September 16, 2018 “Unhindered” – Acts 28:11-31

Acts 28:11-31
“Unhindered”
September 16, 2018 – Seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost

“And so we came to Rome.” This little sentence in verse 14 is the climax of the book of Acts. We saw the Holy Spirit arrive, then met with the first Christians in little gatherings in homes. We watched persecution scatter them around Palestine. We walked with Paul and Barnabas across Turkey and Greece. We sailed over the Mediterranean with him in a storm. We’ve witnessed miracles and beatings, kindness from strangers and murder plots hatched by Paul’s own people. Riots and prison and shipwreck. After all of that we come now at the end to Luke’s simple, understated finale, “And so we came to Rome.”

Leading up to that arrival is Luke’s typically detailed itinerary of the last stage of the journey. Paul, Luke, Aristarchus and the Roman guards spent three months where we left them last week, on Malta. Sailing was impossible in the winter. So in a new year, likely February of A.D. 60, they boarded another huge Alexandrian grain ship and sailed north. All went well this time.

The first port was a three day stopover in Syracuse on Sicily. Then on to Rhegium, right on the toe of Italy’s boot. A favorable wind came up the next day and they sailed up the western coast, finally dropping anchor at Puteoli, which is modern Puzzuoli, 150 miles south of Rome. After a week’s rest in the company of a group of Christians there, they set out on foot. Just a few miles’ travel put them on the famous Appian Way, the first and greatest of the Roman roads.

Thirty-three miles outside of Rome, at the Three Taverns, Paul was met by a band of Roman Christians. They hurried for a whole day’s journey out of the city to greet him. After all his trials, verse 15 says Paul “thanked God and took courage.” Verse 16 describes his final situation in Rome. Instead of being taken to a prison, Paul was allowed his own lodging by himself under house arrest, chained to a guard. “And so we came to Rome.”

Jarislav Pelikan, a great historian of theology, says the little phrase “and so we came to Rome” make Acts the original tale of two cities. In Acts 1:4 Jesus told the disciples, “not to leave Jerusalem, but wait there…” Jerusalem and Rome are the two poles of the beginnings of the Christian church. Through all twenty-eight chapters of the book, the Gospel of Jesus Christ has been leaving Jerusalem and traveling to Rome.

The journey from Jerusalem to Rome is not just geographical. It’s a cultural and spiritual journey. From being a tiny heretical sect splintered off the faith of a small nation on the outskirts of civilization, the Good News about Jesus traveled to a place where it became the official religion of the whole western world.

We see that transition happening even in these last few verses of the book. One final time in Acts, Paul followed his unbending pattern of first bringing the Good News to God’s chosen people. Verse 17 tells us that after three days in Rome he called together the Jewish leadership. He told them the story of his trials and captivity. In verses 21 and 22, they profess no knowledge of him at all, but agree to meet with him and hear his message.

In verse 23 Paul spends a whole day, from morning until night, explaining from the Scriptures how Jesus had come to bring in the kingdom of God. His preaching of the kingdom of God, says Pelikan, is another “bookend” for Acts. Back in Acts 1:6, the disciples asked Jesus if He was then going to “restore the kingdom to Israel.” Now Paul is testifying that the kingdom is in fact here, in the person of Jesus.

Verse 24 records “Some were convinced.” But overall, the reception of his message was disappointing. His final statement to that gathering of Jews in Rome is a quotation from Isaiah 6, verses 9 and 10. The first part says,

You will be indeed listen but never understand;
you will indeed look, but never perceive.”
For this people’s heart has grown dull;
and their ears are hard of hearing,
and they have shut their eyes.

These words, in fact, shut down the Jerusalem end of the Christian story. Not that there were no Christians in Jerusalem. Not that it did not continue to play a role in the history of the Church. But what began in Jerusalem had come to Rome. From then on, Rome would be the center of the Christian faith. The Jewish people, by their own choice, would become minor characters in the story. Paul said in verse 28 “Let it be known to you then that this salvation of God has been sent to the Gentiles; they will listen.”

It was there in Rome that Christianity became fully and completely catholic. No, I don’t mean what that word often means today, a particular denomination and church organization centered around the Pope and the hierarchy under him. No, I mean the literal and original meaning of “catholic,” something like “universal.” It’s why the word was applied to the church in the first place. Christianity is a religion for everyone, for the whole world, for every culture and race on the planet—that’s what “catholic” means.

