Sermon 16th July 2017

Today, one of our Lay Readers, Trevor Tayleur, preaches. The reading is from Acts 14v19-28. 

Making New Friends

Caroline Chartres, wife of the recently retired Bishop of London, wrote in the Church Times about a friend who was in an airline check-in queue. He was behind a man who was exceptionally rude to the desk clerk. When her friend reached the front, he sympathised with the clerk. The clerk smiled and admitted she had taken revenge. "That gentleman is on his way to Amsterdam," she said, "but his luggage is going to Ankara."

Paul had many frustrations on his first missionary journey, but an airline losing his luggage wasn’t one of them. Today we’re concluding our series of sermons on the roadtrip of Barnabas and Paul, and we’ve looked at some snapshots of what they did and experienced on the way. Of course the events described in Acts 13 and 14, the two chapters we’ve been looking at, took place nearly 2,000 years ago. But as Adrian said in the opening sermon in this series, though the detail of the story may seem very alien to our own experience, the underlying themes – both the challenges faced and the encouragement and blessings experienced – are very close to the experience of Christians living in today’s world. Barnabas and Paul went out into a society which was basically very similar to ours: and they went out in the strength of very same spirit of God that fills us as we live our lives.

The passage we’ve heard this morning records the end of the roadtrip, and we see that they finish up in Antioch, that’s Syrian Antioch – not to be confused with the other Antioch, Pisidian Antioch, that they had also visited! Syrian Antioch is actually where they started their journey, where the early church had commissioned them to go out to spread the Good News of Jesus. So it’s no surprise that that is where they ended the journey, and where they reported back what had happened on their roadtrip. And so we read in verse 24 that they “reported all that God had done through them and how he had opened a door of faith to the Gentiles”.

If you glance ahead to Chapter 15, you will see that the chapter is headed “The Council at Jerusalem”. One of the biggest issues that the early church faced, as the Gospel spread out, was that non-Jewish people were coming to Christ.  Now, this may not seem a big deal for us today, but it was a huge issue in the early church. And at the Council of Jerusalem Paul and Barnabas had to go to great lengths to ensure that Gentiles, non-Jewish people, were accepted as equal members of God’s family. There was no need for them, as some argued, to adopt Jewish customs when they became Christians.

Paul and Barnabas’ journey began in Chapter 13, verse 2, in Syrian Antioch. While the church was fasting, the Holy Spirit said to them, “Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.” What work? What work had the Holy Spirit called them to do?

To find an answer, we can look back to the story of Paul’s dramatic conversion on the road to Damascus, described in Acts 9. Saul, as Paul was known at that time, was the sworn enemy of the early Christians, actively taking part in their persecution. He had had a dramatic encounter with the risen Jesus and was converted on the road to Damascus. The early believers were very frightened of Paul, and the Lord had to calm down Ananias, the man sent to help Paul, by telling him two things; firstly that Paul was God’s chosen instrument to proclaim the Good News of Jesus to Gentiles and Jews, there was to be no discrimination, and secondly that he would be suffering greatly in the process [Acts 9:15]. And towards the end of Acts 14 these two threads are picked up in the passage we’ve just read as Paul and Barnabas finish their journey. We see this in verse 22 where they returned to some of the places they had been earlier in the journey, places where they had been attacked. They strengthened the disciples, the members of the early church, and encouraged them to remain true to the faith. “We must go through many hardships to enter the kingdom of God,” they said.

They had to encourage the believers to remain true to the faith. Why? Because they were suffering many hardships. The early believers heard and accepted the Good News of Jesus, but life didn’t then become a bed of roses. Things were very difficult for the early Christians. The thought must have crossed some people’s minds that they must have made a quite dreadful mistake – buyer’s remorse. “This shouldn’t be happening to me,” some might have thought. “I must be on the wrong path.”  But Paul and Barnabas re-assured them that they were on the right path, but that it was a very difficult one.

Simon picked up on this theme in his sermon two weeks ago. At the start of chapter 14 Paul and Barnabas heard about a plot to mistreat and stone them.  And then they went to Lystra where Paul was actually stoned and left for dead, as Gill recounted last Sunday. Simon took us through a whistle-stop tour of missionary preaching over the past 2,000 years. He started with Paul and Barnabas and the way people reacted to them, some favourably but others, as we’ve seen, wanted to kill them.  Simon then took us to the 1740s and to John Wesley.  Like Paul, John Wesley got wildly differing reactions from those he preached to. Some would love his preaching and some would hate it. Things could turn very nasty indeed, with mobs stirred up by his opponents attacking him and trying to harm him. And there are parts of the world today where Christians face that kind of hostility.

