69 :: Judah Church

Today we worshiped at Judah Church in Charlotte's Steele Creek section. This is the first church of the last one third of this journey. It proved to be a very interesting visit, but let's be candid... all of these churches have been very, very interesting! This was also the longest service that we have attended. It was a full two hours long.

We went to the early service at Freedom House and then headed over to Steele Creek. It is about a twenty-minute drive. We pulled into the parking lot on this rainy morning with one minute to spare before the start of worship. 

We headed toward the church, which is an industrial warehouse made out of corrugated metal. We noticed that the church has a give-and-take pantry out front for the congregation. A congregation that takes care of each other, I thought. 

We hurried into the auditorium and were greeted by amazing music plus a wide array of flags from around the world. The crowd streamed in for the service over  a fifteen minute timeframe, as the music filled the auditorium.

After the rousing music, Pastor Glenn Walters came onto the stage. He gave a sermon named Guard the Gates. This being Father's Day, he focused on the role of men in society and the church. He focused on the third chapter of Joel, where it says:

Proclaim this among the nations:
    Prepare for war!
Rouse the warriors!
    Let all the fighting men draw near and attack.
Beat your plowshares into swords
    and your pruning hooks into spears.
Let the weakling say,
 “I am strong!”
Come quickly, all you nations from every side,
    and assemble there.

Bring down your warriors, Lord!

Of note is that these verses may hit the ear differently, as they are a pure reversed facsimile of Isaiah 2:4:

He will judge between the nations
    and will settle disputes for many peoples.
They will beat their swords into plowshares
    and their spears into pruning hooks.
Nation will not take up sword against nation,
    nor will they train for war anymore.

A verse of war and a verse of peace.... these two say things that are the opposite of each other, only six books apart in the Bible.

While I have heard the reference to beating sword into plowshares countless times, I had not taken note of the fact that there is a different exhortation to beat plowshares into swords in another part of the Book.

Context, context, context.

Fascinating...

The sermon took multiple fiery turns as it focused on the importance of strong men in the face of the challenges that life brings. The Pastor spoke about the decline of manhood more broadly in society, which he said is the root of many societal ills. Many women and children in the modern era experience lives that are more difficult by virtue of the men in their lives who act destructively, or who are simply absent.

In the words of Pastor Glenn, "Just because you can create a child does not mean you have fulfilled the privilege of becoming a father."

Solid point.

There were some things on the wall that validated that gender was a major theme at Judah Church:

He stated that animals respond to two main imperatives - those being to eat and to procreate. He declared that if you don't have any higher moral and behavioral imperatives than those two things, you might as well be an animal.

As the Pastor made these observations, he received the interactive accolades that so often accompany worship at places like Judah Church:

"Preach, Pastor! Preach."

"That's good!!"

"Truth!"

"AMEN!"

The Pastors message was a very good one. He ended it with a reference to the subsequent chapters of Joel, after the section where the people of Israel were being called into a martial posture.

"Let the nations be roused;
    let them advance into the Valley of Jehoshaphat,
for there I will sit
    to judge all the nations on every side.
Swing the sickle,
    for the harvest is ripe.
Come, trample the grapes,
    for the winepress is full
    and the vats overflow—
so great is their wickedness!”

Multitudes, multitudes

    in the valley of decision

For the day of the Lord is near

    in the valley of decision.

The sun and moon will be darkened,

    and the stars no longer shine.

The Lord will roar from Zion

and thunder from Jerusalem;

    the earth and the heavens will tremble.

But the Lord will be a refuge for his people,

    a stronghold for the people of Israel.

Here the Pastor made a great observation. 

He pointed out that the people of Israel had received a divine call into a Valley, specifically the Valley of Jehoshaphat. He declared that even in the low point of any valley (think of this as metaphorical language about life), that God is calling people to a place that is elevated above any mountaintop position that can be experienced without Him. 

Our low points are still above the high points of a secular life.

Again, a solid point. My life validates this idea.

