Responding to the Challenge:
The Periphery Becomes the Center
Acts 11:19-30
August 22, 2021
Emmanuel Baptist Church; Rev. Kathy Donley
Note: A recording of the worship service in which this sermon was preached may be found here: https://youtu.be/oRGhyGHKq88
The church which was born on Pentecost in Jerusalem grows by leaps and bounds. It becomes large enough to be a threat and to suffer persecution. In response, many of the new Jewish-Christians scatter in various directions across the empire, taking the gospel with them. One of the messages of Acts is that the Jesus movement spreads because of difficulty and resistance, not in spite of it. The apostles and others remain in the church in Jerusalem. At this point, Jerusalem is the mother church, the headquarters of Christian faith, which is still very much within the Jewish tradition.
The people who leave Jerusalem likely go to particular places for particular reasons. Like many migrants today, they go to where they have family or friends. They go to big cities where they are likely to find work or to find people who speak their language.
So, they scatter. And then word comes back to Jerusalem about what is happening in Antioch.
Antioch is probably the third largest city in the Roman world, with Rome and Alexandria being first and second. The population of Antioch in the first century is estimated at between 500-800,000 compared to a population of 25-50,000 in Jerusalem.[1] Antioch has a large Jewish community and a synagogue which has attracted many Gentiles.[2] It is not surprising that some of those who fled Jerusalem find their way to the Jewish community in Antioch. They share their faith in the synagogue, but within the synagogue, there are already non-Jews who also hear the word. And Antioch is a urban center where ideas and cultures and religions are routinely exchanged. So the church grows in Antioch, just like it had in Jerusalem, with one difference – in Antioch, Gentiles are also joining.
Luke has to tell the story in an orderly way. So in chapter 8, we learn that the persecution begins and the disciples scatter. Then Luke indicates some of the places they go. *Philip is sent on the road to Gaza, where he encounters an Ethiopian eunuch. Peter ends up in Joppa where he has a vision about God’s inclusion. After that he baptizes Cornelius, an Italian centurion. And two unnamed disciples make their way from Cyrene and Cyprus to Antioch where they preach to Jews and Greeks, and those who follow Jesus there are called Christians for the first time. Each of these encounters with Gentiles happens as the people scatter from Jerusalem. They weren’t texting each other along the way, so we don’t know which encounter happened first. Luke tells it in a certain order, but it is more like everything is happening at once.
As the reports filter back, the church at Jerusalem will make an official response to the possible inclusion of Gentiles. We will talk more about that next week. But what is exciting here is that, more or less simultaneously, there is a Spirit-driven mission. God is at work in one-on-one encounters and in far-flung places well beyond the official leadership.
So, the leaders in Jerusalem get the word about Antioch and want to know more. They’ve been told that those who originally shared the gospel with non-Jews in Antioch were from Cyprus and Cyrene. Barnabas also happens to be from Cyprus. Maybe that’s why he is the one who gets sent from Jerusalem. We aren’t told whether his assignment is to investigate or to support the ministry.
But when he arrives, it says, “he saw the grace of God and rejoiced.” He saw something unexpected maybe, something different from the way things were done in Jerusalem, maybe something theologically suspect or uncertain even, but instead of considering it a problem, he recognized it as the grace of God. Isn’t that lovely?
Barnabas recognized God at work in Antioch, so he joined in. And then, he went to Tarsus, found Paul and brought him back to Antioch, where they spent the next year investing themselves, teaching many people there.
Thinking about our own efforts at evangelism, I note three things. First, Barnabas doesn’t do it alone. He goes to get Paul to share the work with him. Second, they settle in for the long term. They cultivate relationships, learn the gifts and needs of the people, and tell the story of Jesus over and over again, for a year. (I wonder how long Jerusalem kept waiting for a report?) And third, the community matures to the point where it looks beyond its own needs. We know that because when they hear that people in Jerusalem are suffering because of a famine, the church in Antioch takes up an offering and sends it to them. Later, the church in Antioch will commission Paul and Barnabas and send them on to minister to others.
The model offered here is this -- more than one evangelist, investing in relationships over a long period of time, and the expectation that those who receive the gospel will grow to a place of independence from those who brought it to them. These are things I want to keep in mind.
Last week, I mentioned Justo Gonzalez. I’m reading his commentary on Acts, but Dr. Gonzalez’s primary scholarship is in the area of church history. That adds even more weight to what he says about a shift from the old center of action in Jerusalem to a new center in Antioch.
