Acts 19:21-41 “What a Riot”

Last week we heard great words of encouragement and strength from our brother Jared Morsey. He shared the story how it was that Paul set out again to be an encourager to others. He set out from Corinth and crossed once more into the area we know today as the county of Turkey. Specifically he came to the town of Ephesus. This is the next stop in our summer travels with Saint Paul.

When Saint Paul arrived in Ephesus, he first baptized the believers there in the Holy Spirit by a laying on of hands. He then moved the church there out of the synagogue into a lecture hall (belonging to a fell named Tyranus–not a real dinosaur) and many Greeks and Jews heard the Word of God and believed in Jesus Christ as the Son of God. The bible does not tell us exactly how many came to hear the gospel, but it must have been a huge number.

To be sure, Paul's ministry was also one of healing people. Just as Jesus and His disciples did not just preach but also did miracles in the name of God, Paul cast out many demons and healed the sick. The Spirit’s power was moving greatly through Paul’s ministry. Even just coming into contact with an article of clothing that Paul had touched would cause another to be healed. The bible says that people were in fact taking articles of his to share around with those in need of healing. As an aside, I think this was the start of the christian practice of collecting relics and the visiting of Saints’ shrines to be healed. You will recall that Jesus never did anything like that.

Now I know that you all do not come to church to get a lesson in dead languages. But bear with me for a moment as I explain the word that Luke (who is the writer of Acts) chose here in the Greek to describe how Paul resolved eventually to leave Ephesus. The word for “resolved” is actually in the passive voice and means literally “to lay out.” The word is εθετο, just in case there is a Greek scholar out in the congregation this morning—don’t laugh, very often we get pastors visiting on their vacation!

This word I would translate as “to be laid out.” And, yes, one can easily translate this as “the Spirit laid out a plan for Paul.” However, the grammar of the sentence in the Greek leads me to believe that it would be better translated that “Paul was laid flat by the Holy Spirit.” He allowed himself to be laid prostrate before the Will of the Spirit. This is still the same meaning, of course, but it just paints a different picture of the power of the Spirit over Paul’s life.

Twelve years after the incorporation of Williams College in 1793, that is in the spring of 1806, Samuel J. Mills, a twenty-three year old son of a Connecticut clergyman, joined the freshman class. He led a prayer meeting in a hayfield outside of the college. On a Saturday afternoon in August, Mills and four other students gathered as usual for one of their twice-weekly prayer meetings. Thunderclouds broke open the sky, driving the students to seek shelter from the rain on the lee side of a great haystack.

With thought turned toward their classroom studies of Asia and the East India Company, Mills shared his burden that Christianity be sent abroad. Later other students and even some professors joined the prayer group focused on mission. The Holy Spirit led Samuel Mills and his prayer group to seek help from the Congregational Churches.

In 1810, these young enthusiasts convinced the churches to form the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions. In 1812, the first missionaries were sent overseas to Calcutta, India. And in the following years, missionaries were sent to other countries, including the missionaries Samuel Whitney and Samuel Ruggles who happened to sail to the Sandwich Islands, into Waimea harbor, and founded a mission that is our beloved church today. We are the direct recipients of the Holy Spirit’s work on a student in New England who was laid flat by the power of the Spirit.

In this, we must also see that he was being called to leave Ephesus. We see that he is being called by the Holy Spirit to let go of his ministry in Ephesus even though it has been so powerful. Why must he leave? Some silversmiths decide to cause a riot because they are afraid that they would be losing business because of Christianity. Ephesus was known for the worship of the Greek goddess Artemis. The silversmiths made a good living creating silver idols of the goddess. As more people converted to Christianity, they saw their profits drop as people were not buying the idols anymore.

Mob violence never has a positive religious or economic outcome! Most of the time, the mob does not even know why it is rioting: read verse 32, “Meanwhile some were shouting one thing, some another; for the assembly was in confusion, and most of them did not know why they had come together.” A mob is always—just a mob.

