The Rev. Neale L. Miller

Sermon for September 2, 2007

Texts: Psalm 98/Acts 26:1-23

Title: “Love to Tell the Story”

              Scene setter:  Paul is on trial for charges brought by the Jews. Deemed a Jewish renegade and turncoat who no longer respected the tradition in which he was raised, Paul makes his defense before King Agrippa.  And so we read in Acts 26 verse one and following: (choir sings "I Love to Tell the Story).

              Though the Apostle Paul did not write that hymn, he very well might have for the sentiments contained in it most definitely mesh with the sentiments his love for Jesus prompted. “I love to tell the story of unseen things above, of Jesus and his glory, of Jesus and his love.  I love to tell the story, because I know ‘tis true; It satisfies my longing as nothing else could do.”

              Yes, indeed, Paul loved to tell the story.  The story was his profound joy, it was, at the same time, an undeniable burden, joy because nothing gave him greater pleasure than telling it, burden because the story was offensive to a group of people, his Jewish critics, who deemed his story subversive and threatening to the religion to which they adhered.

              Paul loved to tell the story of Jesus and his love.  It was a vocation he willing took on, this despite the fact that it got him beat up and imprisoned, not just once, but many times. 

              The final eight chapters of the book of Acts treat the consequences of the insubordination of which Paul was accused.  The scene is the Jerusalem temple, the Jew’s supreme holy place.  Paul’s appearance there causes an uproar.  Like a piece of red meat before ravenous wolves, the apostle finds himself in mortal danger. The scene Acts describes is difficult to represent in words, so I will allow your imaginations to take you where words can’t go. We all have a sense of what a mob scene might look like.  Some of us may have witnessed such outbreaks in person, or short of that, viewed them on the television.

               No one sets out to inflame a mob, not, that is, if he values his life.  It was not Paul’s ambition to inflame a mob, however, the crowd had its own ambitions when Paul was spotted in the temple.  “Fellow Israelites, help! This is the man who is teaching everyone everywhere against our people, our law, and this place; more than that, he has actually brought Greeks into the temple and has defiled this holy place.”

              There is nothing to regulate the fury of a mob once its passions have been aroused. One might as well take ones chances with an angry pit bull than be the object of a mob’s wrath. 

              With no one to defend him against his persecutors, Paul was dragged out of the temple.  He could easily have been killed were it not for the intervention of some soldiers who, because of the crowd’s rage, were forced to literally carry Paul from the temple grounds.

                No, the Jews were not at all inclined to allow Paul to share his story.  Yet Paul, being Paul, wouldn’t be shut up for long.  Safely delivered to the soldiers’ barracks, he asked for permission to address the crowds that had followed him to that place.  Though catcalls and jeers could occasionally be heard, his audience by and large gave him a polite hearing until, that is, he arrived at the part where he spoke about the commission Jesus gave him to take God’s word to the Gentiles. This mission to the Gentiles was a non-starter for the Jews.  In the eyes of the Jew the Gentile was damaged goods, tainted. The claim that attention should be paid to their spiritual needs didn’t compute.

              For the second time in a single afternoon the crowd turned on Paul. The soldiers, their own lives placed in jeopardy by Paul’s actions, might well have let the chips fall where they may. One important consideration, however, prevented them from doing that. Paul was a Roman citizen.

               As a Roman citizen Paul was owed his day in court.  The Roman authority, however, refusing to be bogged down in arguments concerning the religion of the Jews, believed their best course of action was for the Jews to adjudicate their own affairs. As Pontius Pilate before them, no way did they want to get entangled in Jewish politics.

             Paul’s appearance before the Sanhedrin, Pharisee and Sadducee lay and religious leaders, however----the same tribunal before whom Jesus appeared on the night of his arrest---incited yet more commotion while resolving nothing. Paul had become the Romans’ tar baby, creating problems they could not be rid of.  Yet like it or not Paul was owed his day in court. 

