“Notice the progression: recognition of guilt, confession of sin, and restitution, plus 20 percent additional compensation, demonstrating genuine repentance through generous restoration.”

Making Things Right — https://www.todayintheword.org/daily-devotional/wandering-in-the-wilderness/making-things-right/

#repentance

The Unknown God

A Sermon about the Idols of Yesterday and Today

Acts 17:16–31

(Note: Sermons can be heard in audio format at https://millersburgmennonite.org/worship/sermon-audio/)

In our scripture this morning, Paul walks into Athens, a city overflowing with religion, beauty, ideas, temples, shrines, altars, arguments, and gods.

Athens is not empty.

Athens is crowded.

And Paul is deeply troubled.

Paul is not troubled because Athens is secular. He is troubled because Athens is religious in all the wrong ways. The city is full of worship, but empty of surrender. Full of gods, but not the living God. Full of altars but still haunted by absence.

For among all those altars, Paul notices one inscription:

To an unknown god.

What a haunting phrase.

In the middle of all the Athenians’ certainty, there is still this admission: we may have missed something. We may not know as much as we think. There may still be a God we have not recognized.

And I wonder if that is not where many people are right now.

Not atheists necessarily. Not even irreligious. But uncertain. Searching. Guarded. Spiritual, yet suspicious of certainty. Curious yet afraid of being closed off or closed in. Open and yet not really able to surrender to truth. Religious and yet still missing God.

La Atenas de Pablo no es solamente historia antigua; también describe nuestro mundo de hoy.

So Athens is not just ancient history.

Athens is now.

Let us pray.

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O God, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.

Homily

Like the Athens of Paul’s day, our world today is full of altars too.

Altars to nation. Altars to wealth. Altars to image. Altars to safety. Altars to tribe. Altars to ideology. Altars to the market. Altars to the screen. Altars to the self.

We, like the Athenians, have all kinds of gods.

One reason I think our public discourse feels so fractured is that we are not just arguing about small things. We are bringing completely different belief systems into the room.

In Athens there were Jews who worshiped the one living God; God-fearing Greeks drawn toward that God but not fully committed; Epicureans who sought calm and freedom from fear; Stoics who valued reason, virtue, order, and discipline; and this strange altar to an unknown god, an altar that says, “We do not want to miss the divine. We know there is more than we can name.”

Paul proclaims a God who is not vague, not distant, not merely a principle, not one more option in the marketplace of ideas. Paul proclaims the God who made the world and everything in it, the God who gives life and breath to all, the God who cannot be reduced to shrines or captured in gold or silver or stone or circuitry, the God who is near to all, the God who now calls all people everywhere to repent because God has raised Jesus from the dead.

Pablo anuncia que Dios no es una idea vaga ni un ídolo más, sino el Creador que da vida, aliento y resurrección.

Some may believe truth is revealed and binding. Others are spiritual, but indefinite. Others have been wounded by the church and do not know whether the word “God” is invitation or threat.

And into all of that, Christian witness says: the world belongs to its Creator, and history has turned in the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

When Paul is brought to the Areopagus, we might imagine a cozy invitation. Maybe there is curiosity there, but there is also something more serious. Paul is being examined. Tested. Weighed. Asked to explain himself in public.

Paul is heard, but under suspicion.

And how does he respond?

Not with coercion. Not with panic. Not with silence. Not with flattery. Not with domination.

He responds with witness.

Paul pays attention. He listens. He observes. He starts where the people are.

Pablo no responde con poder o miedo, sino con atención, humildad y testimonio.

Paul does not begin by quoting Moses. He does not begin where he is most comfortable. He begins with what his hearers can recognize: their altar, their poets, their longing, their language of divine nearness.

My friends, that is not compromise. That is faithful witness.

And this matters for us, because our witness cannot always sound exactly the same in every place, in every room, in every forum.

The gospel does not change. “Jesus Christ is Lord” – that doesn’t change either. The call to repentance, reconciliation, mercy, justice, truth, and abundant life this side of the resurrection does not change.

But the way we bear witness may depend on where we are and who is in front of us.

El evangelio no cambia, pero la manera de dar testimonio puede cambiar según el lugar y las personas.

When Paul is in the synagogue, he reasons from the scriptures. But when Paul is in Athens, among philosophers, idolaters, seekers, and skeptics, he begins somewhere else. He begins with creation. He begins with breath. He begins with longing. He begins with the altar they already have. He begins with the poetry they already know.

Paul does not start by asking them to enter his world. He first enters theirs.

That is not watering down the faith. That is speaking the truth in love. That is incarnation-shaped witness.

Pablo entra en el mundo de sus oyentes para poder anunciarles fielmente al Dios vivo.

Paul does not introduce Athens to a God who was absent until Paul arrived. Paul reveals the presence of a God they have already been brushing up against.

