Seeing Grace

Acts 11:19-26

Sermon by Rev. Craig N. Goodrich

First Presbyterian Church of Atlanta

June 25, 2000

 

Have you seen the new television show Survivor? It is a soap opera featuring “ordinary” people, a cross between Gilligan’s Island and the Lord of the Flies. Over 6000 people applied to be one of the 16 castaways, men and women, stranded on an island in the Pacific. Split into two tribes that compete against each other, each week they vote in the tribal council to expel one person from the island. The sole survivor will receive one million dollars.

 

The show consists in part of interviews of the castaways. Often they are saying mean things about each other or forming alliances to decide whom they will vote to expel. They seem to be looking for the worst in each other. The weakest person does not have a chance. There is no mercy and no grace. The castaways are also shown fishing, and eating beetle larvae and rats.

 

Time Magazine featured the show in its cover article in this week’s edition entitled “Voyeur TV: We Like to Watch”. It begins…

 

You are not…the sort of person who would watch Survivor. It’s not just the larvae-eating contest… it’s the gladiatorial concept: stranding 16 people on a tropical island to scramble for food and shelter…. It’s the Machiavellian twist: having the contestants vote one another off the island until there is a single million dollar winner and 15 rejects. It’s the suffering, the mean-spiritedness, the humiliation. And that’s why you’re watching. And you, and you. More than 23 million of you.

 

Well, I confess I have tuned in lately to see what all the fuss is about – of course, just for research for this sermon. Somehow, I think we will survive the show. Survivor is successful because it appeals to that part of our human nature which craves the sensational, just as most of the stories on the local news do.

 

Last week, Joanna Adams reminded us that we are, in fact, unrighteous sinners in need of grace. It is strange isn’t it, that a sermon telling us that we are sinners could make us feel so good? Why is that? Because it is the truth.

 

The truth is that we are all like those survivors. We are all out to protect ourselves or our own. We do look for the weaknesses in others and say mean things behind each other’s backs. We would all like the million, wouldn’t we? And many of us do believe, at least we live this way, that life is an elimination contest, the survival of the fittest and that we need to hold on tightly to what we have acquired so that someone will not take it away from us.

 

But this is not the whole truth is it. There is a part of us that longs for those rare moments when the better part of our nature prevails, when we see and do acts of kindness, community, self giving, encouragement, self sacrifice and love; when we aspire to goodness and purity of heart. If Survivor shows us at our worst, where will we go to find the best?

 

The person of Barnabas is a good place to start. The book of Acts is not often preached from, that is other than the Pentecost account. It is a wild and unwieldy book. It is believed to have been written by the writer of Luke’s gospel and it tells in narrative form the story of the spread of the good news after the resurrection of Jesus from Jerusalem to the known world. While the apostles Peter and Paul are the main characters, Barnabas plays no small role.

 

We first meet Barnabas in Acts 4. You know the familiar passage. His actual name was Joseph but the apostles nicknamed him “Barnabas”, which means “Son of encouragement.” What a great name! He sells his property and brings the proceeds to the disciples’ feet so that they can distribute them to those in need. Barnabas is the only one identified by name as having done this! Just think about it. Why would he do such a thing with his property? What about his security? His retirement? His future?

Barnabas next appears in Chapter 9. Saul the persecutor meets Jesus on the road to Damascus and is converted. Saul begins preaching that Jesus is the Christ, then has to escape Damascus in a basket over the wall, because the Jews threaten to kill him. Saul then goes to Jerusalem to see the leaders of the church. Guess what, they didn’t want Saul. Would you?

 

The Scripture says, “And when [Saul] had come to Jerusalem he attempted to join the disciples; and they were all afraid of him, for they did not believe that he was a disciple. But Barnabas took him, and brought him to the apostles, and declared to them how on the road he had seen the Lord who spoke to him and how he had preached boldly in the name of the Lord. And he spoke and disputed against the Hellenists; but they were seeking to kill him. And when the brethren knew it, they brought him down to Caesarea, and they sent him off to Tarsus”.

 

There he is again. Barnabas, the only one standing up for Saul, willing to risk his own reputation. What if he had not done it? Maybe you and I would not be here today. Can’t you just see Barnabas putting his arm around Saul and saying, “You stick with me. Don’t worry, we’ll make it.”

 

Well, the story continues. You may remember that the big issue facing these early believers was whether one first had to become a Jew to be a believer or whether Gentiles could be included. The text for today says that in Antioch certain Gentiles were receiving the word of God. Who better to check this out than Barnabas. So he is sent by the Church and the text says, “when he came and saw the grace of God, he was glad; and he exhorted them all to remain faithful to the Lord with steadfast purpose; for he exhorted them all to remain faithful to the Lord with steadfast purpose; for he was a good man, full of the holy Spirit and of faith.” Not only this, but Barnabas goes to Tarsus to look for Saul who is laboring in obscurity and brings him to Antioch. Saul and Barnabas then teach the believers in Antioch for a year and a half and it is there that they are called “Christians” for the first time. You see, were it not for Barnabas, there likely would be no apostle Paul.

