God provides you with spiritual renewal.