               Credit the Romans for adhering to their laws, even when the protracted proceedings involving Paul could have caved in on their heads. So long as he lived they were just one riot away from a political disaster that could destabilize not only Jerusalem, but the entire region. The Romans knew the risks were great, but they were determined to give Paul his hearing. 

                Paul’s journey through the Roman courts was deliberate if not labored. But first there was a change of venue.  The Romans moved the proceedings from Jerusalem, where riots threatened, to another jurisdiction, Caesarea.  Only after that did Paul appear not before one, but three, separate high-ranking Roman officials in succession, the last being King Agrippa, likely a non-practicing Jew, who served at the discretion of Caesar in Rome.

               Were it not for the story he had to tell, Paul may have resented the lengthy delays and inconveniences involved in gaining his day in court.  Paul, however, loved to tell his story. If confined to prison he couldn’t verbalize his story, he could at least commit his thoughts to papyrus.  There was no inconvenience or discomfort he was unwilling to suffer so long as he could tell the world about Jesus through one means or another.

               I love to tell the story.  Road to Damascus…bright light…voice from heaven---  “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me”---a commission to bring light to the Gentiles through the forgiveness of sins.  Paul’s zeal in telling that story never abated, so thoroughly did Jesus dominate his life.

              Perhaps you can think of a story you would risk life and limb to tell. To what principles or beliefs are your convictions wedded that you would deem life itself a price you would be willing to pay to make your position clear? Men and women of faith have been forced to face that issue from the day Jesus began his public ministry.  Disciples of Jesus have often found themselves at odds with the world.

             Our stories are the way you and I make sense of ourselves and our world.  While the story of his encounter with Jesus on the road to Damascus completely eclipsed all other concerns that occupied Paul’s mind and heart, his experience on the road was unique to him.  Paul had his story, and each of us attempt to make sense of ourselves and our world through our own stories.

                We do not create our stories out of whole cloth.  We were each born into our stories, appropriating as we matured bits and pieces of other peoples’ stories---our parents’, for instance. I was born into a story featuring the depression, World War II, and post-war working class America.  How about you?  What story were you born into?

                The variety of experiences to which we are exposed, of course, add new lines to our stories each day. We fall and are injured, we receive notice that a deceased relative left us a sum of money, or a child ships off to Iraq. New lines added to our story everyday.

              Paul had his story and we each have ours.  The experiences I add to that number today and tomorrow will lend their particular weight and texture to the chapters I will yet write.

              The several events and experiences of which our stories are constituted do not, of course, possess equal mass.  Particular events and experiences dominate.  Her classroom success becomes the dominant theme in the story the valedictorian is composing, using that success as a stepping stone to a satisfying and lucrative career.  The wounds the soldier suffered in war become the dominant theme in his story.  A miscarriage that prevents the would be mother from ever giving birth becomes the dominant theme of her story.

              Paul had his story and we each have ours, those stories the product of particular experiences we lived and the particular environments we inhabited, yet there is a least one reality that links Paul’s story and our stories.  We were baptized into the same community, into a living body over which reigns the very Jesus who appeared to the apostle on the road to Damascus. 

              Paul had a great story to tell, one so great that he refused to shut up.  The story took over his life. But why?  It took over for one very good reason.  It took over his life because that story made more sense of his life than any other story he knew. 

              The story hasn’t changed in lo these many centuries.  People are still inspired to tell it, tell it, yes, and even upon threat of losing their lives in the telling.  People are still inspired to sing their love for Jesus, even though regrettably “I Love to Tell the Story,” the hymn the choir sang so beautifully, did not find its way into the latest edition of our pew hymnal.  Be assured, however, that we will use other hymns to tell the story.

