Follow Me?

The people at The First U.P. Church of Crafton Heights are spending much of our time in 2023-2024 looking at the story of God’s people as recorded in the New Testament book of Acts.  We engage in this series of messages convinced of the fact that God’s power changes apparently small and nondescript groups of people into a force that will change the world in ways that are reflective of the love and justice of Jesus.  On June 16, we heard Paul invite the community in which he served to follow him, if they could see him better than they could see Jesus.  You can check it out for yourself by reading Acts 20:13-36.

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Last week, we were with Paul and a contingent of his friends and acquaintances in the little town of Troas, where Paul preached an all-nighter and nearly put an end to poor young Eutychus in the process.  In today’s reading, we find the Apostle hop-scotching along the Turkish coastline as he continues to make his way back to Jerusalem.

Let’s pause a moment to remember why he’s heading in this direction.  You may remember from earlier readings in Acts that as the group of Christ-followers grew, there was some real tension between the Jewish believers and those who were Gentile believers.  As Paul worked with and moved among members of the latter group in Asia and Europe, he encourages the Gentile Christians to demonstrate solidarity with the Body in Jerusalem by contributing toward an offering to help these folks recover from a famine that struck Palestine at that time.  Now, after having toured through much of what is now Turkey and Greece, Paul is returning to Jerusalem and he’s got money to share.

As the size of the offering grew, so did Paul’s entourage.  Let’s remember that the monetary gifts would have been in coins, so any significant relief would be quite heavy.  The group now includes those names with which Becky did so well last week: Sopater, Aristarchus, Secundus, Gaius, Timothy, Tychicus, Trophimus, and Luke – at least.

Paul’s had a sense of foreboding about this trip – he knows that some of his former colleagues in Jerusalem are none too eager to see him, but he keeps moving, eager to deliver the relief to those who are suffering.

Yet when he finds himself in Miletus, he’s torn.  He’s got some really, really good friends who live in Ephesus – just 35 miles away. While he’s not keen to leave the ship and delay his journey, he’d love to spend a little time with these folks, and so he asks if they can meet.

Maybe you’ve done something like this.  Sharon and I did just a couple of weeks ago – we were obliged to be in Western New York for a family funeral, and we asked our old friends Barbara and David if they’d be willing to drive an hour or so to meet us for dinner. It was a lovely privilege.

Paul Leaves the Ephesians (Woodcutting) by Julius Schnorr von Carolsfeld (1794-1872)

The community in Ephesus was important to Paul.  He’d lived and worked there for three years or so, during which time he’d met Apollos and preached alongside of Priscilla and Aquila.  It was in Ephesus that Paul had that run-in with Demetrius, the silversmith who made and sold those shiny little statues of Artemis.  He’d been through so much with those folks, and he loved them.  It’s natural that he sought to make time with them.

When they are together, he gives an impassioned defense of his ministry. Again, sensing some possible opposition in Jerusalem, Paul reminds the folks from Ephesus that he’d always been on the up and up with them.  He recounts his ministry as a preacher, and points out that he never took any money from them; he had supported himself and his colleagues as a tentmaker.

Paul closes his brief remarks with a charge for his friends to be alert, to be constant in following Jesus, and to take care of others.  He concludes by saying that he is an example for them, and now they can be examples for others.  It’s similar to what he said to his friends in Corinth, to whom he wrote “Be imitators of me as I am of Christ.” (I Corinthians 11:1)

Now, I don’t know how you heard that, but at first blush, that can sound like a person who’s pretty full of themselves.  “Follow me – it’s just like following Jesus!”  As if Jesus and I are twins, and people find it hard to tell us apart because I’m so much like him!

That is clearly not Paul’s intent.  Over and over he’s shared his shortcomings and failures.

