Acts 14:8-20 “Just Mortals”
Back in 2006 a new song came on the radio by a songwriter by the name of Daniel Powter. It quickly became very popular. The title of the song is “You Had a Bad Day.” It has a nice melody and is well sung. I will save you the horror of having to listen to me trying to sing it however. In one verse of the song are the words: “You stand in a line just to hit a new low; You’re faking a smile with the coffee to go.”
Let me just put it out to you that if the worst thing in your life is that you have to stand in line to get your coffee to go, then chances are you really are having a good day but for some reason just don’t know it! I think that was one of the points in the song in fact.
When we look at our lives, we get down sometimes because things are not exactly perfect. We don’t always get everything that we want exactly when we want it. Sometimes the price of gas goes up. Sometimes our neighbors bother us. Sometimes you just wash the church van and a flock of seabirds take target practice on the roof. And as the edited version of Forrest Gump points out “—it happens.”
I think about what kind of a day Saint Paul had in Lystra, and I am almost ashamed that I could compare any day I have ever lived to his one day in ministry in Lystra. On the plus side, mind you, he was able to heal a man who had been unable to walk before and drew a big crowd. On the minus side, he was stoned by that same crowd. I will have to assume that none of us here this morning has ever been stoned by a crowd for having simply down a miracle of ministry.
The most amazing thing about Paul’s stoning is that after the people have stoned him already, the Disciples gather around him, and he just pops up and says “Okay then, let’s go now on down to Derbe to see what kind of ministry we can do down there.” That is by the way a 60 mile walk. After you get stoned nearly to death, there is nothing better than taking a 60 mile walk, right?!
As my first point this morning I am going to take the last point in the scripture. I am feeling a little backwards this morning. Look, even as a Christian sometimes you are just going to have a bad day. But please, keep it in good Christian perspective. If you were not already stoned by an angry crowd this morning, you are probably doing okay. Just remember that Jesus was beaten, humiliated, and nailed to a cross while his friends abandoned him one by one. Jesus got right back up and in the game again! Paul got right back up and in the game again after his stoning. That is part of our Christian witness! Amen to that?!
When bad things happen to us, we might consider that there is this guy whispering into God’s ear, like he did in the Book of Job, “I bet that believer down there on planet earth will forsake you if I make his life hard enough for him or her!” Do you remember that wager that Satan made that Job would curse God if his pleasant life was taken away from him. Job suffered tremendously, but he stayed faithful to God throughout and was vindicated in the end.
Yes, this is the Devil’s wager against our faith! When bad things happen, the Devil is betting on our failing. I am not a betting person, really. However, I know already who is going to win every hand! So, when I am playing blackjack with Satan and I have a face card showing, I say “hit me”! It doesn’t mater what my hand is, the pot belongs already to God. Don’t you let the Devil win what belongs to God!
My next point as we go backwards up this text is that when Paul and Barnabas are there healing in the name of Jesus Christ, the people around them seem to get the wrong idea about them and start calling them Zeus and Hermes. Have you ever been that much misunderstood? I mean, misunderstandings happen all the time between people, but to be mistaken for pagan gods?! That is beyond any misunderstanding I have ever experienced.
When you think about the Bible, it is in fact a very long narrative of people not understanding fully God’s glory and grace. The first story of the Bible involving humans is really about their not understanding fully that God had commanded them not to eat of the tree of knowledge. Really, our falling into sin as the human race was because of our own misunderstanding of God.
Last week on Sunday evening I was invited to share the Passover meal with the Jewish Community on Kauai. It was a great time remembering how God had led the Hebrew people out of Egypt, out of slavery into freedom. It was great to hear that age-old story of God’s providence again. But, what is not celebrated at the Passover is what happened to the Hebrew slaves when they were finally free in the wilderness: They built a pagan idol to worship by melting down all of their gold belongings. Moses comes back down off of Mount Sinai with the law of the covenant to discover that in spite of all that God had done for the people, they still could go back to worshipping the old Canaanite idols. You see, in spite of all of God’s grace in their lives, they still misunderstood what God expected of them.
In the New Testament we see the Disciples constantly misunderstanding Jesus’ words and actions. The Disciples are always talking about who is going to be the greatest in heaven while Jesus is talking about humility and love. It gets so bad, this misunderstanding, that at one point Jesus even cries out to Peter after Peter denies Christ’s resurrection to “Get behind me Satan.” (Mark 8:31-39) Jesus tells Peter that his misunderstanding is because he has set his mind on human things rather than divine.
This makes sense. Most misunderstandings come about because when we are talking, one person is talking about one thing, and the other person is talking about something completely different and yet we think we understand. I think this is Satan’s hand again. Satan whispers into our ears: “That has nothing to do with God and being a good Christian.” Of course, we as Christians know that everything on the planet has to do with God—it is after all God’s creation! In this way, all things are spiritual and do affect God.
I have to move already onto my third point from this scripture this morning. You will recall that the first point has to do with the fact that sometimes we just have a bad day, but that as Christians we carry on. The second point is that there will be misunderstandings, but these can be overcome if we focus on the spiritual. Lastly, I want us to focus on this statement that Paul makes when he is trying to stop the people in Lystra from calling him the god Hermes. Paul says, “Look, we are only human.”
How often when we goof up our lives do we try to excuse our behavior by saying: “I am only human!”? Isn’t that demeaning in a way. Here we are, created by God in God’s own image and we try to excuse ourselves by saying that it is in our nature to be goof-ups—that God somehow created us to be goof-ups. In reality, we are goof-ups only because WE goofed-up.
We have to read Paul’s statement in context. He is not saying, “I am merely mortal and therefore not divine.” He is in fact stating “I am merely mortal as you are and within all of us is the divine light of God.” He is not saying, “I am only human!” He is saying, “We are all children of the one true God.” So, the next time you are tempted to shrug your shoulders and say, “Well, I am only human!” you perhaps ought to say, “I am only a child of God!”
Do you recall when Jesus was giving his Sermon on the Mount and he turned to all of the people gathered there and said, “This is how you ought to pray. . . “? What did he say next? He addressed God with the words “Our Father who art in heaven.” Note that he did not address God with “My Father in heaven.” Jesus told us that we are all to pray as children of the Almighty that even though Jesus is the true Son of God, we are all also children of God.
In Revelation 20-21, there is an image of the Second Coming of Christ in the End Times that I want to share with you. God Himself is sitting on a grand white throne in heaven. At His command all of the dead arise. Everyone who has ever lived is before that throne. Also there is a “Book of Life.” In this book is a list of names. Then there are other books. in those books everyone’s deeds on this planet are recorded. God is there just checking the names against whether that person has lived a righteous life or not.
Immediately two names are found not to be written in the Book of Life. This makes sense. The first name is “death” and the second name is “Satan.” These two are thrown down into a lake of fire and are destroyed. Death and evil are destroyed. Yeah! After this the throne of God descends to earth. Just as in the Garden of Eden, God dwells once more among his children. Then we can read these lines from Revelation 21:7-8, “Those who conquer will inherit these things, and I will be their God, and they will be my children. But as for the cowardly, the faithless, the polluted (and you know the list goes on), their place will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur, which is the second death.”
The idea
“You are only human” is the thing that Satan says to trick you to end up in the
fire pit in the end with him. We are children of God. And, our names are
written in that heavenly Book of Life.
You know, we are human in so far as we make mistakes and get upset and
need constant forgiveness in our lives from God and each other, but we are also
so much more. We are the children of God. Amen.