Sermons

“They showed us unusual kindness” (Acts 28:2)
Vista La Mesa Christian Church
February 9, 2020

Before we hear our scriptural reading for this service, I want you to know that I chose this text for two reasons:

First, Acts 28:1-2 is the text selected as the basis for this year’s Week of Prayer for Christian Unity. The Week of Prayer, as you may know, is celebrated around the world during the week of January 18-25. We didn’t have a chance to mention it during those dates at Vista La Mesa, so I thought it would be good to do so now. After all, our denomination, the Disciples of Christ, began as a protest against the way Christians undermine our witness to Christ because we are so divided. We proclaim that “God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself . . . and entrusting the message of reconciliation to us” (2 Corinthians 5:19). But Christians make it hard to believe that message when we are so visibly unreconciled! So, every January Christians in local communities in more than 100 countries gather to pray for the strength and wisdom to receive the gift of unity we have in Jesus Christ.

The second reason I chose this text is that today we began a two-month study of the book of Acts in our Sunday morning Bible study. Tesa, who has taken a course on Acts at Claremont School of Theology, will be helping lead this study. So, think of this sermon as an advertisement to join us. Reading scripture together is a joy and an enrichment–and you never know what people are going to say in those discussions!

In order to understand the first verses in chapter 28, we need to go back to the previous chapter in the book of Acts, where we find one of the most dramatic stories in the Bible. Teannah is going to help me tell it.

Paul, the great apostle, is taken prisoner in Palestine, charged by Jewish leaders with being an agitator and “a pestilent fellow.” He is brought before the Roman authorities, but, since he is a Roman citizen, he has a right to appeal to the Emperor–and he does. Let me defend myself before the Emperor’s tribunal! So they put him on a ship, along with other prisoners, guarded by a contingent of soldiers, headed for Rome.

The ship goes up the coast to what is today Lebanon, and then heads west into the heart of the Mediterranean Sea, past the islands of Cyprus and Crete. According to Acts, it was now after the Jewish holy day of Yom Kippur, which means that they set sail in late September or early October when the threat of storms made sailing in the Mediterranean a really bad idea!

As you listen to the text, keep in mind that “we” refers to Paul and to Luke, who was with Paul and is writing this account.

When a moderate south wind began to blow, they [the crew] thought they could achieve their purpose; so they weighed anchor and began to sail past Crete, close to the shore. But soon a violent wind, called the northeaster, rushed down from Crete. Since the ship was caught and could not be turned head-on into the wind, we gave way to it and were driven. . . . We were being pounded by the storm so violently that on the next day they began to throw the cargo overboard, and on the third day with their own hands they threw the ship’s tackle overboard. When neither sun nor stars appeared for many days, and no small tempest raged, all hope of our being saved was at last abandoned (Acts 27:13-15, 18-20).

At this desperate moment, Paul (somewhat tone deaf) tells them, “I told you it was a mistake to leave Crete!” But then he adds: I have had a vision showing that I must stand before the Emperor. In the vision, I see that we will lose the ship, but God has granted safety to you who are traveling with me. So take courage! Buck up!

Just before daybreak, Paul urged all of them to take some food, saying, “Today is the fourteenth day that you have been in suspense and remaining without food, having eaten nothing. Therefore I urge you to take some food, for it will help you survive; for none of you will lose a hair from your heads.” After he had said this, he took bread; and giving thanks to God in the presence of all, he broke it and began to eat. Then all of them were encouraged and took food for themselves. (We were in all two hundred seventy-six persons in the ship.) After they had satisfied their hunger, they lightened the ship by throwing the wheat into the sea (Acts 27:33-38).

Now they are in real trouble since they just threw the last of their food overboard! But in the morning, the sailors spot a bay with a beach, and they head for it.

But striking a reef, they ran the ship aground; the bow stuck and remained immovable, but the stern was being broken up by the force of the waves. The soldiers’ plan was to kill the prisoners, so that none might swim away and escape; but the centurion, wishing to save Paul [a Roman citizen], kept them from carrying out their plan. He ordered those who could swim to jump overboard first and make for the land, and the rest to follow, some on planks and others on pieces of the ship. And so it was that all were brought safely to land (Acts 27:41-44).

Can’t you see this as a Hollywood movie? A combination of Perfect Storm and Cast Away! See what you’re missing if you don’t come to Bible study!

I should mention that each year the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity theme and key scriptural passage are selected by a local group somewhere in the world, and then edited by an international committee. (I was co-chair of this committee for three years in the early 1980s when I worked at the World Council of Churches.) This year, the theme and key text were selected by an ecumenical working group on the island of Malta. Hear then the verses they invite us to consider during the Week of Prayer.

After we had reached safety, we then learned that the island was called Malta. The natives showed us unusual kindness. Since it had begun to rain and was cold, they kindled a fire and welcomed all of us around it (Acts 28:1-2).

By the way, the story gets even better. Paul gathers wood, and as he is putting it on the fire, a viper bites his hand and hangs from it. Well, say the people from Malta, this guy is obviously a murderer. He escaped from the sea, but divine justice has nailed him in the end!

