My Old Sermon Blog

This Sunday’s text, II Samuel 18:19-33, was the one I used for what perhaps only the third or fourth sermon I preached, during my college years. As I recall, I first delivered it at a tiny Baptist church in Topanga Canyon in California. The story of David mourning his son Absalom had captured both my heart and my mind and I wanted to share some of those feelings.

The text had actually been first brought to my attention years before as our marvelous junior high choral teacher taught us to sing “David’s Lamentation” by William Billings. Maybe it was just the haunting early American melody, but as a boy who had never really experienced the love of a father, I think the story itself worked into my soul. It may have given me a glimpse of how fathers are truly supposed to feel about their children, a love I longed for. In any case, David’s heartfelt cry, “Oh Absalom, my son, my son!” pierced deep within me and became part of my understanding of God’s own love.

Despite its pathos and agony, the tale of Absalom is not without some grim humor. That worked itself out in my young mind as a tongue-in-cheek high school essay expounding the dangers of long hair for men based on Absalom’s demise hanging in a tree by his beautiful locks, where Joab finds and runs him through with a spear. My English teacher pressed me toward a little critical thinking by noting that the moral to be drawn need not be eschewing long hair, but “Don’t ride your donkey through the forest.”

Such dark humor definitely takes a backseat to David’s deep and wracking lament, something many thoughtful American Christians have noted is mostly lacking in our own expressions of worship and prayer. Back 0n September 11, 2001, when we were given a grave matter for national lament, we mostly turned it into an occasion for a call to arms and national pride.

To return to the point above, lament lets us connect with God, not only because it is an authentic communication, but because it helps us relate to something in God’s own self. Pain over the loss of a son is something that the Father Himself knows well.

David also desired to vicariously take his son’s guilt upon himself. I say it in the KJV words Billings used, “Would to God I had died, would to God I had died for thee! O Absalom, my son, my son.” Reading them or hearing those words sung, how can one but think of the One who could and did die for the children He loves? As I suggested last Sunday, Jesus is truly “great David’s greater Son,” the one who fulfills and completes what was good and true in the second king of Israel.

This week’s text and sermon did not turn out to be what I planned. Originally I was going to reuse what I thought was a very fine first-person narrative sermon from over twenty years ago, David ruminating on the severe costs of his sin with Bathsheba. But as I pulled it out and began to ruminate about it myself I realized that its message may be difficult or impossible to hear in the current climate. The simple biblical facts that David committed sexual violence (and murder) and despite it all retained his position as king may be too hard to hear for today’s victims right now, or, worse, it may imply that such acts in the life of a “chosen” leader may simply be brushed aside. I don’t think II Samuel 10 and 11 imply that at all, but it all quickly gets way too complex.

So I switched gears and turned to a fascinating minor character in David’s story. Admittedly, David’s relationship with Mephibosheth, son of Jonathan, grandson of Saul, in II Samuel 9 puts the new king in a much better light than the rape and murder of the next two chapters. But the account of Mephibosheth is often overlooked and can call us to acts of gracious kindness like God’s own (verse 3).

Rembrandt’s painting shows us David receiving and embracing the young man who, because of an accident when an infant (II Samuel 4:4), was crippled in both feet. It is not clear if he was able to walk or not. The plight of those with disabilities in the ancient world was difficult. In a family of wealth and power like Saul’s they might survive but would hardly do well or receive much respect.

In discussion on preceding reading from Judges, Ruth and I Samuel, one of our church members noted how seriously oaths, vows and other promises were regarded in ancient times. We see that played out here as in II Samuel 9:1 David remembers his oath to Jonathan to show kindness to his family (I Samuel 20:14) and presumably also his oath to Saul in the same regard (I Samuel 24:21-22).

Yet more than an oath seems to be in play here as David uses the word “kindness,” hesed Hebrew, three times in the narrative (verses 1, 3, 7). That kindness takes the form of an exhaustive restoration of all Saul’s personal land to Mephibosheth and a place at David’s own table. In other words, it goes above and beyond mere regard and protection of a man who might be regarded as a rival to the throne.

Hesed is the word often chosen to express in Hebrew the loving-kindness of God Himself. And in David’s mercy toward one others might regard as an enemy, we see a picture of God’s mercy toward us. In Jesus Christ we are pardoned, our lives are restored, and we are welcomed to His Table. Despite all his flaws, we catch a glimpse here of why David was called “a man after God’s own heart.”