The God they called unknown has been waiting to be revealed.

Paul says this God gives to all mortals life and breath and all things. Paul says this God is not far from each one of us. Paul says, “In him we live and move and have our being.”

So maybe the question is not simply, “Will God show up?”

Maybe the deeper question is, “Will we recognize how God is already showing up?”

Which brings us to a question worth asking every day:

God, how are you going to show up today?

Not, “God, are you going to show up?”

But, “God, how are you going to show up?”

La pregunta no es solo si Dios aparecerá, sino si tendremos ojos para reconocer cómo Dios ya está presente.

Because Acts 17 reveals to us that God may already be present before people have the right language. God may already be at work before someone has the right doctrine. God may already be stirring longing before anyone knows how to name that longing.

God may already be there in the question. God may already be there in the difference. God may already be there in the ache. God may already be there in the crack in someone’s certainty.

Paul sees an altar to an unknown god, and he does not only see idolatry. He also sees longing. He sees an opening. He sees a place where witness can begin.

Dios puede estar obrando en la pregunta, en el dolor, en el anhelo, aun antes de que sepamos nombrarlo.

And then Paul does something just as important:

He does not stay there.

He builds a bridge, yes. But he also tells the truth.

He says, in effect, “The God you do not know is the God who made you. The God you have not recognized is the God who gives you breath. The God you have left unnamed is not contained in your temples. The God you seek cannot be reduced to your idols.”

Because idolatry is not just about statues.

Idolatry is whenever we try to bind God to our own systems of power and belief.

Idolatry is when nation becomes ultimate. Idolatry is when wealth becomes sacred. Idolatry is when violence is blessed. Idolatry is when “they” usurps “us.” Idolatry is when “my people” become more important than “humanity.” Idolatry is when our beliefs matter more than relationships. Idolatry is when our politics, grievances, fears, and identities begin to function as gods.

And let us be honest: the church is not exempt.

Athens is not only out there.

Athens is in here.

Athens is in us whenever we want a manageable god. Athens is in us whenever we want a useful god. Athens is in us whenever we want a god who blesses our side, confirms our assumptions, secures our system, and God forbid, never ever, disrupts our loyalties.

But Paul says the living God does not dwell in temples made by human hands.

That means God is not mine, yours, ours to manage.

Dios no pertenece a nuestros sistemas; nosotros pertenecemos al Dios vivo.

Which begs the question:

God, how are you going to show up?

Because we often want God to show up in familiar ways. Predictable ways. Comfortable ways. Worshipful, yes, but also manageable.

But what if the living God shows up in ways that unsettle us?

What if God shows up in the person we dismissed? What if God shows up in the hard conversation? What if God shows up in the exposure of an idol? What if God shows up in a call to repentance? What if God shows up not to decorate our little altars, but to overturn them?

There are some places where our witness begins with Scripture. Some where it begins with service. Some with silence. Some with apology. Some with saying, “Tell me more.”

There are some places where our witness begins not by answering a question no one is asking, but by noticing the altar in the room, the longing in the room, the wound in the room, the fear in the room, the unknown god in the room.

And yet, Christian witness does not end with vague spirituality.

Paul does not say, “Well, you have your gods, and I have mine, and maybe underneath it all we mean the same thing.”

No.

He moves to repentance.

He moves to judgment.

He moves to resurrection.

Because resurrection means God has shown up in Jesus Christ.

The unknown God is unknown no longer.

Not because we figured God out, but because God has acted. Because Christ has been raised.

El Dios desconocido se ha dado a conocer en Jesucristo, crucificado y resucitado.

Because death is not lord. Caesar is not lord. The economy is not lord. Violence is not lord. Fear is not lord. (Fill in the blank) is not lord. Like we say down South, those dogs don’t hunt.

Jesus Christ is Lord. Jesus Christ is Lord. Jesus Christ is Lord!

The Cosmic Christ is more than just our own personal Jesus. And that means resurrection is not just good news for me, or my private soul. Or you and your private soul.  It is the announcement of a new humanity under a new Lord. A new community. A new allegiance. A new public witness.

La resurrección anuncia una nueva humanidad bajo el señorío de Cristo.

That is who the church is meant to be.

Not simply a chaplain to the culture. Not another little religious booth in the marketplace of ideas. Not a baptizer of empire. Not a slave to ideology.

The church is the gathering of a resurrection people.

A people who do not only say, “God, show up.”

But a people who say,

God, help us recognize how you are showing up.

La iglesia existe para reconocer y encarnar la presencia del Cristo resucitado en el mundo.

So ask the question.

Ask it every morning. Ask it before worship. Ask it before the meeting. Ask it before the conversation. Ask it before you enter the room.

God, how are you going to show up?

