When in Athens--When in Vancouver(2012April29)

Sharing the Presence M6 (Acts 17:16-34) 04 29 2012 Speaker: Ken Shigematsu Title: When in Athens—When in Vancouver Text: Acts 17:16-34 BIG IDEA: When we share the presence with skeptics, we can point to the resurrection and to the evidence of God’s presence in the lives of our hearers. When I was an undergraduate student, someone who lived on the same dorm floor as I would ask me from time to time if I would have lunch with him. I did not know him well. He was just an acquaintance, but he would say every once in a while, “I have something important that I would like to discuss with you.” Finally, after some months we got together for lunch in the school cafeteria and I asked him, “So, what’s on your mind?” He said, “I know that you are a Christian and you really seem to believe. My sister is a Christian, but I don’t have faith. I don't believe. I wish I did, but I don’t. I have all kinds of doubt. I’d like to ask you why it is you believe.” When I was a student, when I was working in the corporate world and now as a pastor, once in a while someone who doesn't believe in God approaches me and asks me why is it that I believe. If you are a person who believes in God, really believes, once in a while this may happen to you. If you really believe in God and are not covert about your faith, chances are someone at school, or at work, a family member or friend will occasionally ask you in so many words why you believe. And even if we are not directly asked, if we are open about her faith, will share why it is that we believe. As we conclude our sermon series, Sharing the Presence, we are going to look at how the Apostle Paul engaged philosophers and skeptics with the gospel in Mars’ Hill in Athens who wanted to know why he believed. The Apostle Paul was one person who was very open about his faith in Christ. As a result, he was asked to give a reason for his belief. Today, we read a story about Paul engaging with philosophers and skeptics who wanted to know why he believed. If you have your Bibles, please turn to Acts 17: 16. In Athens 16 While Paul was waiting for them in Athens, he was greatly distressed to see that the city was full of idols. 17 So he reasoned in the synagogue with both Jews and God-fearing Greeks, as well as in the marketplace day by day with those who happened to be there. 18 A group of Epicurean and Stoic philosophers began to debate with him. Some of them asked, “What is this babbler trying to say?” Others remarked, “He seems to be advocating foreign gods.” They said this because Paul was preaching the good news about Jesus and the resurrection. 19 Then they took him and brought him to a meeting of the Areopagus, where they said to him, “May we know what this new teaching is that you are presenting? 20 You are bringing some strange ideas to our ears, and we would like to know what they mean.” 21 (All the Athenians and the foreigners who lived there spent their time doing nothing but talking about and listening to the latest ideas.) 22 Paul then stood up in the meeting of the Areopagus and said: “People of Athens! I see that in every way you are very religious. 23 For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: TO AN UNKNOWN GOD. So you are ignorant of the very thing you worship—and this is what I am going to proclaim to you. 24 “The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by hands. 25 And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything. Rather, he himself gives everyone life and breath and everything else. 26 From one man he made all the nations, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands. 27 God did this so that they would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from any one of us. 28 ‘For in him we live and move and have our being.’ As some of your own poets have said, ‘We are his offspring.’ 29 “Therefore since we are God’s offspring, we should not think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone—an image made by human design and skill. 30 In the past God overlooked such ignorance, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent. 31 For he has set a day when he will judge the world with justice by the man he has appointed. He has given proof of this to everyone by raising him from the dead.” 32 When they heard about the resurrection of the dead, some of them sneered, but others said, “We want to hear you again on this subject.” 33 At that, Paul left the Council. 34 Some of the people became followers of Paul and believed. Among them was Dionysius, a member of the Areopagus, also a woman named Damaris, and a number of others. This is a rather dense passage. So let me begin by offering a roadmap us to forward and I go with it. First of all, we're going to look at how Athens is like Vancouver. Then were going to look at the two ways that Paul presents his faith in Athens. First, he talks about the resurrection of Christ. He offers what we might call historic, objective reason for his faith. Then he talks about how many of us have an intuitive sense of God or some greater power guiding our lives. He offers a more subjective reason for his faith. So to begin by talking about how Athens in Vancouver are alike. One early church fathers named Tertullian asked, “What hath Jerusalem to do with Athens?” I want to ask the question what has Vancouver to do with Athens? Show photographs of historic Athens (and keep up over the highlighted piece). Athens had been, of course, the city of the great philosophers, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Epicureas, and Zeno. And in some ways in Paul's day the glories of Athens was behind her, people still came from all over the world to visit Athens, to teach, to learn – and so like Vancouver it was an international city. We read in verse 16 that while Paul was in Athens, he was distressed to see that the city was full of idols. That was no overstatement. There were about 10,000 people who lived in Athens in Paul’s day, but there were about 30,000 statues of gods that lined the streets. Vancouver like Athens is a city of many idols – not idols in the way that we traditionally think about idols (statues made of gold, silver or bronze), but we have many idols. Kierkegaard defines idolatry as having something other than God at the centre of our existence. What do you think the idols of Vancouver are? For some it's recreation. People talk about living for the weekend. I have a friend who owned a condo at Whistler. A lot of weekends were spent skiing and snowboarding. There is nothing wrong with skiing or snowboarding, but this friend of mine sensed that recreation might be becoming a more important priority in the lives of some of his family members than worshiping God in community. So he sold his condo. For others it can be a relationship. Last Sunday at one of our services, Sara said “I wanted to get baptized [while ago], but I didn’t feel I was at peace with God. At that time, I hadn’t fully surrendered to God. I was in a relationship with someone who wasn’t following Christ. “ And what she was in effect saying was, a relationship at the time was more important in my life than God. God was important but this relationship was even more important. She broke up with her friend. An idol in Vancouver might be recreation, a relationship or something else. An idol is something we have at the centre of our existence, other than God. So like Athens, here in Vancouver we have idols. And as was true in Athens, in Vancouver we have people with a variety of different points of view. In Athens Paul engaged in conversations in the marketplace with the Epicureans. Epicureans believe that things happen by chance, that death is the end of our existence, that we should live for pleasure in the moment. There are those like the Stoics who believe that everything is God, that nature is God. The Epicureans were secular people who lived for pleasure. They believed that after you died and were buried in the ground like a carrot you became nothing. They did not believe in an afterlife. (Ken please bring 2 carrots as props) And in Vancouver though people do not call themselves Epicureans, there are many people who live for pleasure. There are many people who do not believe in life after death. They believe that when we die like a carrot we just rot in the ground. In Athens Paul also debated in the marketplace with the Stoics. The Stoics were pantheists, believed that basically everything was God – the dirt, the rock, the tree. I have a friend here in Vancouver who loves to mountain bike ride and says, “For me God is nature –God is the mountain, the woods, the ocean.” There are people in Vancouver who might not refer to themselves as pantheists, but the kind of technical philosophical term that most people don't use in everyday conversation, but believe, like my friend, that the world is God. Stoics also believed that whatever happened to them was predetermined. It was their destiny. As a result, they detach themselves from everything. If everything was predetermined by some impersonal force, why get attached to anything? And there are people in Vancouver who wouldn't describe themselves as Stoics, but believe in Karma and believe that things that happen to them in this life was determined by something that they did in a previous life. And so there are many similarities between Athens and Vancouver. And finally as was true for Paul in Athens, so in Vancouver there are those who oppose the message of the Christian faith. In vs. 18 we see people in Athens saying of Paul, “What is this babbler trying to say?” The word translated “babbler” originally meant a bird which picks up seeds, and it was used to describe birds picking up seeds. Over the time it came to mean “a person who peddled other people’s ideas without really understanding them, a chirping bird, who went around dropping the seeds of other people’s ideas.” And as in Athens so in Vancouver there will be some who oppose the message of Christian faith. But, even they resisted Paul’s message because it was something new to them, the philosophers of Athens wanted to hear more. So they took him to a meeting of scholars, which in Greek was known as the Areopagus and in Latin known as Mars’ Hill. The scholars asked, “What is this new, strange teaching that you are presenting? We would like to know what it means.” Paul begins in verse 22 as he stands up at Mars’ Hill and says, “People of Athens! I see that in every way you are very religious. For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: TO AN UNKNOWN GOD.” We know from verse 16 there was a part of Paul that experienced great distress over the fact that Athens was full of idols. I am sure there was a part of Paul that wanted to denounce their idolatry and point them to the truth, but he restrained himself and affirmed their common ground. As we engage in people who are skeptical about Christian faith and have some other kind of worldview, like Paul we do well to affirm our common ground wherever we can. When I was working for the Sony Corporation in Tokyo conversations, at work sometimes my Christian faith would come up and it wasn't at all uncommon for a Japanese businessman say, "I'm not religious.” And I would say ah, but you are. I see how hard you're working for the company, how devoted you are to you work, and that are you hoping to find some meaning in your work. And whatever you work really hard at, devote yourself to, hope to find meaning through that is your religion, that is your spirituality. Aristotle was right. Everyone seeks happiness. There are no exceptions. We’re all looking for happiness, some kind of meaning to our life, we’re all on spiritual search whether we use that language or not. And when we are engaging with people about our faith, we do well wherever possible to affirm our common ground. Whether people know it or not, they are searching for something spiritual, whether they believe in God or not, at some level everyone is searching for God. GK Chesterton once said, “Every man who knocks on the door of a brothel is really looking for God.” Paul does not just stop by speaking of common ground. He also challenges their points of view as he listens. How did he do this? Well, the people he is speaking to, the Epicureans and Stoics, do not believe in the resurrection. The Epicureans believe that once you're dead, your life is over, like a carrot that rots in the ground. And in vs. 18 and vs. 31 we see Paul speaking without shame about the resurrection. He's offering what we might call historic, objective evidence for his Christian faith. One of the ways that we can commend our faith in Vancouver is humbly point to historic evidence for the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Now, of course, many people in Vancouver think that the idea of someone rrising from the dead is ridiculous. But people in the world of the Apostle Paul were even more skeptical about the idea of the bodily resurrection. Today in Vancouver even if people don't believe in the resurrection of Christ, they've probably at least heard Easter and the belief that Christ rose from the dead. This idea of the resurrection at this point in history, likely less than 20 years after Jesus actually rose from the dead, was not nearly as widespread. And here in Athens, the Greeks would not have wanted to believe in a resurrection of the body. The Greeks though that the spirit was