In our scripture readings for the Fourth Sunday of Easter, Paul journeys from the Council of Jerusalem to Lystra, to prepare and engage his son in the faith, Timothy – you will get to read his mail this summer as we dig into the letters of 1st and 2nd Timothy. Then Paul and Silas attempt to grow the church in modern day Turkey, until the Holy Spirit directs them away from where they wanted to go, to Greece, and the Roman colony city of Philippi, where the Spirit gives them an opportunity, and a miracle....
I'm sure I've told this story before, maybe not as part of a sermon: It was January of 2006, and I was just finishing up my last course at seminary in Saskatoon. And we had coming up, a meeting with the bishop about where I would interview for first call. Wenona and I had thought about this for some time. We absolutely wanted to go back to Alberta – that was a given, which sounds funny now that both of my sons are permanent residents of Saskatchewan. We still had parents in Red Deer and Edmonton, so the closer to the highway 2 corridor, the better – maximum 3 hours away, in our minds. And we figured it would be most suitable for us to go to a rural parish. As luck would have it, the Bentley/Rimbey parish was open. And when we sat down with Bishop Steve Kristenson, before we could even open our mouths, he said, “I have a place I would like you to consider – Philippi, I mean, Provost. There is a beloved ex-pastor named Luther, God rest his soul, who spends his summers there, and you will need to work collaboratively with him to be successful. And he's a tough hombre, so it will help that you will not feel physically intimidated, being as tall as you are.” Well, we felt the moving of the Holy Spirit, and we came to the interview in Provost, and worshipped with you and had a potluck lunch, and the rest, as they say, is history....
Just before our scripture readings today in the book of Acts, is the story of the Council of Jerusalem, where the issue was settled of whether new converts to Christianity had to become Jewish first, with circumcision and dietary restrictions and the full law of Moses. The council decided thus: “it has seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us to impose on you no further burden than these essentials: that you abstain from what has been sacrificed to idols and from blood and from what is strangled and from fornication.” And Paul and Timothy were among the apostles who delivered these instructions to the churches.
Then, Paul and Silas carried on establishing churches in modern day Turkey. They wanted to go to the south-west coast, known as the Roman province of Asia, but the Holy Spirit guided them instead to central Turkey, the Roman provinces of Phrygia and Galatia. Later, they wanted to go to the north coast of Turkey on the Black Sea, also known as Bithynia, and again the Holy Spirit guided them elsewhere, to the west coast port of Troas. There, Paul had a vision directing them to sail to Greece. And Paul, with his skill in rhetoric, would be very effective among the cerebral Greek people, establishing churches in Philippi, Thessalonica, Corinth, Athens, and elsewhere. The Spirit knew the places where Paul's gifts would have maximum effect for the early church, even if it wasn't where Paul himself thought he wanted to go.
Where do WE as a church WANT to go? Of course, I'm not talking about geography, I'm talking about the groups we belong to, the arenas in which we minister, the traditions we hold fast to and the traditions we abandon. Here's the annoying question from job interviews: “Where do we see ourselves in 10 years?” Will we still want to be a part of the ELCIC? Will we still want to run a Vacation Bible School? Will we still want Holy Communion on the first, third, and fifth Sundays? Would we be uncomfortable with 100 people at worship on a normal Sunday morning? Would we be uncomfortable with drums and electric guitars providing the music? Would we be uncomfortable with insisting on a hard tithe, 10% of income as a prerequisite for membership?
We know the direction our national church is going, and for that matter, most of the mainstream churches in North America. They are going in the direction of signalling virtue – of saving the planet from carbon dioxide, of pandering to marginalized groups by allying with their grievances, of advocating for the governmental robbing of Peter to pay Paul, supposedly to help Paul but mostly because Peter has too much. Is this...the Holy Spirit at work? Is this the direction WE are supposed to go, even if it's not where we WANT to go?