And then ask the next question:

God, how are you calling me to show up?

To show up in worship, to show up in our community, to show up in the public square, to show up in the hard conversation, to show up in the awkward silence, and to show up in the uncomfortable moment when it would be easier to walk away.

My friends, we are the church of God. We are resurrection people, and resurrection people do not hide behind rose-colored stained-glass windows.

We show up because God first showed up.

We show up not because we are fearless, but because we are faithful. We show up not because every moment is easy, but because love is present. We show up not because we control the outcome, but because Christ is Lord. We show up not to dominate, not to coerce, not to win, but to bear witness.

Nos presentamos no para dominar, sino para dar testimonio con fidelidad, amor, humildad y paz.

And our witness may look different depending on where we are.

In worship, we show up with praise. In the neighborhood, with service. In conflict, with humility. In public life, with truth and peace. Among the wounded, with gentleness. Among the arrogant, with courage. Among the uncertain, with patience. Among the idols, with discernment.

Paul showed up in Athens.

He showed up in a city full of idols, in misunderstanding, under scrutiny, in the awkwardness of difference.

He showed up with a witness shaped by the place he was in.

He did not abandon the gospel.

He embodied it.

He trusted that God was already there ahead of him.

Pablo confió en que Dios ya estaba presente antes de que él hablara.

Maybe that is our calling too.

Not to have every answer. Not to control every room. Not to force belief.

But to show up with courage, humility, truth, and love, because the God who seemed unknown has already come near.

So this week, before you enter the room, begin the conversation, make the assumption, or speak the word, ask:

God, how are you going to show up here, in this moment, today?

And then ask:

Lord Jesus, how are you calling me to show up, here, in this moment, today, with you?

Because the God who was unknown has been made known, and the God who has been made known is still showing up, in us and in the people around us, in our homes and in the homes next door, in our neighborhood and in the communities down the road, in our nation and in all the nations of the world.

May God grant us open eyes and willing hearts to see and serve.

Let us pray.

‘My Savior Can Do Anything’ by LG

Living in disobedience to God kept me chained to sin, drugs, and crime. Traumas taught me hate, but imagine having given your heart to God at twelve, then allowing life’s desires to lead you away from God. Exactly what Satan does, offers you the pleasures of the world, yet somehow fear creeps in, then loss and your destruction, as life falls apart.

In 1979, I found myself in jail awaiting trial for dealing drugs. It was Sunday morning, my heart ached for freedom, family. A call sounded over the PA for a Chapel service, so I went. I sat in the front row; I would not miss anything the Pastor said. He was not of the denomination that I had been brought up in, but that did not matter to me because I only hoped that my sick soul could hear the voice of the One who had once spoken to my heart years ago. The Preacher had a distinct, genuine, and sincere voice as he unveiled his message about Jesus. Each word he spoke was alive, somehow God was real and inside of this preacher, and this man’s sermon, every word spoke directly to me. His eyes seemed focused on me. I cried out to God to have mercy, forgive me Lord.

Suddenly, every burden I carried, my fear, the weight of the world, vanished, and I felt peace. I knew God could restore all that I longed for, so I asked God to set me free.

I sensed my freedom would come on Christmas day; what a perfect day! On Christmas Eve, I could not sleep. Morning came, I rushed from my cell to the Day Room in eagerness to await the wondrous miracle that God had prepared for me; I believed in my heart God would not fail me. One hour passed, then two, three. Why hadn’t God delivered me? Had I truly not trusted Him? Did I have doubt? I wandered out of the dayroom to return my cell to just be alone. I passed a friend’s cell; he called out to me. I looked at where he was sitting, but what I saw was unbelievable; my eyes saw something so amazing. The most beautiful, brilliant white light I’d ever seen completely obscured the view of my friend. I was astonished. I heard a voice, but didn’t believe it was Bruce speaking. I cannot recall a single word, but I knew God was answering prayers. My eyes saw a glorious light. My God was revealing his majesty, He gave me assurance, He had seen my faith, He had heard my prayers. Nope, my prison doors had not opened, but I had found real freedom, where love and faithfulness exist, and God is a place of refuge. Christmas Day, in 1979, was a real miracle; I will never forget it. God did set me free, in a way I did not expect. I went to prison, but I had found fulfillment in Jesus and was the happiest prisoner at the Lebanon Correctional Institution.

I worried about my precious daughter constantly, and I prayed her life and heart would survive my absence. Then one night in a dream, I saw my daughter standing before me, singing a song that I sang as a child: “He’s Got the Whole in His Hands.” As simple as the song is, I knew when I awoke that God had my little girl safe in His arms. Yes, it was a dream, but I knew God had just given me an answer to prayer. The dream was a beautiful dream beyond description. To me, this was another miracle and answer to my prayers. God is amazing when your faith is focused on Him and His Word. His Love is for you, and when He answers prayer, you’ll know it!