He says, “Beginning with chapter 13, Luke will deal almost exclusively with the church in Antioch and its missionary work, not because it was the most ancient, the richest or the most powerful, but because it was the one that responded to the new challenges of the time. The same has been true through the history of the Church. Those who until a certain moment have been at the periphery, . . . are those who most often prove to be ready to respond to the challenges of a new age.”[3]
Mainline Protestant churches were at the center for a long time. But we are not any more. Neither are the evangelical churches. While American churches are wringing our hands over our decline, churches in the Global South are growing exponentially. If you are a Christian today, you are more likely to be poor and African than rich and Western.[4] Churches in the Global South are more conservative and more Pentecostal than we are used to. Instead of considering that a problem, can we see the grace of God at work and rejoice?
If Gonzalez is correct, if this move from the center to the periphery is a pattern, then we would do well to attend to the edges, to see where the Spirit is already working, perhaps even outside the categories we understand as officially sanctioned church. I believe that, just like in the book of Acts, this is happening simultaneously in a lot of different places. Let me offer just one example.
This story is told by Pastor Stan. It happened at the Wild Goose Festival in 2018. Jim and I happened to be there that year. This is an outdoor festival with music, art, story-telling and worship. Someone has described it as Burning Man meets the Chautauqua Institute. There are a few thousand people present, so a lot of stuff happens in small pockets and we had no idea about what I’m about to tell you.
Stan was in line to receive communion at the close of the festival. He noticed a woman just in front of him quietly dabbing away tears. She did this for all of the ten minutes it took the two of them to make their way to the front. He wanted to check in with her to ask if she was OK, but he thought better of it and just prayed for her. Her hand shook as she received communion and afterwards she stood there for a while seemingly lost in thought.
She stumbled over to the front of the main stage, leaning against it to steady herself, with her eyes closed. In a few minutes, he walked over and slipped a tissue into her hand. Stan told her he felt drawn to check on her. They made a connection and she told him that she had not been to a church service or received Communion in over fifty years. Fifty years.
She went on to explain she was a cradle Catholic who had grown up in a small New England village. In her early twenties she had gone to her beloved parish priest to confide in him that she was going to begin the process of gender confirmation treatment when she could afford the costs. At their meeting, he mostly listened, offered no advice, and prayed with her before she left. A few days later, though, the priest quietly refused her the elements of the Eucharist at Mass. The Church failed her and she never returned.
For the next fifty years, she went on to live a full and successful life. And then just a few months before the festival, she had been diagnosed with early Alzheimer’s. In the face of that cruel diagnosis, she had created a bucket list. Near the top of that list, she said, was her desire “to make peace with the church.” Somehow she had made her way to this most unorthodox church setting to do it.
And Stan was there to listen to her story about the decades of estrangement. He was the church’s representative, repenting and asking for her forgiveness.
Before they went their separate ways, Stan asked if she was aware that the person who had served her the elements that day was also a trans woman. Stunned, she whispered no. Then she closed her eyes and smiled and shook her head in lovely disbelief.
Stan told her that only hours earlier, the woman who had offered the elements had also confided in him. She used to be a leader in her church. Her greatest joy had been serving the Lord’s Supper. But since her transition, she had not enjoyed that privilege even once. It had been 10 years, but that morning, she had been invited to offer the gifts of God to the people of God. Stan says as he shared that, he knew that he was standing on the holiest of ground. [5]
We see the grace of God at work and rejoice.
Gonzalez says that those at the periphery will be used by God as the center shifts. Bec Cranford says it slightly differently: “God will call the very ones the church spit out to lead the next move of the Spirit.” [6]
Friends, I want to be there for that, don’t you? May we find that holy ground again and again. Amen and amen.
[1] J. Bradley Chance, Acts: Smyth and Helwys Bible Commentary, (Macon: Smyth and Helwys, 2007), p. 185
[2] Josephus, War. 7.3.3.
[3] Justo L. Gonazalez, Acts: The Gospel of the Spirit (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2001).p. 141
[4] https://www.globalconnections.org.uk/sites/newgc.localhost/files/papers/2020_vision_-_the_church_across_the_world.pdf
[5] https://www.facebook.com/stan.mitchell.58 entry for July 27, 2021