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Acts 8.26-39
Acts 8.26-39
Sunday, August 12, 2007
Shelton, WA
Just Hanging Out
There is an epidemic abroad. It’s a plague. It has infected thousands. It has poisoned millions. It’s spreading across the country, around the world.
It’s an epidemic.
Everywhere you look people are affected by it. Everywhere you go people are falling under its toxic power. It’s spreading everywhere. It’s highly contagious… highly infectious.
It’s incredibly dangerous.
But it’s also largely ignored. You see… it’s sneaky. You can’t see it. You can’t feel it. You can’t touch it. There are no symptoms—until it’s too late. And I’m afraid, for most of us … it’s too late.
It’s been too late for a long time.
Oh, don’t be alarmed. Don’t get too upset. Don’t go calling the hospital. The funny thing about this epidemic is that when everyone’s got it, we all feel normal—we forget about it… forget we’ve even got it. Life goes on. The infection spreads, but no one notices… no one cares… it just doesn’t seem all that important anymore.
And no, I’m not talking about sin—though that’s a good guess.
This epidemic is everywhere. Even in the church. Even in the lives of deeply devoted followers of Jesus. I’ve got it. And I bet most of you do as well.
After all, you all look pretty normal to me. And normal anymore means you’ve got it.
It’s the hurry-up disease. It’s the no-time-to-stop disease. It’s the too-much-to-do-not-enough-time-to-get-it-done disease.
Some of the symptoms are: a strong compulsion to always be multitasking… wandering thoughts in the middle of a conversation (or a sermon)… always thinking “what’s next”… failure to live fully in the moment.
Some of the fall out is: fewer and fewer genuinely deep relationships… never being truly present… never being real… hearing, but rarely listening… talking and telling at the expense of listening and learning… missing those God-moments… those divine opportunities that seem to just fall out of no where.
That’s why when I read this passage of scripture about Philip and the Ethiopian eunuch, three words just leapt up out of the page at me. Those three words seemed to hold the antidote for our epidemic. They seemed to hold out hope for a cure.
Think about it. Here’s Philip. He had just been part of a huge revival in Samaria. Whole villages were getting saved. Miracles were happening everywhere. Evil spirits being cast out. The lame and the paralyzed were being healed. Peter and John even made a special trip down to see what was going on. It was a big deal… big enough to keep anyone busy… big enough to keep anyone rushing around.
…Big enough to infect.
But an angel of the Lord had a prescription for Philip. God sent Philip into the desert. He said, “Go south to the road—the desert road—that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza.”
Now here’s the deal. Samaria was some 30 or so miles due north of Jerusalem. Philip had quite a walk ahead of him. Just to get to the start of the road—the desert road—that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza… Philip would have a good, long hike… a couple days at least. And then, on top of that, Gaza was another 50-60 miles southwest of Jerusalem.
…A lot of walking.
What in the world is God doing? Doesn’t he know there’s a revival happening in Samaria? Doesn’t he know Philip is busy? After all, revivals take a lot of work… a lot of energy.
They can run a person ragged.
But God isn’t interested in ragged people—or at least not in making people ragged. So he sends Philip on a “walk-about”—3, 4, maybe 5 days, quietly walking along the road… time to re-group… time to re-focus… time to slow down long enough to get re-connected—fully re-connected.
Philip needed a break from all the activity involved in keeping up with a revival in order to keep himself from becoming satisfied with less than what God really wanted to do… to keep from settling for just enough… to keep from letting activity become a substitute for intimacy… to keep from missing God, and missing those divine opportunities that seem to come out of nowhere—in the midst of surrender… in the midst of the stillness… in the middle of staying close.
You see that’s perhaps the biggest problem with this disease that has infected us. We end up settling for just enough. Just enough God to keep us out of hell… just enough Jesus to keep the “fire insurance” policy current… just enough religion to keep us from getting into trouble.
Just enough, though, is never enough.
It’s never enough to make any sort of real difference. It is never enough to change a life… to transform a heart. It is never enough to make us holy. It is never enough to be very attractive to anyone.
It’s never enough to heal.
Just enough is just enough not to be enough.
There’s a word for it—palliate. It means to lessen the pain without really curing.
Here’s the deal, though: God doesn’t just want to ease the pain. God doesn’t just want to make us numb. God wants to make us well. God wants to fix the problem—the whole problem. God wants to restore and repair our brokenness.
God wants to heal us.
Anything that deals with reducing the pain without curing the sickness is not from God. Making us numb is not what religion is all about. Religion is about wholeness. Religion is about re-capturing something that got away from us. It’s about saving what was lost. It’s about bringing the dead back to life.