The last section of the service was a child dedication ceremony. In churches that emphasize baptism only for people who have chosen it, there is no such thing as infant baptism. Instead, they perform a "child dedication." At Judah Church, that meant that parents would come up and have their child spoken about in front of the congregation. Additionally, each child was spoken about through a Bible verse that included their name. 

Very touching.

Here are some pictures:

We had hit the two-hour mark and things were feeling great. Beth might be what one would call a marathon worshipper, finding her stride at Let Us Worship in the third hour of the event. At Judah Church, I think she could have gone another hour.

What are my reflections on the message at Judah Church?

How do the spiritual principles that I heard in this sermon resonate with me?  

I heard two sermons that were on the exact same theme, though they had very different delivery styles.

These themes were profoundly important for me to consider in light of the fact that I am getting married and becoming a father again - and soon! 

I am the father of my three boys and always will be. But I am no longer raising them. They are adults. I don't have any role in their major life decisions unless they invite me into them.

That is contrasted against the fact that I will be a husband and a father anew, starting in August. I was twenty six years old when I became a father for the first time and I will be sixty seven years old when my daughter graduates from high school (eighteen being an arbitrary but broadly accepted milestone for her independence). 

That means that I will spend the vast majority of my earthly life giving guidance in a fathering role. 

So, what reflections do I bring to this next phase of life, as a father?

How would a Biblical worldview be brought to bear on this question?

First, to be equally yoked in Christ is to provide your marriage with what it needs to flourish. It's only when we bear that (light) burden of that specific yoke that we can be the kind of person that lives in a posture of self-sacrificial love to your spouse. 

Secondly, to be in a position where a man and a woman are both fulfilling those things that they are made for. For a husband, that means living in a disposition that is described this way:

Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. After all, no one ever hated their own body, but they feed and care for their body, just as Christ does the church — for we are members of His body.

Beth is a self-professed opponent of the patriarchy. She has very strong feelings about it and makes points that give me insight into how society is constructed that I candidly have not had the ability to see before.

When we have discussed how her deep opposition to the patriarchy might be seen as a contrast with her desire to live in relationship with a strong man who can provide leadership, she made an amazing point...

"The patriarchy does not have my best interests at heart, but you do."

Never a truer word. 

There is a theme that speaks about what that role of leadership means to me. I've been thinking about it quite a bit lately.

There are eight of us in our family, which will be joined together when we get married. We've decided not to lead with the term "blended family" when we describe ourselves. 

"Family" suffices.

The way I look at it is that in our family, when I am fulfilling my role, it will mean that when there is a danger or a struggle to confront, I would step into the first position. Conversely, where there is a deficit to be experienced or a situation in which there is not enough of something to go around, I would gladly and willingly stand in position eight.

To me, this describes the spirit of self-sacrificial love, which is so well encapsulated in the verse, "Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends." (John 15:13).

Finally, if the marriage of a man and woman prefigures that which is eschatologically ahead for all of us, then the consummation of our love, in which we become one flesh through my reclamation of my rib, it must be acknowledged as a depiction of the sacred and inevitable consummation in which the New Heaven and the New Earth will be rejoined, forever.

Marriage as eschaton-glimpse?

Yes!

And may that day also come soon. Maranatha!

Sincere thanks to Judah Church for a great visit. May they keep going, onward and upward!

68 :: Let Us Worship - Charlotte

Saturday evening, we worshipped at Let Us Worship in Romare Bearden Park in uptown Charlotte. This is the second time that I have attended Let Us Worship. The first was in November in New Orleans [link to post #72]. We decided that since Charlotte is a very different venue than New Orleans, we could count it as a different church visit. 

This Let Us Worship event in Charlotte was hosted by Freedom House, our church. We would have gone to this event regardless of who sponsored it, but the fact that it was our church made the connection a really neat thing.

So, what are these Let Us Worship events all about? They are part protest, part revival, part praise concert. To get a sense of what these Let Us Worship events are like, give yourself some time with some videos of the event.

Here's a #LetUsWorship video from Sean Feucht's YouTube channel:

On Freedom House's Facebook page, there is a video showing some of the highlights from the event. It's powerful, have a look. Beth and Mariel Charlotte and I are in it, try to find us.

