What Do We Do Now?
Notes
Transcript
After we were brought safely through, we then learned that the island was called Malta. The native people showed us unusual kindness, for they kindled a fire and welcomed us all, because it had begun to rain and was cold. When Paul had gathered a bundle of sticks and put them on the fire, a viper came out because of the heat and fastened on his hand. When the native people saw the creature hanging from his hand, they said to one another, “No doubt this man is a murderer. Though he has escaped from the sea, Justice has not allowed him to live.” He, however, shook off the creature into the fire and suffered no harm. They were waiting for him to swell up or suddenly fall down dead. But when they had waited a long time and saw no misfortune come to him, they changed their minds and said that he was a god.
Now in the neighborhood of that place were lands belonging to the chief man of the island, named Publius, who received us and entertained us hospitably for three days. It happened that the father of Publius lay sick with fever and dysentery. And Paul visited him and prayed, and putting his hands on him, healed him. And when this had taken place, the rest of the people on the island who had diseases also came and were cured. They also honored us greatly, and when we were about to sail, they put on board whatever we needed.
After three months we set sail in a ship that had wintered in the island, a ship of Alexandria, with the twin gods as a figurehead. Putting in at Syracuse, we stayed there for three days. And from there we made a circuit and arrived at Rhegium. And after one day a south wind sprang up, and on the second day we came to Puteoli. There we found brothers and were invited to stay with them for seven days. And so we came to Rome. And the brothers there, when they heard about us, came as far as the Forum of Appius and Three Taverns to meet us. On seeing them, Paul thanked God and took courage. And when we came into Rome, Paul was allowed to stay by himself, with the soldier who guarded him.
Scripture: Acts 28:1-16
Sermon Title: What Do We Do Now?
We have reached the last chapter of Acts, and we’re also about to arrive at the final destination for Paul in his imprisonment and likely his life. Last time we covered the westward voyage from Caesarea and the shipwreck before swimming or floating to shore on Malta. Today we’re going to hear how they made the wise decision to winter there, at the yellow star, before heading north. We’ll spend the majority of the sermon on what took place there. But we’ll also read how after a few months, they went to Syracuse, the first black star, then to Rhegium, the next one, and then Puteoli, the northernmost black star, about 75 miles from Rome, the red star, before traveling there, apparently by land.
Brothers and sisters in Christ, back when I worked in camp ministry during college, if we were based for a week near Knoxville, Tennessee, one of the campgrounds we used was called, “The Crosseyed Cricket.” It was a good little campground about a mile away from the main road. To get to the group site that we used, which was back in the trees, you had to drive in past a couple little ponds, a swimming pool in the shape of a fish, a little bathhouse, and then across this little kind-of rickety wooden bridge. Some of our groups actually wondered if it would hold their 15-passenger vans and trailers. It was a nice spot, but it fits the stereotype for backwoods Tennessee.
There’s one week, though, that sticks in my mind, because it was the rainiest week I ever had with a group. Like I said, you had to cross this little wooden bridge to get to our site, and usually the creek it crossed was a trickle at best in the summer. But after a day or so of heavy rain, the nice soft ground, great for putting tents on, had turned to mud, that creek was nearing our tents, and there were plenty of puddles. This picture wasn’t from our trip, but that’s sure what it felt like.
It was clear it wasn’t a good place to stay with our group; so, my partner and I had to make a decision about what to do now. We decided to go to the public campground, which had an overlook with a few pavilions. The park rangers knew of us, and we graciously got their permission, at least temporarily, to sleep in a pavilion. After a couple days they told us we couldn’t just leave all our stuff there. We had to pack it up each morning in case other people wanted to use the shelters, but we were welcome to come back. It made for an interesting experience and there were other fun parts of that week. Sometimes things happen, and we need to drastically alter our plans, and sometimes that also means depending on and working with others.