While at LCI, I experienced God speak directly to my heart, and He spoke the message twice! He told me that He needed me to go to prison for Him. I was terrified as I reminded God that I was already in prison, so why was he asking me to go to prison? I refused His request. In the spring of 1981, my eighteen-month drug sentence came to an end. Although I had continued to serve the Lord, I had buried God’s request, yet I could still faintly hear His whispering voice continue to call as I continued denying Him in fear. Surely, He could understand, I reasoned, and as time went by, it seemed that He had changed His mind. I was free, I had found a decent job at a company called NCR just a few miles down the road from the prison I’d just left, surely God was leading my life. I had enrolled in college, and met a Christian girl who stole my heart. In the beginning, I read the Bible to her, and I thought we’d love God forever. Somehow drugs and alcohol slipped into our lives. What harm could a little fun be, we convinced ourselves. It wasn’t long before my life began to fall apart. First, my job moved to a South American country. Then I had to drop out of school to manage support for my daughter and life, then my girlfriend left.

Suddenly I was on my way back to prison for armed robbery, where I tortured a man’s mind. He believed he was going to die at my hand. I believed he deserved my hate and the fear I imposed on him; after all, he was an accused molester of children, the kind of person who had damaged my life when I was young. I received a 5–25-year sentence. How had I destroyed my world again? Why did God allow a believer, a child of His to wind up in prison? I was mad at God. Was this His idea, to go to prison for Him? I still told God no; I would not honor what He’d asked. I’d do my time alone. Drugs and education filled the space where God was not allowed. Eventually I was set free. Determined to rebuild life, I decided I’d quit using drugs, find a job, and pick up the
pieces. The word “I” is the most provocative word in our language, the very same word that Satan cried out in his fall as he proclaimed, “I shall be like the Most High.” I will, I will, I will, he said over and over. Sounds exactly like me; I had fallen into pride again. Isaiah 14:13-14 is a mirror image of what pride is and does to anyone. In my pride, I decided to find my happiness, so I’d replace everything I had lost in life.

First came pregnancy, so I got married to someone I really did not know. I believed she could sweep away my wounds. We began to accumulate possessions, land, a home, a new car, and a tractor. We launched a business; life was great, it seemed, but in an almost invisible way, our lives were beginning to fall apart once more. My wife and I were both blind to our own brokenness. We sacrificed five or six children to abortions — no time for more kids. Why had God not intervened to restore my dreams? We sought counseling at church, but the pastor seemed disinterested. Later, I discovered why this pastor didn’t care; he was busy living deep in his own sins. He was arrested and convicted of embezzlement. We had to give up our home and most of the things we had acquired. Everything that had once seemed so important just disappeared in the emptiness of the rear-view mirror as we drove away, leaving so much of my heart, my dreams, my life behind. Our next stop was in 2003 at a house on the beach in Virginia that had been named “Heaven Bound.” How ironic that we were beginning our new life in this house with an unearthly name. Was this a sign of something more than just a name?

In 2012, law enforcement again came into my life. Later the same day, as my heart sank in despair, I thought I heard God say to my heart, “Pick up the cross,” and like in 1990, He spoke twice. The next day, I traveled to an auto parts store, and the man at the counter spoke to me. He said, “Disciples need not fear!” Huh? “Why did you say that?” I asked, and he replied he felt led? Soon I was back in county jail, reading a Bible, and found myself in the book of Matthew, chapter 27. The soldiers compelled Simon to bear Christ’s cross. That’s what the voice I heard inside say to me just days ago! Pick up the cross! In 1979, I saw with my own eyes what God could do. I took a pen and wrote the numbers 2011 in the margin of my Bible, and under it I wrote 1979. I subtracted the amount and discovered it had been 32 years since God rescued my life, there it was; verse 32, to paraphrase, “Bear your cross, for Jesus!”

I met a Somali Pirate, and he asked if he could ask me some questions about my faith. He said he had dreams about Jesus. Within a couple of days of asking questions, he accepted Jesus as Savior. In excitement, he phoned home to Africa to tell his wife what Jesus now meant to him. She immediately scolded him, demanding that he renounce this evil thing he had brought into their lives. My Somali friend could not hold back tears as he refused her. She then insisted he call no more and hung up the phone. He next called his sister, who lived in the Midwest, and got much the same response. He had found the Savior but had already been abandoned by those he loved at a time in his life when he needed their love and support the most!