Yet that invitation can also be a little bit intimidating.  It could be that some of his hearers thought, “Be like you, Paul? As if! That’s impossible for someone like me…”  Some folks on the internet who have more time than I do have created some pretty funny images about following Paul who follows Jesus…

 

 

I am convinced that in this earnest plea to his beloved friends in Ephesus, Paul is seeking to be invitational.  He’s inviting them to follow him not because he’s the same as Jesus or because he’s as good as Jesus, but simply because right now, they can see Paul better than they can see Jesus.

This is a core truth of our lives in Christ: we learn by observing first, and then doing.  Of course, it’s not just in our lives of faith that this is true.  Think about any practice in which you’ve ever engaged – didn’t it start with watching someone?  Tying your shoes.  Baking a pie.  Catching a fish.  Nobody wakes up one morning and just does these things without having watched it modeled and demonstrated.  It is the same in our life of faith.

In the book of Acts, the Apostle Paul is on a series of journeys, and every single step of the way he is trying to follow Jesus.  Early in the story, he has a close eye on others in the community – men like Barnabas and Peter, who have been there longer than he.  As he matures in his faith, he begins to intentionally model faithful living for others, like Timothy or Apollos.

Looking at the life of faith as a journey or as a practice can help us to understand that the Christian life is not simply saying “yes” to a series of ideas or intellectual propositions.  Virgin birth? Check!  Jesus forgives? Check! Sin is bad? Check!

The earliest followers of Jesus, before they became known as “Christians”, referred to themselves as “People of the Way.”  Framing it like that reminds us that Christianity is not a system of thought, but a way of life.

Scholar G. K. Beal puts it this way

The name “the Way” indicates that one could begin to participate in this restoration journey by believing in Christ and joining others who already believed and were walking on “the Way,” progressing in their new-exodus journey. Consequently, “the Way” described both those first joining it and those who had belonged to it for some time, so that the name included reference to a manner of ongoing Christian living as part of a restoration journey.[1]

Let’s think of it like this: suppose Emily invited you to go with her on one of her outdoor adventures.  Perhaps she would give you some books and some websites indicating how wonderful hiking is and even suggested some great trails for your group to consider.  Those things are helpful, because you’d know what you’re signing up for.  I’ve been glad to have those things in the past.

Yet as I have ventured into the wilderness, I have been intensely grateful not only for the person who wrote the guide book about hiking, but also for the people who are a couple of steps ahead of me on the trail.  Those are the people who, when we are crossing a stream, will turn around and say, “Put your foot on this rock – I found that it was quite solid for me.”  We don’t only need people talking about ideas – we need folks who are with us in the world, walking alongside of us on the trail, helping us to know what might work in our own situations.

As we participate in the Way of Jesus today, let me ask you who some of your guides are.  To whom are you looking to help you make sense of things when they feel a little wonky?  Who is challenging you to be your best self?  Who has shown you new vistas and new viewpoints along the journey?  In other words, Paul had Barnabas to spur him to growth.  Who do you have?  Who is your Barnabas?

I’m going to invite you to think about that for a moment, and then to turn to the person who is next to you and say a name.  Tell that person the name of someone who has helped you come this far on the journey of faith.

That’s fantastic.  Now, I wonder, who is walking with you in the Way.  To whom do you look at and say, “You know what? I’m glad we’re in this together!  Thank you for helping me to make sense of this, and for sharing the road with me!”?  Again, Paul had Priscilla and Aquila.  Who has God given you to share the road with?  As you reflect on that, I’m going to invite you to send a text, or perhaps to write a brief note or email to someone later today.  Share with that person the encouragement you have felt from them simply because they have chosen to share this Way with you.

And lastly, I wonder: to whom are you offering invitation and encouragement? Who gets to watch you live your life, and hears the stories of your joys and your struggles?  Who are you challenging and teaching?  Who is your Timothy on this Way?

This week, I’m going to invite you to search for a way to connect with someone who is a couple of steps behind you on this journey of faith, and to seek to be an encouraging presence in that person’s life.  Reach out, and help someone else along the path.

