Lives transformed
Commentary
Object:
What if the resurrection happened and no one told anyone about it? There wouldn't be a church; no one would know Jesus ever existed; the world would be an entirely different place. I've heard it said that the church is always just one generation away from extinction. Often this is said out of fear that this generation will be the last, but when I hear this, I marvel at how Christianity has passed from one generation to the next for two millennia. Today, and throughout the Easter season, we have the opportunity to celebrate the first bearers of the good news of Jesus' resurrection, and we have the opportunity to celebrate how the Gospel transforms human lives and societies in every generation from the first apostles to our own.
Acts 17:22-31
Paul, that avid persecutor of the followers of Jesus, has been converted and is well into his ministry by the time we meet him in today's reading. He has been ridiculed, driven out of town after town, beaten, stoned and left for dead, and imprisoned, yet he persists in every town he visits in going to the synagogue to tell the Jews about Jesus. With assistance from believers, Paul has escaped to Athens from Beroea (a city in Macedonia close to Thessalonica) after the Jews from Thessalonica where he had preached before followed him and incited the crowds in Bereoa against him. Separated from his traveling companions Silas and Timothy, Paul waits for them to join him in Athens. While he bides his time, he looks around Athens and talks about Jesus to anyone who will listen, both in the synagogue and in the marketplace. He debates with Epicurean and Stoic philosophers who are confused by his message. "So they took him and brought him to the Areopagus and asked him 'May we know what this new teaching is that you are presenting? It sounds rather strange to us, so we would like to know what it means'" (Acts 17:20). The Areopagus is a rocky hill northwest of the Acropolis that historically served as a meeting place for councils and courts. It is unclear whether the reference in Acts is to the geographic place or to a council that Paul addressed, though we are told in Acts 17:34 that one of Paul's converts was Dionysius, a judge of the Areopagus.
Acts 17:21 tells us, "Now all the Athenians and the foreigners living there would spend their time in nothing but telling or hearing something new," a description of Athenian culture found in other ancient sources, so we can assume that Paul drew a crowd with his novel teaching. His address at the Areopagus is the only major speech in Acts to a Gentile audience, and thus omits references to the Hebrew scriptures and history typically found in other speeches. Indeed, Jesus is not even mentioned until the end of his speech and then only obliquely, as "a man" (Acts 17:31). Instead, Paul meets the Athenians on their own ground, praising their religiosity, noting especially an altar "to an unknown god" and quoting their own poets (Acts 17:28) as he builds his argument in a manner in keeping with the philosophical debates and eloquent Greek of the Athenians. His philosophically-inclined audience would have agreed with his proclamations that God does not live in shrines made by human hands and that God, the creator of heaven and earth, has no need for sacrifices (Acts 17:24-25). It is only at the very end of his speech that Paul diverges from the common ground he shares with his audience to issue a call to repentance founded on the resurrection of Jesus (17:30-31).
1 Peter 3:13-22
First Peter, which we have been reading through the Easter season, is a circular letter addressed to "the exiles of the Dispersion in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia" (1 Peter 1:1), five provinces that made up most of Asia Minor (now modern-day Turkey). Likely written by a follower of Peter rather than the apostle himself, it still serves as a reminder of the stature of Peter in the early church. The churches addressed were mainly Gentile in origin, and the letter concerns itself with helping these new Christians live into their conversions in the face of social pressure against them. Christians are to model their lives on Christ himself, accepting suffering as Christ did, living humbly and acting in love. While exhortations in chapters 2 and 3 for slaves to accept the authority of their masters and wives to accept the authority of their husbands may raise modern hackles, the author of 1 Peter was concerned with helping Christians continue to live in a hierarchical society that they were already challenging by the fact of their religious beliefs and practices. Today's passage exhorts Christians to do good and be above reproach so that whoever may try to malign them will be seen to have no cause. This moves into a discussion of Christ's saving action, even of those evildoers who were destroyed by the flood in Noah's day. The flood, which wiped out all that was evil from the face of the earth, prefigures baptism, which is another, personal assurance of the power of Christ to save the believer.
John 14:15-21
Last week and this, we read most of John 14, part of Jesus' counsel and comfort offered to his disciples after he washes their feet at the Last Supper. He is preparing them for his death and assuring them that his death will not be the end of their relationship. John uses distinctive terms for the Holy Spirit, who the Father will send to accompany the disciples: Advocate (also translated Paraclete, Comforter, Counselor, Helper) and Spirit of Truth. Jesus exhorts the disciples to keep his commandments after his death, and the command Jesus has given the disciples to observe is deceptively simple: Love one another (John 13:34, repeated in John 15:12). Today's passage prepares us for the coming days of Ascension and Pentecost, when Jesus' post-resurrection departure and the coming of the Holy Spirit empower the disciples to live in the love Jesus showed them.
