Moved by the Spirit

You have heard the phrase: "God moves in mysterious ways." It is true. God’s love is always moving out in mysterious ways, in the flesh, in Jesus, in us.

I bet many of you saw the movie, The Nativity Story, like I did. It was definitely not like the action-packed movies we are used to seeing on the big screen (the guy next to me was snoring), but it told the Christmas story in the same under-stated way that scripture tells it.

Because how can you really depict the amazing fact that the creator of everything moves out of the heavens into the womb of a teenaged girl and is born into this world in a tiny, vulnerable newborn baby?! But that is exactly what the angel Gabriel announced to Mary:

I didn’t think Mary was nearly expressive enough in the movie after she received that news. She didn’t say anything. In fact, she doesn’t say much of anything in the whole movie. Except soon after the scandal of her pregnancy hits Nazareth, Mary leaves town (smart woman) and goes to stay with her cousin Elizabeth, who is also miraculously pregnant with John the Baptist. They share their amazement over what God is doing in their lives, and Mary says to Elizabeth, "Why would God want to use a nobody like me?"

Good question. Why would God want to use a nobody like her? And why would God show up in a nobody like Jesus? A suffering Messiah who was the opposite of what everybody wanted?

God moves in mysterious ways. It is what we all saw in the nativity story and the Jesus story. And we see it again in the Pentecost story in Acts as God’s Spirit, "the power of the Most High," comes upon Jesus’ followers, and the same thing happens all over again: God moves out, in mysterious ways, in the flesh, in us.

Acts 8:26-40

God moves, in mysterious ways, in and through us.

Jesus told them it would happen, right before he ascended into the clouds after his resurrection (Acts 1:4-8). What he said to them was a lot like what the angel told Mary:

Isn’t that exactly what happened next? Jesus’ followers were praying, praying, praying in that upper room after Jesus left, waiting for "it" to happen, whatever "it" was. And when it did, when the Holy Spirit came upon

them, they couldn’t stay put. They moved. They moved out of the room to the street where all these international Jewish pilgrims were waiting for an explanation of what in the heck was going on. And the church was born.

And then once the church was established in Jerusalem and all was going swimmingly. They added to their number every day; they enjoyed the good favor of all (Acts 2:43-45). But all of a sudden the tables turned, and they were being persecuted and their leaders were being killed. The Christians fled from the city, and the good news of God’s love in Jesus Christ went with them, out of Jerusalem to Samaria and the ends of the earth.

But wait a minute. That’s not the way the story is supposed to go. Isaiah said that all people would stream toward Jerusalem, not away from it. All nations shall come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your dawn (Isa. 60:1). That’s the way it always had been, people came to Jerusalem to worship God.

But now the Spirit of God is moving them out, out of Jerusalem like Jesus said, out into Samaria of all places where the heretics lived (they never went to Samaria!). Out to the Gentiles of all people, the Godless heathens (they never rubbed shoulders with a Gentile!). Out to the ends of the earth.

God moves, in mysterious ways. God’s good news in Jesus Christ moves out in ways that would never even occur to us.

Whose idea was it anyway for Philip to head down that wilderness road in the middle of the heat of the day? Not his. Ministry was going well for him in Samaria, right where he was. Crowds of people were listening eagerly to everything he had to say about Jesus being God’s Messiah. He was casting out demons and curing the sick in Jesus’ name. People were coming to faith and being baptized left and right. It was unbelievable. Why leave now?

But that’s what God’s angel told Philip to do. He told him to go down to an empty stretch of desert road where nobody was, in the middle of the heat of the day when nobody traveled. And yet, lo and behold, there in the desert sat an Ethiopian eunuch in his royal carriage reading from the scroll of Isaiah!

By the way, to say that he was an Ethiopian was the same as saying that he was from Timbuktu, the ends of the earth, presumably a black African. To say that he was a eunuch was to say that his sexuality had been altered enough to make him unwelcome in the temple courts (Deut. 23:1).