I realize that nobody in this room is on their way to Jerusalem, carrying hundreds of pounds of coins for famine relief.  Yet I will assert that every single one of us is on a journey.  We all started somewhere, and we are each doing our best to get to the next stop on the road.

Who are you following?  And who are you helping? How does your life enable others to see, experience, and most importantly to practice the love and reconciliation we have seen in the Jesus who called to each of us?  If someone had never heard of Jesus, would that person know something about how to follow him, to act like him, to love him – by watching you?

Thanks be to God for the Way of Jesus, for those who have come before us, and for those who are following after us.  Amen.

[1] G.K. Beale, New Testament Biblical Theology: The Unfolding of the Old Testament in the New, pp. 856-858

It Takes All Kinds

The people at The First U.P. Church of Crafton Heights are spending much of our time in 2023-2024 looking at the story of God’s people as recorded in the New Testament book of Acts.  We engage in this series of messages convinced of the fact that God’s power changes apparently small and nondescript groups of people into a force that will change the world in ways that are reflective of the love and justice of Jesus.  On June 9, we wondered at the kind of community that would worship all night even after one of the youth group kids fell to his death during the service.  You can check it out for yourself by reading Acts 20:1-12.

To hear this message as preached in worship, please use the media player below:

To participate in worship via YouTube, please use this link:

I gotta tell you, I love this passage from Acts.  Early on in our study of this incredible book, I told you that Luke, the author of Acts, was a stickler for details.  And this little story about Paul and Eutychus and the church service that never ended…well, it’s the kind of vignette that might not get written up for the history books, but you can bet that the folks at the church in Troas told it to one another for a long time afterwards.

Why do I love it?  Because it demonstrates the truth that I didn’t invent long, boring sermons any more than you invented sleeping through them?  I’d be lying if I said that wasn’t at least partly true.  I love the fact that here’s Paul the Apostle, larger than life – huge in the early church…and even he puts folks in the congregation to sleep.

But it’s more than that.  Look with me, please, at the passage.  There’s something in verse seven that you have not seen anywhere else in the book of Acts — or in any of the four Gospels, either, for that matter.  You probably didn’t notice it when it was read, because it seemed so normal to you.  Do you know what it is?  “On the first day of the week, when we were gathered together to break bread…”  This is the first time in the entire New Testament that Sunday worship is described.  Christianity, you remember, was originally an offshoot of Judaism. Jews worshipped on the seventh day, and the first Christ-followers did likewise.  As the Jesus movement continued to grow and expand, communities began to worship on Sunday, rather than Saturday.  It’s a small detail, to be sure.  But it also provides a clue as to the fact that the followers of Jesus are discovering their own identity and are seen more and more as practicing their own faith, rather than a sect of Judaism.

And then there’s the setting.  We find out in the beginning of chapter 20 that this event takes place in Troas.  Now, if you were to make a list of the cities where Paul started churches, where he preached, where he advanced the cause of the Gospel, which cities would you name?  Corinth?  Galatia?  Ephesus? Jerusalem?  Philippi?  Be honest, now.  How many of you would have put Troas on your list? Troas?  Who knows Troas?  Obviously there’s a congregation here – but it’s surely not one of the “movers and shakers” in the early church, is it?

And where does this congregation meet?  From all appearances, it meets on the third floor of someone’s home.  A large room, filled with people.  And filled with what else?  With light.  Verse 8 says that there were a lot of lights there.  Verse 9 says that the windows were open.  Why does Luke bother with that?  Because there was some criticism of the early church.  Some of the people claimed that the church was a secret society, and that they were ashamed to worship in public.  But this little story tells us that here they were, in an all night meeting, with all the lights on, windows open, top floor of the house – that they couldn’t have been more public about their gathering.

As we look around the passage from Acts, I want to make sure that we don’t forget to consider the congregation itself.  Who was there?

Well, Paul, of course.  Long-winded, stubborn, intense, highly-educated, dedicated, loving Paul.