And then Simon took us to the streets of present day Belfast and a YouTube video. The video showed a man asking people, “Who do you think Jesus is?” The replies showed that in modern Britain, rather than facing outright violent opposition, what Christians are perhaps more likely to get today is lack of interest or rather vague uncertainty or unwillingness to commit either way. Or perhaps condescension, a false tolerance or passive-aggressive hostility. This could be a harder environment than one where you at least know who is certainly for you and who is certainly against.

As Christians, we should not expect an easy life. We’re unlikely to face the hardships that Paul faced, or the persecution that Christians in some parts of the world face today. But we can’t expect immunity from hardships.

Now, if Paul had not become a Christian and started to preach the Gospel, he wouldn’t have faced these hardships. So the question arises, why did he think it was worth it? Our passage from Acts 14 contains the key clue. In verse 26 we read that “they sailed back to Antioch, where they had been committed to the grace of God for the work they had now completed”.

GRACE is the key to it all. If the path to God’s Kingdom brings hardship, it is grace that opens the door to God’s Kingdom for all people. At the end of Chapter 14, Paul and Barnabas reported what God had done through them and that he had opened a door of faith to the Gentiles; God had opened the door of faith to all nations. This is what spurred Paul and Barnabas to go from town to town, and even to return to hostile towns; they even called in for a second time in Lystra, where Paul had almost been stoned to death! Paul and Barnabas saw God at work, and they wanted to be part of it - Jews and Gentiles coming together as fellow believers in Christ. It’s what God wanted; the OT prophet Isaiah had prophesied that the Messiah, God’s chosen one, would be a light for the Gentiles, so that God’s salvation might reach to the ends of the earth. God is the God of the whole world, every nation, every group: God is God and Lord of all.

The Gospel is for everyone – including thieves and murderers. When Jesus was being crucified, he said to a thief who was being crucified at the same time: “Today you will be with me in paradise.” And Paul – who had been an accomplice to the murder of Christians – was also now a follower of Jesus. The Gospel is for everyone. God’s grace is free; it’s for everyone, whether you have the right or wrong background. And that was a problem for the traditional religious believers.

Much of the opposition to Paul and Barnabas was stirred up by people who attended the synagogues regularly but refused to believe. God’s grace and forgiveness are not earned. But for those who think they can earn God’s favour, that’s a scandal. Much of the opposition to Jesus was from the Pharisees, highly religious people who lived seemingly upright lives. One of their main mistakes was to think they could earn God’s favour by following the letter of the law. But that’s impossible; we can’t earn God’s favour by our own efforts.  We shall always fall short.

But in this there’s also a warning for us. Christians, long-standing Christians, can fall into the same trap as the traditionalists who opposed Paul and Barnabas. OK, we’re not going to stone people, but we can set up our own cultural barriers and narrow cliques. But God doesn’t discriminate; indeed, that’s why we’re here. The Gospel is for everyone. The Gospel is for everyone who’s not like me. If we’re the “us”, the Gospel is for the “them”. Of course there shouldn’t be a “them” and “us”. One thing that’s clear from what Paul and Barnabas taught and did is that there should only be an “us”.

And, as Gill pointed out last Sunday, the teaching of Jesus and the New Testament also tells us to act and speak with care, genuine care, for others. And that is an important lesson in our multi-faith, multi-cultural society. As Paul and Barnabas did, we too should share our faith in word and deed with those around us and with our needy world.  And as Adjoa said in her sermon, may we follow in the footsteps of Paul and Barnabas and show God’s love in the world in real and practical ways.

Gill also challenged us last Sunday with these words: “Could we have, should we have, do we have, relationships of mutual respect…with people of other faiths or none? Humble, kind, respectful relationships that can open up conversation and dialogue? Listening, understanding, supporting, as well as seeking to share God’s truth and love in word and deed. Loving our neighbour in every way.”

There’s also a postscript to that sermon. After last Sunday’s service, Gill and I went for a walk, and quite by chance we were walking past a mosque in Harringay, the London Islamic and Cultural Centre and Mosque. The gate was open, so we went in and extended a hand of friendship to the man at the door. He invited us in very warmly, insisted on finding the Imam, who gave us a fulsome tour of the building and contextual information about Islam. Had Gill not preached that sermon last Sunday, this probably would not have happened!

Paul, from a traditional Jewish background, was willing to face massive hardship to bring the Gospel to Jews and Gentiles alike; people like him and people not like him. Paul and Barnabas believed that the Good News of Jesus was so great that it was worth facing massive hardships to bring God’s grace to all people. God wanted them to open the door of faith to the Gentiles. Are we willing to open the door of faith to people who are not like us?

Amen.

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[i] 16 July 2017