To watch that Facebook video, click here.

If you want to go even deeper, you can watch the entire video of the event, which takes well over two hours. Here is the [link] to the YouTube video of the entire event. It is also embedded right here:

Was there a difference between the New Orleans event and this one in Charlotte? In some ways, it was different. In other ways, it was very similar. 

One way in which the two events matched each other was in terms of scale. We believe that between two and three thousand people attended Let Us Worship Charlotte. The nature of the worship was also very similar, both musically and in how the crowd reacted to the presence of the Holy Spirit.

A difference between the two is the general sense of the what these two cities are. New Orleans is known for drinking and great food and Mardi Gras and as a place to indulge yourself. Charlotte is different, known more for banking and families and churches. 

Another difference was the different way that the Holy Spirit manifested itself. In New Orleans, I witnessed holy laughter settle on a small group of people in the crowd. The laughter rippled outward across dozens of people. As that happened, several people were slain spiritually such that they fell to the ground and spoke in tongues for over an hour. 

I did not see such a thing in the crowd in Charlotte.

So, back to it.... What is this thing?

To best understand the Let Us Worship movement is to know that it is a protest [link]. Let Us Worship is rooted in the idea that churches are essential and that we cannot be denied the freedom to congregate and worship. While laws and executive orders were implemented in some states that severely infringed on those freedoms, North Carolina was not excessive in its rulings. 

But there were troubling sounds from Raleigh in 2020, and protesting against that was important to many of us.

The first thing that happened as Let Us Worship spun up was a group of local Pastors praying over the crowd. The Pastors were unified in their calls for change. Change in Charlotte and change in North Carolina and change in the US.

Here are some of those pastors (Freedom House's Pastor Troy Maxwell is the third):

The prayers were for both change and unity. Change in the fabric of our society, as well as unity within the Body. There were prayers for the end of denominationalism and the spirit of division that accompanies them. There were prayers for the end of racial division. People in the diverse crowd were requested to turn to their neighbor and say, "We are one."

It was a powerful start. 

The crowd got quickly warmed up in a visible way. There was enthusiastic cheering and most people had their hands in the air. People continued to stream in as the crowd crossed over the two thousand mark and beyond. Then the music started up, a combination of new praise music that we knew, older music that we did not know... and a few gospel pieces that we did not know but absolutely loved.

Eddie James performed with Sean Feucht and the band, and lifted the crowd up with his words. Here's Eddie (now that is a voice!):

Then Sean Feucht played. Sean is a member of what is known as the Music Collective with Bethel Music, an extension of Bethel Church in California. 

If you are not into praise music, you have likely never heard of Bethel Music. On the other hand, if you do like praise music, Bethel will be very much of a known quantity to you. Bethel Music is really great, take a look at their YouTube page [link].

The below videos show the quality of the music and how much the crowd was enjoying it. In the second video, you can see Beth dancing with her friend Lyndsey, as well as Mariel Charlotte. She actually shows up at the end of the third video, too.

After a set of music, Sean Feucht started talking to people who had come out on their apartments to watch the revival from their balconies. One couple had held their hands high and was swaying back and forth. Another young couple was standing on their balcony and wiping their eyes as they cried. A group of people had congregated on the roof of another apartment building to watch Let Us Worship. 

We in the crowd were cheering and waving to them as Sean Feucht yelled, "Jesus loves you! Jesus died for you!"

Things got pretty deep when the crowd got to the inevitable altar call. People ran to the front of the stage in big numbers. Our friends Casey and Sarah were in the group that got saved, along with their children. Seeing a family do such a thing together was very moving. These are people who have been through some pretty tough trials in life.... but let's be honest, isn't that all of us?

Here's a brief glimpse from the altar call:

Hundreds of people had the course of their lives changed as they ran forward. Many people actually sprinted forward to the edge of the stage. There were people weeping in racking sobs that dominated their bodies. Other people had their hands in the air while their mouths prayed fervently, some aloud and some silent. Groups of people put their hands on the individuals who had come forward, pouring Spirit into them.