Transferred to a new facility, I met a guy who was apprehensive over the prospect of what the future held for him. Since I had been in the system before, I knew his anxiety and his fear. I set out to assure him that he would get through this experience without any real damage. We spent our time talking, playing cards, monopoly, and me sharing stories of my miserable past. So many years of backsliding, I was excited to share the Lord and stories of my life. I explained how disobedience to God had led me to federal prison, the history of my sins, my heartaches, my crimes, dealing drugs, and how I had fallen away as I sought independence, popularity, wealth,
and escape from the pains of life. I told him of how my hatred had destroyed everything dear to my heart, my marriages, and how my own pain had led me to hurt even those I loved. I told him about deeming myself worthy of being a judge and that I dished out whatever to whomever I chose, how my anger even led to the death of a friend; I killed him accidentally just trying to make him mad. I treated everyone cruelly, without any regard for how deeply my words and actions were wounding them or their souls. I was running and hiding from God in just the same way as Adam and Eve. I told him about my first experience with prison and how it had brought my life back to God, but how I had later allowed sin back into my life, and that it once again destroyed my life. The second prison sentence, I blamed God. I served the five years just staying high. I refused to share a single moment of my life with Jesus, nor did I share my belief in God with anyone. I will regret this for the remainder of my life because two people I had befriended while doing this time lost their lives in this prison. One was strangled in jealousy over his job, and the other was beaten to death for three packs of cigarettes he owed for prison hooch. I will always wonder where Ron and Buddy opened their eyes the moment life ended. I rattled on, but my new friend did not act shocked a single time as I unfolded my world, my miserable past before him, although much of my story was quite shocking, like how I despised certain classes of people, especially gays; I used those feelings to justify being cruel and unfair to them.

I spent about six days revealing these broken parts of my world, my life, my sins, and past to this guy. Six days that seemed unremarkable. Until a stand-up biker guy asked me directly, why was I hanging out with a queer? I laughed and asked him who he was talking about since I would never hang with someone like that. He pointed at my friend, whom I had spent six days with. I responded with confidence that he was not gay! This man retorted I must be blind. I walked to where my friend was and sat down. I looked into his eyes, then he spoke, but it was as if I were meeting him for the first time. I heard his voice, but it was not the one I was familiar with! He spoke in effeminate tones; he was obviously a homosexual. I noticed the tattoo on his wrist that I had not noticed for six days. It was a rainbow. How could I have not seen this, the mannerisms, the pitch of his voice? Recalling all the memories of hatred I had dished out on people like him throughout the course of my life brought emotions of remorse. Instantly, I felt so much guilt and shame. I had befriended this guy without judgment, ridicule, or my hatred. Over six days, God had blinded my eyes, deafened my ears, and given me the chance to see this man through eyes that only a Savior could have, a view that was unhindered, without hatred, judgment, or condemnation. I had offered this guy friendship, encouragement, a Savior’s love while revealing my heart, my faith, my sins, but most significantly, the cruel monster I had been to so many; yet he did not say a word or act offended in any way? My mind recalled a book by Max Lucado I was reading, “Six Hours One Friday, Living the Power of the Cross.” This book had just revealed more to me in a “moment” than I ever dreamed it could.

What a miserable Christian I had been in front of him! Would this gay man ever listen to any other Christian again after hearing the things I had told him? Had I condemned this man to an eternity separated from God? That night, I thanked God for teaching me that everyone was His and His alone to judge. A lifetime of bitterness, prejudice, and pain was removed from my heart on this sixth day, but I had failed God as His witness. In the morning, guards came and told me to report to the dayroom to prepare to be transferred to another institution. I was placed in a holding cell with about twenty others. My friend stated he was being transferred westward, somewhere in California. I muttered to him that I was heading to the East Coast; at that moment, I realized I would never see him again. Oh Lord, what had I done! Then my friend asked me how he could be saved. I led him to Jesus! God had forgiven me. I knew in my heart he would be fine because he was safe in our Savior’s arms and I would see him again in Heaven! Only God can blind a man’s eyes and ears, then heal two hearts at the same time while redeeming a man’s soul!

Transferred to a new prison, I asked the Chaplain for a King James Bible. I only expected a paperback, but instead he blessed me with a leather-bound KJV Ministers’ Bible with references! Their Christian library was well stocked; I read my heart out. I bought a radio and listened only to Christian stations. Eventually, a counselor told me about a program called RDAP, the Residential Drug and Alcohol Program. She asked if I would be interested in attending. Before I could say no, she made a few changes to my file, and I became eligible for this program. Transferred again, I waited for an opening into this in-house drug treatment program. Meanwhile, I began attending school for electrical work, and I took Industrial Wiring and later Residential Wiring. The courses were not accredited because society deemed that prisoners are not in need of a free education; They were jealous that prisoners could go to school for free while they had to pay for their children. Many in RDAP were present to just party and have their sentence reduced. I also discovered the program was more of a poster child for the prison system to tout its efforts at reducing recidivism. The staff seemed more interested in maintaining an excuse to justify their job rather than providing a healthy environment for recovering addicts or helping anyone.

