Miracle in Gaza? (A Steve Orr Lectionary reflection)

Madeline L’Engle would likely call it a “wrinkle in time.” Perhaps Stephen King would call it a “thinny.” Gamers might want to term it a “gate” or “portal.” Einstein might call it a “space-time bridge.”

Whatever you call it, this was one of the stranger occurrences found it scripture.

The story in Acts chapter 8 begins a lot like other biblical stories: God instructs Philip to go southwest on the road from Jerusalem to Gaza, sometimes called the Wilderness Road. Along that road, Philip encounters a very important person riding in a chariot, a eunuch from Ethiopia. This eunuch is a court official of Ethiopia, in charge of Queen Candace’s entire treasury. He is returning home from recently worshipping in Jerusalem (Passover has just ended).

As Philip nears the moving chariot, he notes that the eunuch is reading aloud from what we would call Isaiah chapter 53. [You should stop, here, and go read that chapter before continuing on.] Most christians would recognize this passage of scripture as describing the last days and hours before Jesus died on the cross. But, when Philip asks the eunuch if he understands what he is reading, the fellow says, “How can I, unless someone guides me?”

The eunuch invites Philip to join him in the chariot. And then, as the chariot eats up the miles, traveling along that Wilderness Road into Gaza and on toward Ethiopia, Philip explains. Starting with this scripture, Philip proclaims to him the good news (gospel) of Jesus as the Messiah (Christ). After a while, now believing what Philip has been teaching about Jesus, the eunuch spies a body of water and says, "Look, here is water! What is to prevent me from being baptized?"

He commands the chariot to stop, then he and Philip enter the water and he is baptized by Philip.

Like I said, the story starts out pretty straight forward. God sends Philip. He meets and instructs the eunuch on a prophecy that tells of Jesus being the Christ. Finally, having now become a believer, the eunuch asks for and is baptized.

Here is where it gets a little strange.

As they are returning to dry land, “the Spirit of the Lord snatched Philip away; the eunuch saw him no more, and went on his way rejoicing. But Philip found himself at Azotus, and as he was passing through the region, he proclaimed the good news to all the towns until he came to Caesarea.”

Let me unpack that for you: Philip disappears right in front of the eunuch and then finds himself over 30 miles away in Azotus (a town situated west of Jerusalem, near the Mediterranean Sea).

Did God teleport Philip to his next assignment?

You will not be shocked to discover that scholars, of course, are divided on this. Was it a miraculous event or was Luke just describing a quick exit for Philip? But, this is hardly the only instance of such miraculous transportation in the Bible. Consider when Jesus appeared to His disciples as they were gathered, post crucifixion, in locked rooms. Jesus just appeared in the midst of them. I tend to agree with those who think it was a miraculous event, mostly because of the phrase, “the Spirit of the Lord snatched Philip away.” The original language there for “snatched” is the same as for the “rapture.” Sounds pretty miraculous to me.

But, what is the point of all this? I think our takeaway is really found in the “bookends” of the story. It begins with God sending Philip to proclaim the good news to someone. And how does it end? Apparently unaffected by his miraculous journey to Azotus, Philip just heads north and keeps on telling folks the good news about Jesus.

And isn't that always the point?

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PHOTO: https://curiosity.com/topics/theoretically-passing-through-space-and-time-in-a-wormhole-curiosity/

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READINGS FOR THE COMING WEEK
Fifth Sunday of Easter (April 29, 2018)
https://lectionary.library.vanderbilt.edu//

Acts 8:26-40
Psalm 22:25-31
1 John 4:7-21
John 15:1-8
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Join us Friday morning at 8:00 for DaySpring’s Lectionary Breakfast. We spend that hour in the function room of the Waco “Egg and I” restaurant eating, praying, discussing scripture, and enjoying each other’s company. Lotta laughter, too.

Blessings,
Steve

Word Gets Around (a Lectionary reflection by Steve Orr)

People talk.

And people really talk when they have an exciting topic. In this day and age of instantaneous updates to various social media sites, hardly anything stays where it starts. But the exciting stuff girdles the Earth faster than Puck. Something big happens in a remote location, and the next thing you know, it's all over YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.

The media have changed over the Millennia, but speed was still a factor when Jesus walked the Earth. He would do something in one town, and upon reaching the next one find that it was already known. Think about that. News had to travel faster than a troupe of walking disciples and their teacher. But there was no modern technology to carry the message. Ordinary people did not have use of chariots or fast horses. So, how?

They ran.

That's all there can be to it. They ran. The news was so big, they ran ahead to spread it. As noted here, previously, Marshall MacLuhan established for us moderns that "The medium is the message." In this case, the medium was a person (or people) with a message so "hot" they could no keep it to themselves. They couldn't even keep it in their town. They just had to run ahead. That tells you just how important and exciting was this "news." And it happened again and again.

