February 27, 2005 Sermon

Paul Preaches in Antioch
Acts 13:13-16a; 26-35

The trial was to take place in Chicago . The McCormick Company claimed an inventor had rigged up an illegal imitation of one of its harvesters and wanted him stopped. The case became big; both sides retained famous lawyers. The defense hired George Harding and Edwin Stanton, both from Pennsylvania . These two decided it might be wise to get a local lawyer added to their team. The judge might know him, he might know the judge, it might just make the difference to have an inside perspective on local legal politics.

Harding and Stanton found their man, whom they hired and promptly ignored. They intended to listen to him during the trial only. He would be paid a tiny fee. They would conduct all the research and plead the case. But he did not know this. He worked long and hard, made himself an expert on patent law, studied the two machines in question, and traveled on his own initiative to confer with them. Harding met him in Pittsburgh . He wore a threadbare suit. His pants cuffs did not reach his shoe tops. He carried a ridiculous blue umbrella. And he was ugly.

For two days the visitor from Illinois tried to interest Harding and Stanton in his casework. But they feared his odd appearance and hick accent would hurt their chances. They intentionally missed appointments with him, left him to pick up the check for an expensive lunch, refused to walk with him in public, did everything they could think of to get rid of him. Finally he got the message. He withdrew from the case but attended every minute of its conduct in the courtroom.

Who was this uncouth but diligent lawyer from the Midwest ? Abraham Lincoln. Nineteen years later Stanton stood over his body as he lay dying in a Washington , D.C. boardinghouse. Characteristically, Lincoln had overlooked the humiliation Stanton had inflicted upon him years before and made him Secretary of War. It proved a wise choice. The dapper, elitist Stanton and the homespun rube Lincoln together conducted the nation through the Civil War, the most terrible crisis we have yet faced. They came to love each other. And when Lincoln died, it was Stanton who said those immortal words, “Now he belongs to the ages.”

I am not the first preacher to draw a parallel between Abraham Lincoln and Jesus. Both surprised people with the wisdom they, as hicks from the sticks, produced. Both did an unusually good job of living according to the high standards they set for themselves. Both inspired love and hate. Both died as sacrifices to their causes.

Let’s add a third name to this list of unusual men: Paul. Paul surprised people. Paul walked his talk. Paul inspired love and hate. Paul died for his cause. Today we read one of Paul’s earlier sermons, which he gave in a synagogue in Antioch . Did you catch that? He preached about Jesus in a Jewish synagogue. In those first months of Christianity a debate arose over whether believers in Jesus as the Christ had to be, or become, Jews. To us this seems an obvious question. To Peter, Paul and the others, it was anything but settled.

Paul started his sermon in that synagogue with a brief review of Jewish history. Beginning with Moses and the Exodus, he reminded his fellow Jews that God had blessed them throughout their long history. God had also predicted from of old that a Messiah would eventually come to save all who called upon his name. But when the Messiah did come, in the person of Jesus, the Jews, the very people who should have known better, rejected him. They had him killed by their Roman masters.

Was Paul suggesting that Jewishness equaled evil? Not at all. Remember, Paul himself was a Jew. No, Paul was attempting to answer the question of whether believers in Jesus as the Messiah had to be or become Jews. His answer was no. Peter had reached the same conclusion. This probably surprised both men. For millennia the Jews had seen themselves as God’s Chosen People. This meant they had seen everybody else as God’s Not Chosen People. Now the Messiah finally comes and lets everybody into God’s chosen circle? Well, yes he does.

Paul’s sermon has a second point. This Jesus, the Messiah, really died and really came back from the dead. Paul quotes Psalms and Isaiah (Jewish scriptures) to support his claim. David, his ancestor, God’s favorite (until Jesus), had died and his body had rotted in the grave. His flesh went the way of all flesh. But Jesus’ did not. As Paul reminded his Jewish hearers in the synagogue with a quotation from Psalm 16, “(God) will not let Thy Holy One see corruption.” Jesus deserves our worship.

We celebrated Lincoln ’s birthday this past Monday. We also celebrated George Washington’s birthday, which only makes my point the more sharp: we take our heroes for granted. Precious few of us ponder what these men endured. To us Presidents Day means furniture sales and a day off from school. The mail and banks don’t work.

Abraham Lincoln’s mother gave birth to him in a log cabin. Ponder that for a moment. She died of a fever in his early boyhood. His father took seven year-old Abe and his younger siblings across the river into Indiana , where together they hacked out a clearing and built first a three-sided lean-to and then another log cabin. His father often went on overnight hunting trips, leaving his children to fend for themselves. (Two families lived within half a mile.) Abe did not receive six months of formal schooling. By his fifteenth birthday he could hold a froe (a large axe with a wedge for splitting timber on its backside) straight out from his shoulder for three minutes. Arnold Schwarzeneggar would struggle to do the same.

Lincoln had a harsh childhood. He lacked schooling. He never joined a church. Yet he became a brilliant speaker. He made the moral case against slavery throughout his public career. He studied theology and attended the 1st Presbyterian Church of Springfield, Illinois, then the Capitol Hill Presbyterian Church. He developed the courage to lead a disintegrating nation through civil war with unswerving devotion to the ideal of liberty enshrined in the Declaration of Independence. He is my hero. When I listen to Aaron Copland’s Lincoln Portrait and it comes to the part where the narrator says, “He was born in Kentucky , raised in Indiana and lived in Illinois ,” I don’t care who sees the tears form in my eyes.

Lincoln, Jesus and Paul deserve to serve as our heroes. They are worthy of our praise and of our imitation. But we grow used even to their incredible stories. For a few months the What Would Jesus Do? fad looked promising. People wore the bracelets. We asked ourselves what Jesus would do in tough spots. Then we took the bracelets off and moved on. But we need to go back. We need to reconsider the call our heroes put on our lives. Lincoln calls us, in the words of his First Inaugural Address, to the “better angels of our nature.” He calls us to forsake sin and to do justice.

Paul called his fellow Jews to accept Jesus as the Messiah. In fact he calls on us to do the same. Accept Jesus as the Messiah. Ponder what he has done for you and follow him as your ultimate hero.

Jesus died. He died for us. He died because he loves us. He does not love with some kind of sentimental, movie love. He loves unconditionally. He proved that on the cross. Ponder what he has done. Then follow him. He has earned our respect. He has earned the right to be followed. Make him your hero. Keep on following him. Learn his teachings and follow them. Join in the company of believers, the church, as together we follow Jesus.