Application
For the disciples, Easter Day was not a day of trumpets, lilies, and joyful celebration, but a day of wondering and confusion, fear, grief, and doubts. From Easter Day through the Day of Ascension, observed on Thursday this week and recounted in our readings next Sunday, we see a gradual dawning of hope and understanding among the disciples that Jesus was not dead, but alive in a new way. Then, on Pentecost, the coming of the Holy Spirit completed the transformation of the disciples into apostles… from those who followed Jesus to those who were sent out by Christ into the world in his name, filled with his resurrection power.
Today we encounter words attributed to both Peter and Paul, and it is worth remembering their stories: How Paul was transformed from chief persecutor of Jesus' followers to chief missionary and evangelist; how Peter who denied Jesus three times before Jesus' death was charged three times by the post-resurrection Jesus to care for his flock (John 21:15-19; we read this passage only on Easter 3 in Year C). The bumbling, slow-to-understand, sometimes cowardly disciples we meet in the gospels become in Acts the courageous, assured apostles who preach and heal in Jesus' name, enduring persecution and even death with joy. Their lives were transformed, just as lives have been transformed by Jesus and Jesus' followers in every generation since. We all know stories of people who lived in the power of the Holy Spirit and passed it on to the next generation; we may even know or live with some of them in our homes, churches, and neighborhoods. Today can be a day to name and honor them and the work God does through them.
Today can also be a day to consider how we may "always be ready to make your defense to anyone who demands from you an accounting of the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and reverence" (1 Peter 3:15-16). Paul's speech before the Areogapus provides a model for talking about our faith with non-believers when we are invited to do so. Paul does not harangue and challenge, but begins by naming what is admirable and godly among the Athenians, honoring the human longing for the divine that he sees in their midst. He recognizes what is unnamed and seeks to give it a name as a means of inviting the Athenians into communion with Christ. In his epistle, Peter urges gentleness and right living as the model for Christian life: actions speak louder than words, or as some claim Saint Francis said, "Preach the gospel at all times. When necessary, use words."
While we can use our readings today to celebrate the amazing transformations that happen through life with Christ, we can also acknowledge the varying realities among the people in the pews. Coming to full knowledge of the love, power, and resurrection of Christ may be the stunning work of a moment, as it was for Paul, but it may be the incomplete work of a lifetime for others. Recognizing that Easter is a season in which the disciples grappled with all kinds of misgivings, fears, and doubts before they came to their own deep knowledge of resurrection may be something even the most faithful church members need to hear.
This Sunday before the Ascension is also, of course, Memorial Day, which will be observed variously in different congregations. While the message of Christ is peace, faithful Christians have fought in good conscience and died in war after war. Like Jesus, their sacrifice was of life itself and prayers for the fallen and their families as well as for a world in which war will cease can guide this day. An alternate extra-scriptural theme some may wish to observe is that of the Rogation Days, traditionally observed on the days leading up to Ascension Day. These were marked in the Catholic and English churches by processions and prayers for the crops, the success or failure of which would determine the health and even survival of the community through the year to come.
Acts 17:22-31
Paul, that avid persecutor of the followers of Jesus, has been converted and is well into his ministry by the time we meet him in today's reading. He has been ridiculed, driven out of town after town, beaten, stoned and left for dead, and imprisoned, yet he persists in every town he visits in going to the synagogue to tell the Jews about Jesus. With assistance from believers, Paul has escaped to Athens from Beroea (a city in Macedonia close to Thessalonica) after the Jews from Thessalonica where he had preached before followed him and incited the crowds in Bereoa against him. Separated from his traveling companions Silas and Timothy, Paul waits for them to join him in Athens. While he bides his time, he looks around Athens and talks about Jesus to anyone who will listen, both in the synagogue and in the marketplace. He debates with Epicurean and Stoic philosophers who are confused by his message. "So they took him and brought him to the Areopagus and asked him 'May we know what this new teaching is that you are presenting? It sounds rather strange to us, so we would like to know what it means'" (Acts 17:20). The Areopagus is a rocky hill northwest of the Acropolis that historically served as a meeting place for councils and courts. It is unclear whether the reference in Acts is to the geographic place or to a council that Paul addressed, though we are told in Acts 17:34 that one of Paul's converts was Dionysius, a judge of the Areopagus.
Acts 17:21 tells us, "Now all the Athenians and the foreigners living there would spend their time in nothing but telling or hearing something new," a description of Athenian culture found in other ancient sources, so we can assume that Paul drew a crowd with his novel teaching. His address at the Areopagus is the only major speech in Acts to a Gentile audience, and thus omits references to the Hebrew scriptures and history typically found in other speeches. Indeed, Jesus is not even mentioned until the end of his speech and then only obliquely, as "a man" (Acts 17:31). Instead, Paul meets the Athenians on their own ground, praising their religiosity, noting especially an altar "to an unknown god" and quoting their own poets (Acts 17:28) as he builds his argument in a manner in keeping with the philosophical debates and eloquent Greek of the Athenians. His philosophically-inclined audience would have agreed with his proclamations that God does not live in shrines made by human hands and that God, the creator of heaven and earth, has no need for sacrifices (Acts 17:24-25). It is only at the very end of his speech that Paul diverges from the common ground he shares with his audience to issue a call to repentance founded on the resurrection of Jesus (17:30-31).