The Chaplain was more a guard than a man of God. I sought his counsel and prayer when someone I loved dearly was critically ill, but he coldly asked me why should I care? I got up to leave, and he sternly blurted out, “I thought you wanted me to pray?” I told him no thanks, I didn’t think God would be listening to him. While in RDAP, I watched several videos on addiction and discovered some unbelievably valuable insight into my life and why drugs had such an impact on me. I reported my discovery. My counselor told me that I had watched too many videos; therefore, I was restricted from the addiction video resource room. The most peculiar thing: I only watched and reported on three videos. I got kicked out of the program for my convictions and the institution because no one wanted me telling anyone about the goings on in the RDAP program. I was transferred to another prison. One day, while in a TV room, I had left a coffee mug and a pocket King James New Testament lying on my seat. I later found the remnants of my cup smashed and thrown away. I awoke suddenly that night, remembering that I had also taken my Bible to the TV room. I went to look, and I found my tiny Bible torn into multiple pieces. A Spanish gang member asked me why I was digging in the trash; I pulled my hand out of the can with a fist full of the pieces and replied to him, “My King James Bible.” He said he had seen the Nazi guy toss something in the can and asked if I would like something done about it. I said no, God would make it right somehow, someday. I went to the Chapel the next day to get another pocket New Testament, but they had none. A couple of days passed and a Spanish gang member walked up and handed me a brand-new pocket King James New Testament. I felt blessed to have been shown respect from a gang member who held God in such high esteem. Where no Bible could be found in God’s House, God had provided one.

I read about Life Connections at the Chapel. It was a faith-based residential re-entry program preparing for your return to society. I suddenly realized that my faith was the most important thing in my life, so I went to apply for a chance to attend. When I arrived at the Chapel, I discovered that our Chaplain was out and that the old grouchy Chaplain from the other compound was filling in. My heart sank because I knew he just did not care, and I was not going to get any help from him. I turned to leave, walking past an associate Chaplain’s office, and he asked if he could help me. I told him of my desire to apply for Life Connections. He motioned me into his office and asked why I thought it would be good for me. Moments into my explanation, the Chaplain who hated his job and inmates, came bursting in. My heart sank into such a feeling of despair as I was ordered out. l sensed my biggest enemy might be at work, so I asked God to intervene. The assistant Chaplain finally motioned for me, and he asked if I would be willing to come back at 1:00pm. At 1:00 pm, I told the assistant Chaplain briefly about what God had done in my life. How He had saved me when I was young. I explained how I had finally heard God speak to my heart again after so many years of being the miserable master of my life. The Chaplain began to pull up pages on the internet and fill out the questions as I answered. It took nearly an hour to complete, print, staple together, and place in the appropriate files. When he finished, he leaned
back in his chair, smiled, and as he looked up at me, said, “No one else would have helped you complete this application. You could not have gotten in at all. Now we wait for official confirmation. It’ll take about ten days; I will notify you.” How could a Chaplain of a religion that normally despises a Christian have any desire to help or do anything for a believer in Jesus?

Within a few days, I was working on what was going to be my last assignment for the electrical shop. While installing some new circuits for a different Chaplain, he and I made small talk. I told him of my faith and that this was my last assignment; I was leaving for the Life Connections Program. His face and eyes lit up, and he said, “I am the previous Chaplain of that program. It is a good one!” He went on to give me the name of his friend and staff member at FCI Petersburg and told me that I should see him when I arrived there and let him know he was recommending me for a position in the Chapel if I wanted a job there. Now the amazing part of this story is that this Chaplain was not a Christian either, he was Hindu! It was so clear that God was paving a way for me. I felt so blessed!

Transferred to another prison, I was placed in the oldest, dreariest of buildings. It had rundown dormitories packed with inmates, and at the end of the building were dark, dank cells that were no longer being used. Layers of paint caked on rusty bars reminded you of some dark times long past, straight out of the movies. I got a job running a Heidelberg printing press. My knees only held up for several months until finally I had to resign. It seemed my best laid plans were not in God’s will for my life, and my knees were real persuasive. I applied at the Chapel using my referral, and he acknowledged their friendship and spoke briefly of the Chaplain’s prior leadership role in the Life Connections Program. He then referred me to another Chaplain within the Chapel who oversaw all the hiring for Chapel positions. I reported to her, a “lady Chaplain,” I spoke to her briefly about my faith, the recommendation, and she hired me.

Won’t you allow Him to come into your heart and life so you can know the wonder of His love, the forgiveness, the peace, the hope, the answers to life, the miracles that He longs to bless your life with? Allow God to open your heart and your eyes. God created all creatures to praise Him, even you. God came to redeem the lost, broken people of the world.

Are you searching for God?

