The Rev. Frank Logue
King of Peace Episcopal Church
Kingsland, Georgia
May 6, 2001

Back to Basics
Acts 13:15-16, 26-33

My Dad has a saying he likes to use a lot. My Dad probably uses it more often than my Mom would like. He says, “When you are up to your rear end in alligators, it’s hard to remember that your objective was to drain the swamp.” My Dad’s a civil engineer and I think that saying has been more than a metaphor to him from time to time.

“When you are up to your rear end in alligators, it’s hard to remember that your objective was to drain the swamp.” In difficult circumstances, it’s best to know what it is you are trying to accomplish. I bring up that saying this morning, because I think it’s worth asking at King of Peace. What are we trying to accomplish at King of Peace, as individuals, as a community of faith? We’re not exactly up to our rear ends in alligators here. In fact, things are going quite well. But it’s still worth asking, “What is the objective?” “What do we think we are doing?” Getting back to basics is often a good idea. But what are the basics of “doing church?” Before we got all the denominations, all the ceremony, or even all the hypocrisy of church, what was Christianity all about?

This morning’s reading from the Acts of the Apostles gives us a peek at the beginning of Christianity. The reading offers us a chance to see what the earliest Christians thought they were up to.

Paul and Barnabas are two Christians sent out from Antioch in Syria to spread the Good News of Jesus Christ to towns where no one had yet heard of the new Christian faith. Paul and Barnabas were both devout Jews who had come to have faith in Jesus as the Messiah. Neither Paul nor Barnabas are their real names by the way. Paul had been a Pharisee. Paul was first Rabbi Saul. Later he took on the Greek name Paul as his missionary work took him into Greek towns. Barnabas is a nickname meaning “son of encouragement” or “encouraging guy” as he had a gift for encouraging people when they felt down.

Appropriately, the Jews Paul and Barnabas set up the pattern of going first to synagogues and speaking to the Jews. Then they would share the message with all the people of a town. With a new community of faith started, Paul and Barnabas would continue traveling. It was soon after they began their missionary venture that they came to another town named Antioch, this one in the province of Pisidia, which is in modern-day Turkey.

Our reading tells us that Paul and Barnabas attended the Sabbath service in the synagogue and were asked to speak. The Jewish leaders were apparently glad to give these two learned Jews an opportunity to comment on the scripture during the Sabbath services. Paul knows his audience. Paul addresses them as Israelites and others who fear God. It is important to know that God Fearers was the name given to non-Jews who converted to Judaism. Paul’s message in our reading from Acts is just for people who hold to the Jewish faith.

Paul begins with a little Jewish history. Paul connects Jesus’ story to the stories of the Jewish faith. Our reading for this morning was cut in a two places to shorten it. In the full sermon given by Paul, he mentions the Exodus, the time of the Judges and then the kingship of Saul and David. Paul tells the Jews gathered in Pisidian Antioch that Jesus is the promised savior from David’s line of descendants. Then Paul goes on to tell how the Jewish leadership in Jerusalem rejected Jesus. Jesus ministry, death, and resurrection had been foretold by the prophets. However, the leadership had not understood the prophets and so they killed Jesus. Then in the irony of all ironies, in killing Jesus, the leaders fulfilled the prophecies about Jesus, prophecies, which they had not understood.

With the stage set by connecting the story of Israel to the story of Jesus, Paul gives the basic Christian message. Paul says, “And we bring you good news that what God has promised to our ancestors he has fulfilled for us, their children, by raising Jesus. Then Paul quotes three selections from the Psalms, only the first of which was in our reading this morning. Finally Paul said, “But he whom God raised experienced no corruption. Let it be known to you therefore, my brothers, that through this man forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you.”

We get examples of this basic Christian message in several places in scripture on the lips of different people. Jesus last words to his disciples in Luke’s gospel give that basic Christian message,

“Yes, it was written long ago that the Messiah must suffer and die and rise again from the dead on the third day. With my authority, take this message of repentance to all the nations, beginning in Jerusalem: ‘There is forgiveness of sins for all who turn to me’” (Luke 24:46-47 in the New Living Translation).

