Thursday after the Twenty-fourth Sunday after Pentecost (Proper 26)
Trinity Anglican Seminary
Psalm 19
II Chronicles 33
Acts 11:19-30
Good morning, friends.
We have an embarrassment of riches in our readings today and just a few minutes to glean from them.
I thought to speak on Psalm 19, ‘the heavens declare the glory of God,’ because of the astronomical phenomena we’ve seen in the past few months – northern lights, comets, partial eclipses – and meditate on how they sing of their Creator.
And 2 Chronicles 33 has what may be the greatest repentance story in all of Scripture. Manasseh, the idolater king who murdered his children for a false god, finally learns the way of his father David. He confesses and mourns his sin and pleads for mercy.
Those who know me here know I will strive to preach the Old Testament text first. But Acts 11 wouldn’t let me go.
I want to highlight one word in Acts 11 and hope that the Holy Spirit will plant a seed of compassion in your heart for your Jewish neighbors and others on the fringe of the Christian world.
I have a friend who says the book of Acts could be named better. We call it the Acts of the Apostles but he calls it the Acts of the Holy Spirit. And the Holy Spirit does something unexpected. He has the apostles proclaim the good news of the Messiah to people considered other in Jewish society: a eunuch from Ethiopia, a Roman centurion in Caesarea, and in Acts 11 the Hellenists.
As the Jewish followers of Jesus fled persecution in Jerusalem, they proclaimed the resurrected Messiah to people like themselves. They spoke only to those Jews who practiced temple worship and attended synagogue.
Then Jews from what is now Libya and Cyprus went to Antioch and start talking to Hellenists. The Hellenists were assimilated Jews who had taken on themselves Greco-Roman language and culture. They were the secular Jews of their day. They might even have been seen as traitors by the religious Jews.
The Maccabeean revolt two centuries before was not just about throwing off Greece but of cleansing Israel of those Israelites who thought Greek culture wasn’t so bad, who undid their circumcision to fit in at the gym, who ate a little bacon now and then.
The Maccabean Revolt was as much a civil war as a revolution. Even though it had been two hundred years and the Romans had succeeded the Greeks, there was still tension in Jewish society over the Maccabean Revolt. We see it in Acts 6 where Hellenist widows were being neglected. There may have been a language issue there, but I suspect there was also a political component. Consider how in our own country, tensions linger from the American Civil War more than 160 years ago. Never mind how everyone is feeling two days after a very contentious presidential election.
Back in the first century, maybe the Judean Jesus followers were saying to themselves: The Hellenists don’t need to know about Jesus. They already gave up messianic hope. They already settled for the Kingdoms of Greece and Rome rather than wait for the restoration of the Israel and the coming of the Kingdom of God. They don’t need to know about Jesus.
What unfavorite people do we hesitate the share the Gospel?
Those Republicans have lost their minds. You can’t reason with them. They think they’re Christians. They’ve obviously lost the plot. They wouldn’t recognize Jesus if he walked up to them.
Those Democrats just want to destroy our way of life. They are too progressive. They pander to all the religions. They don’t want to hear about biblical Jesus. They just want Kumbaya Jesus.
And in some Christian circles, whether they wrongly say Jews are Christ killers or have their own way to the Father, they think we don’t have to proclaim Jesus, the Messiah of Israel, to our Jewish neighbors.
Back in Chronicles, Manasseh looks like a lost cause. Not only is he a murderer and idolator, he’s led the whole nation astray. He is the definition of a wicked shepherd.
But if Manasseh can finally accept and receive God’s mercy, there is hope for the lost-cause “Hellenists” in your circle, those political or social others you hesitate to engage with. God is patient toward all of us, “not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance” (2 Pet 3:9).
We all pass through this seminary because we are called to be ministers of the Good News of the Kingdom. Let us continue proclaiming Jesus to the traitors, the outcasts, the forgotten, the belligerent, and the confused. Preach the Gospel to rich and poor, Republicans and Democrats, Libertarians, independents, and all the rest.
That’s our job. We preach. We serve. We love. The merciful Holy Spirit does the rest.
Let us pray.
Almighty and everlasting God, you call all the disciples of Jesus to preach the Gospel in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and to the ends of the earth: Raise up in this and every land evangelists and heralds of your kingdom, that your Church may proclaim the unsearchable riches of our Savior Yeshua the Messiah; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.