⚡️Nioh 3 just received a hefty patch with a new HARDCORE mode, the "Stone of Repentance" system that cranks up difficulty in exchange for better rewards; basically a stress test for players who crave a challenge.

The update also adds new missions, expanded customization (extra character templates), buffs to several gear sets and a boatload of bugfixes for weapons, combat arts and movement. Full changelog is available on the official site.

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Since I Have Been Raised with Christ, Why Do I Still Make Others Feel Small?

There is a peculiar grief in recognizing that one has been given a great gift and yet still lives so often beneath it. There is a sorrow that belongs especially to those who know the language of grace, who have sung resurrection hymns, who have confessed Christ, who have spoken of new life, and yet who still discover in themselves an ugly tendency to diminish others. Not always openly. Not always with shouting or cruelty. Sometimes it is done with a tone. A look. A correction too sharp to be loving. A joke that lands like a knife. A silence meant to chill. A habit of always needing to be the wiser one in the room. And afterward comes the question, heavy and humiliating: Since I have been raised with Christ, why do I still make others feel small?

The question matters because it is not merely psychological. It is theological. It is spiritual. It touches the nerve of discipleship itself. If resurrection is real, if new life is real, if the old self has died with Christ and the new self has been raised with him, then why does so much pettiness remain? Why does pride still rise so quickly? Why does the self still reach for superiority as if it were food?

Part of the answer is that resurrection is both gift and calling. Scripture speaks in a strange and beautiful double voice. On the one hand, the believer has already died and been raised with Christ. This is not an aspiration but a declaration. On the other hand, the believer is also commanded to put to death what belongs to the old way of life and to clothe oneself with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience. In other words, what is true in Christ is still being worked out in us. The risen life has begun, but it has not yet fully overtaken every chamber of the soul. We are new, but not yet wholly healed. We belong to Christ, but many habits still belong to fear.

That may be the most painful truth of all: making others feel small often has less to do with strength than weakness. It can look like power, but it is usually a defense. We reduce others in order to protect some fragile place in ourselves. We feel uncertain, so we become cutting. We feel unnoticed, so we dominate. We feel ashamed, so we become severe. We fear our own inadequacy, so we magnify the inadequacy of someone else. The impulse to make another person shrink is often the frightened self’s attempt to avoid disappearing.

This is why belittling can wear so many respectable disguises. It can appear as discernment, when it is really contempt. It can appear as honesty, when it is really impatience. It can appear as theological precision, when it is really the pleasure of standing above another. It can appear as leadership, when it is really insecurity in clerical dress. It can appear as humor, when it is really aggression with a laugh track. One does not need to curse someone to make them feel small. One only needs to remind them, subtly and repeatedly, that their words matter less, their insight is thinner, their mistakes are more visible, their presence less weighty. There are many ways to wash one’s hands while still leaving another diminished.

For this reason the question is not simply, Why am I like this? It is also, What am I protecting? What wound, what vanity, what fear, what hunger in me reaches for elevation by lowering another person? The old self does not die gracefully. It flails. It bargains. It borrows the language of virtue. It even tries to make holiness itself into a platform. The ego can turn anything into a ladder, including religion.

And yet there is mercy in the asking of the question. The fact that one feels pierced by it may itself be evidence of grace. There was a time, perhaps, when making others feel small brought satisfaction, or at least went unnoticed. But to feel the sting of it, to be unable to rest in one’s own superiority, to hear in one’s own words an echo of something un-Christlike, is already a sign that the conscience has not been abandoned. The Spirit is often most present not when we feel triumphant, but when we are unable to escape the truth about ourselves.

The raised life in Christ does not make us impressive. It makes us honest. It frees us from the exhausting labor of having to appear larger than we are. The gospel does not inflate the self; it crucifies the need for inflation. To be raised with Christ is not to become grand over others, but to be joined to the one who took the form of a servant. The risen one still bears wounds. The exalted Christ is still the crucified Christ. Therefore any resurrection that makes us harsher, more self-certain, more dismissive, more addicted to being right at the expense of being loving, is not resurrection in the shape of Jesus. It is merely ego with religious lighting.

Perhaps that is why humility is so difficult. Humility is not humiliation, but it often feels like death because it requires surrendering the illusion that our value depends on being above someone else. Many of us have learned to live by comparison. We know how to feel secure only when we are more faithful, more intelligent, more discerning, more moral, more wounded, more enlightened, or more correct than another. Even our suffering can become a form of superiority. But Christ does not raise us in order to place us on a pedestal from which we can look down. Christ raises us into a life where we no longer need the pedestal.

To make others feel small is to forget the shape of grace. Grace does not approach us in order to embarrass us into transformation. Christ does not stand over the weak and smirk at their incompleteness. Christ stoops. Christ touches. Christ restores. Christ tells the truth, certainly, but never to annihilate the person standing before him. Even his rebukes open a door toward life. How often ours merely close it.