Back to the message now, the Holy Spirit was taking Paul out of the mix. The Holy Spirit knew that if Paul stayed there in Ephesus, the faith in Jesus Christ would be in danger. The Holy Spirit sends others into the crowd (Gaius and Aristarchus), even though Paul wants to go talk to the mob himself. Paul is restrained from doing so. It is very hard for Paul to let go, but this is now his new call.

In Chapter 20 verse 17 and on, we then read how later Paul calls the leadership of the church in Ephesus to him while his ship is docked in the nearby town of Miletus. The talk is very serious and tells of what will be great troubles for the church in the future. They wept together at hearing his words and prayed together at Paul’s final departure. Then, Paul journeys on to Jerusalem never to come back to Ephesus.

In this example we see that in life we are called to follow where the Spirit leads, not where we think we ought to go. It is the power of the Holy Spirit that drives our life.

You know, I have heard and read this analogy so many times that I really cannot say where it comes from: A man buys a new car. He had saved up for it and had taken great care in choosing the model that he liked. He washes the car. He cleans the interior. He really loves the car. The problem is that nobody has ever told him that the car has an engine that drives it. He has no idea.

The man ends up pushing the car everywhere he goes. He pushes the car up the hills and runs and jumps in the car for the downhill stretches. One day as he is pushing his car along, somebody stops him and asks him what is wrong with the engine. Of course, the man has no idea what an engine is. The other fellow gets in the car and turns the key and the engine starts up. The man is then taught to press the gas pedal to make it go. He is so happy because he no longer has to push that car around.

Too many of us are pushing our faith rather than letting our faith carry us where we need to go! The Holy Spirit is the real power behind your life!

I recall when I was in seminary in Berkeley how I came about my practicum assignment. Every student working towards an MDiv has to have the minimum one year practicum in a church. There were many UCC churches in the Bay Area that counted on this kind of “free-labor” for their churches. I heard the Spirit calling me to be at the Lakeshore Avenue Baptist Church. No, I was not a baptist! No, the church was in Oakland, so a drive for sure. I could have taken a closer UCC assignment. However, I had met the pastor of the Lakeshore Church, Rev. Dr. David Bartlett and had been inspired by the history of the church, being the first “blockbuster church” that is mixed black and white congregation in California.

The only problem was that they had already hired another student (a baptist one) to be their student youth leader, so there really was not a position for me. I called Dr. Bartlett and asked if I could still just be present in ministry with the church, no cost to them, just so I could learn from the experience. I told him I had felt the Spirit calling me to be there. He finally agreed, and the church council agreed, that I could just come and be present as another practice pastor there.

In order to make this happen, I would work 12 hour days at an assembly warehouse in Los Angeles all summer long so that I would have the money to eat when I got back to Berkeley in the Fall.

The week before I was to return to Berkeley, I got a call from Dr. Bartlett, informing me that the other student that had been called to serve in the church had suddenly died–the church council had therefore agreed to make me the official student in care of the congregation. In this strange way, I was first ordained as a baptist minister. I wonder how many of you knew I was first ordained baptist? When I first met Pastor Merritt of the Baptist church here, he wanted to know right away why I spoke more like a baptist!

I really felt at that point affirmed that all of this had been part of the Spirit’s plan all along. It had all been laid out. AllI had to do was accept the spirit’s work. I had to just bow to the plan. Let my life be laid out by the Spirit.

You know, we have this really wretched speed bump on the highway down by the Middle School and Plantation Cottages. I see everybody plowing into it by hitting their breaks when they are almost on top of it. The way to get over a speed bump is to roll towards it at normal speed and then accelerate so that the front of the car will float over it!

Have you ever tried to steer a boat that had no forward power? The rudder has no way to control the direction of the boat unless it is being powered forward through the water. That is how our lives are without the power of the Holy Spirit. We are just hitting the bumps and sailing aimlessly.