The notion that the effects of prayer, if they exist, should be statistically measurable is as old as the 19th century at least. In 1872 Francis Galton wrote “Statistical Inquiries into the
Effectiveness of Prayer,” in which in partial satire he argued that the British royal family received more prayer than anyone on earth (daily prayers for them in every church of England) and so ought to be healthier and more long-lived than the general population. But statistical analysis of the death ages of the royal family did not bear out that hypothesis. Maybe the long and vigorous life of Queen Elizabeth II would change the results somewhat today.

More recently, a serious, careful modern statistical experiment was done by Harvard professor Herbert Benson in 2006, “Study of the Therapeutic Effects of Intercessory Prayer (STEP).” STEP proceeded with three groups of cardiac patients, two of them prayed for by local churches under carefully controlled, double-blind, experimental methods. The results showed no measurable positive increase in surgical outcomes for those who received prayer over those who did not. That and other studies have inclined skeptics like Richard Dawkins to conclude that prayer is useless.

Yet the biblical picture of effective and answered prayer is entirely different from the necessarily impersonal and carefully controlled regimen of valid scientific studies (the STEP program required certain words to be part of each prayer and those who prayed knew only the prayer recipients’ initials). But in our text for this Sunday from the beginning of I Samuel, Hannah prays for herself in a deep, intensely personal relationship with God, asking for a child. Her prayer is answered, first in the boy Samuel who is the focus of what follows, and then in several children born to her after she dedicates Samuel to the service of the Lord.

How could any scientific study capture the circumstances of Israel in decline at the beginning of I Samuel or the emotional agony of Hannah’s domestic situation? As verse 5 indicates, she was likely the more-loved of her husband’s two wives, but she was constantly tormented by her co-wife’s baby-making success and taunts in that regard. The Hebrew of verse 5 is unclear about whether Hannah received a double portion (NRSV, NIV) or only a single portion (NLT) of sacrificial meat, but either way it would have been a source of tension and contention between her and her fecund rival.

Hannah accepted the announcement of God’s intervention into her misery seemingly without question when told by Eli that God had heard her. When a son is born to Hannah, his name Samuel could mean “God’s Name,” but an alternative is clearly understood in verse 20, “God has heard.”

One of the conditions of answered prayer in the Bible and in the lives of God’s people seems to be that clear sense expressed in the boy’s name. God hears and God has heard us when we pray. However prayer fares in statistical analyses, we may keep praying in the sort of confidence Hannah possessed, that our God does in fact hear us.

The little story of Ruth is a welcome relief after reading the book of Judges. Almost all the judges about whom we have any personal details, save Deborah, seem flawed and broken despite their strength and leadership. God uses them for periods of deliverance and peace for His people, but they are painfully imperfect vessels for God’s saving work.

The closing chapters of Judges tell an even bleaker story in which the theme offered at chapter 17 verse 6, “In those days there was no king in Israel. Everyone did what was right in his own eyes,” is demonstrated in ugly stories of lawless action and idolatry.

So turning the page after Judges 21:25, a closing repetition of that “In those days…” saying, one coming fresh to the biblical story might expect more of the same sort of dark narrative, given the opening of Ruth, “In the days when the judges ruled…” But what follows is a refreshing picture of good and pious people doing what is right and caring for each other despite poverty and grief.

This triptych by Thomas Matthews Rooke tells the story of Ruth beautifully (read right to left, like reading Hebrew). Naomi’s Moabite daughter-in-law Ruth is devoted to Naomi and returns to Bethlehem with her after the deaths of Naomi’s husband and sons. Boaz meets Ruth as she gleans with the poor along the edges of his field. After legal obstacles to their marriage are overcome, Ruth gives birth to Obed, who is cherished by his grandmother Naomi. Obed in turn is to become the grandfather of David, the great king of Israel.

One of the key features of Ruth’s story is her foreignness. She is a Moabite. Moab was an enemy of Israel and refused them help and passage through their land during the journey from Egypt to Canaan. Now Moab in the person of Ruth is redeemed and brought into the history of God’s people. The welcomed stranger becomes part of the story of salvation.

Throughout Scripture we learn over and over that there really are no strangers to God’s kingdom. His borders stand open to all who wish to enter and receive His grace and love. We see that in Jesus’ dealings with people like the Roman centurion and the Syro-Phoenician woman and in Paul’s great mission to the Gentiles in Europe. May we see it still reflected in our own attitudes toward and dealings with those who are strangers to us.