When Paul and everyone else washed up on the shores of Malta, it was one of those moments—to a greater degree, of course. Here they were on a foreign island, now what? There was no airport to flyover to Rome or back to Caesarea. They couldn’t charter a boat and risk going back out onto the open waters. They were stuck. I think they were thankful to be alive, but as those thoughts might have been running through their minds, they would have been surveying their surroundings, and first things first, they needed to dry off and warm up. They needed to figure out who lived here and were they even welcome.
As we just heard, they had found refuge. We want to start this morning with the point: receiving strangers graciously. We’ve probably all heard the stereotype of a grouchy old person—I don’t have anyone in mind in this church, it’s a stereotype—the grouchy old person who has neighbor kids go running through their yard for a shortcut or to pick up a ball, and they yell at the kids, “Get off my lawn.” As the gun season for deer kicked off yesterday, it can get that much more heated when a person wants someone who does not have their permission to get off their property. Sometimes, too, we hear accounts of people trying to be missionaries to remote, unreached people groups, but when they get near are treated violently and have even been killed.
Theoretically, the Maltese people could have done the same thing, “Get off our island!” They didn’t know who these people were, where they’re from, what their intentions might be. Obviously, they had been shipwrecked. They didn’t have anything more than the clothes clinging to their bodies, but that wasn’t the islanders’ problem.
Yet that’s not how they treated this group of sailors, not at all. Verse 2, Luke recorded, “‘[They] showed us unusual kindness. They built a fire and welcomed us all because it was raining and cold.” These strangers were humane. Paul got bit by this viper, which they thought poisonous or deadly, assumedly from previous experience—now they’re apprehensive. But Paul isn’t dying or even harmed, he must be a god! If you’ve followed this series or know Acts well, remember back in chapter 14, in Lystra, Paul was thought to be the god Hermes by the locals there. Here in chapter 28, “If he isn’t a guilty murderer who death won’t let go of, then he must be an invincible deity!” So, they thought highly of him. “The chief official,” the head of this island, took at least Paul and Luke into his home, showed great hospitality, and this continued throughout their stay. Verse 10, “They honored us in many ways…[and] furnished us with the supplies we needed.”
Again, the Maltese people were strangers to them. If we look to verse 14, Luke refers to the people they met a bit closer to Rome as “brothers.” We’ve seen throughout Acts that when people are called brothers, it either means they’re fellow Jews or Christians. The islanders don’t seem to have been believers; yet Paul and company were received and treated so well by them.
Let’s be fair: if Paul was a god, they had reason to act a certain way towards him. He did heal the sick of the island; so, a certain amount of gratitude or repayment could be part of all this. The sailors had Roman officials with them, so, there’s power and the ability to arrange for certain things. But the strangers’ kindness seemed to have begun before all that was established. This was how they treated cold and wet, lost and homeless sailors.
If the Maltese could deal so kindly with strangers, recognizing their need, how much more ought that to be true for us as believers in our actions towards strangers? We turn to Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, and we find him saying to love both our neighbor and our enemy, to give to the needy not to be recognized and honored by other people but before God, to “do to others what you would have them do to you.” If you saw someone shipwrecked, soaked, and shivering—how would you want them to react to you being in that situation? If we go back to the Old Testament, we find passages like Exodus 23:9, “Do not oppress an alien [a foreigner]; you yourselves know how it feels to be aliens, because you were aliens in Egypt.” Leviticus 19:33-34, “‘When an alien lives with you in your land, do not mistreat him. The alien living with you must be treated as one of your native-born. Love him as yourself, for you were aliens in Egypt. I am the LORD your God.”
We shouldn’t read this passage and just be surprised, or even just grateful for the culture of hospitality shown to Paul. We can learn from and be challenged by it. Even if we assume what’s going on is God being favorable and faithful to Paul—God working through strangers for their benefit, the calling to be gracious, to show kindness, to not mistreat but treat as one of your own, is repeated throughout the Bible. This is the love we are called to exhibit ourselves for the reasons of being obedient to God and seeking to love how he loves.
