Becoming Church Together: Paul and Barnabus Go to Cyprus

Acts 13:4-12

So, being sent out by the Holy Spirit, they went down to Seleucia; and from there they sailed to Cyprus. When they arrived at Salamis, they proclaimed the word of God in the synagogues of the Jews. And they had John also to assist them. When they had gone through the whole island as far as Paphos, they met a certain magician, a Jewish false prophet, named Bar-Jesus. He was with the proconsul, Sergius Paulus, an intelligent man, who summoned Barnabas and Saul and wanted to hear the word of God. But the magician Elymas (for that is the translation of his name) opposed them and tried to turn the proconsul away from the faith. But Saul, also known as Paul, filled with the Holy Spirit, looked intently at him and said, ‘You son of the devil, you enemy of all righteousness, full of all deceit and villainy, will you not stop making crooked the straight paths of the Lord? And now listen—the hand of the Lord is against you, and you will be blind for a while, unable to see the sun.’ Immediately mist and darkness came over him, and he went about groping for someone to lead him by the hand. When the proconsul saw what had happened, he believed, for he was astonished at the teaching about the Lord.

We are in the midst of a sermon series on the Book of Acts. Over the course of six weeks between Sundays and Wednesdays, we are hearing 11 different stories from the Book of Acts. They are sometimes dramatic, sometimes melodramatic. They sometimes include long speeches. But always there’s a thread — a wind — that drives the narrative. It’s the Holy Spirit filling the church and calling its people to be part of God’s salvation plan for the world. 

We’ll come back to the story I just read, but for now, we’ll set it aside. 

Salvation. That’s one of those church words that feels like insider language.  What does it mean anyway? We tend to think of salvation as what happens when we’re done with this life — being saved for life with God when life on earth is over — but what if salvation has meaning for this life, too? What if salvation is about life here and now, as well?

One of the Hebrew words that gets translated as salvation is ‘yasha,’ which means ‘openness.’ And it’s not just a theological word. It gets used for ordinary things, too. Let me illustrate. 

A number of years ago, my dad had a heart attack. He woke up one day with chest pains so he went to the clinic in his small town, and the medical team did a series of tests. They discovered nothing amiss, so they sent him home and told him to do whatever he had planned for the day. 

But the next morning, Dad’s chest pains returned, and they were worse. He went to the clinic again and went through another battery of tests, and this time there was a slight change in his blood work, so they sent him by ambulance to a hospital 90 miles away. There, an angiogram indicated that two arteries were blocked, 100% and 80%. Surgeons placed stents in Dad’s arteries, and in short order, the stents opened up the passages — widening blood vessels and making them sufficient for blood to flow. It was a moment of “salvation” here and now. 

Barabara Brown Taylor says, “Salvation is a word for the divine spaciousness that comes to human beings in all the tight places where their lives are at risk… Sometimes it comes as an extended human hand and sometimes as a bolt from the blue, but either way it opens a door in what looked for all the world like a wall. This is the way of life, and God alone knows how it works.” 

It’s one of my favorite quotes. I share it often. Salvation opens a door, she says, in what looked for all the world like a wall. 

We have a different lens on that concept this spring. Plenty of us feel hemmed in, enclosed, unable to go about our lives as usual. We are wondering, what comes next? When will we return to normal? What will normal look like?

It’s an interesting time to be reading the Book of Acts because like the first followers of Jesus after resurrection, we wonder, “Where are we headed? How will we make our way into the future, and how will we know what’s best?”

A few minutes ago, I read a story that’s a bit quirky. It draws on word play and allusions to other stories. It’s a melodrama with a villain and a hero. If you found it confusing, you’re in good company. 

One day, Saul was on his way to Damascus. He had gotten permission from the high priest to go there to round up followers of Jesus and lead them back to Jerusalem with their hands bound. He was zealous to stop the spread of the news of Jesus. But along the road, a light from heaven flashed, and he heard  the voice of Jesus, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?” He fell to the ground, and when he stood up, he was blind. The men who accompanied him had to lead him by the hand to bring him to Damascus. For three days, he was without sight. Then the Holy Spirit went to a man named Ananias and said, 

“Go to the street called Straight, and bring a message to Saul. I have chosen him to take my name before Gentiles and kings and before the people of Israel.”

Saul’s life was turned upside down that day on the road. He had tried so hard to put up a wall that would prevent the spread of what he considered “fake news” about Jesus as Messiah, but now Jesus had come to him, and the Holy Spirit set him on another course. Salvation had opened a door in what had looked for all the world like a wall. 