Lane Pittman did it again. After going out shirtless and carrying an American flag to stand in the face of Hurricane Matthew in 2016, he crowdfunded a trip to South Carolina last week to do the same during Hurricane Florence. Such senseless bravado may attract attention, but it is not courage. Likewise for various weather reporters who risk their lives to stand on the edge of destruction as they speak to microphones and cameras.

Courage, in fact, feels like a problematic virtue these days. To many of us it carries with it an implication of willingness to engage either in foolish self-endangerment or in unjustified acts of violence against supposed enemies of our way of life. However, we still find ourselves praising the bravery of first-responders who risk themselves to rescue others from fire, flood or other hazards. Their courage, at least, seems beyond reproach.

Taking up the topic of the call to courage in the first chapter of Joshua, many of our reservations may be triggered. When God and then the people themselves tell the new leader of Israel to be “strong and courageous” in verses 6, 7, 9 and 18, it is in the context of preparation for a war of conquest. The caution to be sure to all that God commanded through Moses in verses 7 and 8, it becomes clear in the chapters that follow, means that all Israel’s enemies are to be utterly destroyed, wiped from the face of the earth, men, women and children and sometimes livestock.

That sort of physical, battle-ready courage seems a problematic quality in today’s world. Those who serve in the armed forces and receive training and encouragement in such courage often come home ill-equipped for “normal” peaceful society. So what are we to make of the call to courage for Joshua? How does it apply, if at all, to our own selves?

I would argue that we must first recognize that we live both historically and spiritually in a wholly different situation from that of Joshua and the ancient Israelites. We have absolutely no divine mandate for conquest and in the coming of Jesus Christ our understanding of the nature of God and our relationship has been hugely transformed.

Yet there is continuity. Our God revealed in Jesus is the same God who directed Joshua and Israel. And there is still a call to courage for our leaders and our own selves. The continuity in situation is that God’s people are still meant to live lives very differently from the peoples around them. They are to be utterly devoted to the one God and not divided in allegiance. That was at least one point of the Israelite conquest of Canaan, to remove the temptation to follow the gods of other nations, to split off some of one’s loyalty to God in service to other deities.

That sort of temptation to divided loyalty remains for us today. Along with our loyalty to God, we are asked for loyalty to country, to race, to political party, even to sports team or brand name. But as we read of Joshua’s courage, we must realize that we cannot genuinely have both. As Peter said in Acts 5:29, “we must obey God rather than human beings.” And that will often take courage, ask it did for Peter and the other apostles in Acts.

It takes courage to retain undivided loyalty to God because those around us too often confuse loyalty to God with those other lesser loyalties. They imagine that an apparent lack of patriotism is somehow a lack of faith in God. They suppose that only one political perspective is possible for Christians. They even imagine that one will shop certain merchants or services or cheer certain teams because they owned or managed by people of putative faith. It frequently takes courage to decline those secondary and derivative loyalties in favor of true commitment to God and His kingdom. May He make us strong and courageous for the times in which we live.

I’m strongly inclined to believe that the body of Paul the Apostle does in fact rest beneath a basilica dedicated to him in Rome. But I recognize that my belief is not based on any great knowledge of the evidence regarding his death and burial. I just like the name of the place, the “Basilica of St Paul outside the Walls.” Though expanded and updated over the centuries, it was originally built by Constantine to mark a traditional place of his death, at the third mile marker outside the city along the Ostian Way.

In our text for this week, Acts 28:11-31, as we come to the conclusion of the book of Acts, we find Paul still very much alive. With little fanfare, he and Luke arrive in Rome after wintering on Malta. Paul is allowed house arrest in a lodging of his own. For two years, we are told in verse 30, he received freely received visitors and proclaimed the Gospel to everyone who came to him. We’re not told what happened at the end of those two years.

Following F. F. Bruce at the end of his masterful biography Paul: Apostle of the Heart Set Free, I will simply assume that Paul was set free from that original imprisonment in Rome, that he perhaps fulfilled his desire to visit Spain, and that finally he was arrested again and beheaded at that traditional location marked by St Paul outside the Walls. I recognize that there are several other possibilities, including death at the end of the two years marked in Acts and exile.

Maybe what I also like about that “outside the walls” location for Paul’s death is that it connects with the last word of Acts, “unhindered.” During his imprisonment, says verse 31, Paul was “without hindrance” in “proclaiming the kingdom of God and teaching about the Lord Jesus Christ with all boldness.” Dying outside of the walls resonates with that freedom from hindrance.

