What a difference a year makes! Just one short year. Just twelve months. It is not long, but it can make a difference. It can be one year toward eternity.
Just one short year ago I was still in my 60’s, but now I have started a new decade! Adrien and Barbara, I hope I do not show it too badly! A year can make a difference – more gray hair, more sag in the old face, more drag in the weary body! What a difference a year makes!
A year ago we American voters were all caught up with Rudy, Mike, Fred, Mitt, Joe, John, and Chris, as well as Hillary, Barack, and the other John; and now there are only three. Most of us cannot even remember the last names of all the others! What a difference a year makes!
A year ago, we were getting worried because gasoline prices were averaging a little more than $2.50 a gallon in Maryland. I know I thought that was high because I can remember the days when it sold for less than thirty cents a gallon! I told you I am 70 years old, so you can guess how far back that was. But a year ago, $2.50 a gallon; today I just about had to mortgage the house in order to fill up the car at about a dollar more per gallon. What a difference a year makes!
A year ago you who were a fellowship of believers organized yourselves into a church. Only a year ago there were just a few of you, but you had a vision, you knew the need, you exercised your faith, and today look at you! Pastor Adrien has told me of all that the Lord has done among you – the baptisms, the growth, those who have committed themselves to work with children, the health fair, all that you are doing. What a difference a year makes! What a wonderful, joyful difference! It is one year toward eternity.
In the New Testament, in the Book of Acts, I found a story that I believe illustrates your one year pilgrimage and reminds us of what a difference just one year can make. It is the story of the gathering of a new church in Antioch and of the impact they made on the world.
I
Notice, first, that the church in Antioch was started by people who had fled from persecution. In Jerusalem, the center of the early Christian movement, there had been an explosion of violence, and it had caught Stephen the deacon in its trap. Stephen became the first person to die for his Christian faith. But the enemies of the church were not content with taking the life of Stephen; they were after more blood. They wanted to smash this young Jesus movement before it could spread. And so violence, hatred, persecution. The believers had no choice but to scatter – to Phoenicia, Cyprus, and Antioch. It was no easy thing to move to a new place, a new culture, a new language. It was a difficult, wrenching move.
Many of you know what that is about. Some of you are exiles. Some of you did not choose to leave your native lands; you left because you felt the iron hand of political oppression. Some of you chose to leave, but it was a reluctant choice, for you knew that in order for you to get an education, you would have to leave; in order for you to feed your families, you would have to move; in order for you to live out your dreams, you would have to turn your backs on your homelands. And so you did. Not an easy thing to do.
But you came to the United States, the land of immigrants. Almost all of us have ancestors who came here from other places and for reasons that were not pleasant. My English and Welsh ancestors came because they sought religious freedom. My German-Hessian ancestors came because they were poor and thought that they could make a new start in America – which they did, after they ran away from King George’s hired army and got a grant of land from the new American nation. The Irish came because of crop failures, the Poles and the Russians came because they were starving and, particularly if they were Jewish, they were persecuted. And the Africans came – ah, you know how the Africans came; it remains a shame and a blight on our history that the Africans came compelled to be slaves. But even that makes my point – that you have come to a nation that, in its history, does understand that if people want to breathe free air, they must sometimes leave home.
And so I would guess that many of you, like those first believers who ran to Antioch, came here and braved a new world, a new culture, a different language, all sorts of financial and cultural challenges. You would have preferred to stay at home; but you could not.
Yet remember what our faith teaches us. Remember what Joseph said to his brothers in the Book of Genesis, when they had forced him to leave home and had sold him into slavery in Egypt. Joseph prospered and then told his brothers what it was all about: “You meant it for evil; but God meant it for good, to save many people alive.” Brothers and sisters, you have had to leave home; but you are here for a reason, and in God’s own way and in God’s good time you will understand it. God means it for good, to save you and keep you alive. You have lived now one year toward eternity.
II
Now what interests me in this story of the church in Antioch is that the Bible says that at first the believers spoke only to Jews. That means they stayed with their own kind of people. They didn’t venture out much. They were more comfortable with folks who looked like them, spoke as they spoke, believed what they believed. “They spoke the word to no one except Jews.”
Some years ago, my wife was ministering to international students at The American University in Washington. She had a special program for the wives and the children of the men who were studying at the university. She did this because she found out that while their husbands were in class or at the library, hour after hour, these wives and children from other nations sat in their apartments and saw no one. They did not get out because they did not speak much English and did not drive a car. They did not interact with others because they did not know whom to trust and whom to suspect. They lived to themselves. And so Margaret created a time and a group to which they could come and meet others and learn how to make lives for themselves here in America.