good, but our bodies were evil. To many Greeks “salvation” was seen as being liberated from the prison of our bodies. The Greeks didn't want to experience a resurrected body. They wanted to one day get rid of their bodies. There were, of course, also Jews in Athens. And the idea of Jesus resurrecting was unthinkable to Jews. As one of the most respected biblical scholars alive today, Tom Wright, points out in Jesus’ day while many Jews had come to hope that at the end of time there would be a bodily resurrection of the righteous when God renewed the entire world, they were certainly not anticipating a person rising from the dead in the middle of the history. For the Jewish person the idea of an individual being resurrected in the middle of history while the rest of the world continued on was simply inconceivable…crazy. Given that reality, it is not plausible to say that the first followers of Jesus would have invented this story that Jesus rose from the dead. In the first century there were many other messianic movements whose would-be messiahs were executed; however, as Tom Wright points out in not a single case do we ever hear the mention of disappointed followers claiming that their hero had been raised from the dead. It just wasn’t a category that they were thinking about. But after the death of Jesus his followers embraced the conviction which up to that point had been unthinkable, that Jesus Christ had actually risen from the dead. If the early Christians did invent the story of the empty tomb with the sightings of the risen Jesus, if it had just been a hoax, a kind of April Fool’s joke, would they have died for that known lie? Almost all of the original disciples of Jesus, with the exception of John, and almost all the early Christian leaders died for their belief that Jesus had risen from the dead. It is hard to believe that people would make this kind of self-sacrifice, support something that they knew was a hoax, a lie. Here’s something whether a person is believer or skeptic can’t deny: Something really powerful really happened in the world just outside of Jerusalem around the year 33 AD that changed the course of history. Author Andy Crouch has described the resurrection of Jesus like a cultural earthquake, its epicenter located in Jerusalem in the early 30s. He points out: One of the most dramatic cultural effects of the resurrection is the transformation of the heinous cultural artifact known as a cross, an instrument of domination and condemnation that comes as a symbol of the kingdom that Christ proclaimed: an alternate culture where grace and forgiveness are the last word. We don’t know the name of any person in the ancient world who was crucified. Many people were crucified in the first century, but we don’t know the names of any of them. But the most famous name in the world, the one that commands most loyalty and devotion, whom some one-third of the human race claims to follow, is the name of a person crucified in the first century. The most plausible explanation for that is the fact that he did rise from the dead at a time when no one was anticipating that. The evidence was so powerful that almost everyone at the time who knew him and believed in him died for that belief. If there is a God who created all the universe, who is the author and sustainer of life, then taking a dead body and bringing it back to life is not really that difficult! And Paul on Mars’ Hill is challenging the philosophers who do not believe that life is possible beyond the grave with the historical, more objective proof that God has given us by raising Christ from the dead. So Paul begins his presentation of the Christian faith with a proclamation of the resurrection. Then second, Paul turns to a more subjective, intuitive evidence for faith. In verse 23 he says, “For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: TO AN UNKNOWN GOD. So you are ignorant of this very thing you worship and this is what I am going to proclaim to you. . 28 ‘For in him we live and move and have our being.’ As some of your own poets have said, ‘We are his offspring.’ Paul points out that in the famous city of Athens he found an altar to an unknown god. Apparently some people in Athens believed in what we might call “a higher power.” But these highly educated Athenians did not know who that god was. He points out in verses 24 and 25 that that God is the Creator who made the world and everything in it. Then in verses 26-27 he says: 26 From one man he made all the nations, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands. 27 God did this so that they would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from any one of us. He points out to the people that they are not living in Athens as a result of some kind of cosmic accident, but God in his providence had arranged their lives so that they might seek him. So one of the evidences that Paul presents to the Athenians is the resurrection of Christ which is more historic, more what we might call objective evidence, based both on Scripture and historic sources outside of Scripture in the first century. The second argument that Paul puts forth is more subjective, more intuitive. He does not rely on Scripture but on people’s personal experiences and in their own sources and stories. In verse 28 we see that the Apostle Paul cites from their own philosophers, first in the phrase: “For in him we move and have our being,” he cites the Cretan poet Epimenides. In verse 28, when he says, “we are his offspring,” he is citing from the philosopher Aratus. And this might be another sermon altogether, but the message of the Gospel as was true in Athens, is embedded in messages of poet's, novelists, filmmakers of our day. As Robert McKee, the one who is considered the consummate screenwriting teacher, in his book Story points out in that in films there is almost always a crisis usually about twenty minutes in the movie--in Star Wars it's Wenlok when he comes home to find his aunt and uncle had been murdered by a imperial storm troopers; in Kramer versus Kramer it's when Dustin Hoffman is asked for a divorce. The climax of the film [ and of course I’m oversimplifying in the interest of time] is when there is a resolution to the crisis; for example,when the death Star is destroyed and new world of meaning is created in Star Wars, or when Dustin Hoffman is given back custody voluntarily by Meryl Streep's character. In these movies the storyline sounds familiar: things are normal, there is some catastrophe, there's a resolution of the catastrophe, and as a result and a new meaning in life. The gospel is not only embedded in the stories of our culture, but in the stories of our lives as well. One of the ways that we can point people to the reality of the Creator is by appealing to their favorite stories, and by appealing to their own story. I think of my friend Nathan. Over time and several conversations, he told me his story: Nathan shared that he had been a successful stock broker but found that the business world left his soul empty. As a teenager Nathan had been recognized as a gifted artist. He was admitted to one of Canada’s finest art schools but because of financial difficulties that his family faced, he pursued a business career. However, after he became successfully established in business, he decided to leave the business world and, quoting Joseph Campbell, to “follow my bliss.” He turned to Buddhist writings but sensed a yearning for something more, and then through a friend he was introduced to our church. I and a few of his Christian friends were able to show Nathan how his experience of business leaving him feeling empty, his pursuit of beauty through art, and his dabbling in Buddhism helped prepare him to open up to Jesus. I met with a friend a few months ago whose faith in God really began with a sense as he looked back over his life there was some kind of force, some kind of power that at certain points had guided him. It seemed less plausible that his life was a cosmic accident than to believe there was some mysterious being that was directing his life. Some of us, as we look back over our life, are living in a kind of movie where there is some unseen, a movie director, orchestrating the events and we intuit that there is some higher being guiding us. Steve Jobs, not a believer in God, during a commencement speech at Stanford said as he reflected back over his life after having been diagnosed with cancer said, “You can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something.” Part of the way we can engage people is by listening to their favorite stories and their personal stories and seeking to point out places where they can connect the dots and show them how their unknown God has been guiding them to himself. “We are not congealed stardust, an accidental byproduct of cosmic chemistry. We are not just something. We are someone.” George Weigel Our great privilege and call as people who know the unknown God is to formally and gently tell people that we know the God they have been knowingly or unknowingly looking for their whole lives. There's nothing arrogant about that. Last year around this time, while running down some uneven stone stairs at False Creek, I rolled my ankle and torn my ligaments. I had to switch from running to biking. I didn't know much about bikes. I was searching for a bike. A friend of mine, an avid biker, said I'd been researching bikes for a long time. I know the bike for you. There's nothing arrogant about that. So Paul, in his address to the Athenians on Mars’ Hill, speaks of both the resurrection and also the intuitive experiences of the Athenians themselves. He uses both what we might call more historical objective proof, and what we might call more subjective, intuitive proof too. And when people around us are searching, everyone is searching knowingly or unknowingly, and we who know God, say to them at the right time and through the guidance of the Holy Spirit, “I know that God you're looking for,” gently pointing them to the God they're looking for. There's nothing arrogant about that, or offering them a great gift. As someone has put it was simply one beggar, telling another beggar where we found bread. As we see in verses 30-31, Paul called them to repent, which means “turn to God.” Paul is calling them to make the Living God, and nothing else, the centre of their lives. What happened? According to verses 32-34, when they heard about the resurrection of the dead, some of them sneered. Others said, “We want to hear you again on this subject.” And a few of them believed. Among them was Dionysius, a member of the Areopagus, and a woman named Damaris. So, as a result of Paul sharing the presence, some people mocked him, others wanted to think about it further, and a few believed. As we share the presence, sometimes people will mock our ideas, probably not in an overt way in Canada. We are too polite for that, but they may raise an eyebrow. Others may want to think about it. And some may believe. Back to the scene from my lunch appointment with a fellow student in the dorm. At lunch he said, “You really seem to believe in God. Why is it that you believe?” I wasn’t conscious of Acts 17 in that moment, but here is a brief summary of what I said over that lunch that lasted probably an hour: “I believe for two reasons. I believe because of the historic evidence that Jesus Christ actually rose from the dead. (I outlined some of it.) Then there is a second reason and it is more subjective. It is that Jesus Christ has changed my life from the inside out. As I look back over my life, I believe the hand of a personal God has been guiding it. Here are some stories that persuade me.” At the end of our lunch he responded. Unlike the first category, the people at Athens, he did not mock me. He said, “That is interesting. I will have to think about that more.” In that moment he did not repent and commit his life to Christ. Probably in most cases as we share the presence, people are not going to fall on their knees and immediately receive Christ. Sure, there are exceptions but it usually takes months, if not years, or maybe a life time for a person to make a commitment. As I listen to the stories of people’s spiritual journey, it is usually the case that through a variety of different experiences and relationships, and hearing the message about Jesus many times, that their hearts are finally opened. It takes time. Our calling is to sow the seed, water it, and trust God will reap harvest in due course. Like Paul, when we are open about our faith, we will find that others will ask us questions – that we’ll have opportunities to give reasons for our belief in Christ. In Paul’s case, though some sneered, others believed. As we share our faith and give others reasons for our own belief in Christ, we can trust that some will believe…that God will use our efforts to bring others to him. There is no greater privilege than to be involved in the work of proclaiming the message of Jesus Christ. Like Paul, whether it is in the church, as a few of us are called to do, or in our families, relationships, schools and in the marketplace as all of us are called, it is the one work that enables us to receive the gift of eternal in this life and in the age to come. It’s one gift that will help make sense of their story of the Story. Pray. Receive this Christ? If you know, share this with. Pray for that person.