Outside walls and unhindered also reflects Paul’s dispute with some in the Jewish community in Rome reflected in verses 23 to 28. Though some within the traditional boundaries of God’s people reject Paul’s message, others outside those boundaries, Gentiles, are gladly receiving it, as Paul says in verse 28. That movement beyond walls of ethnicity is another way in which Paul’s good news about Jesus is unhindered.

So whether or not Paul died outside of Rome there along the Ostian Way, his preaching of Jesus Christ allows anyone, anywhere to live in unhindered by the restraints of sin and oppression by the powers of the world. He truly was a man outside and free of the walls which humans put up and his message offers that same freedom to all people.

This Sunday’s sermon will start out with my own up-close personal snake encounter, a few years ago at our cabin in Arizona. Though I didn’t get bit like Paul in our text from Acts 28:1-10, I was unexpectedly nose-to-nose with a rattler I hadn’t noticed when I went to connect a garden hose. I can’t read about Paul’s experience without remembering that one.

As we heard last week from the second half of Acts 27, Paul was shipwrecked and came ashore on the island of Malta. No poisonous snakes are found there today, though there is no reason to doubt their presence in ancient times. Human antipathy to snakes is such that increasing population and habitation would naturally drive out the venomous creatures.

In my own snake story, our rescuer came in the form of a fellow who loved snakes and found them beautiful. He captured the critter I encountered and removed it to a safe distance from our cabin. Though it may sound odd, I’m moved to think how God loves us and finds us worth the gift of His Son despite all our “snakelike” attributes and sin.

In the text, verse 2, the translations call the Maltese folks “islanders” or “natives,” but the actual word in Greek is barbaroi, “barbarians.” Though it may not have the overtones of violent nature we associate with “barbarian” today, the term certainly meant uncouth, uneducated, non-Greek speaking peoples of the ancient world.

Yet these “barbarians” are lovely in God’s eyes. They show “unusual kindness” to Paul and the rest of the shipwrecked company. The leading man of the Maltese takes Paul and friends into his own home and abundantly provisions them for the final leg of the journey to Rome. We can only guess, because the text does not say, but almost certainly Paul shared the Good News with them and some became Christians. The text does say that Paul healed the leader’s father and many others on Malta. Salvation came to despised “barbarians.”

The kindness of the ancient Maltese and God’s grace to them through Paul are important reminders to us in these times. Many around us are more likely to view strangers and foreigners as dangerous as snakes and deny them help if not kill them outright. Even when some people of different color or language are admitted into a community they may be viewed as “barbarian” and inferior. Paul’s sojourn on Malta reminds us that we will often be blessed in interactions with those different from us and that they are all beautiful in His eyes.

One of my cherished memories is fishing on Puterbaugh Lake near Cassopolis in southern Michigan, just over the border from Indiana. A friend in the Covenant church in South Bend told me how to drive onto a little property on the lake, find a half dozen rowboats on the shore, leave a few dollars in a drop box, pick up a pair of oars by the shed, and take off for a day of fishing for bluegill, crappie and the occasional bass or even once a terribly ugly dogfish. The boat “rental” was all strictly honor system. It disappeared years and years ago when that friendly farmer’s land was sold and marked “No Trespassing” by new owners.

Part of the charm of those rickety, occasionally leaky little boats was my first experience with a homemade anchor consisting of a coffee can filled with concrete with a loop of iron bar stuck in the top. When the breeze came up across the little lake, my friends and I quickly discovered how important that anchor was. Lowering it on the attached rope allowed us to stay in place where the fish were biting without constantly rowing. That humble improvised nautical device was essential.

Evidently scholars do not know a lot about nautical practice and gear in Paul’s time. The record of the tumultuous beginning of his voyage to Rome in Acts 27:1-26 is full of nautical terms which are not entirely clear. One appears in verse 17 and is often translated “sea anchor” in modern English translations. Literally, it simply says they lowered the “gear” or “equipment.” In the face of the strong wind it makes sense that the “gear” would be some implement on ropes that dragged in the water to keep the ship in line with the wind, either bow or stern first into the waves so as not to turn sideways to the wind and capsize. Sea anchors like that are still used for the same purpose today.

I’m going to “cheat” (as some stuffy, purist, “single-meaning,” literalist exegetes would charge) in this Sunday’s sermon and allegorize that sea anchor into an image of our connection to Christ. Staying anchored to our Lord doesn’t mean the storms won’t lash and drive us, but tethered to Him we stay facing into the wind and upright.