Jesus was not just for Jews. He was not even just for Greeks. We saw last week how Paul brought the healing power of Christ to folks regarded as barbarians on Malta. Our faith is a catholic faith. It’s for everyone. Jesus is not just for Americans. He’s not just for white Americans. He’s not just for middle class Americans who have good jobs and health insurance. Jesus is for everyone, from addicts and prostitutes on Sixth Avenue to hipster liberal students and professors at the University. Jesus is for hundreds of millions in China and India who haven’t heard about Him and He is for millions of Muslims who have heard about Him but don’t really know who He is. When Paul came to Rome, the whole world opened up for the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

The first time I saw the Grand Canyon it was a long hard, 3-hour drive to get there. My grandmother took my sister and me. A blinding thunderstorm forced us to pull off the road and wait till it was over. Grandma forgot her purse and we had no money to enter the park when we arrived. We had to turn back and return the next day. But when we finally got there, when after driving through desert and dry pine forest we pulled into a parking area with a little guard rail, I jumped out of the car and looked out on a vast new vista that I immediately wanted to explore. I wanted to climb down in and see that glimpse of a river at the bottom up close. I wanted to get to the other side and see what was there. I wanted to crawl up and down all those different colored rocks and learn their textures.

So I did. Arriving at the Canyon that day was not the end of a journey. It was the beginning. Over my life I’ve gone back again and again. I been down in the Grand Canyon. I’ve drunk water out of the river at the bottom. I’ve walked across and climbed up the other side to the North Rim which is higher, cooler and, I think, more beautiful than the South Rim where most tourists go. That first visit was only the beginning.

Paul’s arrival in Rome, and these closing verses of Acts, are not the end of a story, but a beginning. The Gospel of Jesus Christ does not have an end. Just new beginnings. From Rome, the Good News went wherever the Roman Empire touched. To Spain, to Germany, to England in the west. To Constantinople and on eastward. To Alexandria and Egypt and down into Africa. Rome was the beginning. It was Jesus’ door to the world. And that’s why Luke doesn’t tell us what ultimately happened to Paul.

It’s the big question we want to ask at this point. What’s the end of Paul’s story? What about his trial before Caesar? What about his desire to go on to Spain? Was he released? Was he executed? How did it all end?

At a beautiful church in Rome, St. Paul Outside the Walls, you can see a replica of what is supposed to be Paul’s tomb. Some believe his actual remains were discovered there in Vatican archaeological excavations in 2005. Yet what happened? When did he die? Where? No one really knows.

Luke tells us Paul remained in Rome for two full years. After that, there are two possibilities. Paul came before Caesar and was sentenced to death, or he was acquitted. Some scholars believe the first, others the latter. The great weight of tradition is that Paul was acquitted and released, in 62 A.D. He continued his missionary travels and went to Spain. Then he came back to Rome and was beheaded “outside the walls” by Nero in 64 or 65 A.D., in a terrible persecution of Christians after the great fire of Rome. But once again, no one really knows for sure. Luke didn’t tell us. All he says is:

He lived there two whole years at his own expense and welcomed all who came to see him, proclaiming the kingdom of God and teaching about the Lord Jesus Christ with all boldness and without hindrance.

You and I read Acts and get wrapped up in the personalities. We are captivated by Peter’s transformation from a brash young fisherman into a great preacher, miracle worker and leader of the Church. We suffer with Stephen as he is stoned. Our own hearts are torn in the dispute between Barnabas and Paul. Women rejoice in the role of Lydia. We laugh at poor Eutychus falling asleep during a sermon. And for more than half the book we travel with Paul and hang on everything he says and does. But if we go back to the beginning, we realize that Paul is not the hero of Acts. None of these people are the heroes of Acts. The real and only hero of the story is Jesus Christ and His Good News. That is what Paul is all about as the story ends, “proclaiming the kingdom of God and teaching about the Lord Jesus Christ.” That’s what Acts is about—the first great proclamation of Jesus Christ—how His story came to Rome and thus went from there out to the whole world.