One part of the altar call involved people throwing things on the stage that had some level of bondage over them. Vapes, drugs, alcohol, strip club memberships are among the things that people put on the stage at the various Let Us Worship events.

Beth was part of a small group of people praying for a nine-year-old boy that had come forward. He was lying with his face to the ground and crying in full body sobs. He had some profoundly emotional stuff being released. 

At that point, I started walking through the crowd of thousands of people and yelling out that if anyone needed prayer, to call on me. Three people did ask me to pray for and with them.

One woman told me that her daughter was in Virginia dealing with mental illness and spiritual oppression. They were alienated from each other and she asked me to pray for their reconciliation. She was carrying her daughter's childhood pillow case as a reminder of what her daughter was like as a little girl. She also asked me to pray for her mother who was suffering from the onset of dementia.

Another young woman had been assaulted at work by a co-worker. I verified that she had dealt with it through her employer, as a first step. She said she had, which allowed me to pray for her.

A woman came forward and asked me to pray for her husband. He had a pain in his left side that was new as of today. I did so, holding his left rib cage as I did so.

Honestly, I prayed with a strength that was new. Prayer is like everything else, one develops a stronger competency the more that you do it.

My prayers for each went something like this - "...and the sovereign God of the universe left His throne of glory to come down to live in a perishable human body, a body that could bleed and be broken! And He was placed on a Cross because you are beautiful to Him. You aren't worthy of His sacrifice, but you are loved and you are saved and you are redeemed by His finished work. When He said the words 'It is finished,' He was talking about you. He knew your exact name..."

That kind of prayer.

I was glad to pray into their lives, it was humbling to do so.

One of the Pastors was a man from Africa who has been doing street preaching on the corner of 38th Street and Chicago Avenue in Minneapolis since the day that George Floyd was killed there in 2020. He called people forth who needed healing of any sort:

People came forward in response to this call for the sick and infirm. A few people were in wheelchairs. The crowd's prayers reached its zenith at this point. Beth joined a small group of people who laid their hands on a woman with cancer. Beth prayed into the woman through one of her favorite verses, which happens to be in Aramaic (this phrase is tattooed onto Beth's forearm). 

It's "talitha koum," which means "little girl, I say to you arise." This is from Mark 5:41, where Yeshua brings a recently deceased girl back to life.

The woman looked at Beth and said, "Why wouldn't I? You're absolutely right, why wouldn't I get up?"

By this time, about two and a half hours had passed. This was the first time that Beth and I had worshipped together for this long. We did all of it with Mariel Charlotte in tow, who ends up being an amazing little worshipper. She's great fun and we're glad that her earliest childhood memories will include evenings like Let Us Worship.

The evening ended as people were offered the ability to get baptized. Many made that choice, right next to Knights Stadium as the sun was setting.

Water baptism is important, as I have come to understand.

A full three hours of worship and healing and evangelism and music and fun and protest. Plus, this was my second time around, this time with my love Beth and Mariel Charlotte. 

Whence such lavish and extravagant love?

Simply amazing.

As I reflect back on both Let Us Worship events, I recall how spectacularly God is moving in my life now. 

The single greatest year in my spiritual evolution happened during a global pandemic, during which I got Covid-19 and cancer. The same year I fell in love with Beth. And my spiritual life has taken a quantum leap forward. 

Why has there been such a great leap forward, spiritually?

Because it was always there for me. All I had to do was turn fully toward Him. And when I made that full pivot toward God, He put favor on those things that I offered up. 

I made that initial pivot when I was eleven years old, as recounted in other sections of this blog. But I had never really offered myself as a sacrifice in the way that I have now. 

It may make sense to recount it like this...

First, when you offer your thoughts, God will honor that and show favor. When you offer your actions, God will celebrate that and show abundant favor. Then when you offer your very mortality itself, God will take you as a Son or Daughter and give you that joy that passes all understanding.

Because of this, I count cancer as a blessing. From it, I understood that my very mortality was truly God's. I suppose it may seem funny to spend five decades to learn something that seems so self-evident. But there is a difference between knowing something conceptually and knowing something experientially.