Yet even with the sea anchor the crew of Paul’s ship realized it was foundering, probably taking on water. So they began to lighten the vessel by throwing the cargo and even some of the ship’s tackle (masts and sails and such) overboard in verses 18 and 19. Following that same allegorical mode of interpretation, I see our need to drop some of the “gear” which weighs us down in spiritual life, be it possessions, addictive sins, or even seemingly innocent pleasures which consume too much time and attention.

So the lesson for this Sunday will be to drop anchor, first in the sense of being securely anchored by faith in Jesus Christ and then second in the sense of dropping away that stuff in our life which weighs us down and anchors us too much to this world rather than God’s kingdom.

I grew up reading about Bobby Fischer, the erratic chess genius who defeated the Russian Boris Spassky to win the world chess championship in 1972. After refusing to defend his title for 20 years, he beat Spassky again 20 years later in 1992, a remarkable comeback and achievement after two decades of playing very little formal chess. Always eccentric, Fischer then descended into outright paranoia and mental illness in the final years of his life, living as a scraggly bearded recluse in Iceland.

Historically insanity is no stranger to the upper echelons of chess, including grandmasters Alekhine, Nimzovitch, Morphy, Steinitz and others. The deranged chess genius is a stereotype with some basis in reality. One wonders if the game drove them mad or if madness somehow, perhaps genetically, accompanies the traits that make for a great player.

The association between genius and madness is ancient. In our text for this Sunday, Acts chapter 26, the new Roman governor of Judea, Porcius Festus, suggests that Paul’s great learning has driven him insane. He makes this remark right after Paul has spoken in verse 23 about the resurrection of Jesus.

Whatever the link might be between genius and insanity, Festus was not the only one to suppose that Christian behavior was insane. In II Corinthians 5:13, “if we are beside ourselves [out of our minds], it is for God,” Paul is evidently responding to fellow Christians who find his and other apostles’ actions and words bizarre.

And of course Jesus’s own family questioned His sanity in Mark 3:21. Living the life that God wants not infrequently appears less than sane to those looking on from outside. When we follow Jesus and Paul in placing the most value on things which are eternal, letting go of money, power and security, we may look crazy to those around us.

Whether or not Fischer and those other chess grandmasters were insane, is for others to decide. But it is clear that the kind of single-minded, focused devotion required to play chess at the highest levels may look like insanity from the outside. The rigors of learning openings and strategies and endgame tactics might very well loosen one’s grip on attention to other ordinary concerns of life. The same may be true of deep devotion to Christ.

Paul’s reply to those who question Christian commitment to God’s kingdom and what He values should be our reply as well. It’s in verse 25 of Acts 26, “I am not out of my mind…, but am speaking the sober truth.” May we join Paul in being more willing to speak the sober truth of our confidence in Christ’s resurrection rather than in the schemes and apparatus of the world which at best can only offer us temporary life and happiness. It may look like insanity to those who pursue lesser goals, but it is the most sane and true pursuit there is.

One of the key turning points of Paul’s life and mission occurs in Acts chapter 25. It happens while Paul is incarcerated for about three years in Caesarea. Brought before the recently installed Roman governor Festus, Paul appeals to Caesar in verses 10 and 11 in order to avoid being returned Jerusalem and very likely murdered upon the way.

In our time, we need to be clear about what Paul’s appeal signifies regarding Christian relationships with political orders. Read in company with what Paul writes in Romans 13:1-7, Paul’s appeal to Caesar might be construed as an endorsement of the moral authority of the Roman emperor and confidence that he will be treated fairly at imperial hands. Nothing could be further from the truth.

The “Caesar” to whom Paul appeals is the last emperor to legitimately bear the name Caesar as a family name. Nero was the last of the Julio-Claudian dynasty which took the name Caesar, beginning with Augustus, from Julius Caesar. Nero was arguably a terrible tyrant, very likely insane, and far from anything like a legitimate moral authority for both Jews and Christians.

Thus Paul’s appeal to Caesar-who-was-Nero should not be taken anything like evidence that Paul trusted the government of Rome to do right by him. In fact, Paul, Jesus and the New Testament make a clear separation between the moral authority of God’s law and the law of human government. It would be a mistake to conflate these and imagine that any merely human rule somehow has God’s authority behind it.

Jaroslav Pelikan is helpful in this in his commentary on Acts 25 verse 8 when he notes how Paul declares his innocence, saying, “I have in no way committed an offense against the law of the Jews, or against the temple, or against the emperor.” Since the Greek word here for “offense” is the word commonly used for sin in the New Testament, Pelikan argues that “the law of the Jews” is clearly God’s law, the eternal moral law governing all humanity. Both temple ritual and imperial regulations are something different and lesser. To be sure, both temple rites and human law may have grounding in God’s eternal law, but they are not the same thing.