1 Peter 3:13-22
First Peter, which we have been reading through the Easter season, is a circular letter addressed to "the exiles of the Dispersion in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia" (1 Peter 1:1), five provinces that made up most of Asia Minor (now modern-day Turkey). Likely written by a follower of Peter rather than the apostle himself, it still serves as a reminder of the stature of Peter in the early church. The churches addressed were mainly Gentile in origin, and the letter concerns itself with helping these new Christians live into their conversions in the face of social pressure against them. Christians are to model their lives on Christ himself, accepting suffering as Christ did, living humbly and acting in love. While exhortations in chapters 2 and 3 for slaves to accept the authority of their masters and wives to accept the authority of their husbands may raise modern hackles, the author of 1 Peter was concerned with helping Christians continue to live in a hierarchical society that they were already challenging by the fact of their religious beliefs and practices. Today's passage exhorts Christians to do good and be above reproach so that whoever may try to malign them will be seen to have no cause. This moves into a discussion of Christ's saving action, even of those evildoers who were destroyed by the flood in Noah's day. The flood, which wiped out all that was evil from the face of the earth, prefigures baptism, which is another, personal assurance of the power of Christ to save the believer.
John 14:15-21
Last week and this, we read most of John 14, part of Jesus' counsel and comfort offered to his disciples after he washes their feet at the Last Supper. He is preparing them for his death and assuring them that his death will not be the end of their relationship. John uses distinctive terms for the Holy Spirit, who the Father will send to accompany the disciples: Advocate (also translated Paraclete, Comforter, Counselor, Helper) and Spirit of Truth. Jesus exhorts the disciples to keep his commandments after his death, and the command Jesus has given the disciples to observe is deceptively simple: Love one another (John 13:34, repeated in John 15:12). Today's passage prepares us for the coming days of Ascension and Pentecost, when Jesus' post-resurrection departure and the coming of the Holy Spirit empower the disciples to live in the love Jesus showed them.
Application
For the disciples, Easter Day was not a day of trumpets, lilies, and joyful celebration, but a day of wondering and confusion, fear, grief, and doubts. From Easter Day through the Day of Ascension, observed on Thursday this week and recounted in our readings next Sunday, we see a gradual dawning of hope and understanding among the disciples that Jesus was not dead, but alive in a new way. Then, on Pentecost, the coming of the Holy Spirit completed the transformation of the disciples into apostles… from those who followed Jesus to those who were sent out by Christ into the world in his name, filled with his resurrection power.
Today we encounter words attributed to both Peter and Paul, and it is worth remembering their stories: How Paul was transformed from chief persecutor of Jesus' followers to chief missionary and evangelist; how Peter who denied Jesus three times before Jesus' death was charged three times by the post-resurrection Jesus to care for his flock (John 21:15-19; we read this passage only on Easter 3 in Year C). The bumbling, slow-to-understand, sometimes cowardly disciples we meet in the gospels become in Acts the courageous, assured apostles who preach and heal in Jesus' name, enduring persecution and even death with joy. Their lives were transformed, just as lives have been transformed by Jesus and Jesus' followers in every generation since. We all know stories of people who lived in the power of the Holy Spirit and passed it on to the next generation; we may even know or live with some of them in our homes, churches, and neighborhoods. Today can be a day to name and honor them and the work God does through them.
Today can also be a day to consider how we may "always be ready to make your defense to anyone who demands from you an accounting of the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and reverence" (1 Peter 3:15-16). Paul's speech before the Areogapus provides a model for talking about our faith with non-believers when we are invited to do so. Paul does not harangue and challenge, but begins by naming what is admirable and godly among the Athenians, honoring the human longing for the divine that he sees in their midst. He recognizes what is unnamed and seeks to give it a name as a means of inviting the Athenians into communion with Christ. In his epistle, Peter urges gentleness and right living as the model for Christian life: actions speak louder than words, or as some claim Saint Francis said, "Preach the gospel at all times. When necessary, use words."
While we can use our readings today to celebrate the amazing transformations that happen through life with Christ, we can also acknowledge the varying realities among the people in the pews. Coming to full knowledge of the love, power, and resurrection of Christ may be the stunning work of a moment, as it was for Paul, but it may be the incomplete work of a lifetime for others. Recognizing that Easter is a season in which the disciples grappled with all kinds of misgivings, fears, and doubts before they came to their own deep knowledge of resurrection may be something even the most faithful church members need to hear.
This Sunday before the Ascension is also, of course, Memorial Day, which will be observed variously in different congregations. While the message of Christ is peace, faithful Christians have fought in good conscience and died in war after war. Like Jesus, their sacrifice was of life itself and prayers for the fallen and their families as well as for a world in which war will cease can guide this day. An alternate extra-scriptural theme some may wish to observe is that of the Rogation Days, traditionally observed on the days leading up to Ascension Day. These were marked in the Catholic and English churches by processions and prayers for the crops, the success or failure of which would determine the health and even survival of the community through the year to come.