An Artist of the Soul and a Friend on the Journey

Sharing the Presence M5 (Acts 8:26-40) 04 22 2012 Speaker: Ken Shigematsu Title: An Artist of the Soul and a Friend on the Journey Text: Acts 8:26-40 BIG IDEA: With the help of the Spirit, we are called to be artists of the soul and friends on the journey. The first time I spent significant time with Leighton Ford, the person who has been my mentor and friend on the journey for two decades, was when I was a seminary student in Boston. He asked me if I would drive him west across Massachusetts to the home of a friend and board member of his ministry. I picked up Leighton at about 10:00 p.m. from Logan Airport. As I merged onto interstate highway, I turned to him and said, “You can recline your chair and sleep if you want.” Leighton crossed his long legs, reclined the chair part way and said, “I don’t think I’ll sleep… tell me your life story…” And this is exactly the kind of thing that Leighton does. Leighton describes his own mission to be “an artist of the soul and a friend on the journey.” As an artist of the soul sees what’s going on inside us, sees the beauty and what we can become with God’s help. For years Leighton Ford was an associate evangelist of Billy Graham. Leighton was preaching the gospel to full football stadiums on every continent of the world. But when Leighton was about 50, through the unexpected death of his own 21-year-old son Sandy, who was also hoping to be a minister of the gospel, Leighton felt called by God to shift his emphasis from preaching to the masses and instead pursued a ministry of one-on-one mentoring with young, emerging Christian leaders. In the book of Acts we see a person named Philip, whose ministry trajectory was similar to Leighton’s. Philip was in Samaria proclaiming the message of Jesus Christ to great crowds where people were experiencing physically healing and in some cases were being delivered from evil spirits. There was great joy in the city. But then the Holy Spirit led Philip away from the great crowd to an individual. The Spirit called him to be an artist of the soul and a friend on the journey to an Ethiopian eunuch. If you have your Bibles, please turn to Acts 8:26. Philip and the Ethiopian 26 Now an angel of the Lord said to Philip, “Go south to the road—the desert road—that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza.” 27 So he started out, and on his way he met an Ethiopian eunuch, an important official in charge of all the treasury of the Kandake (which means “queen of the Ethiopians”). This man had gone to Jerusalem to worship, 28 and on his way home was sitting in his chariot reading the Book of Isaiah the prophet. 29 The Spirit told Philip, “Go to that chariot and stay near it.” 30 Then Philip ran up to the chariot and heard the man reading Isaiah the prophet. “Do you understand what you are reading?” Philip asked. 31 “How can I,” he said, “unless someone explains it to me?” So he invited Philip to come up and sit with him. 32 This is the passage of Scripture the eunuch was reading: “He was led like a sheep to the slaughter, and as a lamb before its shearer is silent, so he did not open his mouth. 33 In his humiliation he was deprived of justice. Who can speak of his descendants? For his life was taken from the earth.” 34 The eunuch asked Philip, “Tell me, please, who is the prophet talking about, himself or someone else?” 35 Then Philip began with that very passage of Scripture and told him the good news about Jesus. As they traveled along the road, they came to some water and the eunuch said, “Look, here is water. What can stand in the way of my being baptized?” 38 And he gave orders to stop the chariot. Then both Philip and the eunuch went down into the water and Philip baptized him. 39 When they came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord suddenly took Philip away, and the eunuch did not see him again, but went on his way rejoicing. 40 Philip, however, appeared at Azotus and traveled about, preaching the gospel in all the towns until he reached Caesarea. Pray In verse 26 we read that an angel of the Lord said to Philip, “Go south to the desert road that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza.” As he does, he sees a chariot with a man reading in it. The man in the chariot, as we read, is an important official in charge of the treasury of Kandake, the queen of the Ethiopians, so he is what we would call the minister of finance for the nation of Ethiopia. He owns a chariot (the equivalent of a black limousine). He is part of the caravan. He is the VIP of an entourage. He owns a copy of the book of Isaiah which would have been very rare. In his day it would have suggested that he was a person of great means. He is obviously someone who is very wealthy and powerful. Then in verse 29 we read the Holy Spirit tells Philip, “Go to that chariot and stay near it.” Philip runs up to the chariot and hears the man reading Isaiah, the prophet. We can read this quickly without being particularly impressed. But it is remarkable that Philip is so attentive to the voice of the Spirit and so willing to do something that would likely make him feel uncomfortable. How so? Philip is walking south on the road which leads from Jerusalem to Gaza. He has been asked by the Holy Spirit to approach this powerful VIP in a moving chariot. It would be like one of us walking on the sidewalk with a friend, and then seeing someone driving slowly down Tenth Avenue listening to something on the radio and your friend saying go, run alongside the car and ask “Do you understand what you are listening to?” To make matters even more challenging for Philip, he is a conservative, middle-aged Jewish man who is being asked by the Holy Spirit to make contact not only with someone who is clearly above him in terms of the social strata, but is also a black, sexually-altered African. And in his day, a Jewish middle-aged man would not be fraternizing with someone of a different race, ethnicity and social class. Yet, in spite of all of this Philip responds to the Spirit, runs up beside the chariot and begins to engage the man who is reading the book of Isaiah out loud. (It was the custom of the day for to people read out loud, as a way to more deeply internalize what they were reading.) We become artists of the soul and friends on the journey as we allow the Spirit to fill us and to guide us in all that we learn and do. This is certainly a prayer of my own heart for my own life—to be guided by the Holy Spirit in the big things of my life and the small things of my life. At a recent board meeting the members of our board asked how they could pray for me. One of the first things I said didn’t sound particularly spiritual, but “can you pray that God would guide us in the selection of a dog?” Even in the small so-called “secular” details of my life, I want to be guided by God, even the choice of a dog…down the road a choice of a school for our 3-year-old son Joe…guided in my ministry here at Tenth…guided in my relationships…guided in sharing the presence of God. As I look at someone like Philip, someone like Leighton, and as I hear some of your stories, I realize that sometimes the Holy Spirit guides us in a way that is counter-intuitive. God led Philip away from the masses to an individual, a black African. I want to be a person who resists the more human tendency to always move toward what is bigger, better in a worldly sense, more prestigious, and to be truly surrendered to the guidance of the Holy Spirit. So Philip becomes an artist of the soul, a friend on the journey to the Ethiopian by listening to and obeying the Spirit. Philip responds to the Spirit, runs up beside the chariot to this Ethiopian finance minister who is reading the book of Isaiah out loud. As an artist of the soul, Philip sees how God has already beautifully at work in this man’s life. In fact, we read in verse 27 that the African minister of finance had gone all the way to Jerusalem from Ethiopia to worship the living God. The doctrine of prevenient grace shows us that God has been at work in a person’s life long before we got there. Prevenient literally means “come before.” prae—before + venire, vent—come. And God’s grace has “come before” a person before she or he ever made a conscious decision to seek God (John 6:44). God has been at work in a person’s life long before we got there. So part of what an artist of the soul and a friend on the journey does, as is true of Philip, is to respond to the Holy Spirit, see the beautiful work that God has already been at work in a person's life, and then to walk along side them. Leighton Ford has said that sharing the presence, sharing Jesus with others, is about engaging in conversations and listening for the voice of the Holy Spirit in those conversations. (take time). Part of what the Holy Spirit leads us to do is to feel the edges of a person’s life, like the edge of a glass (HOLD UP GLASS or use PP). Feel what the crack is and then show how Christ helps to fill that crack. (take time). We have a clue that there is a crack in the Ethiopian’s life. In verse 27 we are told that the man has gone all the way from Ethiopia to Jerusalem to worship. As we’ve observed, he is a Minister of Finance. He is extremely successful. He is also a eunuch, which means that he was castrated. As one of my teachers has pointed out, the word in the Greek for eunuch, a person castrated, could also be used to mean prime minister. So why would either eunuch or “castrated” also mean in certain contexts “prime minister”? There are a couple of ways in the ancient world that you could become prime minister or a high-ranking government official. One way, of course, was to be born into a royal family and ascend to your position by virtue of your birthright. Another way was to be born as a commoner and to climb your way up the ranks of the royal court and become a high-ranking member of government. Because some members of the royal family in some ancient societies didn’t feel that they could trust a commoner to work with their females, they would force them to be castrated as a prerequisite for being able to work with members of the female royal family. In other words, they would force ambitious men who wanted to work in the royal court to be castrated as a prerequisite to be able to move up the ladder of government power and into the ranks of royalty. So, the only way to make it to the top of the royal court, unless you were born into a royal family, was to become a eunuch, to be castrated. So if a man was a Minister of Finance, a Minister of Trade, or the Prime Minister, he might also be eunuch. This minister of finance has made it to the top, but he seems nonetheless to be missing something in his life—something literal and something figuratively missing. How do we know this? He lives, from the perspective of the Jews, in Ethiopia at the end of the world. He leaves his job for several months and takes the very long trek from Ethiopia to Jerusalem to worship the one he believes is the living God in the temple. His friends would have said, “Are you kidding! We have all these temples, all these gods in Ethiopia. Why are you going all the way to Jerusalem?” Apparently, the gods of Ethiopia do not satisfy the deepest longings of his heart so he goes all the way to Israel to worship the God of Israel. So he is in a very serious spiritual search mode. He had made it top but he is still spiritually empty. But when he got to the temple he would have been told, “Eunuchs can’t come in here.” Some people were not able to enter the temple, including lepers and sexually-mutilated people. He must have been so disappointed, so dejected to travel all the way from Ethiopia to Jerusalem searching for an answer, finally gets to Jerusalem, only to be turned away and rejected. As he is making his way home, he is scouring the Isaiah scroll. As he reads a part of Isaiah, he would have read these words in Isaiah 53:3 about a man has also been cut and who is and rejected by the people. Then he would have read Isaiah 53: 4-8: Surely he took up our pain and bore our suffering, yet we considered him punished by God, stricken by him, and afflicted. 