This distinction between God’s law and human law has been the ground, down through Christian history, for Christians to challenge governmental authority when it fails to line up with divine moral law. This is clearly seen at the start of Acts in chapter 5 verse 29 when Peter declares to the Sanhedrin, “We must obey God rather than any human authority.”

It is within that distinction between human and divine authority, which we hear from Paul’s own lips, that we must read the passage on civil authority in Romans 13 and understand Paul’s appeal to Caesar. Paul explains in verse 11 of Acts 25 that he does not fear death itself, but does wish to avoid an unjust death at the hands of fanatic opponents. His appeal to the emperor is not done with the conviction that Nero will be more just, but as a pragmatic device to evade an immediate end to his life and mission.

Our attitude to temporal political authority should be the same as Paul’s. We should observe and work within it with clear eyes and minds. Human governments may offer peace and order which are useful to the purposes of God’s kingdom, but we must never confuse the one with the other.

“Pascal’s Wager” is a line of thought which the 17th century mathematician and philosopher Blaise Pascal proposed in his collection of aphorisms entitled Pensées. On the assumption (not necessarily one I accept) that no conclusive reasons may be offered for or against God’s existence, he argues that the wisest course is to “wager” that God does in fact exist.

The “Wager” has provoked all sorts of discussion and it had important consequences even in non-theological areas of study like decision and game theory. One of the key ideas of Pascal’s argument is that in certain circumstances one must decide between two options. To fail to decide is, in fact, actually to choose one or other of the options.

The relevant passage from Pascal is as follows:

“Do not, then, reprove for error those who have made a choice; for you know nothing about it. ‘No, but I blame them for having made, not this choice, but a choice; for again both he who chooses heads and he who chooses tails are equally at fault, they are both in the wrong. The true course is not to wager at all.’ Yes; but you must wager. It is not optional.”

In the case of belief in God, to fail to decide is essentially to choose the option to not believe, in the way one lives practically, that God exists. That is, if you try to suspend belief, then you will fail to live as God desires, will fail to do what those who believe in God do, and will thus lose out on the rewards God gives to those who believe and direct their lives toward Him.

In Acts 24, our sermon text for this Sunday, we find Paul brought to the attention of the then governor of Judea, Antonius Felix. Felix appears to feel he can remain in a state of indecision, a suspension of belief, as he encounters Paul and hears him talk about God, Christian faith, and the expected course of life for those who acknowledge the truth of the Gospel.

The chapter begins with an attorney’s letter about Paul to Felix, which opens praising the governor for the peace and reforms enjoyed by Judea under his rule. That praise was pure sycophancy like we see in politics today, because Felix was a terrible governor who actually provoked disturbances in his territory and brought little to no benefit to the Jewish people.

In any case, Paul was brought before Felix, who heard both the the Sanhedrin’s charges against him and Paul’s own defense. Verse 22 then tells us that Felix was “rather well informed about the Way,” in other words, about the Christian movement.

In what follows in verse 22 we find Felix declaring his intention to quickly decide Paul’s case upon arrival of the tribune Lysias, who has now been involved with Paul for some time.

Yet instead of a quick decision, Felix kept Paul imprisoned while allowing Paul’s friends freedom of access to him. He and his wife also listen to Paul talk further about “faith in Christ Jesus” in verse 24. But Felix is disturbed when Paul draws practical conclusions concerning “righteousness, self-control, and the coming judgment,” verse 25. He sends Paul away at that moment, but over the next two years keeps bringing him back for conversation, because according to verse 26 he hopes for a bribe from Paul.

It seems to me that Felix not only fails to decide Paul’s case in the hope of receiving a bribe, but that he also fails to come to a decision about Paul’s message. Felix was informed about Christianity before he met Paul, yet he continues to hold faith at arm’s distance even as he listens to one its most eloquent advocates.

Felix makes no commitment either way for two years. Finally his incompetency catches up to him and he is recalled to Rome, where his more influential brother manages to protect him from any severe consequences for his failures as a governor.

Felix is a reminder that, while God is gracious to those who are open to hearing the Good News, one cannot postpone forever an active and practical commitment to Christ. You and I should look for ways in which we might send away God’s messenger, whether in the form of Scripture or in the form of Christians around us, when we are pressed to conform our lives more closely to the message we’ve heard, especially around topics like righteousness, self-control and the coming judgment. To fail to decide is to decide against what God wishes for the way we live.

