Sermon for SMHP, Year C, Easter 6, May 26, 2019
Acts 16:9-15
9During the
night Paul had a vision: there stood a man of Macedonia
pleading with him and saying, “Come over to Macedonia Macedonia Philippi ,
which is a leading city of the district of Macedonia and a Roman colony. We
remained in this city for some days.
13On the sabbath
day we went outside the gate by the river, where we supposed there was a place
of prayer; and we sat down and spoke to the women who had gathered there. 14A certain
woman named Lydia , a
worshiper of God, was listening to us; she was from the city of Thyatira
In
1938, Harvard College (it was a “college” back then) gathered two cohorts of men
for a study. About a third were
sophomores at Harvard. About two third
were teenagers from some of the poorest neighborhoods in Boston. In all, there were 724 of them. And they followed them from 1938 to the
present, though most are gone now.
It
was a comprehensive study, not just a mailed questionnaire each year. They did blood tests, interviewed the men and
their families, observed and recorded their interactions. And when they had a cohort who had reached
their eighties, they looked back at them in midlife, to see whether there were
predictors of future health and happiness.
As
you might have guessed, there were. And
they weren’t particularly physical. The
best predictor of long-term well-being—physical, emotional and psychological—is
the formation of strong attachments and relationships. People with strong relationships are happier,
and they feel better. It turns out, this
study and others have concluded, that loneliness and isolation hurt. They trigger a response in the same part of
the brain that registers physical pain.
And
the best measure is quality, not quantity, of relationships. Having strong partners in life—friends and/or
romantic partners—leads to improved health outcomes of all sorts. According to Robert Waldinger, the Harvard
Study’s current (and fourth) director, “The
people who were the most satisfied in their relationships at age 50 were the
healthiest at age 80.”[1]
I
think some of us would have guessed that this was the case. What the Study did was to offer empirical
data to back up the notion that we humans are built for relationship. Being connected to others is good for us,
physically, emotionally, psychologically…
…and
spiritually. The story of our faith—both
globally and individually—is a story of relationship. Faith is generally born of relationship. We’re taken to church and baptized by our
parents. Or we meet a friend who invites
us to their church, their synagogue, their mosque. And we go.
According
to Nancy Ammerman, my favorite sociologist of religion, we become regular at a
house of faith because we have made relationships there. Ammerman says three is the golden number for the
thousands of people she has studied. As
we think about growing our church, that is a number to keep in mind, if a bit
loosely, because honestly—there are no formulas for this.
We
just know that relationship is key.
And,
of course, as Christians—students of the gospels and Paul’s writings, we already
knew this, right?
Jesus
begins his public ministry and what does he do?
He calls a community of twelve and then even more to work with him. And they go out into the world and meet
people. Jesus teaches, but he also lays
hands on those who are sick, and draws in those who are out on the margins—the
sinners, the tax collectors, the sex workers.
Every
so often, Jesus withdraws for prayer.
But apart from those few verses, I challenge you to find a place in the
gospels in which relationship isn’t at the center of the story.
And
it continues in the book of Acts. We
know from Luke’s account that this foundational reliance on relationship
continued into the formation of the church.
Anybody remember how Acts begins?
I’ll give you a hint. (look up at ceiling)
The
Ascension of Jesus, which is celebrated this coming Thursday. The apostles are all gathered with Jesus, who
is then lifted up out of their sight.
And
as they are standing there, having a spiritual moment, “two men in white robes”
appear and say, “Hey, don’t just stand around looking at the sky! There’s work to do!” So they return to Jerusalem, choose Matthias
to replace Judas, and gather their community together for prayer and
meals. In chapter one, we are told that
there are one hundred twenty faithful in that early church.
Until
Chapter Two. When a wind from heaven blows
among thousands of faithful folks gathered in Jerusalem. The wind is so powerful that its sound draws
a crowd. The wind enables the Apostles
to speak in other languages and the crowd to hear everything that is said in
their own language.
So
the story of the formation of the Christian church begins with God tearing down
the wall God had erected to keep people in their place. (Google “Tower of Babel”)
And
by the end of Chapter Two, it is clear that this church will be a place of
welcome. A place where people come
together to eat, pray, and yeah, love.
And more and more people are drawn to the church. It is a novel institution, because it doesn’t
organize around the typical cultural lines that often define fledgling
religions. Of course, we’re continually
fighting that instinct. In the ELCA, we must
remind ourselves that our church isn’t organized around a passion for lutefisk
and conflict avoidance. Because our church isn’t a haven for Scandinavian
immigrants any more. In this synod
alone, there are ELCA congregations speaking Spanish, Lao, Oromo, and Dinka.
Even
in the beginning, of course, there were struggles. How wide should the welcome be? When Philip meets an Ethiopian court official
on the road to Gaza, it is the Eunuch who has to ask, “Look, here is
water! What is to prevent me from being
baptized?”
So
what’s the answer?
Nothing. Nothing is the answer. There should never be barriers to participation
in Christ’s church. The church is an
incubator of relationship, and its doors must be wide open. So Peter baptizes the household of Cornelius,
a Roman Centurion. And Paul takes the
gospel throughout the empire.
Which
is where another aspect of this reliance upon relationship appears. In the early chapters of Acts, the question
tends to be “Whom shall we admit?” What
rules can we let go in order to be more welcoming.
Who
holds the power? The ones deciding
whether to welcome.
But
as Paul sails around the Empire, preaching the gospel, getting in trouble, setting
up communities, the dynamic changes a bit, doesn’t it?
Instead
of Paul having the power to allow others into the church, Paul must rely upon
the people in the communities he visits to support his work, and to build and
maintain these fledgling Christian communities.
There’s no centralized authority any more. As Peter Mayer sings, “God is loose in the
world.”
So
we have wonderful stories like the one before us this morning. Paul has a vision that says he should go to
Macedonia. Clearly the vision is right,
because notice two of the places he visits—Philippi and Thessalonica.
He
gets to Philippi, learns the lay of the land, and on the Sabbath day, they go
out to the edge of town, “where we supposed there was a place of prayer.” There are women gathered, and after Paul
preaches, one of them, a woman who should have some wealth, according to her
stated occupation, prevails on them to come and stay with her.
The
ministry of Paul, which spread the gospel of Jesus Christ from Antioch to Rome,
is utterly dependent upon this sort of generosity. And that is a wonderful thing!
I
think we all know from our own relationships that they work best when there is
equity among the parties. Give and
take. Shared power.
Those
are the sorts of relationships that give health to individuals. And to institutions.
It’s
true. I heard it from Harvard.
What
happens as Paul travels around, relying upon the generosity of deacons like
Lydia, and Phoebe, is that the power is equalized, and we get a model of
relationship which recognizes the gifts of all parties.
Think
about what that means for us as a church.
We have this amazing gospel, and we want to share it with the
world. But the people we want to reach
also have wonderful gifts, and we want to receive what they bring. That is an ethic of Christian community and
relationship which was born in the first days of the church and is still being
formed and perfected today. As we
consider welcome, we must consider not just how to throw our doors wide to
accept those who come, but how shall we be inviting others to share their gifts
with us in this community.
[1]
Liz Mineo, Harvard Gazette, April 11,
2017, https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2017/04/over-nearly-80-years-harvard-study-has-been-showing-how-to-live-a-healthy-and-happy-life/,
accessed May 25, 2019.
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