5 But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed. 6 We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to our own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all. 7 He was oppressed and afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth; he was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before its shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth. 8 By oppression and judgment he was taken away. Yet who of his generation protested? For he was cut off from the land of the living; for the transgression of my people he was punished. He would have likely thought here was a man like me who was rejected by people, a person who took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows. He is probably wondering, “Who is Isaiah talking about? Is he talking about himself? Or is he talking about someone else?” It is right then that Philip approaches him and asks him the question; “Do you understand what you are reading?” The Ethiopian minister of finance says, “How can I understand unless someone explains this to me?” Philip, as an artist of the soul, and a friend on the journey, sees how God is at work in his life and then walks beside him to help understand what God is saying to him. As artists of the soul and friends on the journey, we will see how God is at work in the lives of people around us and describe how God is at work in their lives. Some time ago, I was traveling from Vancouver to LA. I was coming back after a long meeting, and I was tired. But as I got on the plane, I prayed, “God, if you want me to talk to someone, I’m available, but if you don’t want me I’m very OK with that too.” I had the aisle seat and no one beside me (the plane was far from full) and I was about to sleep when at the last minute someone walked onto the plane. He was the last person on board--a tall, young man… Though the plane is relatively empty, he ends up sitting beside me on the window side of the plane (I am on the aisle side and there is one empty seat in between us) He pulls out a book, “Man’s Search for Meaning,” by Victor Frankl. We got into a conversation. I found out he was an actor. He said, “What do you do?” “I work for a non-profit.” (As I said, I was tired and not in the mood to talk and this was before we began sharing the presence.) “What kind of non-profit?” “I’m a minister of a church in Vancouver.” He said, “I’m really glad I sat beside you.” He started telling me his life story. He told me he grew up on East Coast of the U.S. and ending up studying business in the Boston area. He had pursued a business career for a few years after university, but found that unfulfilling and meaningless. He said he decided to go to Hollywood and pursue acting. He said, “When I told my uncle at a party that I was leaving the marketplace to pursue an acting career in Hollywood, he laughed in my face.” He said, “Now I am getting a fair of number of acting roles, and I’ve met a number of the top twenty “A-level” actors. I’m still empty and I know if I ever get there, I’ll be empty too.” I listened, then I simply pointed the ways I sensed God work in his life, awakening desire… ending up taking a book on spiritual search with him to the Pan Pacific Hotel. As a friend on the journey, we will become people like Philip who respond to the leading of the Holy Spirit, recognize that the ways God is beautifully at work in a person's life, and begin where they are. Finally, the Holy Spirit opens the door and presents the truth of God in Scripture. Philip, by the way, was a lay person. He was not an ordained minister. He was a lay person and understood Scripture well enough to be able to communicate it to this man and lead him to a point where he commits his life to Christ through baptism. Here’s an email I received from a lay person (paraphrase): I feel like in my faith day-by-day I am trying to share my faith, talk about my faith, live out my faith, and I discuss it with people a lot, I look for opportunities to do so. In my line of work, it is often a gentle transition. I feel like I need to deepen my biblical knowledge more to be able to share more accurately. This is why I am craving more teaching. Philip would likely have taken him through all 12 verses of Isaiah 53, describing Jesus’ royal lineage, and his death in our stead as a punishment for our sins. In Isaiah 53:6 we read: We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to our own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all. He would have also spoken of the resurrection of Jesus Christ as God’s way of saying that our sins have been paid for by Christ, and then as a result, Israel and we could have a new beginning….people of Israel and people like this African Ethiopian could have a new beginning with God. Then Philip guides the Ethiopian minister of finance into an understanding of this passage in Isaiah 53. He helps him understand the heart of the biblical message that Christ died for his sins so that he could be welcomed into God’s family and know and love and serve the living God—the only one who could satisfy the deepest longings of his heart. Perhaps, Philip also pointed him to passage just a little further in the scroll: Isaiah 56:3-5: 3 Let no foreigners who have bound themselves to the LORD say, “The LORD will surely exclude me from his people.” And let no eunuch complain, “I am only a dry tree.” 4 For this is what the LORD says: “To the eunuchs who keep my Sabbaths, who choose what pleases me and hold fast to my covenant to them I will give within my temple and its walls a memorial and a name better than sons and daughters; I will give them an everlasting name that will endure forever. Philip may well have told the eunuch, “Even though you are a foreigner and a eunuch, God will come to you and give you a name better than sons or daughters in a name that will endure forever.” Unlike our own world, in the ancient world one of the most important ways to gain a sense of meaning was to have your own sons and daughters. Another way of course to find meaning was to make it the top. The finance minister made it to the top, sacrificing the possibility of having sons and daughters in order to become a eunuch. Perhaps there were times when he regretted his choice, wondering if instead of being so ambitious had he chosen instead to have a family, he might've been more fulfilled. He might have been. But, he might not have been more fulfilled had he chosen that more traditional path. Philip using Isaiah 56 assured him that through a friendship with the living God, he would have something better than sons and daughters, far better than success in the Ethiopian Royal court. An artist of the soul and friend on the journey responds to the leading of the Holy Spirit, sees how God is at work in their lives, and shows how the beautiful, joyful, content people God created them to become. The story of Jesus is the greatest story ever told. Part of our call to be an artist of the soul and a friend on the journey is to respond to the leading of the Holy Spirit and see how God's been at work in a person's life, and how he uses Scripture to help point them to the ultimate artist who can help them become the beautiful person God intended them to be. And the Scripture obviously isn't just a gift for others through us. It's also a gift to us to help us become a friend on the journey. The novel by Charles Dickens, The Tale of Two Cities, is about two men named Sydney Carton and Charles Darnay who know each other Sydney is in love with Lucy, but Lucy marries Charles. Charles ends up being arrested during the French Revolution and is condemned to die. He's in a cell with the other prisoners who are were going to be executed the next day by guillotine. That night Sydney sneaks into the prison cell. He says, “Charles, look we resemble each other, let me take your place. You are going to live with Lucy, you will raise a family with her.” Charles won't do it. So Sydney knocks him out with a drug and pushes him out of prison. He bribes someone to take out his body, and takes his place. There's a young girl who was also in the prison and will be executed the next day. She walks up to Sydney and she thinks it's Charles Darnay and begins to talk to him. Sydney tries to keep up the appearance that he's Charles. He says, “It's nice to see you.” Suddenly the girl realizes that it's not Charles and it is someone else who has taken his place. Her eyes get wide as it dawns on her, and she says, “You're dying for him aren't you?” “Yes, and for his wife,” he concedes. She says, “I'm having a lot of trouble facing my own death, but if you, a brave stranger, will hold my hand I think I can do it.” Carton takes her by the hand and comforts her, telling her that their ends will be quick but that they will be going to a place where they will be mercifully sheltered… it is a far, far better rest that we go to than we have ever known. She is able to meet her death in peace. The wonder of his sacrificial love changed her even though it wasn't for her. When we realize that Christ's died in our stead, and he says “Yes, I will hold your hand the rest of your life,” then we can face anything. It is then we can become people like Philip who are friends on the journey to others. When we are an artist of the soul and a friend on the journey we do not know exactly how the Spirit will lead us, but we will always be led in an adventure that will last forever. Let’s pray. · Like Philip…like Leighton…will you become an artist of the soul and a friend on the journey? · Will you be led by the Spirit of God? · Allow the Spirit to enable you to see how God has worked in the lives of others, beginning with where they are as the Holy Spirit opens up opportunities. · Use Scripture and encourage baptism.

