Acts 11. 19-30 “Business as usual”

1. There's always a sequel
Stories never really stop.  There is always a sequel in real life: every person's story is related to other people's stories and everyone leaves a legacy for good or bad, like the London Olympics have done and the Glasgow commonwealth games are going to do.  At this point in his story of the early Church, his “Acts of Jesus part 2”, Luke sees a number of individual stories – apparently finished – but each has contributed to the Church getting to where it is today...

(i)  Historically, Luke connects this event with the persecution that started at the death of Stephen: people have travelled as far as Cyprus and Antioch in Syria, telling their fellow Jews all about Jesus.

(ii)  A fanatical young Pharisee called Saul of Tarsus has been stopped in his tracks, turned from hating the message of Jesus. to preaching it; and God's call on Saul’s life is to bring the Gospel to the gentiles (Acts 9. 15).

(iii)  Peter has been to Caesarea, preached to, baptised, and  shared fellowship and food  with the Roman officer Cornelius and his household.... led by the Holy Spirit, to break down the old barriers of “clean” and “unclean”  and welcome Gentiles into God's kingdom.  As we learned last week, that was all so radical that Peter had to explain to the Apostles before they accepted that this must be from God.

2.  From Moment of Vision to Movement for Mission
I wonder if news of that had begun to spread around the Christian groups... some of the believers who found themselves in Antioch, didn't wait for dreams or divine coincidences, they just went ahead and told “hellenists” (not meaning Greek speaking Jews but people from a Greek-influenced rather than a Jewish culture.

These stories come together – those of the believers who left Jerusalem; of Saul; of Peter and Cornelius – and it can't be business as usual!  You can't hear from God, you can't learn the truth; you can't have an encounter with the Holy Spirit and experience supernatural guidance or power, then go back to “business as usual”.  Yet there have been too, too many who have thought “what a wonderful testimony”; or “hat fine teaching” or “What miracles, what manifestations!”  But it's business as usual.

In Antioch, the testimonies, the point of the stories, the miracles and the teaching, had become embedded in their lives.  A moment of vision had become a movement in Mission.  God speaks; he still speaks today directly as well as through the Bible.  God still acts today.  Isn't it just a wee bit cheeky to say to god, “I'll only do what you have told us all to do, if yo come and tell me direct!”We need to reflect on the things God has said and done, and act upon them, so moments of vision become movements in mission.

3. You can only sell ice-cream to so many Eskimos
The effect of this new strategy, telling gentiles the Good News, radicalised the Church in Antioch.  For a start, loads of people became Christians.  And that growth seemed to keep on going (see verses 21, 24, 26)  Humanly speaking, the dynamic is simple. You can only sell ice-cream to so many Eskimos.  Some will say “I'll try that stuff”... others will say “ice-cream? I don't see the point!” If you want to sell ice-cream and the Eskimos aren't buying, try selling it to someone else!     Once you start speaking to those who have never heard the message, there are going to be people who are ready to respond.  Factor in the God perspective:  God had planned it that way.  It's an impressive fact that the great teaching Paul gives about “predestination” is in the context of God's purpose for Israel...  His purpose and plan and call is to every nation  And God empowered it that way.  This was the Holy Spirit at work.   If God isn't saving the people you are desperately trying to reach with the Gospel, maybe he wants you to reach somebody else. 

4. Grace is something you can see
News travels.  The Apostles heard what was happening and sent Barnabas to Antioch.  Barnabas was not one of the “twelve” but was recognised as a good guy.  He was a Greek speaker, born in a Jewish home ion Cyprus.  His official name was Joseph, but eh was called “Bar-nabiya) (son of prophecy) in Hebrew, or Son of encouragement (periklesis – comfort, exhortation, advocacy_...) in Greek.  What he brought with him to Antioch was a reputation for responding to the prophetic word, walking alongside people, modelling the kind of discipleship that has arms and legs. He was the one who sold property on Cyprus to make money available for the poor (Acts 4. 36f).  he knew that the grace of God was all about: he lived it:  he was  a guy in whose life God's Redemptive Activity in Christian Experience could be seen.  So when he came to Antioch and the grace of God was visible, Barnabas recognised it.  And Barnabas was ready to encourage, prophesy, and teach so that the pathways of grace could multiply in the Church in Antioch.. That is exactly what happened.

And as the work grew, Barnabas felt overwhelmed – so he left – not running away but to find Saul, the former Pharisee with a burning thing in his heart about the Gospel for the Gentiles.  Together they built up the Church in Antioch for a  year; and the crowd keeps getting larger.  Finding Saul, bringing him into the team, was part of God's grace in Barnabas. But the team was more than just Barnabas and Saul (or Saul and Barnabas!)  it was the whole Church in Antioch!  A living body in Christ.  God is a team: father, Son and Holy Spirit, distinct persons in perfect active unity and living relationship.    Building a team was part of the grace of God in Barnabas' life.  He lived God's grace; he looked fro God's grace and he led others to show God's grace.  

