Readings
Esther 6:1-14
Acts 19:1-10
Luke 4:1-13
Meditation
As I took the weekend off of writing we missed a couple of beats the the story of Acts. Paul went to Athens to let things cool off. He’d been preaching around Thessalonica (Thessalonians) and the Jews got so hot they were hunting him from village to village. Silas and Timothy stay, but they send Paul to Athens. Athens was not its former self. It had expended itself in the Pelopenisian wars and Rome had swept through. Athens was living on its former glory with the ‘soft power’ of sophists and the heirs of its great philosophers. People would come to stare at the art and babble about beauty, but action was not its strong suit. So the cooling his heals Pual stares at the art as he wonders the city. So being Paul finds his way to the marketplace and the councils and preaches the Gospel. Athens response, “Eh – we’ll hear you again about this”. The apathy of those secure in their knowing relativism.
Paul leaves and goes to Corinth – more a Paul kind of town. Corith, opposed to Athens, was the commercial and political hub of Greece. If Boston with its universities would be Athens, New York would be Corinth. Here in Corinth Paul gets a job and he stays a year and a half. The Lord tells him to stay – “I have many people here” He says. Eventually Paul heads back to Antioch.
In today’s reading, Paul has regrouped and headed back out to Ephesus. He finds a congregation of 12 already there. They had the baptism of John (one of repentance) but not the teaching of the Holy Spirit. Paul baptizes them and the Holy Spirit comes with signs – tonges and prophecy. Paul stays with this congregation in Ephesus for over 2 years – meeting in the public hall.
Ephesus eventually becomes a primary seat in the ancient church – John the last living Apostle writes from there. In the orthodox tradition this is where the assumption of Mary happend from. It is one of the seven churches in Revelation. All churches have humble beginnings, or humble re-beginnings. And they all take time. Armed with prophecy and tonges and healings and apostolic authority, Paul starts with about 12 in Ephesus and he’s there over 2 years. We can get trapped into looking for the easy answer – the divine response – the deus ex machina – to miraculously build things. But sinful humans eventually fall away even from witnessed miracles. The walk of faith is a walk. It requires that we cooperate with God and put one foot in front of the other in doing those good works he’s laid out in advance. And that takes place in space-time, accross space and over the time of God’s choosing.
May the Lord grant you some good sights on that walk and the patience to keep puting one foot in front of the next.