The Apostle Peter refers to this when he proclaimed to a group of Gentiles (Acts 10:42-43),

“[Jesus] commanded us to preach to the people and to testify that he is the one ordained by God as judge of the living and the dead. All the prophets testify about him that everyone who believes in him receives the forgiveness of sins through his name.”

In 1 John, a letter written by Jesus’ beloved disciple, John distills the Christian message down to a paragraph. John wrote,

“This is the message he has given us to announce to you: God is light and there is no darkness in him at all. So we are lying if we say we have fellowship with God but go on living in spiritual darkness. We are not living in the truth. But if we are living in the light of God’s presence, just as Christ is, then we have fellowship with each other, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, cleanses us from every sin. If we say we have no sin, we are only fooling ourselves and refusing to accept the truth. But if we confess our sins to him, he is faithful and just to forgive us and to cleanse us from every wrong.” (1 John 1:5-9 in the New Living Translation).

If you want to get back to the basics of Christianity, here it is: Jesus is the promised Messiah of Israel whose life brought a light, a more complete understanding of God, to the whole world, and Jesus death and resurrection bring the power of God’s forgiveness to those who believe.

This is where classic evangelical preaching steps in and hits you over the head with your sins. Evangelical preaching is preaching for a conversion. Evangelists look to have those who hear their message make a life changing decision to believe in the promises of God perfected in Jesus. The way an evangelist usually does this is by convincing you what and awful sinner you are. The emphasis is on your sinful condition.

That Evangelical approach can work and it has helped many thousands of people to come to a true and lasting faith. But, that’s not the approach we find again and again in scripture. The emphasis in scripture is on love and forgiveness, not sin. You don’t beat someone up with the Gospel. You hug people with the Gospel. God does not verbally assault us for sin and then hold out forgiveness. God just offers the forgiveness. Then any discussion of sin is a discussion of forgiven sin.

We get an example of this in Luke’s gospel when a woman who is described as notoriously sinful comes and washes Jesus feet with her own hair using expensive perfumed oil. Jesus does not discuss the woman’s sins. Jesus loves her and holds out forgiveness to her and with that forgiveness, the promise of a new future. The host of the party is offended that Jesus even allows the woman near her, but Jesus says, “I tell you, her sins—and they are many—have been forgiven, so she has shown me much love.” Then Jesus addressed the woman and said, “Your sins are forgiven.” Jesus does not attempt to make her feel bad about what she has done and who she has been. Jesus offers forgiveness, a clean slate, a new start. This is where Christianity parts ways with Judaism, Hinduism, and paganism. Sin is conquered. Sin has no more power as we live in a redeemed world.

God has already taken care of God’s side of the equation. God has already forgiven you. You only have to ask for and accept that forgiveness. What do you get on the other side of that forgiveness? The gospel message I shared from I John says that with forgiveness we get fellowship with God and fellowship with each other. That word fellowship is the Greek word koinonia. Koinonia may also be translated communion. Koinonia is a deep connection to someone else, well beyond surface relationships. When we gather together for worship on Sunday, we act this out. We gather together to have communion with God. But in this communion, we see that we approach God just like everyone else. In communing with God, we all approach as equals and God is in communion with us all. It is out of this communion with God that we can have communion, a deeper, more significant fellowship with each other. From our shared communion with God we can come, over time, to bear each others burdens and share each others joys.

That is what it means to “do church.” When we ask for and receive God’s forgiveness, we find a deeper connection to God and through that a deeper connection to each other is made possible. That’s as basic as Christianity gets. Before all the ceremony, the denominations, the layered additions to what it means to be a Christian, the simple Christian message was to connect Jesus’ story to the ongoing story of God’s love for this world, then to share how we can let go of all our past hurts and inadequacies to get to koinonia, a deeper connection to God and to each other.

This koinonia, this communion is what Paul and Barnabas were preaching and trying their best to live out in Pisidan Antioch and this is what we are trying to live out here in Kingsland, Georgia at King of Peace.

Amen.