It’s love that shouldn’t just be practiced one time or only when we’re guaranteed to receive as much or more as we’ve given. On Wednesday in the Sunday School At-Home activities, I invite you to look at Luke 14 verses 7 through 14, but especially verses 12-14. Jesus told his host not just to invite those closest to him who can repay and invite you to their parties, but to invite those who can’t repay you. Maybe we’re a bit more cautious and reserved in this time of COVID, but we must remember this is how God calls us to act toward the stranger; this is what it looks like.
To our second point now: showing kindness to hosts. Paul and his companions weren’t just received graciously, and they in turn were jerks. No, at least he and assumedly being an example for the crew he was a part of, they showed kindness to the islanders. We’re told Paul gathered what brushwood he could to contribute to the fire. He visited Publius’ sick father, prayed for him, and healed him through the laying on of hands. He continued to perform miracles by curing the sick that were brought to him. We also heard in verse 15, when he met these “brothers”: “At the sight of these men Paul thanked God and was encouraged.”
Paul had a strong work ethic. Back in chapter 18, he joined Priscilla and Aquila in the work of making tents. In 2 Corinthians 11, he speaks of receiving support from certain churches to not be a burden on others. In 1 Thessalonians 2:9, he expresses how the believers there were to “remember…[his] toil and hardship; [they] worked night and day in order not to be a burden to anyone while [they] preached the gospel of God to [them].” Picking up some wood along the shoreline wasn’t beneath him, and it wasn’t going to hurt him. It was an act of gratitude to his hosts. He would help in this gift that they were offering.
When I use the word “kindness” to hosts, we’re never too far away from ministry. While we’re not told this, it’s doubtful that Paul just healed people—that they came, he placed hands on them or said “be well,” and that was it. No, these were miracles, which are only possibly by the grace and power of God—not Paul. We heard something we’ve heard before—when Paul was with Publius’ father, he prayed for him. Paul didn’t hide his faith or who he believed in. He never shied away from that. Considering all he’d been through on the trip to this point and back in Jerusalem and Caesarea, the rejection of the gospel, the rejection of him what God was able to do—Paul had to have shared the message entrusted to him with his new hosts.
Luke doesn’t tell us what Paul’s conversion success rate was, though, if any. That’s an important reminder that while conversion or bringing people to the faith or seeking to make new disciples is so important, it ought to be our goal, but we can’t force that. What we can do and should do, whether we’re dealing with believers or unbelievers is to live as God calls us to live, to not shy away from testifying to who he is, what he has done, and what he can do for all people. When people aren’t converted, it doesn’t mean we weren’t good enough or that God wasn’t enough—not at all. God works in and through the lives of his saints according to his pleasure.
We have seen God and Paul’s trust in God all throughout this book, all throughout his journeys, all throughout his imprisonment. There had to have been a reason for Paul being on this island with these people. They were his hosts, they had been so gracious to him, and that was a blessing, but Paul also had a kindness, rooted in Christ, to offer them.
Brothers and sisters, I want to encourage us in this week of Thanksgiving, whether you’re planning to gather with family or friends or whether you’re staying apart like so many this year, to think about how you can show the love of Christ to people who are strangers to you as well as to people who host you in different ways. When someone, and it can be a close friend, even a fellow Christian, invites you into their home or drives you somewhere or invites you to a group or shares with you a burden or struggle in their life, how can you show kindness in such a way that points them to your greatest hope?
Are you willing to listen to them and care? Could you receive their service and their actions for you even when things aren’t necessarily done how you expect them or normally would do them yourself? Is the love of Christ present in what you share with them, how you talk to them and about them? We must remember: Jesus came to serve, not to be served—that is such an important piece that can often be left out of the gospel—we elevate ourselves because of our salvation and faith, we say—at least I’m not like them, I’m glad I’m not going where they’re going. Let us be kind to our hosts, especially those who are willing to serve us when things drastically change in our lives. Amen.