Fast forward a couple years, and we come to tonight’s story. Saul has used his intelligence and persuasive personality to proclaim salvation in Jesus’ name. And now the Holy Spirit has commissioned Barnabas and Saul to set sail for Cyprus where they go about telling everyone about Jesus. 

One day, they are summoned by Sergius Paulus, the leading Roman authority on the island. A man of intellect, he has heard about Saul and Barnabas and wants to hear what they have to say. Accompanying him, however, is an advisor by the name of Bar-Jesus who puts up a wall. Bar-Jesus is an ironic name for the man; it means son-of-Jesus. Like Saul and Barnabas he is Jewish, but he is a false prophet and a magician. He wants to prevent them from reaching the Roman ruler with the news about Jesus. He’s got a good gig, after all. He’s close to power. If the Roman ruler listens to Saul and Barnabas, Bar-Jesus might lose his access to power, wealth and fame. 

So Bar-Jesus gets a name change. He’s called Elymas. And Saul gets a name change, too. He’s now called Paul. Paul looks him in the eye and says, “You’re not son-of-Jesus. You’re son-of-the devil. Enemy of all righteousness. Deceit and villainy. You are making crooked the straight paths of the Lord.”

“I’ve got bad news for you,” Paul says. “The hand of the Lord is against you, 

and you will become blind and unable to see for a while.” Immediately, mist and darkness came over him and he went about groping for someone to lead him by the hand. 

It’s ironic how the story gets repeated. A wall gets put up to stop the spread of the Gospel. But the Holy Spirit won’t be contained. Salvation opens the door in what looks for all the world like a wall. The Roman proconsul is astonished by what he sees and what he hears, and his life is turned upside down when he believes in Jesus. 

One more detail… In his diatribe against the magician, Paul said, “Will you not stop making crooked the straight paths of the Lord?” They all knew the words of the prophet Isaiah — 
A voice cries out:
In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord, 
Make straight in the desert a highway for our God.  (Isaiah 40:3)

Isaiah spoke these words long ago when many of the people of God were in exile. They had been taken captive to live in Babylonia. They were far away from everything that was familiar. They had no idea when they would return to the familiar or what the new normal would one day be. 

In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord, 
Make straight in the desert a highway for our God.  

God is coming to rescue you. You won’t be in exile forever. God is coming to you as quickly as possible.

We’re living in a form of exile right now, too. We have brought school and work and worship home. We communicate by phone or email or Zoom but rarely in person. We don’t go about shopping or eating out whenever and wherever we want. We have delayed life events or scaled them way back.  We’re staying home because a virus has made it too risky for us to mingle as we normally do. But it doesn’t come without a cost. For people living in close quarters, it can be a pressure cooker. For people who are isolated, it can be lonely. For people who have lost income, it is stressful. And for those who work on the front lines, it’s taking a toll.  We’re staying home right as much as we can right now because concern for the neighbor says that’s what we need to do. But it’s not easy, and it’s far from simple or crystal clear. But this is where we are. 

And the words from Isaiah are for us, too. They are words of promise. Prepare a way for the Lord. Make straight a path for our God. 

God comes to us now, here where we are. God doesn’t leave us abandoned or alone. God’s rescue plan for us is life. 

There’s a meme that’s been making the rounds on social media. It’s a quote from Brene Brown anticipating the day when we won’t be where we are now. 

“We (won’t) go back to normal,” she says. “Normal never was. Our pre-corona existence was not normal other than we normalized greed, inequity, exhaustion, depletion, extraction, disconnection, confusion, rage, hoarding, hate and lack.” Like Bar-Jesus in the story from Acts, we are tantalized by the lure of power. So Brene Brown continues, “We should not long to return (to those things), my friends. We are being given the opportunity to stitch a new garment. One that fits all of humanity and nature.”   

The prophet says, Prepare the way of the Lord. 
Make straight the path for God to come to us.

God’s coming is not dependent on us. But the Holy Spirit is at work making all things new,  and we are part of it.  We have the opportunity to stitch a new garment that’s sewn together by love, forgiveness and new life. We have the opportunity to sweep away things that clutter the path for God. 

So let us pray that the Holy Spirit will fill us now and hold us, then show us the way forward. For we belong to Jesus, and God’s plan for us is life. 

Amen.