But there he was, reading from Jesus’ favorite prophet, something about a lamb being led to his death. Philip just happened to be right there when he was reading those verses, and he asks if he understands what he’s reading. This highly educated man, reading from a Hebrew scroll (who carried a manuscript of Isaiah around with him?!), gladly admits that he needs Philip’s instruction. So, Philip tells him what he knows about Jesus and how he died and who he is.

It turns out that this Ethiopian eunuch was so ripe and ready for this good news that he begs to be baptized. But where are they going to find water out in that desert wasteland? What do you know?! There’s a stream! And the story ends with the good news of Jesus Christ taking up residence in this end-of-the-earth Ethiopian eunuch, and he goes back to his homeland filled with the joy of the Lord. The wildfire of God’s love moves out over the established barriers of the day.

That’s what God does: God moves out, takes us out of our worshiping communities to bring the good news to others, often to people "not like us."

For several years, the Presbyterian Church in Visalia has been gathering its leaders together like we are doing tonight to listen to how the Spirit of God is moving them out. They have a strong commitment to prayer and

they have been gathering together as a leadership community three times a year and asking God to guide them. Rich Hansen, their pastor, told me that the message they keep getting over and over is that God is leading them to people "not like us." Sure enough, those are the doors that are opening for them: to work with the downtown Rescue Mission, they are planting a new house church in a poor neighborhood in Visalia, they were even able to buy the bar next door (Bogart’s & LuLu) and have plans to use that for outreach.

These were not things they would have expected or planned, but God moves, in mysterious ways, in Jesus Christ, in the power of the Spirit, in and through us, like he did in Philip.

Later in Acts (21:8) we find Philip in his hometown of Caesarea with his four daughters, and he is called "Philip the evangelist." I bet he didn’t initially think of himself as an evangelist any more than Mary did. He was just one of the deacons in the church (Acts 6:5), a family man who was "full of faith and the Holy Spirit."

But when the power of God’s Spirit comes upon you, you move out embodying the good news. That is what God does. That is what happened in the nativity story when Mary said, "Let it be with me according to your word." That is what happened in the Pentecost story when Philip was totally open to what the angel was telling him to do. And that is what is happening in the Visalia church story as well.

Whenever we open ourselves up to the power of God’s Spirit at work in us saying, "Let it be with me according to your word," God moves us out from our established places of worship to evangelism, embodying the good news.

You might be thinking, "Oh no! Not me! I don’t do that! I’m not that kind of personality. I’m too shy for that. I don’t know the bible well enough. I’ve never even read Isaiah."

Notice that evangelism isn’t something that they decided to do. It wasn’t some kind of radical commitment to be more inclusive. It wasn’t some kind of church growth program. Evangelism is never our idea. It wasn’t Mary’s. It wasn’t Philip’s. It wasn’t Rich Hansen’s or the church’s in Visalia.

Evangelism is God’s idea and God’s heart and God’s leading and God’s program for God’s people. And it’s God’s Spirit that does all the work. We just need to be ready to walk through the unusual doors God opens for us, moving us out "beyond this corner" with the good news of Jesus Christ.

God moves, in mysterious ways, in the flesh, in and through us. We saw it in the nativity story and the Jesus story and the Pentecost story, and if we are God’s people filled with God’s Spirit, we will see it in our story.

When this church got started in 1955, most people in this country went to church every Sunday and were committed to a certain mainline denomination, like Presbyterian. In fact, this church got started because people wanted a Presbyterian Church in San Carlos.

At that time the mission field was overseas, in Africa and China, and we sent missionaries there. But that’s not the way it is today. Joseph Small, Coordinator for the Office of Theology and Worship, PC(USA), writes:

But God is still moving, in unexpected ways. Today Africa and China are on fire with the good news of Jesus Christ. And the mission field? It is right here. God is opening doors for us right here.

It is not our doing or our program, it’s God’s. We just need to make sure we are listening and attentive to where God’s Spirit is taking us today.

How do we do that? God has given us the same gifts that God gave to the Ethiopian eunuch: the word and community. When we are regularly in God’s Word in worship and small groups and in prayer, the power of the Holy Spirit moves us out with the good news, in unexpected and exciting ways.

Why would God use a nobody like me? I don’t know. But I pray that we will respond like Mary did, like Philip did: let it be done with us according to your word! Amen.