I asked God a few months back for more time, if it was His will.

Today I have zero cancer and will soon marry the woman He brought me, as I reclaim my rib. I will have a chance to be a father again, too! And no matter what suffering is ahead, I know it can and will be infused with joy.

Really, how good a God do we serve? 

We serve a very, very, very good and perfectly gracious God who loves us extravagantly. There's no question about that, in my mind.

Sean Feucht and Let Us Worship - may you keep going!

67 :: Carmel Baptist Church

Today we worshipped at Carmel Baptist Church in Matthews, North Carolina. This is yet another gigantic Baptist church in Charlotte. And this one also has a school as part of its campus, Carmel Christian School. 

As we so often point out, we have driven past this church for decades now. I have been inside the church before. I took the boys here for the Christmas Spectacular back in 2005. I used to do Christmas Spectaculars with some regularity back when the boys were little. The one at Carmel Baptist was very solid. 

Capturing the full scale of the church and school is very hard to do, as it's a simply massive place. There appear to be no aerial views of the church on the internet. But here are the pictures that give you a sense of the scale of the place.

The video accounts for a small segment of the campus, but it shows most of the main building.

This church has three services - 8 am, 9:30 am and 11 am. We went to the first service. It was at 8 am. As has been observed many times by this blog, the churches that are part of the Southern Baptist Convention are undergoing massive changes. There is a major effort for Baptist churches to reinvent themselves in both format and style. Because of this, many of the Baptist churches I have visited don't use the word "Baptist" in their name.

Carmel Baptist Church does.

The 8 am service was actually well-attended. I think that the sanctuary can seat at least two-thousand people. There were probably five hundred in attendance. That's a solid number of people for an 8 am service.

The music was great, even though it was a bit more staid than we might be used to at this point. The worship leader is Australian, giving the performance a bit of a Hillsong vibe. You will notice in the foreground that the band is more animated than the congregation itself. This is something I have observed is the case at most of the Baptist churches that I have attended - a general reticence to lift their hands during worship. Two exceptions have been Mercy Church and Citizens Church, both of which have very young congregations.

The sermon was excellent, given by Pastor Alex Kennedy [link]. 

The sermon was on Acts 8.

Here is the full text, read the whole thing:

___________________

8 And Saul approved of their killing him.

The Church Persecuted and Scattered

On that day a great persecution broke out against the church in Jerusalem, and all except the apostles were scattered throughout Judea and Samaria. ² Godly men buried Stephen and mourned deeply for him. ³ But Saul began to destroy the church. Going from house to house, he dragged off both men and women and put them in prison.

Philip in Samaria

⁴ Those who had been scattered preached the word wherever they went. ⁵ Philip went down to a city in Samaria and proclaimed the Messiah there. ⁶ When the crowds heard Philip and saw the signs he performed, they all paid close attention to what he said. ⁷ For with shrieks, impure spirits came out of many, and many who were paralyzed or lame were healed. ⁸ So there was great joy in that city.

Simon the Sorcerer

⁹ Now for some time a man named Simon had practiced sorcery in the city and amazed all the people of Samaria. He boasted that he was someone great, ¹⁰ and all the people, both high and low, gave him their attention and exclaimed, “This man is rightly called the Great Power of God.” ¹¹ They followed him because he had amazed them for a long time with his sorcery. ¹² But when they believed Philip as he proclaimed the good news of the kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ, they were baptized, both men and women. ¹³ Simon himself believed and was baptized. And he followed Philip everywhere, astonished by the great signs and miracles he saw.

¹⁴ When the apostles in Jerusalem heard that Samaria had accepted the word of God, they sent Peter and John to Samaria. ¹⁵ When they arrived, they prayed for the new believers there that they might receive the Holy Spirit, ¹⁶ because the Holy Spirit had not yet come on any of them; they had simply been baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. ¹⁷ Then Peter and John placed their hands on them, and they received the Holy Spirit.

¹⁸ When Simon saw that the Spirit was given at the laying on of the apostles’ hands, he offered them money ¹⁹ and said, “Give me also this ability so that everyone on whom I lay my hands may receive the Holy Spirit.”

