All Expenses Paid Island Vacation
Notes
Transcript
Unlimited Vacation!
Unlimited Vacation!
Happy Sabbath!
How beautiful it is to have a day of rest! I didn’t understand that well as a kid. Sabbath was a day I wasn’t allowed to play baseball. Because I didn’t work six days.
My Dad always said growing up, it isn’t the “on the seventh day you shall rest” part of the commandment He wrestles with: it was the “six days you shall work!”
The Bible is full of the value of hard work.
Last week my boss scolded me a bit because I haven’t taken vacation in forever. Which is true… usually I take a few weeks off in the summer. 1 or 2 to do camp, maybe 1 to go to Conference...
And we have one of those “unlimited vacation” policies. So I have decided to take the next three years off! We will see how that works out!
Let me say a crazy thing. See if you agree:
Christianity is HARD WORK!
It’s hard to love people. It can be hard to witness. Or at least it is intimidating. It is hard to go to service, maybe hear the sermon, maybe feel guilty about how I’m not serving enough, loving enough, witnessing enough.
Let’s get more real: it’s hard to trust people. We let our guard down at church… and it’s brutal when people we love us hurt us with their words… with the way they think about us, talk about us.
Christianity is hard.
Church is hard.
What do we see in the book of Acts… was it easy back then? Nope. It was hard. It was suffering and persecution. It was mission trips, stonings and beatings.
I made the joke last week of Paul’s “Mediterranean Cruise.” But it wasn’t, of course, any kind of vacation, it was a prison transfer!
Shipwrecked
Shipwrecked
Remember the wind and the waves, the chaos, the fear, the storm, the hunger. And, oh no, I can’t swim!!! Almost no one could swim back then.
They cast off the anchors. (They believe they have found those anchors by the way, off the Southern Coast of Malta).
Let those who can swim swim to shore, every one else, grab the boards that are being smashed apart against the rocks.
“I’ll never let go, Jack!” Just scoot over, there’s more room! “I’ll never let go, Jack!”
Then they find all of them, 276, prisoners and guards, sailors, all of them brought safely to land.
After we were brought safely through, we then learned that the island was called Malta.
Let’s just spend a minute in Malta. Middle of the Mediterranean Sea. It’s October… but come one, it’s the Mediterranean! Maybe it didn’t look exactly like this… but I want to go to there!
Shipwrecked there? Yes please! That sounds like a taste of heaven.
Maybe Paul was a little less excited at this point about looking at the ocean than I am… not so thrilled about waves anymore. But what a place. And this isn’t a Swiss Family Robinson situation, there are people in Malta… people who to this day celebrate:
The Feast of St. Paul’s Shipwreck.
Paul is going to get the royal treatment. The divine treatment. The five star package. It starts well:
The native people showed us unusual kindness, for they kindled a fire and welcomed us all, because it had begun to rain and was cold.
Okay, that part doesn’t sound good, better build a fire.
When Paul had gathered a bundle of sticks and put them on the fire, a viper came out because of the heat and fastened on his hand.
Not good! Snek!!!
When the native people saw the creature hanging from his hand, they said to one another, “No doubt this man is a murderer. Though he has escaped from the sea, Justice has not allowed him to live.”
The “native” people have this idea that lady Justice has caught up with Paul. The word here is great, it is actually “Barbaros” (where we get our word barbarian). And the Greeks called anyone who didn’t speak Greek “Barbarian” because they thought that’s how it sounded when they talked. “bar bar bar” like we might say “duh duh duh.”
Oh, silly barbarians!
But Paul doesn’t panic, he doesn’t swell up and he doesn’t die. Like a boss, he:
He, however, shook off the creature into the fire and suffered no harm.
They were waiting for him to swell up or suddenly fall down dead. But when they had waited a long time and saw no misfortune come to him, they changed their minds and said that he was a god.
There’s a turn around!
Worship him, praise him, he didn’t die… He is snek-man! Build a statue (they actually do, but that comes later).