And Eutychus is there.  We read that he’s “a young man”.  The Greek term indicates that he was probably between 8 and 12 years old.  So the Christians at Troas didn’t have “Jr. Church”, did they?   Kids were in worship.

And there are other people in the room.  Many, such as Eutychus’ parents, are not named.  But verse 4 of this chapter tells us some of the other people who where there.  This is one of those days that you’re glad that you’re not the reader up front!  The congregation included Sopater, Aristarchus, Secundus, Gaius, Timothy, Tychicus, and Trophimus.  With the possible exception of Timothy, my hunch is that you’ve never heard of these guys.  But they’re there, from places like Berea, Thessalonica, Derbe, Lystra, and Asia.  What does that tell me?  That you cannot have a congregation that is entirely made up of Apostles, like Paul, or kids, like Eutychus.  It takes all kinds of people to be the body of Christ.  Local men and women from Troas.  Visiting dignitaries.  Carpenters, tent-makers, teachers, grandmothers – you name it.

Do you see what I’m saying here?  The story from Acts that you have read this morning is not just a funny incident where a kid is literally bored to death by a long sermon and then raised up by the preacher who didn’t even end the service when that happened.  No, it is a photograph of the church at Troas – a church that is an alternative community where people are equipped and comforted to face the week that is to come.  It is a church where people of every age find a shape and a form for living.

So what?

So what?  Does anyone else see a connection between this little-known church in Troas and the First U.P. Church of Crafton Heights?  I don’t want to burst anyone’s bubble, but let’s face the facts.  When the history of Christianity in Pittsburgh gets written, there won’t be a lot of people who pay attention to Crafton Heights.  We don’t have a tall steeple.  We’re not a big name.  And look around the room – you don’t see corporate presidents and politicians and famous athletes and lawyers.  We’re not really on the map – not like Corinth, Galatia, or Ephesus.  No, we’re a sort of a Troas kind of place.

But it’s more than just the socio-economic factor, friends.  People were in worship at Troas on purpose.  They were hungry for something — what in the world would possess someone to stay at church all night long – particularly when one of the Jr. Hi boys is killed and resurrected right in the middle of the service?  Did you notice that when young Eutychus fell out of the window and died – becoming perhaps the only person in all of history that was quite literally bored to death in worship – that it didn’t end the church service?  They found his body, Paul raised him from the dead, and then they kept on worshiping until dawn!

Can you imagine that?  I can’t!  I can’t imagine preaching all night to a room full of people so desperate to hear Good News that they’d pull an all-nighter on a work night to listen.  It just doesn’t make sense.  It’s unimaginable to me.

So you know what I think, as I read this scripture?  I think that I need to work on expanding my imagination.  I think I need to ask God to enlarge my capacity for imagination – because that kind of zeal is not something that is reserved for only super holy people.  It’s supposed to be normal for followers of Christ.  After all, it wasn’t only Paul that went back upstairs that night to finish the sermon. The rest of the church was there.  Presumably, Eutychus and his folks were there.  Seriously – if you were Eutychus, would you let Paul out of your sight after this?  Paul’s relationship with Christ changed that community.

Do you know that there are records of the church in Troas, founded by Paul in the first century, being alive and flourishing as late as the tenth century?  Is that incredible?  A thousand years of faithfulness in that neighborhood.  That’s a place that was changed by the gospel, am I right?

I can’t imagine that.

What about you? How is your imagination?  Why are you here?  Why are you in worship?

People at First Church, Troas, came because they needed comfort.  They had been wounded in the week gone by, and knew that they could find some healing in the Body of Christ.  And they came because they needed to be equipped to go out into the week ahead.  And they were so convinced of the fact that they would receive both comfort and equipping that they stayed up all night – on a school night – to be with the People of God.

You know the truth: everyone in this room is in danger of being worn down by life.  For some of you, it’s the job you hate.  For others, it’s the job you don’t have.  Some of us are just about killed by the pressures of living in a fast-paced, material world.  Are you worn down by loneliness?  Is your family life tearing you apart?