They were expecting him to swell up or drop dead, but after they had waited a long time and saw that nothing unusual had happened to him, they changed their minds and began to say that he was a god (Acts 28:6).

In the rest of the chapter, we learn that Paul and the others from the ship receive hospitality–food, shelter, provisions for their journey–from the islanders; and Paul returns their hospitality by healing some who were sick.

Why does the Bible speak of this as “unusual kindness”? After all, hospitality was considered a civic duty across most of the Roman Empire. There were no Holiday Inns, so people were expected to show some hospitality to travelers. The quality of hospitality, however, usually was based on status or rank. Wealthy people and government officials were shown elaborate hospitality. You and I, not so much. But here we have a group of prisoners, washed up on the shore, and the people of Malta welcomed them, fed them warmed them, housed them far beyond the call of duty. In fact, Paul and his companions, all 276 of them, stayed for three months! No wonder, Luke, the author of Acts, remembers their “unusual kindness.”

Actually, the New Testament is filled with examples of radical hospitality. In Jesus’ day, religious Jews generally did not extend hospitality to Gentiles, because Gentiles were considered unclean, ritually impure. But Jesus, as you know, ate with everyone, thereby challenging inherited notions of who should be welcomed and who shouldn’t.

The clearest example may be the Parable of the Great Banquet in Luke 14. You remember how the host’s invitation is rejected by the big wigs and fat cats to whom it is initially sent; and so the host expands the guest list. Jesus explains the parable to his disciples this way: When you give a luncheon or a dinner, don’t just invite your friends or your relatives or your rich neighbors–those who can pay you back. No! When you give a banquet, “invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind.” And we can add, the prisoners who wash up on your shore.

This is central to the story we tell each week as we gather around the Communion Table. Through sin, we have made ourselves strangers to God. But in Christ Jesus, God has shown us “unusual kindness,” unmerited hospitality. And God now sends us out to offer such hospitality in a world where unusual kindness is in short supply. On Welcome Saturday, we aren’t demonstrating what good people we are; we are enacting the gospel, offering to others the hospitality God has offered to us.

Some of you won’t like me saying it, but I must point out that our current administration is following precisely the pattern Jesus sought to overcome. Refugees and immigrants are now admitted to this country if they are well educated, have money, can “pay us back.” This, it seems, is still how the world thinks, but it is not the teaching of scripture. We are called to show hospitality to those in need–certainly in our personal life and our congregational life, but also, I believe, in our public life as a nation.

Our reading from Acts, selected for us by sisters and brothers in Malta, makes two other points I hope we will ponder. First, make no mistake, hospitality can be risky and costly. Our text does not sweep this under the rug. Those people who straggled ashore in Malta could have been dangerous criminals. They may have been carrying disease. In any case, it took lots of resources to care for them. But, second, those who extend a blessing to others will find that they, too, are blessed. Again, this is a familiar biblical theme. Abraham and Sarah welcome travelers to their tent and discover that these strangers are angels of God (Genesis 18). The disciples on the road to Emmaus invite a stranger to dine with them and discover that they have brought none other than Jesus into their home (Luke 24). The Maltese welcome Paul and discover that he has the power to heal what ails them. In the circular logic of scripture, we are blessed to be a blessing through which we are blessed.

Instead of directly suggesting what I think this all means for us as a congregation, let me pose a few questions for us, including me, to consider: I have heard many of us say we need to grow numerically. Can you think of a better advertisement than having visitors say, “They showed us unusual kindness”? But what exactly does this mean? We are a friendly enough bunch to those who come through the door, but do we follow up with visitors? Do we ask how we can pray for them, and then actually do so? Do we try to discover what kind of kindness they may need? I imagine we all are willing to say that everyone is welcome here. But are we willing to change anything in order that others truly feel at home? For decades, predominantly white congregations have said persons of color are welcome, so long as they worship the way we do. Is this hospitality as the Bible understands it?

All of this, of course, also applies to the internal life Vista La Mesa Christian Church. Do we show hospitality to one another? Do we accept others in the congregation for who they are, not just who we want them to be? Do we try to discover if we are causing offense to others? In the wondrous mystery that is the church, we have washed up on each other’s shore! How, then, do we show to each other unusual kindness?

I will end by going back to the story Teannah helped me tell. I hope you agree that this narrative is exciting, and in some places even funny (“They were expecting him to swell up or drop dead”!). You may also be wondering: Did it really happen? Some scholars doubt that Paul made such a journey (or was bitten by a viper without swelling up or dropping dead); but, speaking personally, I think Luke’s narrative is based on real events. It is so specific and vivid. Keep in mind, however, that Luke isn’t just writing history; he is interpreting history theologically, showing where he sees God at work in the life of Paul and in the acts of the other apostles. Thus, this text poses another challenge for us: Where do we see God at work in the life of Vista La Mesa Christian Church? Please hold onto this question as we think about our life as a congregation in the days and months ahead.

And please join us for our Bible study of Acts. Not all of the stories in Acts are as exciting as that of Paul’s ship wreck off the coast of Malta. But the book is filled with accounts of how our ancestors in the faith experienced the Good News of God’s gracious love for the world in Jesus Christ. That was their message then, and it is our message now.

Michael Kinnamon