Grace starts with being free and undeserved but it doesn't stop  there.  It is powerful, life-transforming, gracious, graceful, pleasing, thanks-inspiring.  When God is at work, it is never “business as usual”.  Grace can be seen,  touched, experienced.

5. Ancient future faith
And this is how visible God's grace was. Luke says  in verse 26: “The disciples were called Christians first at Antioch.”  These Hellenists, Greek-speaking, Greek thinking, former pagans, knew Jesus. as “ho Christos” the anointed One.  That's the Greek word for “Ha Meshiach” – the Messiah.  The idea came straight from the Jewish promises of the One who would bring God's Kingdom.   But they didn't get called “Messiannoi” but “Christianoi.” because the referred to Jesus as “Christos,” and that is their natural everyday language: Greek.   The big truths of the Gospel –  including who Jesus. is as the “messiah”, the bringer of the Kingdom, are important, and are meant to go global, to impact every  Christian in every nation.  But they are also fully translatable: it is not only possible but necessary that these truths are rendered into the language of every nation.  They understood Jesus as the Christ.  And they couldn't keep quiet about it!   We need to articulate Christian truth in the language of our people today.  Who is Jesus.? What does his anointing mean?  How do we tell our neighbours that he is the Messiah?  And what does it take to get so obsessed with Jesus that we don't have to call ourselves Christians (or whatever!)  but we are given some wonderful nick-name that defines what we are and brings glory to Jesus.  Not “business as usual” but the whole of life redefined.

One last bit of the story. After a year, some prophets came down from Jerusalem, and there was a prophecy about famine and hardship.  So these Gentile Christians, got their chequebooks out and sent Barnabas and Saul off back to Jerusalem with a substantial gift to support their brothers and sisters there. This new “fresh expression” of Church in Antioch, wasn't about to forget about their Jewish roots or their brothers and sisters in Jerusalem.  This wasn't “business as usual.”  This was the one, truly international Church, taking shape, and one part of it honouring and loving the other. 
As time went on, the centre of gravity would move away from Jerusalem; sending – mission – was going to happen from Antioch rather than Jerusalem, and when the Gospel got to Rome it would spread from there through the empire...  But in so doing, the Church would defend rather than losing its sense of unity.  

So...
Jerusalem couldn't be the hub from which everything happened.  That would be bureaucratic and stifling.  When Neil Armstrong walked on the moon he said “That's one small step for a man; one giant step for mankind.” English...  but Armstrong was American: Britain hadn't got the resources to put a man on the moon but the nation that Britain planted did.  There are people we can't reach with the Gospel – but maybe some of the people we do reach, will be able to reach people we can’t reach. 

The Church of Jesus Christ can never go back to “business as usual”... unless “business as usual” means being ready, in the power of the spirit, to go anywhere, do anything and tell anyone this wonderful life changing message of grace that can be seen.

© Gilmour Lilly November  2013

Acts 11. 1-18: “Critical moments.”

The circumcision: Luke writes from a non-Jewish, grown-up church perspective. He's able to look back at the story he tells from the perspective of just a few years later. By that time, “the Circumcision” was just one part of the Church. His worldwide Church was circumcised and uncircumcised, Jew and Gentile, African and European, slave and free. So he quite deliberately injects an anachronism into his telling of the story. It's a bit like describing the Pilgrim fathers as the “First Americans” or saying “Up until the time of James VI, the United Kingdom had two kings.” But Luke is making a point of showing what the Church had become in the years after this incident. .

But that is not how the Jerusalem Church saw things. They weren't “the circumcision”. They were “the Church”. Their Church was a sect of Judaism, the fulfilment of Messianic promises that they weren't able to see as pertaining to the whole world. For them, anyone who wanted to join “the Church” had to join the Circumcision, the Jewish Church, becoming not only a believer in Jesus but also part of the Jewish community.

Criticised: διακρίνω = to separate one from another, to distinguish, to settle, decide. It can mean, as it does here, fault-finding. It can (and usually does in the end) mean division, or it can mean exercising discernment. It can be a good thing or a bad thing: Paul talks about discerning of spirits (διάκρισις – same word!) The enemy can counterfeit the work of the Holy Spirit. He can counterfeit the gift of “Discernment” that allows us to know the difference between what is from God and what isn't.

Here is Acts 11, is a false discernment at work. It was simply a shallow, narrow view on issues of what and who really are “unclean” in God's sight. We need the gift of discernment: but I have problems with much that professes to be the “gift of discernment” today, that I see matches exactly the judging that happened in Acts 11. Things that don't fit our predetermined world-view are dismissed.

There is real anger, deep division, and harsh judgement present in this line of questioning. It resulted in people finding fault with Peter for going among the gentiles, and both its roots and its shoots were division You see, by the old paradigm, Peter had done something terribly wrong. “You went into a Jewish home, a Roman Officer's; and you had dinner? I suppose they had a hog-roast for you?”

