A scientist observed several ants discarding one of their own dead. "How do they know?" he asked himself, and began mixing concoctions until he could fake an ant's death. He placed a smelly substance that marked out death on the back of an ant and put her inside the colony. Immediately drone soldier ants came and carried her off.
We’re inside and away from everyone so go tell the beat generation we finally found home, even though it rapes us of how things once were. Do you remember? Phrases like “new normal”, “social distancing” and “wear a mask” all broke out of the insane asylum and into the heads of faulty followers of Fauci.
I wonder. As I approach history, visiting churches dating well before the declaration of our independence and the security of our constitution with its promise to make no laws that prohibit the free exercise of religion and the right for any of us to peaceably assemble together… I wonder... why are all these churches locked, boarded up, empty shells?
He made us, human beings, from the dirt of Earth, and he breathed in his very own breath to spring forth life, will, animation, and purpose within us. So, from the very beginning, God conspires with his human creatures, for, as you might know, conspire is broken into con and spire, which means together and breathed, respectfully. God breathed together with humans to give life, and in Jesus, life more abundantly.
At no other point has the whole world melted into a mold that looks like the end. You can cite wars and all their rumors but they are starting points that progressed us here to a tiny infectious agent that masquerades itself until it kills us, or at least some of us. Sound familiar? It’s the garden story recycled.
In Acts, we hear a new phrase: “in the name of Jesus Christ.” Peter uses it twice at the beginning of the book. He says to the crowd*, “Repent and be baptized… in the name of Jesus Christ…” 2:38. A little later, while walking with John to the Temple, he says it again, ordering the lame man to get up and walk, “in the name of Jesus Christ” (3:6).
In Acts 4:24, we hear a word for Lord that graduates the normal word used. In the New Testament, the word κύριος is used to refer to someone in authority, a term a servant would use to address his master, a word that appears in the text some 600 times, depending on your translation. But here, in Acts 4:24, a different word is used: δεσπότης.
The coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, along with persecution and geographical changes, quickly reshapes the world for Jesus’ followers. Before Acts 10, the disciples generally understood Jesus’ message to be exclusive for the Jewish people in spite of Jesus’ clear directive to make disciples of all nations. But a challenge arrives in Acts 10.
Colossians 1:5 says that our faith and love spring from, “the hope stored up in heaven.” It’s a phrase that brings to mind 2 Timothy 4:8, where Paul says that, “there is in store for me the crown of righteousness which the Lord, the righteous judge will award to me on that day – and not only to me, but also to all who have longed for his appearing.”
Sometimes pastors shouldn't use their imagination to embellish Scripture. There are certainly some passages that need a little nudge. The spies hiding on Rahab's roof, little David and big, giant Goliath, even Peter's magic shadow might be candidates. I remember reading Sarah Hadas's great take on Abraham from the perspective of his wife Sarah.
Perhaps, church life is running in a kyklos. The kyklos is how the Greeks viewed government -- in a cycle -- always turning in on itself as regimes are formed and dismantled, models made and then splintered. It goes round and round. Monarchy turns to despots turn to tyranny turns to oligarchy turns to democracy turns back to anarchy.
