Sermon for SMHP, Year B, August Sermon Series, August 19,
2018
Sermon Lesson Acts 20:1-12
After the uproar had ceased, Paul sent
for the disciples; and after encouraging them and saying farewell, he left for
Macedonia.2When he had gone
through those regions and had given the believers much encouragement, he came
to Greece, 3where he stayed
for three months. He was about to set sail for Syria when a plot was made
against him by the Jews, and so he decided to return through Macedonia. 4He was accompanied by Sopater son of
Pyrrhus from Beroea, by Aristarchus and Secundus from Thessalonica, by Gaius
from Derbe, and by Timothy, as well as by Tychicus and Trophimus from
Asia. 5They went ahead and
were waiting for us in Troas; 6but
we sailed from Philippi after the days of Unleavened Bread, and in five days we
joined them in Troas, where we stayed for seven days.
7On the first day of the week, when we
met to break bread, Paul was holding a discussion with them; since he intended
to leave the next day, he continued speaking until midnight. 8There were many lamps in the room upstairs
where we were meeting. 9A
young man named Eutychus, who was sitting in the window, began to sink off into
a deep sleep while Paul talked still longer. Overcome by sleep, he fell to the
ground three floors below and was picked up dead. 10But Paul went down, and bending over him
took him in his arms, and said, ‘Do not be alarmed, for his life is in him.’ 11Then Paul went upstairs, and after he had
broken bread and eaten, he continued to converse with them until dawn; then he
left.12Meanwhile they had taken
the boy away alive and were not a little comforted.
How
many have ever read or heard this story?
It’s
a weird one. If you don’t know it,
that’s likely because it’s not in the lectionary, so it’s only read on Sunday
morning if we do some weird sermon series in August to avoid the five weeks of
preaching John 6. That is the official
name of this August sermon series:
Series to Avoid Five Weeks of Preaching on “The Bread of Life.”
Funny
story: this alternative lesson turns out
to be about life and bread.
But
let’s not get ahead of ourselves.
The
story before us is one that must be handled very
carefully. It needs to be viewed two
ways: through a telescope and through a
microscope.
First,
let’s stand back and look at it from afar.
An overview. Maybe binoculars,
rather than a telescope.
See…what
had happened that day in Troas was…Paul bored a kid to death.
That’s
kinda the gist of it, right?
Paul
was preaching, and preaching, and preaching.
I’ve known some preachers like this.
I’m sure I’ve done it many times myself.
You preach your sermon, and it’s good! And then for good measure, you go on and
preach another one.
I
don’t know how many sermons Paul preached that day. Maybe he was just happy to be in one place
for a while. As you may have noticed
from the first paragraph of the lesson, Paul and his merry band of apostles
have been all over the place before they get to Troas, or Troy.
So
they are there in Troas for one more day, and Paul is holding a discussion and
a young man named Eutychus is sitting in the window.
And
Eutychus falls out of the window and Paul goes down to him and he is alive
again and they all have dinner.
That’s
basically the story, and quite frankly, given the 10,000 foot view Luke gives
us, I’m not surprised this story doesn’t make it into the lectionary, because
there doesn’t seem to be much to talk about here.
Until
you get out the microscope. And the
dictionary. And start paying attention
to the details.
First
detail: lamps. In a story that is all of seven sentences
long, why does Luke spend a sentence explaining that “there were many lamps in
the room upstairs” where they were meeting?
They
were oil lamps. They made a third floor
room, which would already have been warm, even hotter. And they removed a bit of the oxygen from the
room as well.
So
we know why Eutychus got sleepy. It
wasn’t just Paul’s long-windedness.
He
got sleepy and he fell out of the window.
The most important details in this story are the words Luke uses. So bear with me, because we’re going to have
to go Greek for a bit.
Eutychus
fell out the window. The word for “fell”
is epesen. It’s the past tense of a relatively common verb,
pipto (to fall) used this exact way
twenty-nine times in Christian scripture, and not that many people fall out of
windows and other things in the Gospels and epistles.
But after Eutychus fell out the window,
Luke tells us, Paul went down to where he was, and bent over him. It really should say that Paul “fell upon”
Eutychus, since the verb is epepesen,
which is, of course, a form of epesen,
and also has to do with falling. This
verb is much more rare, though, occurring in this form and meaning only
twice: in Acts 20—our text for this
morning, and in Luke 15, in a story about another boy who was considered
lost.
Anybody
know what boy that was? [The Prodigal
Son]
When
the prodigal appears to throw himself at his father’s feet and beg for mercy,
Luke tells us that “when he was still far off, his father saw him and was
filled with compassion; he ran and put his arms around him and kissed
him.” Then he throws a big party for
this prodigal one, and when his older son complains, the father says “We had to
celebrate and rejoice, because this brother of your was dead and has come to
life; he was lost and has been found.”
Your
brother was dead, and has come to
life; he was lost and has been found.
What
does Paul tell the people about Eutychus after he falls out of the window?
“His
life is in him.”
Paul
saw life in Eutychus. Because he is a man of God, and God sees life where others see death. He is a man of God who was on his own path of
death, until Jesus knocked him down! And
raised him up!
God
sees redemption where others see utter
loss.
God
teaches us to hope in the face of
despair.
How
many of us have been given up for dead,
until God found us?
How
many of us have fallen, and when others turned away, someone became Jesus to us
and raised us up?
And
how many of us are getting ready to fall out of that window? And we’re wondering, is anyone going to catch
me? Does anyone care?
Christians. Church.
We gotta save the ones falling from the windows!
We
are the children of a father who cannot fail to love us.
We
are the followers of the one who in his
dying moments gave the gift of life to a dying thief. Who gathered to himself the children, and the
women, and the tax collectors—fell upon them, embraced them. Saw
life in them. Saw that they were precious.
We
gotta see life in each other, people of God.
We gotta scoop up the ones whose life is ebbing away—the ones about to
fall out the windows—we’ve got to scoop them up and tell everyone around them,
“his life is in him.” “Her life is in
her.” “Hir life is in hir.”
We
have the power. Of. Life. It has been granted to us by Jesus Christ,
who granted it to Paul when he knocked him down and made him blind so that he
could finally see.
We
have the power, to see, life. So we need to be about our father’s
business—falling upon the ones who have fallen themselves. Picking them up and reminding the ones around
them that their life is still in them.
God
has granted redemption to this
world, and we are the bearers of that good news! Someone you will meet this week needs to hear
it. Needs to hear that you see life in
them, even though everyone else thinks they might as well have fallen from a
third story window. You see how precious
they are, because you know their name:
child of God.
Scoop
‘em up, people of God. Scoop ‘em up and
remind them that they are loved.
And
if you are one of the ones whose life is ebbing away, know this: your life is in you. We see your life and we see you—exactly as
you are—and we think you are pretty damn precious. We think Jesus would like to have a meal with
you. We think we would like to have a
meal with you.
Because
that’s what you do, isn’t it, when the prodigal returns? When the boy falls and still has his
life? You rejoice and celebrate. You break bread, using a word that appears
three times:
That’s
always the end of this story. Bread,
broken and eaten. Jesus, visible in our
midst, taken into our bodies, gathering the lost, through us.
Bread
of life. You really can’t escape from
it. So don’t even try.
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