God wants to bring us back to life—real life… abundant life… a fullness of body, soul, mind, and spirit that overflows into our neighborhoods and our communities, spreading good news… changing hearts… healing lives… infecting with hope.
Bringing the dead back to life.
The problem is we’ve got this sickness… this disease that keeps getting in the way. We’ve got this infection that keeps us content with just enough… just enough to keep us numb… just enough to keep us satisfied… just enough to keep us busy… just enough to palliate.
Anyway, by now you’re probably thinking I totally forgot all about those three words. Well, I haven’t.
They’re God’s words. Not just because they’re in the Bible, but because God spoke them. God actually said them. They are God’s words—straight from God’s mouth. And that makes them pretty important. We should stop and really listen to them. Maybe even do them.
God tells Philip, “Go to that chariot and stay near it.” The three big words that jump out at me are, “stay… near… it.”
Stay—don’t run off. Don’t just brush by. Don’t just casually walk past. But stay. Linger. Engage. Hang out for a while.
Stay long enough for God to connect. Stay long enough to connect with God… with what God is doing. Stay long enough to be really there.
You know I imagine back in those days it was not all that uncommon for folks traveling along the highways and byways to cluster up for a while. I imagine groups of travelers gathered and dispersed with great frequency. Kind of like a tide ebbs and flows, groups would swell and dissolve. No one really stayed together for long—journeys had different destinations… different agendas… different time tables. Travelers traveled at different paces. No one hung out for very long.
But God told Philip “stay.” Hang out for a while. Don’t be in such a rush. Don’t let your busy agenda rob you of the opportunity to become truly engaged with the people and the situations that come your way.
What would happen if we learned how to stay long enough to truly become engaged in each other’s lives? What would happen if we learned how to not rush through our times with those people God brings across our paths? What would happen if we learned the art—the ministry—of “just hanging out”?
God told Philip, “Stay…near.” You see hanging out means we get close enough to get dirty. It means we stay near enough to feel the brokenness… to feel the hunger… to feel the pain… to enter into the deepest longing of a searching soul—and everyone’s searching.
Philip didn’t just hear what the Ethiopian eunuch was reading. Philip was near enough, and he stayed long enough, that he felt the inner turmoil. Philip could feel the struggle that was going on in this man’s spirit. Philip was near enough that he became engaged in this person’s struggle. Philip became a part of it.
It’s different for us—or at least for some of us. Instead of wanting to engage, we are always looking for ways to escape. For many that’s why they go to church—to escape. For many that why they became Christians in the first place—to escape this doomed, damned, and condemned world. It’s all about what comes next.
But God told Philip to stay near it. It’s not about what comes next. Or at least for God it’s not about what come next. It’s about redeeming the now. It’s about re-conciliation. It’s about restoration. It’s about re-creation. It’s about responding to what God is actively engaged in. And God is actively engaged in redeeming the world—the whole world.
You see I am so glad that when I read the Bible I read that God loved this world so much that God decided to become involved… that God decided to engage this world, becoming a part of the very fold and fabric of creation. And by doing that… by becoming a part of the very fold and fabric of creation, God is even now actively re-making… redeeming… restoring… re-creating.
I’m so glad God decided to stay near enough to this world to make a difference in this world. I’m so glad God didn’t just decide to blow it off and escape to another galaxy far, far away.
Stay… near… it.
What is the “it” that God is calling you to stay near? For Philip it was a chariot.
I think it’s interesting that God didn’t tell Philip to go stand near that guy over there. God didn’t say, “Hey, Philip, you see that Ethiopian over there? Go give him the four spiritual laws.” Instead, God told Philip to go over to a chariot, and to stay near that chariot.
We engage people in their world… where they are… in their chariot. That’s what God did when God took on flesh and blood—God climbed up into our chariot. God met us where we were. God entered into our brokenness and stayed near enough to make that brokenness his own. And then he carried that brokenness to Calvary. And he nailed it to a tree. And it’s done. It’s finished. We just need to stay near enough and long enough to let it change us.
We need to stay near enough and long enough to let God make us well. We need to stay near enough and long enough to become infected with hope and wholeness and holiness. We need to stay near enough and long enough to become a part of what God is doing in our neighborhoods and our communities. We need to stay near enough and long enough to become engaged—engaged with God and neighbor.
God is at work in our world like never before. And I don’t know about you, but I desperately want to be a part of what God is doing. I desperately want to be a part of God’s re-deeming… restoring… re-creating activity in our world. I want to be part of God’s ongoing resurrection story. I desperately want to stay near it… so near that I become infected and contagious with hope and wholeness and holiness.
John Grant Page 8 8/12/2007