I imagine it was something like that for these first believers. They did not know whether they could trust the Syrians, the Romans, the Greeks, all the other people in that cosmopolitan city. So they stayed to themselves. But watch what happened. Look at what God had in store for them.
“Among them were some men of Cyprus and Cyrene who, on coming to Antioch, spoke to the Hellenists also, proclaiming the Lord Jesus. The hand of the Lord was with them, and a great number became believers and turned to the Lord.” A few people spoke up. A few brave souls decided to reach out. And so they reached out beyond the Jews and started sharing Christ with the Hellenists – that would be the Greeks and the Syrians and the Romans who had taken on Greek language and culture. They reached out, they shared Christ across those barriers, and what happened? God blessed them, many believed and turned to Christ.
How important it is to be a pioneer! How critical it is that someone break across the barriers and begin to reach out for others who seem to be different. Think about your own histories and nationalities – how many countries are represented here today? I know of Congo and Cameroon, how many others? Now to American eyes you all seem to be the same, but I know that you are not. To American eyes, you all look like Africans and you speak French, and so we think that is all there is to it. But that’s not so, is it? Congo is not Cameroon and Chad is not Niger. Am I right that there are sixteen countries in Francophone Africa, and they differ widely in culture? Indeed, I know that even within those countries there are strong cultural differences. Some of my church members when I was a pastor in Washington were from Cameroon, and they told me that there were more than 200 tribal languages in that one nation alone! You have many differences among you.
But like those men of Cyprus and Cyrene, there in Antioch, you have reached out to one another across the cultural barriers. You have reached out to one another despite political differences between your homelands. You have learned that you can and you must support one another, for there is no difference so great and no gap so wide that the love of Christ Jesus cannot bridge it. You are learning what we are still struggling to learn in America – that we who belong to Christ have more in common with one another than any racial group, ethnic group, language group, or social class. We have Christ. And therefore we have the one thing most needed.
I think about my own neighborhood. On our street we have English speakers and Spanish speakers. We have black folks and white folks and Asian folks. No Africans yet, but come on over, you would be welcome! I have something in common with all of those neighbors; we live in the same street. And yet, when I have a profound need, on whom do I call? When my heart is distressed and my spirit is troubled, do I just walk across the road and find somebody who looks like me? I do not. I find a brother or a sister in Christ. I go to someone in my church, because I know that we share the one thing most important in all the world. We share Christ. And that matters most of all.
And so, just as believers in Antioch reached out and witnessed to Christ with others outside their own little group, so also you have reached out to one another. The believers in Antioch got a new identity, a new name – they were the first to be called “Christians”. Not Jews or Greeks or Romans or Phoenicians or whatever else, but Christians.
And so you are a new people too. You are Salem Gospel Ministries. You belong to one another. You will always belong to one another. You have been together one year; it is one year toward eternity.
III
But the Antioch church received one more element in its life, and I particularly want to point this out to you. The Bible tells us that when the believers of Antioch began to grow, word came to the ears of the church at Jerusalem. The folks left behind heard that something new was going on out in Antioch.
And so first came Barnabas – maybe you know that his very name means “son of encouragement” – first came Barnabas to encourage them and help them move forward. And then Barnabas reached out and brought Saul of Tarsus. The world knows Saul of Tarsus today as the great apostle Paul, whose magnificent mind shaped the Christian faith as no other. And the Book of Acts says that Barnabas and Paul met “for an entire year with the church and taught a great many people.”
What a happy blending of needs and gifts that was! A little band of believers willing to accept the encouragement given by Barnabas and the teaching brought by Paul! What a magnificent year that must have been – growing in numbers, deepening their understanding, learning to trust those whom the Lord had given to them! Nothing is finer than the connection of people and pastors when all labor together toward the Kingdom of Christ.
What a happy year you have had, Salem Gospel Ministries! And in no small measure because you have had Barnabas and Saul, Adrien and David, to care for you, lead you, teach you, guide you, and point you in the right direction. What a magnificent year you have had – growing in numbers, deepening your understanding, learning to trust those whom the Lord has given you. Nothing is finer than this. And all the signs tell me that this one year will be the first of many, one year toward eternity.
One year toward eternity as you embrace one another and trust one another. One year toward eternity as you reach out and find others who need support and need the Gospel. One year toward eternity as you accept the leadership of your pastors, who care deeply for you. One year toward eternity if, in the providence of God, Salem Gospel Ministries, you will know that your very identity, your name, your very existence is a gift of God the Father through Jesus Christ the Redeemer, confirmed by the presence of the Holy Spirit. This has been not just one year, but one year toward eternity.