Why are you here?  Why are you in worship?  Are you here to look good?  Because our seats are so comfortable?  Because you like to sing?

Or are you here because, like our brothers and sisters in Troas, you need to be comforted and equipped?  And if that is so, then where will you find comfort?  How will you be equipped for the week to come?

You know, I believe, that it will not come from me.  It will come from God.  It will come from the Lord and giver of Life.  Some of it may come through me.  I know that.  Most of it will come through the people sitting near you, as you are the church for each other.

This congregation is every bit as beautiful and diverse as the congregation of First Church, Troas.  And I believe that the words of Paul to his church in Corinth also fit us well, when he says, “Look, it’s not about being rich, or powerful, or knowing the right people or having the right stuff.  It’s about belonging to God.  Remember who you were when God called you?  You were nothing special.  But God is using you to become something very special.”

The temptation of every church since Troas has been to think of all the things we cannot do, because we’re not the church in Jerusalem or even Antioch.  We’re not East Liberty, we’re not Shadyside, and we’re not Sewickley.  We’re not rich, we’re not powerful, we’re not full of people who are sports heroes or cultural icons.  Nope, we’re not much – at least not by the world’s standards.

So what?  Are we the church of Jesus Christ?  Are we God’s people? Do we serve a Lord who has all the resources we could ever need?  Do we live in a place where people are desperate for comfort and encouragement?  You know the answers to all of those questions.  You know the truth.  God uses all kinds of people in all kinds of ways to bring the Kingdom to pass.  And that includes us.

So what am I asking you to do?  I mean, you’re the people who are here, after all.  You know these things.

Maybe you do.  But I’m asking you to do three things this morning and every time you come inside this building.

First, will you come with expectancy?  Here’s something that I’ve seen in many churches.  People are coming from lives that are hectic, from families that are fractured, from jobs that are crummy, and they drag themselves in and plop down and seem to say to themselves, “Whew!  I made it.  Finally.  I got to church.  Another thing to check off the list.”  And when you do that, you are not here anymore.  If you’ve checked worship off a list, you’ve already checked out.  So will you stay?  That is, will you come with an attitude that says, “I expect God to comfort me today in this place.  I expect to meet God here so that I can go out and be God’s person in the world.”?

Secondly, will you realize that you have come here for each other?  Did you hear what I said a few moments ago?  That the comfort and encouragement will come from God.  How will it come?  Through you, mostly.  Through me, sometimes.  I am here for you.  That’s great.  But you are here for each other.  Live like you believe that.  Not just for the people you always sit with, or for the folks you’ve known for thirty years.  What about the person who doesn’t have any friends in youth group or who is new to the community?  Will you come here for that person?

And thirdly, will you realize that you are here for the good of the world?  If I’m doing my job right, then most of what happens here will help you live a faithful life once you leave the room.  It may  be a song you sing, it may be a story you hear, it may be a scripture you read, but something that happens today can equip you for your life in the week to come.  You are not here primarily to make yourself feel better.  The church is not a self-help group.  You are here because God longs to make God’s self known in this time and in this place and God seems to enjoy using churches like ours to do that.

It’s not about the flash of the preacher or the zippiness of the musicians.  Heck, Paul preached what was, perhaps, the most boring sermon in the history of sermons.  It certainly was, at least if you measure that by deaths by boredom per congregant.  Yet God invaded that very ordinary space and changed Eutychus, his family, and by extension the city and the world forever!

We are called to be together, in this time and place, the church of Jesus Christ for this community.  Let us gather faithfully with one another, and eagerly look for ways to amplify the work of the Spirit that is at work in us and in the world around us.  Thanks be to the God who calls all kinds of amazing people into the Body of Christ, the Church.  Amen.

In Whom Will We Trust?

