Acts 20:17-38 “Farewell to Ephesus”
A new teacher began her duty as playground chaperone at the local elementary school. One day during recess she noticed a girl standing by herself on one side of a playing field while the rest of the kids enjoyed a game of soccer at the other.
The new teacher approached and asked if she was all right. The girl said she was. A little while later, however, the new teacher noticed the girl was in the same spot, still by herself. Approaching again, the teacher offered, "Would you like me to be your friend?"
The girl hesitated, then said,
"Okay," looking at the woman suspiciously.
Feeling she was making progress, the teacher then asked, "Why are you
standing here all alone?"
"Because," the little girl said with great exasperation, "I'm
the goalie!"
In our world, I think we have all noticed how the most important players tend to stand alone. As we have followed the journeys of Paul, we have seen how he has always surrounded himself with good people. Most everywhere he stops, he seems to pick up more souls who then go on with him on his journeys. Now, something has happened. He has been run out of Ephesus. He has been run out of Thessalonica and Beroea. He has been in essence laughed out of Athens. When he comes back towards Ephesus, he stops in Miletus, a town not far from Ephesus, and calls the leaders of the church in Ephesus to come to him in order to say a farewell.
Our scripture states that Paul has felt the Spirit was moving him on towards martyrdom. In many ways he has already suffered as a martyr. He has been rejected so many times, and yet he has continued on with the mission to spread the Gospel. But at this time, we get the sense that he cannot take anyone with him where he has to go. He has to face what the Spirit has set before him alone. Only Luke, the writer of Acts, travels with him on his way to Jerusalem.
Not too long ago, I had a conversation with an eleven-year-old boy who shared openly with me that going to school was absolute torture for him. He said that he could handle the schoolwork just fine, that he was doing well in the school. However, he had no friends. Everybody in the entire school teased him. He hated going to school because of this. He also explained that he had been teased at a previous school as well, so his parents had moved him to a private Christian school. This is on Oahu by the way, not here on Kauai.
This young boy looked at me as a pastor and asked this burning question with the most innocent eyes: “How can this be a Christian school with the way the students treat me?”
I believe that there is a difference between being Christian, that is naming Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, and being truly Christ-like. At this particular point in the telling of Paul’s early ministry, we are witnessing Paul going from being merely a strong believer in the Lord to one who is really ready to lift up the Cross of Christ and sacrifice his life for the ministry. He begins to speak about his singular destiny and fate just so much as Christ had done during his ministry.
Like Christ’s going out to pray alone and be with the Father in prayer, Paul begins to separate himself out from others. You know, we talked about this a little bit at the end of Bible Study on Tuesday that it is important as Christians to keep the godly conversation going, to share in one another’s lives, and to be in covenant with one another. Ever more so, it is important that we converse, covenant, and share our lives with God.
We should recall that when Jesus was about to be arrested, he went to the Garden Gethsemane and prayed. He asked his disciples to stay close by, but he actually went there to be with his Father. He cries out to his Father in heaven to take the course of destiny and bend it, but then simply prays that the Father’s Will would be done.
As Paul is meeting with the elders of the church in Ephesus in that town of Miletus he states the leaders of church must take care to watch over the flock. He is turning over the mantel of leadership to them. He will no longer be able to shepherd the church as he had before; therefore, they must now take on the roll of shepherd for the new believers.
The idea of the faithful shepherd goes way back in the Bible. Perhaps the most famous reference is in Psalm 23: “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. . . “ I thank Jo Douglas for leading me to a book about Psalm 23 by Phillip Keller, entitled A Shepherd Looks at Psalm 23. The author is a real shepherd. He discusses what it really means to shepherd a flock. According to him, it is a lonely, twenty-four hour a day, non-stop job. He notes that when the shepherd is there, the sheep behave. When the shepherd leaves, the sheep start butting heads with each other. Then, the wolves come and thin out the flock. Then, they overgraze and become weak. Then, they are not smart enough to move to greener pastures.
We are sheep. That is the truth. I am not trying to fleece you (ha, ha). We have to know who our master is. The Lord is our shepherd. The lord is our master. There is a wonderful calm and gentle power in recognizing that Jesus is Lord of your life.
This last week we have seen tragic flooding in the heartland of America. In the news there was a couple that had lost their home in a tornado about a month ago. Then, this last week the trailer where they were living was flooded out. In the interview on television, the couple said that they did not know why God let this happen to them—that they should lose two homes in a the span of a month. But then, they each affirmed that they still had the faith. They knew that God was going to still care for them even in their time of trial. They affirmed who their master was. And just like a shepherd over the flock, they knew that Jesus would make sure that they would be all right. Amen to that.
When Paul tells the leadership of
Ephesus to watch over the flock, this is again not just be Christian but rather
being truly Christ-like. As a shepherd of the church, you must do the job of
Jesus in watching out for other’s souls. As a church leader, it is not just
about talking the talk, or even walking the walk; it is about flocking the
flock!
In the Gospel of John we can hear Jesus himself telling Peter and the disciples three times over that that is their new calling in ministry. John 21:15 and on, “When they had finished breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter, ‘Simon son of John, do you love me more than these?’ He said to him ‘Yes, Lord, you know that I love you.’ Jesus said to him, ‘feed my lambs.’” Twice more Jesus asked this of Peter, telling him then to feed his lambs. To follow in the Way, to be truly Christ-like, one must do what Christ has commanded and feed the flock.
As Paul finishes talking with the elders of Ephesus, and before they kneel and pray together while weeping for Paul, Paul introduces one last idea. That is the idea of grace. Paul repeats Christ in verse 35 by stating again that it is more “blessed to give than to receive.”
To be truly Christ-like is to understand that everything in this world was given to you by God. We have not and could not have ever earned the right to even come into this world. We could never do enough while we are here to earn the right to spend eternity with God. Everything is contingent on our receiving grace, that which we did not earn, from God!
Somehow we acknowledge that in our lives, but then we do not apply it to our daily living. If we did, we would not be worried about rising gas prices. We would understand that God created the oil and gave us the gift of fire for internal combustion. It is not really ours so much as that which has been given by God. And so when the gas prices get to the point that only God can afford to drive anymore, then give that back to God! It was all God’s from the start.
This is a story that I am borrowing from Pastor Charles Buck: It is the 24th Century. God is talking with a scientist who believes that he can do anything that God can do by means of technology. God asks him, “So, you think that you can create life as I did?”
The scientist responds “Oh sure, no problem. Let’s have a competition. You create life, then I will do the same.”
God accepts the challenge. God takes the dust from the earth and blows life into it just as he did in the Book of Genesis.
The scientist sees that it his turn. He picks up some dust in his hand and is just about to blow into it when God stops him. God says, “Not so fast, young man. That is my dust, create your own.”
Everything in this life is but by the grace of God. It was God who created first out nothingness. All we have had to do is to receive all of God’s blessings. Now, the greater call is to give. For unless we give the message of eternal salvation, others will not receive this gift. That is why when we follow Christ, we switch from thinking that it is better to receive to realizing that it is better to give. That is what Christ did for us. He gave his life that we may have eternal life.
As Paul heads on towards Jerusalem, thinking that he is going to meet the same end as Christ, he becomes ever more Christ-like in his personal ministry. So, we too should become in ours. Amen.