So despite what Peter Parker says at the end of Spider Man II, the Good News of Acts, the Good News of Jesus is not that there is a hero inside each of us, just waiting to be found. Our Good News is that the great hero Jesus Christ has come and found us and made us His people. That’s what Acts is about.

Paul was a great Christian, even heroic, but his heroics are not the heart of this story. Look at him there at the end of Acts. He’s in the greatest city on earth and all he sees of it is one little house. He lives constantly at the end of a chain. He never goes out to converse in the Forum, the great cultural center of Rome. He never sees the huge spectacles in the Circus Maximus. He doesn’t get to debate with the philosopher Seneca or discuss politics with the Roman Senate. All he does is sit in a little house and talk about Jesus to whoever will come and visit him.

Yet Luke says Paul spoke “with all boldness and without hindrance.” The last word of the book of Acts is “unhindered.” That’s where the whole story has brought Paul at last, to a small house on the edge of a vast world still waiting to hear, where he can speak the Gospel of Jesus Christ unhindered. He didn’t get there by a great battle for liberty. He didn’t get there by defeating his foes. He got there almost by accident.

Paul came to Rome being wrongly accused by his enemies. He got there by false arrest and imprisonment. He got there caught up as a pawn in the great machine of an empire. He got there blown around the Mediterranean Sea in a horrible storm. He got there not as a free man, but on the end of a leash. Yet when he arrived, Paul finally, after all that, found himself unhindered to do exactly what God wanted him to do, share Jesus with everyone who would listen. Paul was where God wanted him. Because of that he was unhindered.

This morning we heard Jesus rebuke Peter for wanting Him to take an easier road, a road that did not involve the Cross. Jesus explained that there is a cross for all of us if we follow Him, trials like Paul’s trials as he followed Jesus across the world. The way to become free and unhindered is to burden ourselves with what really matters, to carry the Cross with Jesus and seek the freedom only He can give us.

I used to teach a Covenant theology class with my friend Jeff. He went to seminary and then got a Ph.D. in biblical studies. His goal was like Paul’s, to go to the mission field and help train pastors in other countries. His plan was ruined when his second child was born with spina bifida. His son’s needs meant his family could not live outside this country.

Jeff then hoped to teach Bible in a college or seminary, at least using his knowledge and gifts to prepare Christian leaders here at home. But he couldn’t find a permanent job. He went from one adjunct teaching position to another for several years, a course here and a course there, never receiving a lasting appointment or a full-time position.

Finally, Jeff and his family moved to Minneapolis because his wife got a job there. Casting around for work, he took a substitute position teaching math at our Covenant high school, Minnehaha Academy. He’s been there ever since. He got his teaching certificate and a full-time position. Now he is the chaplain and teaches ethics at Minnehaha. Talking to high school students is a long way from the mission field or serious Bible scholarship.

Jeff says it took a long time to accept it, but he is exactly where God planned for him to be. All his hindrances in life brought him to where he could talk about Jesus and Christian faith to young people. He says his mission field is in the spiritual lives of 800 high school students. He can’t go anywhere else, but he doesn’t want to anymore. Life might seem constrained for him, but his work for Jesus is totally free, completely unhindered.

You may find yourself in a place like that, feeling constrained. You had great dreams about what you might accomplish for the Lord, if only you could get free and have time or money or education or health or whatever lack you feel hinders you. It may just be that the place you’re in seems small or unimportant or far from the kingdom of God and all it means. Yet Jesus working through you has no hindrance. His Gospel, His Good News, as long as you believe it and share it, is always unhindered, always free.

Years ago we had an elderly church member named Doris. One of the remarkable things about her was her network of influence. She had no computer or e-mail, but she wrote little cards and letters from the dining room table in her mobile home. At her memorial service, person after person stood up to speak about the encouragement they received from her notes. She wrote to people all over the country, all over the world. Doris was hindered by age and health, but through her Jesus spoke to the world unhindered, spoke the Good News of a kingdom of love that will not fail.

You don’t have to be the hero of the story. We have a Hero. When we believe in Him and turn our lives over to His will, all the hindrances turn into direction signs, detours to keep us on the right road. Like God brought Paul through twists and turns to Rome, He brings you and I to our rightful places of service. He hinders us so that His love in us will be unhindered. May you both know and feel that free, unhindered love at work in you today.

Amen.