              The story hasn’t changed.  What we read in this book is as vitally alive to millions today as when Paul took it on the road throughout the Mediterranean Basin, Jerusalem, and ultimately Rome, the uncontested capital of the civilized world  

              The mission of the church is to cultivate a love for the story, and it is a mission to be undertaken by us very intentionally. So practically speaking what does that mean? The task may be summarized in a three- step formula: teaching, living, and telling. It is impossible for anyone to love what he or she doesn’t know.  The church teaches the faith. The church fulfills its mission by living the faith.  The church draws the world to Christ by telling what it knows. Teaching, living, telling.

              By the mysterious providence of God we were baptized into the greatest story the world has ever know. This church makes significant efforts to teach it through our Christian education program. (Come join us for kick-off of the Sunday school year next Sunday.) The prominence that story will have in our lives, however, is something over which we exert control. While the church is the primary agent in bringing the story to life, each of us individually, and in community, will decide how much vitality the story will possess.   

              We have a story to tell that makes sense of our lives and the world in a way that no other religion or philosophy can duplicate, and there is nothing, nothing in the world, preventing us from truly giving the story the prominence in our lives that it deserves but the individual choices we make.  Choose well, friends, choose well.  God, in Christ, has a story to tell through you. 

PRAYER

              Eternal God, eternally committed to your creation, we marvel at the constancy of your love for us, even as we repeatedly struggle to model that same love in return. Failing to make time for you in our busy schedules, busyness we have elevated to the status of virtue, we complain when we feel you have ignored our petitions.  Like spoiled children who want what we want when we want it, we lack the patience to cultivate a relationship with you, O God, deferring those efforts to another day when we have more time. How our act must strain your patience, O Lord, you who give so much and receive so little in return.

              O Christ, who sloughed off the manacles of death, in that victory securing humanity’s freedom from death’s curse, we will soon gather at the table to commemorate your death-defying resurrection.  Yet even as the bread and cup we shall pass transports us across time and space to the upper room where you broke bread with your disciples, we know that the bread and cup are meant to strengthen us so that we can carry your life-sustaining power with us into the world. Not merely to hold, O Christ, you call us to liberally share the bounty of your grace.   

              We praise you, O Christ, for the apostle Paul and all those brothers and sisters who out of their love for the story were willing to endure all manner of trial and tribulation. Tirelessly reciting the life-changing encounter that made him your disciple onto death, O Christ, Paul made his personal experiences the basis for letters that forever shaped the faith to which we subscribe today.  Even as we laud his courage and fortitude, we praise you for the gifts of the Spirit you conferred on him that converted that persecutor of the faith into your courageous disciple.

              Lord, with heavy hearts we grieve the casualties of the Iraq war.  This week’s death toll was yet another sobering reminder of the cost our nation has been forced to pay in securing global freedom. Even as we pray for the secession of violence, we lift up the families and friends of the dead that the grief they are now experiencing may be endurable. Mindful that the loss experienced by our countrymen is not the only loss being endured in Iraq, we pray for the Iraqi soldiers, police, and political leaders who are forced to live under constant threat of death.  

              O Spirit, we give thee thanks for the fellowship of the church, the family of faith in which the faith is nurtured.  We praise you for all who lend their time, energy, and financial resources to the equipping of the saints, and for the spreading of the gospel.  We thank you, Lord, for the leaders of this congregation who through efforts expended contribute to the up building of this church.  Continue, we pray, to embolden those who represent the church to the world, to dream dreams and faithfully and intelligently mobilize resources to turn those dreams into reality.

              Ever vigilant and faithful God, we pray for those who upon whom burdens rest this day.  We pray for those who face stress in the home, or in the workplace.  We pray for the unemployed who cannot find work, and the discouraged who have ceased looking for work.  We pray for the widow and the widower who live with persistent emptiness.  We pray for children who feel misunderstood, and the parents of those children who experience their children’s pain but don’t know how to respond.  We pray for those who live in suspense awaiting the results of a medical procedure, the final decision on a job application, or the outcome of a pregnancy test.   We pray the prayer you taught us...Our Father...