The people at The First U.P. Church of Crafton Heights are spending much of our time in 2023-2024 looking at the story of God’s people as recorded in the New Testament book of Acts.  We engage in this series of messages convinced of the fact that God’s power changes apparently small and nondescript groups of people into a force that will change the world in ways that are reflective of the love and justice of Jesus.  On June 2, we wandered into the town of Ephesus and wondered what all the fuss was about.   You can read it for yourself in Acts 19.

To hear this message as preached in worship, please use the media player below:

To participate in worship via YouTube, please use this link:

 I want to tell you a couple of stories as we begin this morning.  The first deals with people like us, and the second involves a trip through time and space.

The first story: 82.  3.8.  49.  7,226.  2,000,000.  28. 9.

Wait, Pastor, you promised us a story.  That’s just a bunch of numbers.  You’re a sharp bunch.  But you know, behind the numbers, there’s a story.  Here it is.

82:  That’s the percentage of adult Americans who have at least one credit card in their wallet or purse this morning.  3.8:  Those four out of five Americans who carry plastic have, on average, 3.8 cards active at any given time.  49: That’s the percentage of Americans who carry credit card debt from month to month.  The average household credit card debt is $7,226.  There are 2 million Americans who are sitting right now on more than $50,000 of credit card debt.  28% of households who earn less than $50,000 say that they regularly spend more than they earn.  Maybe that’s not surprising – $50,000 isn’t that much anymore…  But this did surprise me: 9% – nearly a tenth of American households who earn more than $100,000 a year also report regularly spending more than they earn – and thus, accruing even more debt.

That’s a story, isn’t it?  If you didn’t know anything else about the USA, then just that slew of numbers: 82.  3.8.  49.  7,226.  2,000,000.  28. 9. — that tells you something, doesn’t it? It may or may not say something about you, personally, but it clearly says something about us as a nation.

The Temple of Artemis in Ephesus was one of the “Seven Wonders of the Ancient World”.

Now, come with me to another nation, in another time and place.  We are walking up a small slope just outside the city of Ephesus, located in what is now known as Turkey.  Look down, and see the pavement on which we walk.  It’s solid marble.  Just ahead of us is the temple of Artemis, also known as the goddess Diana.  It is simply stunning in its scope and beauty.  It’s four times as big as the Parthenon in Athens – Much larger than a football field.  The massive roof is held up by more than 100 pillars, many of which are decorated with carvings or plated with gold.  As we approach this temple, you remark that it’s not for nothing that the Temple of Artemis in Ephesus is known as one of the seven wonders of the ancient world.

We walk inside the temple, and see that it is filled with both shrines and worshippers.  There is a statue of Artemis herself, which is said to have fallen from heaven.  She is often represented as a tall figure whose upper body is totally covered by row upon row of breasts, signifying her role as the mother of all mothers.  She is known as the Queen of the Cosmos.  The Lord.  The Savior.  She is goddess of the hunt, of fertility, and of the underworld.

Artist’s depiction of the interior of the Temple of Artemis

Artemis is worshipped by more individuals than any other deity in the Asian world, and her followers held a month-long celebration at her temple every year.  In addition to being a site of worship, the temple of Artemis in Ephesus was also one of the most significant centers of banking and finance in the Roman Empire. Artemis came to be known as the goddess of banking and the protector of debtors.  Just beyond the temple is a stadium, called the Great Theatre, that had seats for 24,000 people.  And this morning, we hear the sounds of a great crowd in that stadium.

We wander over, and discover that the Great Theatre is full of anger and confusion.  There is a mob mentality at work.  We press closer and discover that the leader of the gathering is a silversmith called Demetrius, who is apparently the president of the Ephesian Souvenir and Shrine-makers Union, local # 412.  And he is angry – and he is whipping the crowd into a frenzy.