Likely Paul responded like he did in Lystra, pointing to the true God… but it shows the measure of their respect. Though it doesn’t say in our text, there have been Christians in Malta stretching all the way back to the first century and they count Paul as their spiritual father. and we know Paul… no question he preached the gospel there!
Now in the neighborhood of that place were lands belonging to the chief man of the island, named Publius, who received us and entertained us hospitably for three days.
It happened that the father of Publius lay sick with fever and dysentery. And Paul visited him and prayed, and putting his hands on him, healed him.
Word spreads, the island gathers.
“Healed” is miraculous, instantaneous. He is healed. Sometimes God does it quickly!
And when this had taken place, the rest of the people on the island who had diseases also came and were cured.
Note that here, it says “Cured”. Therapeuo, where we get our word “therapy.” It implies healing over time, not instant, maybe not as blatantly miraculous, maybe Doctor Luke was involved here.
But instantaneous or over time, the healing is in response to prayer, at the hand of God, and Luke writing, the natives experiencing… everyone is clear that this is God working to improve their lives.
So over the course of their three month stay, they have gone from prisoners to god. “Honored guests.”
They also honored us greatly, and when we were about to sail, they put on board whatever we needed.
Literally “honored with many honors.” More than expected, more than necessary, the five-star treatment. Better yet:
God gives Paul the “divine” vacation… in the midst of his persecution and imprisonment.
I even wonder, I don’t know, I wonder if that could have been a purpose for the storm. I don’t know, and the Scripture doesn’t say that… but it leads to this island vacation for Paul.
We think of the Christian walk as hard and difficult. It is service. It is sacrifice. It is submission. It is trust… and that doesn’t always or often feel safe. It is loving, even when it’s hard. It is taking up our cross and following Jesus… it is perseverance and persecution, “in this world you will have trouble.”
Doesn’t that sound hard? Doesn’t that sound miserable?
Ah… no. Yes, Jesus calls us into the struggle and into the hard.
Does God know what you need? What would be good for you? Truly?
Does Jesus know a good winery?
Does Jesus know a good winery?
He serves the best stuff.
Is God Opposed to Vacations?
Is God Opposed to Vacations?
No. This is the God who gave us a weekly rythym of rest in the Sabbath. This is the God who commanded 3 feasts a year, feasts that Israelites were to travel to the tabernacle or temple for, celebratory week long parties. Vacations!
This is the God who made every 50th year a glorious party of freedom and restoration.
This is the God who made water into wine for his first miracle!
Camp Work Day and Puddle
Camp Work Day and Puddle
Worked hard at camp work day. Thank you to all who participated.
Tired, exhausted, worn out.
And we went over to hang with Jep and Nina Navarra. Socially distanced, in the backyard.
But there I was, in the backyard. I might have had an old-fashioned, with a Jep roasted orange slice… and he had built these misters under the deck, so it is misting down after that hot day… the water droplets were beading up on the little hairs on the tops of my toes.
Oh, it was so beautiful! I thought… this is vacay, this is so good, this is my happy place.
And then they brought me a bucket of salsa… and I was even happier.
Where was I?
It was restoration and joy. Even as we were there to serve, I was there to serve as Pastor, we were there as friends… and the Navarra’s just poured into KK and I. It was refreshing to our bodies and spirits.
Can we trust God to provide for our restoration as well as our hard work?
That feels scary. Can we trust God to pour into me, to renew me, to refresh me, to give good gifts to me?
Or do I think of my “God time” as “work time” and have to make sure I get enough “me time?”
If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!
Could it be that God knows how to take care of us?
Could it be that our heavenly Father knows how to give us good gifts… if we ask Him?
The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.
Jesus didn’t come that our lives would be miserable and full of nothing but the grind. Nothing but hard work. Does He call us to hard work, to worthy effort, even to heroic challenges?
Yes and Yes!
God give us rest. God give us life more abundantly.
God, give us a season of restoration! Give us renewed hope, renewed relationships… restore our trust in, faith in one another. Above all, our faith in you.