Back in my graduate school days, my friend Jay and I jointly took possession of a decrepit 1967 Dodge Coronet (not near as nicely kept as the one in the picture), left to us by another student who finished his degree and went on to other things, including a newer and better car. With mechanic skills honed on Jay’s old Rambler and my Chevy Vega, we took on the task of making this extra vehicle driveable through hours spent in our apartment parking lot huddled over the Dodge’s engine compartment or laying on the pavement under it.

Our working understanding of our DIY auto repair was that we could estimate a repair time as follows, “Replacing that starter should take about an hour and a half… unless there are complications.” You guessed it. There were always complications. It was a great life lesson. Learning to expect events in life to get complicated and messy taught us much about the world.

As we move toward the end of Paul’s story in Acts, it gets complicated. In our text for this coming Sunday, Acts 23:12-35, the mess generated by a possible riot in the previous chapter only gets worse as Paul’s enemies arrange to have him killed during a prisoner transfer.

Yet God steps into the complications in a way that’s a bit of surprise to us. It turns out Paul has a sister (who is not mentioned elsewhere in Scripture) who has a son who is in the right place at the right time to hear of the plot against Paul and intervene. As I will say in the sermon, it smacks of some of the incredible coincidences Charles Dickens often used to move his stories along. But for Paul is not a fictional device, it’s the way God works.

God is in the mess, in the complications. We may or may not, this side of the Kingdom, get a surprising glimpse of how He’s going to work it all out. Yet the presence of Paul’s nephew at precisely the right place and time to save Paul’s life gives us just such a glimpse to assure us that it really is going to happen, that God will at some point cut through the tangled knot of our circumstances to bring us the good He wills for us in Christ.

The Cross of Jesus shows us, of course, that God’s surprising intervention may not happen just when we would like it, but it will be there, just as it was for Jesus on Easter morning. The complications will melt away in the serendipity of God’s grace working on our behalf.

In our text from Acts this week, chapter 22 verse 30 to chapter 23 verse 11, we see Paul on trial before the Sanhedrin. He shrewdly resists their efforts to judge him by their perception of Jewish law. They even resort to physical abuse in their attempt to find him guilty of some offense for which they can punish him under Roman law.

In verse 23:1 Paul asserts to the priests and council that “I have lived my life with a clear [literally “good”] conscience before God.” That assertion so infuriates the high priest Ananias that in verse 2 he orders Paul to be struck on the mouth. Paul’s temper flares and he responds, “God will strike you, you whitewashed wall!” and questions the legality of the order to strike him.

Paul’s outburst in turn leads to a rebuke from others asking how he dared insult the high priest (verse 4). Paul’s reply to that rebuke in verse 5 seems ingenuous, “I did not realize, brothers, that he was the high priest,” followed by a quote from Exodus 22:28 about not cursing a leader of the people. Yet it is difficult to see how Paul could not have known Ananias was high priest, given that Ananias was leading the proceedings and Paul’s obvious acquaintance with the membership of the council demonstrated in what follows regarding the presence of Pharisees and Sadducees.

So it is better to interpret Paul’s denial that he knew Ananias was high priest as sarcasm. Tongue-in-cheek, Paul is saying that he “did not realize” Ananias was high priest because Ananias was not acting like a high priest, i.e., like someone who loves, upholds and observes the law.

Paul’s declaration of his own good conscience stands in stark contrast to Ananias’ hypocrisy in violating the law for treatment of prisoners while supposedly upholding God’s law. Forgiven in Christ and taking pains to maintain a clear conscience, as Paul says later in chapter 24 verse 16, his honesty is transparent. On the other hand, the high priest is described as “whitewashed,” a thin veneer of false cleanliness and light over a cracked and crumbling interior, much like Jesus picture of hypocrites in Matthew 6.

In these days when charges of Christian hypocrisy seem rampant, it is especially important that followers of Jesus be like Paul in “taking pains” to maintain a good and clear conscience before the tribunals of both private and public opinion. We begin with an honest and open appraisal of our own sins and recognition of our need for forgiveness. Beyond that we must with Paul live into and up to that forgiveness in the new life we receive in Christ.

Our daughter is on her way to dual citizenship. Six years ago she married a Canadian man and began the process of applying for Canadian citizenship. It seems like she will be able to enjoy the blessings of both the country of her birth and of her husband’s country.

I imagine that not everyone would think dual citizenship is a good thing. Isn’t it enough to be American some might ask? In any case, shouldn’t one’s American citizenship come first?