The Power of a Name(2012April15)

Sharing the Presence M4 (Acts) 04 15 2012
Speaker: Ken Shigematsu
Title: The Power of a Name
Text: Acts 3:1-10
BIG IDEA: We can become an instrument of healing when we hold people in a place of belovedness, when we recognize the power of Jesus’ name, and when we realize that the church is bigger than the building.

The movie Simon Birch is a story of a 12-year-old boy named Simon, who despite his miniature size and abnormally small heart, senses that God has a plan for him.
Show clip or how powerpoint image (if clip not available):


The small-town’s tired minister doubts that God could have a plan for small Simon Birch. In a conversation between Simon, the 12-year-old boy, and his minister, Simon asks, “Does God have a plan for us?” The minister hesitantly replies, “I like to think he does.” Simon Birch says enthusiastically, “Me, too! I think I am made the way I am for a reason.” The minister coolly states, “I am glad that your faith helps you deal with your, you know, your condition.” “That’s not what I mean,” Simon states. “I think I am God’s instrument. He is going to use me to carry out his plan.” The minister says, “It is wonderful to have faith, son, but let’s not overdo it.”
Could God have a plan for someone who was born in a miniature body like Simon Birch to serve as one of his instruments?
Could God have a plan and a call to use us as one of his instruments?
Today as we resume the series sharing the presence we are going to be looking at the passage in the book of Acts where Peter and John, two of Jesus’ original students, meet someone on the street as they were making their way to the temple for a time of prayer at 3:00 in the afternoon. Peter and John become instruments for this person to experience Jesus’ power to physically and spiritually heal him.
As we look at this passage, we will discover how we too can become instruments of Jesus’ healing.
Text: Acts 3:1-10:
1 One day Peter and John were going up to the temple at the time of prayer—at three in the afternoon. 2 Now a man who was lame from birth was being carried to the temple gate called Beautiful, where he was put every day to beg from those going into the temple courts. 3 When he saw Peter and John about to enter, he asked them for money. 4 Peter looked straight at him, as did John. Then Peter said, “Look at us!” 5 So the man gave them his attention, expecting to get something from them.
6 Then Peter said, “Silver or gold I do not have, but what I do have I give you. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, walk.” 7 Taking him by the right hand, he helped him up, and instantly the man’s feet and ankles became strong. 8 He jumped to his feet and began to walk. Then he went with them into the temple courts, walking and jumping, and praising God. 9 When all the people saw him walking and praising God, 10 they recognized him as the same man who used to sit begging at the temple gate called Beautiful, and they were filled with wonder and amazement at what had happened to him.
Pray.
Devout Jews at the time of this scene would go to the temple at 9:00 am, 3:00 pm and in the evening to pray. Peter and John are walking in the midst of the crowd making their way in the crowd to the temple for their 3 o’clock prayers. As we see in verse 2, as they were walking, a man who had been lame or paralyzed from birth was being carried to the temple gate called “Beautiful” so he could beg from those going to the temple courts. This particular person who was being placed at the gate called “Beautiful” (verse 2) had picked a great place from which to beg for money. The Jewish historian Josephus’s account tells us that the gate was 75 feet high, had double doors, and was covered in bronze. It was a spot which was en route to the temple where, of course, religious people passed by, for whom giving to people in need was considered a good deed.
The paralyzed beggar sees Peter and John about to enter. He asks them for money. As we see in verse 4, Peter looked straight at him as did John. Most people who beg feel invisible. My colleague Jade Holownia a few years ago was involved in a poverty simulation exercise. He dressed up as a homeless person and Jade sat out in front of London Drugs here on Broadway, put a hat out in front of him, with a cardboard sign that said, “Could you spare some change?” Virtually no one even looked at him and what Jade began longing for more than money was a simple look of acknowledgment.
And Peter and John look at this man who is begging and Peter says, “Look at us.” So the man gave them his attention, expecting to get something from them. But then Peter said to him, “Silver and gold I do not have, but what I have I give you. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth—walk.” We read that Peter takes him by his right hand, helps him up, and instantly the man’s feet and ankles became strong. He jumps to his feet and begins walking and leaping praising God (verse 8).
Luke, the author of this book, is a medical doctor and he is using very specific language in the Greek to describe what happens to this man. He writes that as soon as Peter uttered the phrase “in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth walk,” the man’s ankle-bones were immediately made strong and instantly he was able to walk, and he begins running and leaping and praising God.
WOW! What an incredible moment for him--and for everyone walking to the temple who witnessed what had happened. We read in verse 10 that the people who saw this were filled with wonder and amazement.
As we reflect on what it means to become instruments of Jesus’ healing, I want us to look first at verse 4. Peter in this verse we read “looked straight at him. As did John.” Peter and John are looking at him. Luke takes the time to point out that Peter and John looked right at this person who had been paralyzed from birth.
One of the first steps in becoming an instrument of Jesus’ healing as we seek to share God’s presence with others is to look at people--to really see them, to look them in the eye, or if you are Asian or from a traditional culture maybe just below the eye (in Asian cultures looking someone who is older and of higher status that you directly in the eye can be taken as impertinent—the way to avoid this is just to keep bowing all the time J ).
When I was an undergraduate student I remember hearing about how some resident assistants (RAs) were being trained in how to be more sensitive in a multicultural context. What the instructors did prior to one of the sessions with the new RAs was to agree together for the next session that,when teaching, not to look in the eye of any of the people in the group who had blue eyes. And the new RAs being trained were not told about this decision.
At the end of the session one of the instructors was debriefing with the group of new RAs, and she asked, “How did you feel in the session?” The people with blue eyes said, “Oh, I don’t know why, but I just felt very marginalized. I am not exactly sure why, but I felt devalued, invisible.” After several people had mentioned that, the instructor said, “We intentionally did that today with people who had blue eyes that so you would get an experience of what subtle racism is like.” (She could have done that with people with green eyes or hazel eyes or brown eyes.)
York Moore who was here a few weeks ago was telling me over lunch that “When people look at me sometimes they don’t know what race I am (show photo and keep showing photo over high lighted area):


Sometimes people assume that I am African American ancestry, of which I am, in part. Sometimes Latino. One time I was mistaken for being Japanese.” Which made me say, “Really?” He said, “When I am mistaken for being Latino in our area (Detroit), it is like I am invisible. People don’t pay any attention to me. When I was buying my house in Detroit, people who were selling me the house assumed that I was Latino, I was the gardener, and given my race they assumed I was I would not be able to buy a house.”
When we do not look at someone, or when we see past them, or look over their shoulder, it can be a dehumanizing experience.
Conversely, when we look someone in the eye, and as we see them, we can help them to see themselves. As we see them, we can help them to see how much they are beloved by God as we in some way become an embodied sign of God’s love for them.
About a year after I made the transition from working in the corporate world to training for some kind of vocational Christian ministry, I enrolled in something called the Arrow Leadership Program. Of the group of 25 younger Christian leaders, I was the least experienced in ministry and the youngest (or one of the youngest). And the people in the group in some cases already had international ministries or were pastoring large churches or speaking in stadiums, and I felt very out of place and inadequate in this group of already accomplished leaders.
I remember standing in line for lunch during one of my first days at Arrow and the founder and senior mentor of the Arrow Leadership Program, an older Presbyterian minister name Leighton Ford approached me and asked me if I wanted to have lunch with him.
(show photo through highlighted section).



