Christians Who Hear, But Clearly Don't Understand
The end of Paul's biblical story, and some strong words from Jesus.
Luke 17:1-10 | Acts 28:11-30 | Gospels during Lent: John 17-18
Our journey through Acts ends today. After so many events, so much activity and change for the early Church, it might feel like a rather abrupt ending. Paul is in Rome for two years. What then? (Church tradition holds that Paul did end up being martyred in Rome, but it was more than likely on a later, subsequent trip.)
But Paul’s final words in Acts are deafening (no pun intended, really). The passage he shares from Isaiah 6 is quoted in some form in each and every gospel and then again here at the end of Acts. It speaks of God’s people, supposedly going around in the know, and yet actually knowing nothing of who God really is. Today, Christians of all sorts feel this way about other Christians.
It’s a mess, isn’t it?
What do we do? How do we know who’s “right”?
One significant way of knowing who God is and who God in Christ would have us be is to pay attention to the scriptures, and for Jesus, in particularly within the gospels. It’s why we’re reading this stuff every day. We seek the character of Jesus, led by the spirit with us, and offer ourselves to be shaped and formed into his likeness.
Read it carefully, but for one example, today’s gospel passage gives some pretty easy-to-understand-if-not-to-follow understanding of Jesus’ teaching:
Don’t cause other people to sin. (If you do, just go ahead and jump in a lake, but be sure to use weights.)
Even so, forgive sinfulness. And then do it again. And then again. And again…
Seek to have faith that God can and will do big things.
Don’t seek praise for what you should do anyway.
Luke 17:1-10
Jesus said to his disciples, “Things that cause people to trip and fall into sin must happen, but how terrible it is for the person through whom they happen. It would be better for them to be thrown into a lake with a large stone hung around their neck than to cause one of these little ones to trip and fall into sin. Watch yourselves! If your brother or sister sins, warn them to stop. If they change their hearts and lives, forgive them. Even if someone sins against you seven times in one day and returns to you seven times and says, ‘I am changing my ways,’ you must forgive that person.”
The apostles said to the Lord, “Increase our faith!”
The Lord replied, “If you had faith the size of a mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it would obey you.
“Would any of you say to your servant, who had just come in from the field after plowing or tending sheep, ‘Come! Sit down for dinner’? Wouldn’t you say instead, ‘Fix my dinner. Put on the clothes of a table servant and wait on me while I eat and drink. After that, you can eat and drink’? You won’t thank the servant because the servant did what you asked, will you? In the same way, when you have done everything required of you, you should say, ‘We servants deserve no special praise. We have only done our duty.’”
Acts 28:11-30
After three months we put out to sea in a ship that had spent the winter at the island. It was an Alexandrian ship with carvings of the twin gods Castor and Pollux as its figurehead. We landed in Syracuse where we stayed three days. From there we sailed to Rhegium. After one day a south wind came up, and we arrived on the second day in Puteoli. There we found brothers and sisters who urged us to stay with them for a week. In this way we came to Rome. When the brothers and sisters there heard about us, they came as far as the Forum of Appius and the Three Taverns to meet us. When Paul saw them, he gave thanks to God and was encouraged. When we entered Rome, Paul was permitted to live by himself, with a soldier guarding him.
Three days later, Paul called the Jewish leaders together. When they gathered, he said, “Brothers, although I have done nothing against our people or the customs of our ancestors, I’m a prisoner from Jerusalem. They handed me over to the Romans, who intended to release me after they examined me, because they couldn’t find any reason for putting me to death. When the Jews objected, I was forced to appeal to Caesar. Don’t think I appealed to Caesar because I had any reason to bring charges against my nation. This is why I asked to see you and speak with you: it’s because of the hope of Israel that I am bound with this chain.”
They responded, “We haven’t received any letters about you from Judea, nor have any of our brothers come and reported or said anything bad about you. But we think it’s important to hear what you think, for we know that people everywhere are speaking against this faction.”
On the day scheduled for this purpose, many people came to the place where he was staying. From morning until evening, he explained and testified concerning God’s kingdom and tried to convince them about Jesus through appealing to the Law from Moses and the Prophets. Some were persuaded by what he said, but others refused to believe. They disagreed with each other and were starting to leave when Paul made one more statement: “The Holy Spirit spoke correctly when he said to your ancestors through Isaiah the prophet,
Go to this people and say:
You will hear, to be sure, but never understand;
and you will certainly see but never recognize what you are seeing.
This people’s senses have become calloused,
and they’ve become hard of hearing,
and they’ve shut their eyes
so that they won’t see with their eyes
or hear with their ears
or understand with their minds,
and change their hearts and lives that I may heal them.
“Therefore, be certain of this: God’s salvation has been sent to the Gentiles. They will listen!”
Paul lived in his own rented quarters for two full years and welcomed everyone who came to see him.
Prayer
God,
I don’t want to imply that I know it all or have every little thing about Jesus figured out, but honestly, I’m more and more frustrated with all sorts of people who call themselves Christians but look nothing like Jesus, at least as much as the Jesus I am trying to understand out of scripture.
Why do people who call themselves Christians clamor for power and control both in the Church and in governments near and far? Why do people who call themselves Christians seem so bloodthirsty for bombs and war? Why do people who call themselves Christians continue to draw lines both in their minds, on paper, and with actual walls and borders between those who look like them and those who don’t? Why do people who call themselves Christians treat the life you’ve given us with such careless abandon, caring not for humanity at any and all stages of life?
Even as I ask these questions, Lord, I fear my own complicity in know-it-all-but-you’re-actually-wrong Christianity. So I want to humbly ask for your help with that. But even so, God, I feel a strong desire to be discerning and loudly tell those who are just plain wrong that they are. People’s lives are literally at stake.
So help me, God,
By your spirit & in Christ,
Amen.