²⁰ Peter answered: “May your money perish with you, because you thought you could buy the gift of God with money! ²¹ You have no part or share in this ministry, because your heart is not right before God. ²² Repent of this wickedness and pray to the Lord in the hope that he may forgive you for having such a thought in your heart. ²³ For I see that you are full of bitterness and captive to sin.”

²⁴ Then Simon answered, “Pray to the Lord for me so that nothing you have said may happen to me.”

²⁵ After they had further proclaimed the word of the Lord and testified about Jesus, Peter and John returned to Jerusalem, preaching the gospel in many Samaritan villages.

Philip and the Ethiopian

²⁶ Now an angel of the Lord said to Philip, “Go south to the road—the desert road—that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza.” ²⁷ So he started out, and on his way he met an Ethiopian eunuch, an important official in charge of all the treasury of the Kandake (which means “queen of the Ethiopians”). This man had gone to Jerusalem to worship, ²⁸ and on his way home was sitting in his chariot reading the Book of Isaiah the prophet. ²⁹ The Spirit told Philip, “Go to that chariot and stay near it.”

³⁰ Then Philip ran up to the chariot and heard the man reading Isaiah the prophet. “Do you understand what you are reading?” Philip asked.

³¹ “How can I,” he said, “unless someone explains it to me?” So, he invited Philip to come up and sit with him.

³² This is the passage of Scripture the eunuch was reading:

“He was led like a sheep to the slaughter,
    and as a lamb before its shearer is silent,
    so he did not open his mouth.
³³ In his humiliation he was deprived of justice.
    Who can speak of his descendants?
    For his life was taken from the earth.”^[b]

³⁴ The eunuch asked Philip, “Tell me, please, who is the prophet talking about, himself or someone else?” ³⁵ Then Philip began with that very passage of Scripture and told him the good news about Jesus.

³⁶ As they traveled along the road, they came to some water and the eunuch said, “Look, here is water. What can stand in the way of my being baptized?” ^[37] [38] And he gave orders to stop the chariot. Then both Philip and the eunuch went down into the water and Philip baptized him. ³⁹ When they came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord suddenly took Philip away, and the eunuch did not see him again, but went on his way rejoicing. ⁴⁰ Philip, however, appeared at Azotus and traveled about, preaching the gospel in all the towns until he reached Caesarea.

___________________

These are important points that Pastor Kennedy extrapolated out into really interesting ideas.

The point that I was so impressed with was when Pastor Kennedy pointed out that there is a subtext of racial reconciliation in these verses. This is because it shows Jews and Samaritans undergoing a common transformation after Yeshua was resurrected.

And Samaritans and Jews were two peoples with a common ancestry and common disdain for each other.

In the history of the Jewish people, there have been multiple captivities during which they have lived in a diaspora. Egypt is one of the most well-known, where Moses led the Hebrews out of Egypt. Perhaps slightly less well-known is the Babylonian Captivity, during which the Jews were conquered and a large number of their people were brought to Babylon. This happened in the late 6th century BC. 

As the Northern Kingdom of Samaria established itself and the Southern Kingdom of Judea re-established themselves after the Babylonian Captivity, there was an antagonism that arose from the fact that the Samaritans had mixed their blood with Babylonians. The Jews in Judea had not co-mingled with non-Jews. 

In essence, Samaritans were half breeds in the eyes of the Jews. And Jews were the enemy to many Samaritans.

In some sources I have read, the antagonism is described as a form of hatred.

There was an ethnic drift that took place between the previously unified community of ancient Jews. Samaritans and Jews had branched from each other in terms of their ethnic makeup, even though both Samaritans and Jews are all ancestors of the twelve sons of Jacob (the man whose name was eventually changed to "Israel" - which means "struggles with God").

When this is a known facet of the dynamic between groups in the ancient Middle East, it informs how you read some of the stories in the Bible.

Yeshua told the parable of the man who had been beaten, robbed and left by the side of the road to die. Who helped this young Hebrew? A Samaritan did. 