What’s happened?  You heard it just a moment ago when we read the scripture from Acts.  It’s the same story.  The entire industry, the entire town – is in an uproar.  Why?  The Gospel of Jesus Christ has arrived in Ephesus.  Nearly three years ago, the Apostle Paul and some of his companions arrived in town, preaching first in the Synagogue and then in a rented hall.  Paul’s teaching – and the hope of Salvation in Jesus Christ – are becoming more widely known throughout the city.

And Demetrius notices.  He is a sharp one, this Demetrius.  And he can see that if people begin to take this Message of Jesus very seriously, that will have an adverse effect on his livelihood.  After all, if everybody turns to Jesus, then no one will worship Artemis.  And if no one is worshipping Artemis, then who will buy the trinkets and idols from the locals?  “You see,” says Demetrius, “When this fellow arrived a few years ago, we thought he was just talking about ideas.  Now he’s meddling with things that really matter.  We’ve got to put a stop to this before something important happens.”  As I said, Demetrius is no dope.  He knows which side his bread is buttered on, and he’s going to do everything he can to make sure that people see the implications that arise when people connect Christian theology and financial behavior.

There you have it.  Two stories, as promised.  But I fibbed.  Because it’s not two stories — it’s only one story.  The first story, the one with the numbers, reveals this truth: that people in our day and age are every bit as addicted to money, material goods, and indebtedness as were the most ardent devotees of Artemis.  Our culture is being suffocated by the mounds and mounds of STUFF that we accumulate in a desperate effort to fill the void in our lives.

Yet strangely, unlike Ephesus prior to Paul’s time, we have the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  It has come to Pittsburgh.  And there have been no riots.

Now why is that?  Why is it that when Paul preached the liberating, life-changing, message of hope in Jesus Christ to the city of Ephesus, the town went wild in its effort to repel the name of Jesus – and yet today, we seem perfectly happy to allow Jesus to be Lord on Sunday while we worship Artemis on Monday through Saturday?

The answer is simple: we don’t really have that many people like Demetrius in our midst.  There is no clash between Christianity and Materialism because there is not much danger of people making a connection between their faith and their finances.  Our money is our money.  Our stuff is our stuff.  And Jesus has his little corner of our lives over here.  There’s no conflict – we can manage.  We’re in control.  No riots here, Pastor.

Our culture would goes to great lengths to make sure that we keep Jesus and Artemis away from each other.  In fact, if we do make a connection between faith and finances, it’s usually negative.  We read about a church where someone has absconded with the offering, and we shake our heads and say, “What is it with these guys?  All they want is our money!  The church has way too many money-grubbers in it…”

Our culture tells us that it is the things that we have that define us.  In fact, it is the things that we have that give our life its true meaning and purpose.  Religion?  Sure, you have yours, and I have mine, and we hope that everyone gets to heaven.  We’ll never agree on a religion, will we?  But let’s talk about our stuff.  We all like stuff.  We all need stuff.  Like cars, for instance.  Because as the people at Chrysler reminded us in their old advertising campaign, Drive = Love.  You see? A material commodity filling a spiritual need.

Suzanna Opree is a researcher from Amsterdam who has studied the impact of advertising on children.  She considered the amount of television children watched and noted the proportion of this time that was devoted to advertisements.  She then asked kids questions like “Do you feel unhappy if you can’t buy things that you want?” and “Do you think that other children would like you better if you had a lot of expensive things?”

Not surprisingly, Opree found that children who had been exposed to a lot of advertising reported being much less happy with their lives than their counterparts who saw fewer commercials.  She pointed out that the message our young people are receiving is that buying certain products will make you popular, and not having those products leads to diminished life experience.[1]

And the sad truth is that it’s not only our children.  When I was a child in the 1970’s the average person was exposed to about 500 ads per day.  Thanks to our ever-present phones, that has now skyrocketed to as many as 5000 ads per day per person.  5.3 trillion advertisements are displayed online each year.[2] And you say, “Ah, that’s nothing.  That stuff doesn’t affect me.”  And the folks at Nike, Procter & Gamble, Amazon, and Apple say, “No, of course it doesn’t affect you.  Thank you for your business.”