This was more than a critical moment for Peter. It was a critical moment for the Church. Was the old Jewish paradigm on the whole of life, that divided clearly between “Jewish” and “non-Jewish” to continue to control their thinking? Or will there be something new? There is judgement, and there is the beginning of a separation, the potential for a real severing and splitting up of the worldwide Church, at this point in time.

In response, very briefly, Peter tells his story.  Starting from the beginning, Peter told them the whole story: Literally, from the beginning, he laid it out in order (or gave a blow-by-blow account)... “Orderly” is the same word Luke uses to describe his own work as a Gospel writer (Luke 1. 3). Telling the story “in order” is a great way of clearing away the rubbish: the “fragmentary and garbled reports” that seemed to have got back to Jerusalem before Peter did. Before we enter into judgement we need to clear the rubbish away and get the facts.

As Peter tells the story, from his own point of view, he simply pulls out one or two details to show that it is a “God story” and make his point. He had this dream-like experience challenging his ideas of what was “unclean”. That would have been enough on its own. But then, lo and behold, a delegation come to see him, asking him to go and minister to a gentile. And the Spirit says, go with them without making a distinction. (NIV says “hesitating” but the word is the same as in verse 2.) When he arrived as Caesarea and preached the Gospel, the Spirit came upon them “As he had come on us at the beginning” – the experience Cornelius' household had was an exact match with the experience of Pentecost. Peter identified this as “Baptism with the Holy Spirit”. God had taken these outsiders, and given them a taste of the Kingdom of God; he had joined them with Jesus the King and made them part of the Kingdom community. It demonstrated that God accepted Cornelius and his household as already “Israel” and reminded the Jerusalem Church that part of their Holy Spirit Experience was a breaking down of language (and therefore racial) barriers. If God had already accepted these people, what could Peter do? What could the Apostles do?

I believe there is great strength and virtue in the honest telling of our story, especially if we can tell that story in a way that is both down to earth, blow-by-blow, and clearly as a “God” story, a story that demonstrates in some way that God is at work. We need doctrine; but we need doctrine that is not just theory but is facts, that grows working arms and legs in our historical situation; that bears out, and makes us reflect upon the truth of God's word; that may even challenge some of the ways in which we have interpreted that word. You see, Peter could have got his Old testament out, and gone to verses like

• Genesis 18.18 and all nations on earth will be blessed …
• Or the story of Ruth the Moabitess
• or the wonderful shortest Psalm, 117 which says

Praise the Lord, all you nations; extol him, all you peoples.
For great is his love towards us, and the faithfulness of the Lord endures for ever.

And that's it. No “House of Israel, praise him”; it calls all nations to praise the Lord because he is good to us all – all nations including Israel.

• Isaiah 56:7 my house will be called a house of prayer for all nations

He could have made a doctrinal case. The Story doesn't contradict the doctrine – it confirms it. But sometimes we need the story not the doctrine!

Silence! When they heard this, they had no further objections. Literally they were silenced. The story evokes a generous response, that arises out of an inner stillness. We need to hear people's stories, and let God do what God wants to do. This was a critical moment – not just in terms of the things that were said to Peter, but for the entire life and mission of the “Church” worldwide. Was it going to maintain a sense of cohesiveness; was it going to remain “one”? Were the new believers gong to be part of this historic thing with its roots in God's promises of a coming Kingdom? Or was the Church going to fracture only a few years into its existence? Were the circumcised Christians going to continue to see themselves as the only true believers? Were these new fellowships going to be cut off to become some “Jesus movement” unconnected with the Kingdom promise and the Old Testament story?

The step that they took in accepting what Peter said, was vast. Remember that the division between Jew and Gentile was bigger, much bigger, than anything that comes between us in today's Church. It was bigger than “Worship wars”, bigger that Denominational differences, cultural clashes, and so on. This was fundamental. For the respectable, right-living Jew, gentiles and their ways of living were to be avoided if at all possible. Eating with a gentile was something so bad as to be disgusting. These people had to start taking their barriers down, and it was a painful and difficult thing for them to do. They didn't know where it would all lead. It would put the growth and development of “The Way” maybe a little bit beyond their control. As Catholic Missiologist Vincent Donovan says, when the Gospel is given to a new tribe, it becomes in a sense “theirs” and it is up to them how they receive it and what they make of it. New people need to be allowed to give new “shape” to the “wineskins” of church structure and religious activity. Honouring others; honouring others who do not share our preferences, is a challenge, but a necessary one.

And the Apostles praised God, saying, ‘So then, even to Gentiles God has granted repentance that leads to life.’. Narrow thinking, closed minds, exclusive-ism, that attitude that says “we are the Church, If you want to be part of it yo have to become just like us” will rob you of something: quite simply, it will rob you of joy. But the openness to move on from narrow, exclusive, critical religion, will mean that, as you get a handle on what God is doing – for surely he is at work in our day – you experience a surge of praise! Religion on the defensive is such a poor, joyless, sad thing. Religion that is on the crest of the wave, seeing what God is doing, is by contrast so full of joy.

© Gilmour Lilly November  2013