 

One commentator says of Barnabas:…

 

“Barnabas indeed is one of the most attractive characters in the New Testament. He possessed the rare gift of discerning merit in others. Probably inferior in ability to Paul, he was his superior in Christian graces. He seems to have been utterly without jealousy, eager to excuse the faults of others, quick to recognize merit, ready to compromise for the sake of peace. The Paul of history contributes to the progress of the world; Barnabas and those like him make it bearable to live in. While we admit the greatness of Paul, we cannot forget that Barnabas was the real pioneer of a world-embracing Christianity.” (Interpreter’s Bible Commentary)

 

What a contrast to the survivor mentality! Barnabas was able to see the grace of God, where others, including church leaders, could see only problems. He believed in Saul when others would not. “Son of encouragement” was the right name!

 

The question then for us is, “how do we become like Barnabas?” How can we become able to see the grace of God?

 

John Claypool, an Episcopal priest, tells the story of his great need for affirmation and his competitive nature, and then of the invitation he received one day to be part of a small group of ministers. It was in that group that he experienced the grace of God for the first time. It happened when one of them commented that what they all really needed was to “hear the gospel down in our guts.”

 

Claypool writes, “All I can report is that, in that moment, something like fire moved from the top of my head to the bottom of my heart! For the first time in my life, I felt a sense of grace.…My consciousness was altered irrevocably that day. I began to sense the grace that is the foundation of all things. That reality became more than a word or concept to me then – it took the form of an existential event… Here I was, looking everywhere in the realm of achievement for a way to amount to something and all along the worth had been right there within me, but I had never realized it.”

 

Claypool goes on to say that as a result of this experience, he started to see in a new way, with grace-filled eyes….

 

“This was the beginning of a new way of perceiving reality for me, beginning with myself and moving out until this gracious light bathed all of reality. I began to taste what the Genesis account suggests was God’s feeling for what he had created – namely, delight, that childlike wonder that looks at what it has made and says ecstatically, “It is good, good, very good.” I began to learn that things do not have to be perfect to be good, and compared with never having been at all, whatever one has been dealt in the act of creation is worthy of celebrations.”

 

Having experienced grace, he began to see grace everywhere. And once one begins to see differently, it changes everything.

 

Claypool one more time:

 

“I also experienced transformation at the level of doing as well. Slowly but surely it began to dawn on me that every gift I had been given would make a good present for someone else, and that sharing out of the fullness that was already in me by the grace of creation was far more redemptive than needing to get something from people through competition.

 

Once we experience grace, we see grace. And once we see grace, life becomes marked by gift-giving, arising out of abundant, overflowing grace.

 

Is there any greater need today than for such people of grace, for grace-filled living? For encouragement to be freely given, for the spirit of wonder and abundance and of letting go of all that we mistakenly believe will bring us security and for becoming instead castaways on the grace of God. For people who will stand up for those who are oppressed, for the outsider.

 

Where will we find such people?

 

I know where one is. He is with us in worship today and was pastor here for 23 years from 1953 – 1976. Dr. Harry Amos Fifield, who is celebrating his 90^th birthday with us today. If you go into our new Christian Community Center this morning you will find in the library over 85 volumes of his sermons, more than 1800 sermons. They occupy over 13 feet of shelf space. Occasionally, I retreat to the library and read one. Like Barnabas, the words, without fail, are always full of thoughtful encouragement, always calling us to remain faithful to Christ, and always encouraging us to Christian service. Always appealing to our better nature.

 

Harry and Margaret, married over 60 years, both radiate great warmth and have encouraged so many to be faithful down through the years. In his last sermon here, Dr. Fifield stated, “I have no intention of laying down my tools.” And he didn’t. He went on to serve as a modern day Barnabas, serving as an interim pastor for 17 other congregations.

 

God bless you Harry and Margaret.

 

Well, it’s time to close this sermon. Do you remember how Dr. Fifield would often end his sermons. It was with a question, “and how is it with you this morning?” It is a good question. So let me ask it. So how is it with you this morning?

 

Will you be content to stay in your natural, instinctive “survivor” mode of self-protection and self-preservation? My friends there is a world out there in desperate need of grace. People and souls are dying for lack of encouragement and hope. This ministry of seeing grace and giving encouragement is not something relegated to Bible heroes or to preachers. No, it is for you and for me today.

 

Annie Dillard has written, “there were no formerly heroic times, and there was no formerly pure generation. In fact, the absolute is available to everyone in every age. There never was a more holy age than ours and never a less… In an instant the bush may flare, your feet may rise. In an instant you may avail yourself of the power to love your enemies, to accept failure, slander, or the grief of loss…. Purity’s time is always now.”

 

And so it is. This is the day. May you receive the overflowing grace of our Lord Jesus Christ and may you be sons and daughters of encouragement now and always. To God be the glory! Alleluia! Amen.