We see the fruits of those runners in this week's Lectionary selection from the gospel of Mark, chapter 6: Jesus and team try to get away for a little down time, only to find as they come to shore that people have run ahead and spread the news that a miracle worker was coming. And what a miracle worker! I can almost hear them, "He doesn't even have to touch you!"

Yes. That is the message that got around. Sick people came from all over; and those who couldn't come were brought. It was like that quote from Firefly: "When you can't run, you crawl, and when you can't crawl, when you can't do that, you find someone to carry you."

And all they wanted to do, what they begged to do, was touch "even the fringe of his cloak." Why, we only just read about the woman in Chapter 5 who had the unending hemorrhage of blood. It had cost all of her money and all of her health, and it had plagued her a dozen years. Her decision to just touch the hem of His garment was one of desperation. Yet, here in this new place, many miles away, the word had spread that it had worked!

And was it true? Or was this just so much talk? Was that all that was needed to be healed, just to touch his garment? Did you have to sit through a sermon, first? Did He have to grab your head and shout? Was there a 12-step program to complete in advance? Was there a pre-interview? Perhaps a statement of faith to declare? The good news---while people will talk, in this case, it was more than just talk---"All who touched it were healed."

Word gets around.
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READINGS FOR THE COMING WEEK
http://lectionary.library.vanderbilt.edu/

Proper 11 (16) (July 19, 2015)

2Samuel 7:1-14a
Psalm 89:20-37
Jeremiah 23:1-6
Psalm 23
Ephesians 2:11-22
Mark 6:30-34, 53-56
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Friday morning is coming! Will you be with us for Lectionary Breakfast? We're going to settle in around 8:00 and spend about an hour visiting, discussing scripture, chowing down, and if it's like every other Friday, laughing 😉

Get here as fast as you can.

Enjoy the week!
Steve

The Audience of God (a Lectionary reflection by Steve Orr)

We, the audience, had come from all across the United States to hear this choir sing, to see Dr. James Abbington lead, to absorb gospel standards and other pieces of black sacred music, to have our souls refreshed. Before us, high up in the choir area of the church sanctuary, stood a large, combined choir composed of folks from several local churches and from churches as far away as Fort Worth and Dallas; well-dressed men and women; dark suits, white shirts and ties, colorful scarves, long black dresses.

For the second night in a row, Dr. Abbington asked us, the audience, to become part of the show.

For those of us who had attended a far less formal gathering the night before, the announcement was not all that surprising. The previous night, after a full day of speakers and panels, leading scholars presenting and discussing on the state of black sacred music, those same scholars took to the stage. Accomplished musicians, all, they were expected to provide us with an evening of gospel greats.

And we were not disappointed.

As our performers for the evening arranged themselves around dual pianos, Dr. Abbington changed the dynamic. We found ourselves called on to sing.

Us. The audience.

I marveled at this. He seemed so certain we would just do as he said. What made him think we, the audience, would agree to this? Weren't WE supposed to be on the receiving end of all this?

But we did what he told us to do. We belted out "Oh Happy Day," "Marching to Zion," and "Every Praise (is to Our God)." Song after song, we sang. But that was not the end of it. Next, Dr. Abbington started calling people to come to the front to take the solo parts and the leads. In short order, there were more people standing between the lip of the stage and the front row than in the rest of the auditorium.

Now here we were, 24 hours later, and he was doing it again.

I was starting to think this was just a thing he liked to do, the way some rock stars like to tilt the microphone toward the audience so they can chime in on some parts. Maybe this was just his way.

Then he said something that put it all in perspective: "According to Kierkegaard, in church, God is the only audience; we are all participants in the worship."

While I think I have long had a similar understanding of worship, I've never heard it said quite that way: God is the only audience.

He is certainly the only audience that matters.

Moses forgot this. Angered at the bickering Israelites, he struck the rock with his staff to get the water they needed. In doing this, he disobeyed God's instruction to get that the water by speaking to the rock. And he paid the price. Afterwords, GOD said to Moses and Aaron, “Because you didn’t trust me, didn’t treat me with holy reverence in front of the People of Israel, you two aren’t going to lead this company into the land that I am giving them.” (‭Numbers‬ ‭20‬:‭12‬ MSG)

We are not, in fact, the audience. No matter where we sit or stand in the house of meeting, when we act as though we or someone else is the audience, we forget a basic truth about worship.

God is the only audience.
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Selected from a reflection on "Marching to Zion, the Pruit Symposium on Black Sacred Music" [Baylor University, October 2014]
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Something to keep in mind as we start the Advent season.

READINGS FOR THE COMING WEEK
http://lectionary.library.vanderbilt.edu

First Sunday of Advent (November 30, 2014)
Isaiah 64:1-9
Psalm 80:1-7, 17-19
1 Corinthians 1:3-9
Mark 13:24-37