At a time when I was feeling that I didn't belong in this group, feeling that they had made a mistake admitting me, Leighton looked at me and without sizing up my potential or judging me, through his eyes, but through his body language, said, “Welcome! I am happy to know you!”
Just a look and just the spirit of welcome brought a measure of life and healing to my own heart.
Have you ever had someone look at you and make you feel love just by the look – it may have been the look of a mother, a family member, a friend, a mentor, a lover, or even a relative stranger.
(Pause).
For those of you who feel like you know God in a personal way have you ever experienced a sense of being looked at with love by Christ? Have you ever had a sense that you're being looked at by him without condemnation, grace, with tenderness, with love…
And one of the lowest times in my life after a very painful breakup, I really sensed God, and it was for brief time, but in a way I still remember, God looking at me with a deep sense of love which strangely surpassed the sense of wonder of the romance itself.
Take a moment to recall a look from someone or a look from God that made you feel loved…
And if you can recall that sense of being loved in a look, pray that God would help you then reflect that look of love to others.
Saint Teresa of Avila said, Yours are the eyes through which Christ’s compassion for the world is to look out.
In the name of Jesus, pray that you would be able to see how deeply you are loved by God and then to be able to reflect through your eyes and body language the love which you yourself have first received to others.
Pray through your eyes Christ would hold a person in a place of belovedness and become an instrument of healing for others.
(And remembering that we are seeing by Christ with eyes of love is a gift. Reflecting in our look to others the look with which Christ sees us is also a priceless gift. But remembering how we are seen by Christ is also something that we can consciously recall. Something that we can practice recalling. We can also practice the art of looking at someone else in a way that reflects a sense of God's love to them.)
Now I'm going to use an example of someone who has practiced this art of looking at others which may surprise you. This person by his own admission has many faults and failings and certainly not an example in many areas of life as he himself would freely concede. But I really believe that we can learn from people who are not perfect.
Leighton Ford who I mentioned earlier in the sermon and who is now my mentor had the opportunity to have dinner with Bill Clinton when Clinton was president.
There were about eight people seated around a table at a hotel. Leighton said there was a boy who came by the table. He was eight or nine years old. He came over to President Clinton and he said to this boy, “When you meet someone you shake your hand like this with a firm shake and make sure you look them straight in the eye like this.” (The President was giving away some of his important trade secrets.)
I later learned that Clinton has a kind of condition which makes it unnatural for him to actually look people in the eye, a condition that makes eye contact more difficult for him than most. He trained himself to see people. I have heard from others who have met him like our pastor KP, he looks you in the eye and whether you are black or while, rich or poor, powerful or not, he has a way makes you make feel that at that moment you are the only person in the world.
Bill Clinton, by his own admission, would say that he has many faults. What a gift to be able to make someone feel like they are the only person in the world.
We can become instruments of Jesus’ healing by sharing the presence of God this week like Peter and John who looked people in the same way with which we have been looked at by Jesus.
We pray that our eyes would be the ones through which Christ looks at people.
As we read on, we see that when Peter and John look straight at him (verse 4), the paralyzed man who had been begging became excited, expecting to get money from them, and gave Peter and John his attention.
Then Peter said, “Silver and gold I do not have, but what I do have I give you in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth--walk” (verse 6). Taking him by the right hand, he helped him up and instantly the man who had never walked experienced his ankle-bones becoming instantly strong. He jumped to his feet and began to walk.
So we see that Peter and John first give the man the gift of their attention. Then Peter and John gave the man something even more precious. They gave him the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth. We see in this passage, there is power in the name of Jesus, to paraphrase the old hymn, “there is power, power, wonder-working power in the precious name (in the hymn it’s blood) of Jesus.”
The idea of a name having power is a bit strange to those of us who live in the modern western world, though at times we can catch the glimpse of the power of a name even in our society. Many young people get their first job because they use the name of an aunt or a friend of their dad’s. They discover that the name of that person can open a door. I am not a young person anymore, but I still appreciate it when someone says to me, “If it is ever helpful in this context, feel free to use my name.”
While in our culture we only recognize a dim echo of the power of a name, most of the people in Peter and John’s first century world and many people in non-western countries today know exactly what is going on here. They know that names can carry power, a magical kind of power, an invocation of hidden forces summoning up new possibilities.
And in this story we see how Peter and John who knew Jesus personally through the invocation of the name of Jesus were able to mediate the power and authority of Jesus to bring healing to this man (and this is why in verses 15 and 16 of the text Peter and John make clear that it was not by their power that this paralyzed man was able to walk, but that it was the power of Jesus Christ that made it possible for this man to walk). For us in the modern world, if we know someone we can in a sense invoke their presence through a phone call (use prop). If we know Jesus personally, we can invoke his presence through prayer in his name.
And like Peter and John when we know Jesus Christ personally through the use of his name in prayer we are able to mysteriously mediate the actual authority of the living, risen Christ.
A number of years ago when I was still a fairly new pastor here at Tenth, I was invited by one of the Christian leaders of the region to offer a prayer on behalf of Vancouver and the metro area of Vancouver at a big outdoor rally in a park in Surrey which featured some Christian rock bands. I remember the night before I was supposed to pray for the region, I woke up in the middle of the night feeling like this one thousand-pound foot was stepping on my chest. I don’t have asthma. I don’t have any condition which would make it difficult for me to breathe. I just couldn’t breathe. The pressure was immense. It felt like something was clearly trying to harm me and if possible kill me. I remember invoking the name of Jesus and how the pressure lifted. Next day I was able to go to this park out in Surrey where hundreds of people had gathered and to pray for the region.
As a pastor I know that my experience is not unique. There are times when people during the night or during the day can experience a very real sense of spiritual oppression and have found that the name of Jesus can help.
Let me share the story of Pastor Lee, not our Pastor Lee, but a fellow pastor who serves in a different church.
He says:
I had an experience that opened my eyes to the reality of spiritual warfare. While I was sound asleep, I heard the phone ringing (or so I thought). In the darkness, I grabbed blindly for the phone, but I was so groggy that I couldn't really wake up. When I put the phone to my ear, I heard a voice, flat and menacing. He just said, "You thought we'd forgotten you."
On the phone there was just silence, but I was sure he was still there. My mind was racing to think, Who wanted to hurt me? Who wanted me to cower in fear? The man who got angry a few weeks ago when we wouldn't give him money? I was getting very scared. I sensed this was something dark and diabolical.
I couldn't even speak, but somehow I simply blurted out, "Jesus!" And suddenly the fear left my heart and my bedroom. I came wide awake and realized I did not have the phone in my hand; that it was still across the room. Yet I knew that what had happened was more than just a dream. I had felt the presence of real evil—the presence of the Evil One. But now, after calling on Jesus' name, I wasn't frightened. As a matter of fact, I was exhilarated at the power of Jesus' name. I got up, turned on the bathroom light, washed my face, and cleared my head. Then I went back to bed. Surrounded by the presence of Christ, I felt a great peace.
As I was falling back asleep, I heard a melody in my mind. It was beautiful, like a lullaby. I recognized it but couldn't place it. The next morning it came to me: It was a tune from Les Miserables, and the words, which I didn't even fully know then, are "You will keep me safe, and you will keep me close; I'll sleep in your embrace at last." I've always felt that my heavenly Father hummed me to sleep that night—that night when the power of Jesus' name conquered the Evil One.”
Sometimes the name of Jesus helps us invoke the authority of Jesus to overcome a spiritual attack. At other times, as we see here in Acts 3 the name of Jesus enables us to invoke the authority of Jesus in a way that helps someone experience physical healing.
And at other times mediating the presence of Jesus through his name helps us experience spiritual growth.
Sometimes a physical healing leads to spiritual growth as was true of the man here in Acts.
This man who was paralyzed from birth experiences a physical healing and then he experiences a spiritual healing as we see in vs. 8 as he walks, jumps, and praises God.
There is power in the name of Jesus to bring healing – sometimes that healing is physical and sometimes that healing is spiritual and sometimes the physical healing will open the door to a spiritual (or vice versa) healing.
I was recently talking with a young woman here in our community who some of you would know who has given me permission (thank you!) to share part of her story.
She was telling me that when she was in junior high school she was diagnosed with chronic pain, an illness which made it very painful for her to use the joints in her limbs. Up until this time she had swum competitively, and had had hopes of soon achieving provincial times. However, because of her illness she was forced to quit swimming. In addition, because she had to wear bandages, it was externally evident that she was in pain, and people were aware that she was sick.
Before this time she had offered her life to Christ, and upon graduating from high school ended up going to UBC. While she was there she had a number of people faithfully lifting her up in prayer for healing in Jesus’ name. And she was fully healed. Now she enjoys being physically active and swims regularly for fun and exercise at UBC.
I asked her, “What was the impact of this healing for you?” She said, “Well, when I was healed physically, it became a tangible sign that God could actually work in my life, and so I began to trust him to do a spiritual work in me. I began to read the Scriptures more. I began to share my faith more. As I look back, the physical healing was something that helped me trust God to do a spiritual work in me.”
Through the name of Jesus, the person of Jesus, he can bring spiritual healing, as he did for the paralyzed person at the temple gate. He can bring physical healing, and then spiritual healing as he did for this young woman. Sometimes God can bring physical healing into someone else’s life as a sign that Jesus can do something spiritual in our lives as well.
(As I have said before, sometimes the healing isn’t always physical. For some people like Nick Vujicic (pronounced Vooy Cheech) was born with neither arms nor legs, or Joni Erickson a woman who through an accident became a quadriplegic” God seems to be using them in a more powerful way because they have NOT experienced physical healing.)
We become instruments of God’s healing, people who share the presence as Peter and John did, to look at people in the eye and really see them as we recognize the power of Jesus’ name that brings physical and spiritual healing.
Notice where the miracle takes place for Peter and John and for the person begging for money. It takes place outside the temple, outside the church. Yes, they are on their way to the temple, but the miracle takes place outside of the temple.
We know that our ministry here at Tenth takes place in part in the church, but it takes place primarily outside the walls of this church. I love the expression of John Wesley, the great 18th century preacher in England who became the founder of the Methodist Church. He used to say “the world is my parish.”
That phrase is sometimes misunderstood. When he said “the world is my parish,” he was not saying “here I am, some international great guy who is going to go all over the world to proclaim the gospel.” Though, he was an international great person, he was also a modest British person. That was not what he was saying. When he said “the world is my parish,” he meant the world, meaning “the world outside the walls of the church… the community itself is my parish, the place where I will do ministry.” Because he was such a controversial figure in his day as an Anglican, he was barred from of a lot of churches and did much of his ministry speaking in the open air outside of any physical church building.
So it can be for us. Our ministry can take place primarily outside of the walls of this church or any other church for that matter, as was true for Peter and John here in Acts 3.
We can extend God’s care to others beyond the walls of the church. Several years ago my wife Sakiko asked me if I could dig out a certain bush in our backyard. I was digging and digging, finding it very difficult to get the bush out of the earth. The roots went all the way to Japan. This is a tough one.
As I was digging, a neighbour happened to be walking by. He’s very handy…very physically strong..very thick neck. He said, “Hey, Ken, how are you doing? Need some help?” I said, “Fuuny you should ask! Yeah! I could use some help” He grabs the shovel and the pick and starts working real hard…sweating…and he is able to get the bush out.
Afterward, Sakiko said, “What did you do?” “I was praying for him. I also got him some lemonade. I am a delegational leader.”
Sometime thereafter, this person in our neighbourhood confided in me, expressing a lot of stress because he was about to get a biopsy for cancer. He is not a church-going person. I said, “Wow, this must be really hard. Do you mind if I pray for you?” Right in the street I offered a brief prayer for him. He ended up getting treatments, but he is alive and seems to be doing really well.
Let me close with this thought which seems to encapsulate in a modern way right here in Vancouver.
Kathleen Morrissey, who shared earlier in our service this past week, described a time when she embodied what the spirit of Peter and John(have her share):
One day I was walking down Main St and a homeless man
asked me for some money. I’ve been unemployed for months now
so I truly don’t have any spare change. Instead of walking past him
I felt God prompting me to pray for him.
I stepped out of my comfort zone and said “I don’t have any
money but can I pray for you” He said yes so I looked him in the
eyes and I spoke the Fathers blessing over him. I said that I thought
there were times in his life that other people had given up on him
and also times that he had given up on himself but God had not
given up on him and God loved him beyond what he could ever
imagine and his heavenly Father would never give up on him.
When I was done the man’s eyes were as wide as a saucer and his
mouth was open in amazement. His countenance had changed, His
grey, heavy demeanor seemed to have lifted and he seemed
transformed. Almost in a whisper he said ‘thank you’. He gathered
up his shopping cat and I haven’t seen him since.


