Misunderstanding Miracles

The Psalm appointed for this evening Psalm 86 echoes the goodness and the blessing of God: "But you, Lord, are God, compassionate and gracious, long suffering, ever-faithful and true." (Psalm 86:15)

This Psalm of praise recognises, probably in the depths of despair for the psalmist, the goodness of our God, a God who is appeased not by sacrifices of bulls or wreathes as presented by the people of Lystria, but by obedience, "you are kind and forgiving, full of love towards all who cry to you" (Psalm 86:5), recognise as the Palmist says that when goodness comes into your lives that it is God who blesses you, and do not force the saints to despair and rip their clothes by putting it down to matters of this world, or of a false world.

This is the first lesson I learn from Lystria.

There is more to learn from this passage:

Paul and Barnabus faced numerous trials and difficulties during their ministry: beatings, whippings, public humiliation and the ever-presence threat of violent death. They did not shy away from that, they proudly proclaimed the Gospel of Christ from the centre of Athens and from the gates of smaller places like Lystria: a place so heathen that it clearly didn’t even have a synagogue for them to start from.

They were brave enough not to get caught up in the proposed pagan festivities, not to go along with what was happening, to show deep shame and humility and to stand against their new titles. How much easier it might have been for them to say “Okay, I am Hermes, and I bring you a new message, a message about Jesus Christ…” No. It was a principle. They stood out and they got severely beaten for it.

This lesson becomes apparent to me as we face the end of this year: a date which is more of an accident of mathematics than a spiritually significant date. In common with the increasing secularisation of society, the millennium has become a secular, almost pagan festival: a multi-faith “Spirit Zone” rather than the call to repentance that the first Millennium was. I read a recent letter that asked the poignant question: the first Millennium kick-started the creation of the greatest Cathedrals in Europe. Has anyone even built an altar, let alone a Church anywhere in commemoration of the Second? Are we brave enough like Paul and Barnabus to rip our clothes and point out in embarrassment that Jesus is the reason for this season, that the year 2000 is an arbitrary event in relation to the message of Christ and perhaps pedantically, the Millennium doesn’t actually happen until January 2001 anyway.

This passage calls us to stand against the tide of public opinion. And that is not always comfortable. St. John Chrysostom in one of his homilies on the book of Acts (Homily 31) remarks on the vehemence of how they turn against Paul and Barnabus, how they turn their embarrassment at their mistake into an almost persecuting violence: beating Paul so badly that he was left for dead. How often, he comments, do we do the same: attacking the Church, or worse, the image of Christ itself when it shows up our shortcomings: because we are embarrassed by our failure we attack.