The Bible contains interesting lessons on citizenship. In this week’s sermon texts from Acts 21:27-40 and 22:22-29, we see Paul exercising his two earthly citizenships, first as a Jew and then as a Roman citizen.

Last week we saw how Paul attempted to affirm his Jewishness by submitting to participation in a purification rite in the temple. This week in our first text we see how that all backfired. Paul’s enemies trumped up false charges against him, claiming that he defiled the temple by bringing a Gentile into it.

One gets the impression that no matter what Paul did he would never be “Jewish enough” for his critics. As long as he consorted with non-Jews and believed them to be loved by God as much as Jews, nothing he could do would alleviate their suspicions. I can’t help be reminded of forces in our own country which would make anyone not “American enough” if he or she doesn’t respect the flag in a certain way or has a heart for refugees and foreigners.

The fascinating thing about Paul is that in the second text from Acts 22, he trades upon his second citizenship as a Roman. He is about to suffer a flogging (we might call it torture) and be questioned, but that particular measure was not allowed to be use on Roman citizens. The official holding him in fact becomes quite concerned when he realizes that he was about to mistreat a citizen of the empire.

One might wonder about Paul’s loyalties as he freely moves back and forth between his status as a Jew and his status as a Roman. Certainly some of his contemporaries wanted his loyalty to be clear. Yet the fact is that Paul was operating in all these events out of third citizenship and a deeper loyalty than either his Jewishness or his Roman citizenship. His commitment to Christ superseded those other loyalties and even caused him to regard them in a somewhat utilitarian fashion, tools to be deployed when they served the cause of Jesus and to be challenged when they did not.

Jesus Himself in the Gospel lesson for this Sunday, Mark 3:20-35, made even the most fundamental human loyalty to family secondary to loyalty to Him. It was a theme that Paul carried out in relation to racial and national loyalties. It’s an important theme for Christians to remember in this age when various loyalties are being asserted and questioned. As Paul wrote to the Philippians chapter 3, verse 20, “But our citizenship is in heaven.” This is a time to remember and claim that citizenship above all.

My wife and I recently applied for a Global Entry pass for travel back into the United States. It speeds the process through customs when re-entering the country. We’re a little dismayed that we have to wait several months for an interview in Portland to complete the process, but fortunately we are not traveling anywhere out of the country soon. When done, it will be handy to be known as a “trusted traveler.”

In our text for this week, Acts 21:17-26, Paul returns to Jerusalem from a long journey in Gentile territory and found that he was not entirely trusted by Jewish brothers and sisters in the original Christian church. They feared that in bringing Gentiles to Christ Paul was denigrating Jewish faith and customs and teaching Jews to ignore the Law of Moses.

So Paul “cleared” customs in Jerusalem by submitting himself to joining four men in a Jewish purification rite and paying their expenses for the needed sacrifices. He thereby demonstrated his continued Jewishness and observance of age-old customs of that faith.

Casual reading of the text in comparison with what Paul says about the Law of Moses in his epistles might generate a question. How does Paul’s epistolary arguments that grace trumps law square with his willingness to engage in Jewish custom for the sake of public relations? The answer is that there is really no contradiction at all. As Paul says clearly over and over, and as Jesus Himself affirmed by saying He had not come to abolish the Law but to fulfill it, the supremacy of grace in no way invalidates the Mosaic Law or casts aspersions on it. It was perfectly consistent for Paul to preach grace while showing himself to be a model Jew in terms of the rules and customs of that faith.

It’s a lesson for Christians to remember as we navigate the customs and traditions that have arisen in our own faith in its various expressions. The newness of life in Christ is not an excuse to denigrate or entirely throw out expressions of Christianity that are simply older or traditional. Forms and styles of worship may change, but expressions at the heart of who we are ought to be cherished and respected. As I’ll say Sunday, the celebration of Holy Communion and the “words of institution” spoken in that context is one such custom. It’s not to be neglected or tossed out in a confused notion of what Christian freedom is about.

More loosely, Paul’s willingness in Jerusalem to accommodate himself to his practicing Jewish brothers and sisters in Christ for the sake of peace in the church is a demonstration of what he taught about behaving in ways that respect the feelings of others (in regard to diet, etc.) and about adjusting his approach for the sake of sharing the Gospel.

All in all, we need to beware of tossing out the old in the church in favor of the new as well as damaging fellowship by insisting that customs change for everyone in whatever direction we feel God is leading at the moment.