And the greatest gift we can give someone is not money – giving money can sometimes be a practical and helpful gift – the greatest gift we can give someone like Peter and John, like Kathleen, is Jesus. And we become instruments of Jesus, we share his presence with others as we see them as Jesus would have seen them, as we invoke his presence using the name of Jesus, as we do this not just in the church but in the city of Vancouver in the world.

Prayer: Saint Teresa of Avila said, “Christ has no body on earth but yours, no hands but yours, no feet but yours. Yours are the eyes through which Christ’s compassion for the world is to look out; yours are the feet with which He is to go about doing good; and yours are the hands with which He is to bless us now.”

Life from the Lion(2012April08)

Easter Message (Luke 24:13-35) 08 04 12
Speaker: Ken Shigematsu
Title: Life from the Lion
Text: Luke 24:13-35; Isaiah 53:5-6, 9, 11.
BIG IDEA: We come to life when we live for The Lion.
The transition from song Alive to Wayne (Wayne should mention during verse 13 "now that same day” that this day was the day Christ rose from the dead.)
Luke 24:13-27
13 Now that same day two of them were going to a village called Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem. 14 They were talking with each other about everything that had happened. 15 As they talked and discussed these things with each other, Jesus himself came up and walked along with them; 16 but they were kept from recognizing him.
17 He asked them, “What are you discussing together as you walk along?”
They stood still, their faces downcast. 18 One of them, named Cleopas, asked him, “Are you only a visitor to Jerusalem and do not know the things that have happened there in these days?”
19 “What things?” he asked.
“About Jesus of Nazareth,” they replied. “He was a prophet, powerful in word and deed before God and all the people. 20 The chief priests and our rulers handed him over to be sentenced to death, and they crucified him; 21 but we had hoped that he was the one who was going to redeem Israel. And what is more, it is the third day since all this took place. 22 In addition, some of our women amazed us. They went to the tomb early this morning 23 but didn’t find his body. They came and told us that they had seen a vision of angels, who said he was alive. 24 Then some of our companions went to the tomb and found it just as the women had said, but him they did not see.”
25 He said to them, “How foolish you are, and how slow to believe all that the prophets have spoken! 26 Did not the Messiah have to suffer these things and then enter his glory?” 27 And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself.

Let me take you back in time for a moment, not 2000 years and not back to a scene from my childhood, but let me take you back to June 16th of last year. That may sound like a random date to you, but it was the day after our Canucks lost the Stanley Cup.
I was on the phone with someone that morning from Washington, DC, who said, “I have been reading about your city in the news.” I asked, “Were you reading about the hockey game last night? Or about the riots after the game?” Brian said, “The riots.”
Later in the day I was in touch with some family members in Japan who definitely are not hockey fans, but who saw the news footage of the rioting in our city. We are a city that is quite laid back and rarely in the international news. What happened on June 15th was big news nearly everywhere.
Imagine you are walking north on the Lions Gate Bridge the morning after the riots with a friend, and you are discussing the Canucks playoff run and the riots, and then a stranger who is also walking north on the bridge catches up with you overhears you and asks, “What are you guys talking about? Was there some kind of trouble in the city last night?”
You’d probably be thinking, “Where have you been living—under a rock? You are probably the only one in Vancouver who doesn’t know what happened last night!”
Well, in a way the mood was similar in Jerusalem three days after Jesus had been crucified.
In a way that far surpassed the hopes of the most ardent hockey fans here in Vancouver who were yearning for a Stanley Cup (and I want to acknowledge that for some of you here hockey is not the most important thing in the world. In fact in a crowd the size there are likely two or three Boston Bruin fans. Don’t raise your hand. It's a safe place, but I wouldn’t encourage you to raise your hand. If someone sitting beside you is smiling smugly, they may be smiling for any number of reasons.) But, back to the point, in a way that far surpassed the hopes of the most ardent hockey fans here in Vancouver who were yearning for a Stanley Cup, the people of Israel for centuries had been longing for a leader, a great king like David, a Saviour, a Messiah, who would free them from the shackles of Rome and bless the world.
And much like the most passionate hockey fans had hoped that last year would be our year with our Canucks having advanced all the way to the finals, and having won the first two games in the finals against the Bruins, and then having the opportunity to close out the deciding game 7 for the Stanley Cup final on our home ice, we Canuck fans thought this was the year.
But as our home team was shut out by the Bruins in the final game and our hopes crumbled we experienced such a letdown as a city—I remember how it June the 16 was a such clear, warm beautiful day—yet I felt a kind of chill in the our city… despite the great weather, our city was in a funk for several days…
In a somewhat similar way, but in a way, of course, that was obviously far more consequential, many of the people of Israel had been putting their hope in Jesus Christ as someone who would become like their great king of history, David, a Saviour, a Messiah who would free them from the iron-fisted rule of Rome and bless the world. They thought he was the one. So when Jesus Christ was arrested and beaten, and then crucified, all the hopes of everyone who believed that Jesus would be the next King David, the Saviour, the Messiah, experienced their hopes going up in smoke, they were devastated.
And so on Easter morning as we saw in the text Wayne recited from the Gospel of Luke, two people who had put their hope in Jesus are now devasted are walking northwest to the village called Emmaus. And as they were walking and talking Jesus himself comes up and began to walk and talk to them—he was and is ALIVE as the choir sang… but these two people did not recognize him.
What are you talking about? Jesus asked.
They stood still, their faces downcast. Cleopas, asked him, “Are you from out of town. Are you the only one who does not know the things that have happened here?”
“What things?” he asked.
These two people, Cleopas and his friend describe how they and many of their people had put their hope in Jesus Christ because he had taught with such power and performed great miracles. Cleopas explains how they and others believed he might be the Messiah who would free Israel from Rome and bless the people of the world.
They then spoke of how their own priests and leaders had betrayed Jesus, got him sentenced to death, and had him crucified. And then they said, “To make matters worse, some of our women have completely confused us. Earlier this morning they were at the tomb and they could not find his body. They came back and told us they had seen angels who said he was alive.
Then Jesus turned to Cleopas and his companion and said, “Why are you so thick-headed?
Why can’t you simply believe all that the prophets have said?
Then we are told Jesus pointed them to the first part of the Bible (which are known as the books of Moses)and then went through all of the prophets pointing out everything in the Scriptures that referred to him.
We don’t know exactly where in the Bible Jesus pointed to, but we are told that he took them to the first part of the Bible. And it could well be that he took them all the way back the very beginning of the Bible, Genesis, which describes how Adam and Eve were living in paradise with God in the Garden of Eden…how God had called them to govern the world on God’s behalf, but how they turned away from God, seeking to replace God in the Garden of Eden by becoming the god of their lives.
Contrary to popular myth, Adam and Eve’s sin was not eating a particular fruit, but it was their turning away from God and becoming god of their lives, replacing the role that the living God was meant to play in their lives.
They thought by becoming their own god they be freer, more powerful, more truly themselves.
But instead, as they separated themselves from the one true God, and like separating one’s self from the sun, they turned away from the source of all warmth and light and they felt this spiritual chill blow onto their bare back and so they felt compelled to clothe themselves with fig leaves.
Paradise Lost.
And whether or not we are familiar with this story, we've all felt that spiritual chill flow down our spine.
Let me take us back to June 16. The morning after the Vancouver riots, I was walking to work. It was a beautiful sunny day. I could see the mountains. I thought all is not perfect in one of the most beautiful, livable cities in the world. All is not perfect in paradise.
And in my own life, as much I like to think well of myself, there are moments when I can catch a glimpse of how self-centered, envious, or vindictive my heart can be and I can feel that spiritual chill on my spine.
I see how I need God to breath warmth into my soul.
God in his love for the world wanted to restore his paradise in my life, your life, and the earth.
When you think of paradise as a location on Earth where do you think of?
I think of Vancouver when the sun is out.
Or Hawaii where my favorite aunt and uncle live.
If you had an aunt and uncle who lived in Hawaii, they would be your favorite too.
(When we think of paradise we don’t think of place a you have to plug in your car at night so you can start it in the morning because it's a -20°).
When type in paradise in Google and hit images.
This is one of picture shows up.