Our culture, no less than that of Ephesus 2000 years ago, is facing a crisis of the soul.  If buying something could fill the emptiness inside of us, don’t you think we’d have figured that out by now?  But we don’t get it.  We just keep Jesus over here, in charge of our “spiritual lives”, and Artemis over there, in charge of our money.

“All right, Rev., we get it.  We get it.  It’s not everyone you know.  There are people here who understand what you’re talking about.  That’s why we’re here, you knucklehead!”

And that’s true, of course.  The figures I cited before are all averages, and, as you know, averages can be deceiving.  For instance, if I were to find you in a room with Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and seventeen of your other friends, the average net worth of the people in that room would be more than $20 billion.  Because Musk and Bezos are so wealthy, it wouldn’t really affect the average too much if you and all your friends were on welfare or were millionaires.  Averages are deceiving, and it’s true that there is a minority of people in this country who are in some incredibly difficult financial straits, and that’s bringing everyone’s average down.  In fact, 51% of Americans have no ongoing credit card debt – that is, they either have no cards or they usually  manage to pay off the card each month.

And more importantly, there are people in this room who have made the connection between faith and finances.  There we were, sitting in the temple of Artemis and we heard the Gospel and we realized that we don’t need all of these little statues any more.  That we don’t need to define ourselves by what we have.  There are wonderful testimonies in this room of people who have discovered the liberating power of a Gospel that gives us a healthy, Godly way to treat money and possessions – people who have met Jesus and are now living fruitful, abundant, joy-filled lives characterized by the presence of the Holy Spirit.

But not everyone is there, yet.  Maybe you were here in December when I mentioned, off the cuff, that while I didn’t have a favorite Christmas carol, I do have a favorite second verse of a Christmas carol:

And ye, beneath life’s crushing load,
Whose forms are bending low,
Who toil along the climbing way,
With painful steps and slow,
Look now! For glad and golden hours
Come swiftly on the wing.
O rest beside the weary load
And hear the angels sing.[3]

Do you know that crushing load?  Are you bent low by the pressures of trying to keep both Jesus and Artemis happy?

Then shed the load.  Let’s walk away from the Temple of Artemis.  Affirm – first with our words, and then with our actions, that the quality of our lives are not defined by the shininess of the things that we own (or for which we owe).  Let us live into the life that God intended.

In a few moments, Kate and Jeff will bring forward young Beatrice Rose and present her for baptism.  They are not doing this because they’ve discovered some horrible sin in her life from which she needs to repent – now! – in order to get make God like her better.  And I don’t believe that they are doing so because they think that carrying a baptismal certificate around will make her more popular in preschool.

We are participating in this baptism because we believe that the Church of Jesus Christ is in the business of confirming in each of us our God-given identity as children of the Divine.  Artemis wants to own us.  Jesus wants to be with us.  In baptism, we are freed to inhabit and grow into the image of God in creative and grace-filled ways.

You are not the same as your stuff.  Your money is a spiritual issue.  And when we all get that truth firmly embedded in both our consciousness as well as our practice, then the Demetrius’ of this world will take notice.

I don’t think there will be a riot this time.  But there may just be a revolution.

What do you suppose would happen if we all figured out that when we stop buying those shiny metal statues of Artemis – those things that we use to salve our spirits – that we’ll have more money than we need?  And what kind of world can we build when we give the best of ourselves to the Lord of life, and use the things that we have to point to the justice, peace, and love that are embodied in Jesus?

It’s revolutionary, that kind of talk.  Thanks be to God for calling us to be participants in a life of trust and faith that is transformative.  Amen.

[1] https://sites.psu.edu/jcatenarcl/2016/03/03/advertisings-effect-on-materialism/

[2] https://appliedpsychologydegree.usc.edu/blog/thinking-vs-feeling-the-psychology-of-advertising

[3]  It Came Upon A Midnight Clear by Edmund H. Sears