The Samaritan put aside any of the ethnic hatred he had been taught and saw the injured man as a fellow human... he saw someone in need.

___________________

The Parable of the Good Samaritan

²⁵ On one occasion an expert in the law stood up to test Jesus. “Teacher,” he asked, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?”

²⁶ “What is written in the Law?” he replied. “How do you read it?”

²⁷ He answered, “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’^[a]; and, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’^[b]”

²⁸ “You have answered correctly,” Jesus replied. “Do this and you will live.”

²⁹ But he wanted to justify himself, so he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?”

³⁰ In reply Jesus said: “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, when he was attacked by robbers. They stripped him of his clothes, beat him and went away, leaving him half dead. ³¹ A priest happened to be going down the same road, and when he saw the man, he passed by on the other side. ³² So too, a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. ³³ But a Samaritan, as he traveled, came where the man was; and when he saw him, he took pity on him. ³⁴ He went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he put the man on his own donkey, brought him to an inn and took care of him. ³⁵ The next day he took out two denarii^[c] and gave them to the innkeeper. ‘Look after him,’ he said, ‘and when I return, I will reimburse you for any extra expense you may have.’

³⁶ “Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?”

³⁷ The expert in the law replied, “The one who had mercy on him.”

Jesus told him, “Go and do likewise.”

___________________

A Samaritan helping a Jew! Fellow Jews ignored the man and walked past him. 

This is a picture of compassionate reconciliation between people despite the divisions that the world had fostered between them. 

It was also an indictment of the Jewish Priests and Levites who were the ecclesiastical authority of the day - people that Jesus called liars, vipers and hypocrites (He was not a fan).

A second story where this as a subtext is the meeting of Yeshua and the woman at the well. She was a Samaritan, He was a Jew.

___________________

Jesus Talks With a Samaritan Woman

9 The Samaritan woman said to him, “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?” (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.

..............

19 “Sir,” the woman said, “I can see that you are a prophet. 20 Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem.”

21 “Woman,” Jesus replied, “believe me, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. 22 You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. 23 Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. 24 God is spirit, and His worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.”

25 The woman said, “I know that Messiah” (called Christ) “is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us.”

26 Then Jesus declared, “I, the one speaking to you—I am He.”

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Again, there is a subtext of transcending divisions in both of these stories. The characters were being coaxed out of their ingrained enmity by the Risen One. The characters were taught to go beyond their mundane concerns and connect with each other as children of God. 

The Risen One called them (and now, calls us) to meet in the broad field of unity that is called the Body of Christ.

Indeed, we are one - as stated in Galatians 3:28, "There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ."

A lesson two thousand years ago, and certainly a lesson today.

Now back to the Book of Acts, chapter 8. 

Phillip, a Jew, traveled to Samaria to share the Good News with the Samaritans.

Phillip then encountered an Ethiopian eunuch during which the Good News was imparted to the East African. The Holy Spirit had moved Phillip across a point of division that was immediately transcended. 

Then Phillip baptized the Ethiopian man.

This is one of many such connections that brought Orthodox Christianity to Ethiopia nearly two thousand years ago. 

A few weeks ago, I worshipped with Ethiopian Christians. I, someone whose ancestry is almost exclusively from the British Isles, shared both prayer and community with other Christians who all hail from East Africa. It happened on Idlewild Road here in Charlotte.

What lavish love is it that brings people of disparate backgrounds into a common faith in the news of an Empty Grave on which the entirety of the universe pivoted?

Indeed, we are one in Christ.

Such revelations happen time and again.

Such lavish love...

May we all stay bound together in unity through sufferings of all sorts, infused with a sense of joy.

Such extravagant love.

After the sermon was over, we all took communion. I very much enjoy doing that with Beth.

Then we went to Freedom House later in the morning and had a great worship. I got a ticket for parking poorly in South End. Someone from the first service saw my Freedom House sticker and left the cash equivalent of the ticket amount, along with a note that said, "Happy Sunday. Meter maids suck."

Made me smile!

Indeed, who are we that a King would leave His position of glory and die for us?

Who, indeed?

Amen.