(keep this photo of the kids up during the text highlighted in green).
Paradise is a place we associate with warmth, beauty, and happiness.
God wants to restore paradise-lost on earth.
How does God go about doing this?
I realize some of you are here once a year because it's Easter. Glad you’re here! Ho let me offer “Sparks Notes” summary of the Bible in a few minutes.
How does God go about restoring paradise-lost on earth?
About four thousand of years ago God approached man named Abraham.
He’s become an important figure.
If you went to Sunday School or church camp as a kid you may remember the song, “Father Abraham had many sons…and many son had father Abraham… right arm… left arm.”
So why do kids still sing about this Middle Eastern nomad who lived thousands of years ago?
It’s because God approached him and his wife Sarah and promised them that through their offspring, through their family, he one day send a leader, a prophet, King, a Messiah who would restore paradise lost to the world.
Someone who help us no longer feel the spiritual chill on our spine, some who helps experience the warmth of God’s breath on our neck.
Some who help turn winter to spring.
At times it looked like paradise lost might be restored under one of Abraham's great, great grandchildren like King David.
David was a person of great courage and charisma. He was the one who killed the giant Goliath with a singular stone hurled from his sling. When an underdog is up against a giant enemy, we still talk about David and Goliath.
But David despite all of his great qualities also experienced that cool spiritual chill on his spine from time to time. And like all of us wanted at times wanted to replace the living God by playing the role of god in his life and so like everyone else failed to be the instrument to restore paradise lost to the world.
So God decided that he would take the initiative in this paradise restoration project and send them a a unique king, a Messiah.
At a time when no one could anticipate, just when it seemed God’s promise to restore paradise to the world through the family of Abraham was going to fail, at a time when the children of Abraham felt like slaves because they were living the under foreign occupation, an imperial power of Rome, God decided that he would personally fulfill the promise that he had made to Abraham 2000 years before to restore paradise lost.
How does God do this?
So he approaches a teenager Mary, who thought a peasant could trace her family line back more 40 generations to Abraham, and God miraculously enabled her to conceive and was born as a baby, as a human being (this is the Christmas story). He gave himself the name Jesus.
When Jesus as a young man taught with God-like wisdom, opened the eyes of the blind and even raised the dead. Many people like Cleopas and his companion had put their hope in Jesus as the promised one who would be the Saviour, as the Messiah who would free their people and restore paradise lost to the world.
But then Jesus was betrayed, betrayed by their own leaders, sentenced to death and crucified.
All their hopes went up in smoke.
They were devastated as walking to Emmaus.
But Jesus, who they did not recognize, then shows them from the Scriptures that the Messiah had to suffer and die and then rise from the dead.
We don't know for certain, but it's a very good possibility that Jesus turned Cleopas and his companion’s attention to Isaiah 53.
In Isaiah 53 written about 700 years before Jesus was born, we read about the Messiah who comes from the family of Abraham.
Isaiah 53: 5-6, 9, 11:

5 He was pierced for our transgressions,
he was crushed for our iniquities;
the punishment that brought us peace was on him,
and by his wounds we are healed.
6 We all, like sheep, have gone astray,
each of us has turned to our own way;
and the LORD has laid on him
the iniquity of us all.
.
9 He was assigned a grave with the wicked,
and with the rich in his death,
though he had done no violence
(he had not sinned).

11 After he has suffered,
he will see the light of life
Jesus pointed out from the Scriptures how the Messiah, in order to restore paradise lost, actually needed to die and rise again.
Everyone at the time would think he was dying on a cross for his own sins, but according to Isaiah 53, he was in fact dying for our sins – for our tendency to turn away from the living God and replace God’s role in our lives by become god of our lives.
Jesus died on the cross bearing the penalty for our turning way from God, so that God, the cold wind on our back could stop blowing and we could experience the warmth of God’s breath on the back of our neck, God’s beauty and happiness.
Paradise-restored.
I realize that this is somewhat abstract.
C. S. Lewis illustrates paradise lost-paradise restored in his famous children’s story, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.


(keep this photo of the kids up during the text highlighted in yellow).
As some of you know, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe is a story about how four children Lucy, Susan, Peter and Edmund are sent for the summer to live with an old professor in the country-side.
While the four children are playing in the professor’s house, they discover a wardrobe which leads then to a magical world of Narnia.
The people of Narnia live under the influence of the wicked white witch who causes it always to be winter in Narnia, but never Christmas.
The witch lures one of the four children, Edmund, with some magical Turkish delight (which is Edmund’s favourite candy).




(keep this photo up during the text highlighted in green.)
Edmund comes under the power of the wicked witch and ends up betraying his 3 siblings.
And since Edmund has proved to be a traitor which means the witch has the right to kill him and plans to. The wicked witch is also making plans to capture his siblings.

But then the true King of Narnia, the Great Lion named Aslan, the Christ figure, who’s been absent for many years is back and is “on the move again.”

(keep the photo up during blue text).
The snow begins to melt, frozen rivers flow again, flowers bloom.
But the white witch confronts Aslan, the Great Lion, the Christ-figure and says, “You have a traitor here. You know the deep magic says that every traitor belongs to me. His life is mine. I have the right to kill him.”
Aslan says, “I will offer my life in his stead. Kill me and let the boy go free. The wicked witch agrees.”
(SHOW 2 scenes SCENE FROM THE MOVIE)
Though the witch knew the deep magic, there is a deeper magic still which she did not know… If she could have looked a little further back… she would have known that when a victim who had committed no treachery was killed, though in a traitor’s stead, the table would crack and death would start working backwards.”
Through Aslan’s death--death works backwards.
This is why we celebrate Easter…because Easter is the great news that King, the Messiah each us has knowingly or unknowingly long for has come.
Through his death--the stone table cracks and death works backwards.
Through his death – cold wind on our back to stop blowing and we can feel the warm breath of God on the back of our neck.
Winter to spring.
Paradise-restored.
Will we turn and live under the reign of our true King?
Some people fear they will lose themselves, their real self, if they come under the reign of anyone else.
But when you come under the reign of the true King, you become your real self, the self that you were always meant to be.
A pastor that I went to school with says, “Right now, we are trying to embrace our lover, but we are wearing a hazmat (show powerpoint image) suit.

We are trying to have a deep conversation about complex emotions, but we are under water.
We are trying to taste the 32 different spices of curry, but our mouth is filled with gravel.”
As we come under the reign of our true King, cold wind on our back to stop blowing and we can feel the warm breath of God on the back of our neck and become the people we blossom into the people we were meant to be.
To close, let me head back one last time to the story that we began with.
As Cleopas and his friend approach Emmaus, the village they were traveling to, Jesus continued on as if he were going farther, but they urged him, “Stay here and have dinner with us.” So he went in with them. He sat down at the table with them. He took bread and he blessed it and he broke it and he gave it to them.
At that moment their eyes were opened and they recognize him as Jesus and then he disappears.
They said to each other, “Didn’t we feel like our hearts were on fire as he conversed with us on the road and as he opened up the Scriptures to us?”
Each of our experiences are unique, but as we bring ourselves under the reign of the true King,
as get on the back the Great Lion, the Christ.
as we trust live for the Lion and draw life from the Lion, the Christ
the cold wind on our hearts stops blowing we will feel the warmth of God’s breath and heart and we will become the people we created to be.

LET’S PRAY.
If you would like the cold wind to stop blowing on your back and would like to experience the warm breath of God on your heart…
Express that to God now.
As a symbol of your desire to for God touch you, I invite you now to simply place your hand touch your heart… as way of God breath on me.
And if you feel unworthy, as I certainly do, you can ask God to forgive your sins, which was mysteriously made possible through his death on the cross for you.
And now you’re forgiven, get the back of the Lion, the Christ and go an adventure of your life.