This is not to say that all correction is wrong or that all clarity is cruelty. Love does sometimes speak hard truths. Pastors, parents, teachers, friends, and prophets cannot avoid this. But there is a difference between helping another stand and needing them to kneel. There is a difference between truth spoken for healing and truth used as an instrument of self-exaltation. One can tell the truth in a way that enlarges the soul of the hearer, even in pain, and one can tell the truth in a way that shrinks them. Christ seems always to do the former. We too often do the latter.

So what is to be done? Not self-hatred. Self-hatred is only pride turned inward, the ego still fascinated with itself. Not despair. Despair is another refusal of grace. The better path is confession joined to watchfulness. One must begin to notice the moments when the spirit tightens, when irritation becomes an appetite, when another person’s weakness starts to feel useful, when one’s own cleverness becomes too pleasurable, when the urge rises to interrupt, correct, expose, or diminish. These are holy warning signs. They are invitations to stop before the damage is done, or to repent quickly when it has been.

And repentance in this matter may need to be very plain. It may mean apologizing without explanation. It may mean resisting the impulse to add one more clarifying comment that keeps oneself in control. It may mean listening longer than feels comfortable. It may mean asking whether someone felt dismissed, and then enduring the answer. It may mean learning silence not as withdrawal, but as restraint. It may mean praying before speaking in rooms where one is accustomed to ruling by tone. It may mean letting another person be bright without feeling dimmed by it.

Most of all, it means returning again and again to Christ, not merely as the one who raises, but as the one who lowers himself. The church rightly loves the language of resurrection, but resurrection can be sentimentalized unless it remains joined to crucifixion. One does not rise with Christ without also dying with him, and one of the things that must die is the craving to secure oneself by making others smaller. That craving is old self business. It belongs to the tomb, even if it keeps trying to crawl out.

The good news is not that those raised with Christ never again wound another person. The good news is that Christ does not abandon them when they discover they still can. He exposes, convicts, forgives, and continues the long work of conforming them to his likeness. He is patient with the slow unmaking of our pride. He is not surprised by our unfinishedness. He knows how much of us still needs to come alive.

So the question remains a worthy one: Since I have been raised with Christ, why do I still make others feel small? Perhaps because some part of me is still afraid to die. Perhaps because the old self is more deeply rooted than I imagined. Perhaps because I still confuse being Christlike with being impressive. Perhaps because resurrection has entered my life, but I am still learning how not to live by the old hierarchies of ego, power, and fear.

But the question need not end in condemnation. It can become prayer.

Lord Jesus Christ, if I have been raised with you, then raise also my speech, my reactions, my habits of thought, my hidden motives, my need to tower, my secret pleasure in being above. Show me where I make others small so that I may finally become small enough to enter your kingdom rightly. Teach me the humility that does not need to humiliate. Teach me the strength that does not need to diminish. Teach me your risen life, which is never domination, but love.

And perhaps that is where the answer finally begins: not in pretending that resurrection has already finished its work in us, but in yielding ourselves again to the Christ who is still raising the dead.

⚡️ Nioh 3 gets a FREE update on April 27, a proper drop for players who crave tough builds and nasty challenges.

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Struck Blind, Led By Grace

A Sermon of Encounter on the Damascus Road (Acts 9:1–19a)

(Note: Sermons can be heard in audio format at https://millersburgmennonite.org/worship/sermon-audio/)

Introduction

Last Sunday Rachelle talked about the disciples trembling in fear behind locked doors, only to have a surprise encounter with the risen Christ. As you may remember, last week I shared during the children’s story about a fearful encounter with a tornado from my childhood. Since I left you hanging at the end, and since there have been some inquiries about how things turned out, I wanted to finish the story.

I left the story with the windows of the school wide open, the skies dark and roiling with clouds, and we students and teachers sitting with our heads between our knees in the hallway, as I heard a teacher running from the office and the squawking Bearcat weather radio announcing that a tornado was heading right for us.

Well, unless I have somehow been replaced by a clone, you of course know I survived.

I did some research, and it seems the tornado in question was an F4—one step below the worst rating—that occurred on March 29, 1976. It started in central Mississippi and traveled 127 miles to Meridian. I was in third grade. I was scared.

If my memory serves me correctly, the tornado jumped over the school and tore the roof off a car dealership down the road. I learned that the tornado did kill three people. But it could have been much, much worse if the twister had landed on top of a bunch of scared children in Mt. Barton Elementary School that warm afternoon in March.

If we live on this earth very long, most of us will encounter forces greater than ourselves. Moments of terror. Moments of mystery. Moments when we are left trying to understand why we encountered what we encountered, why we lived while others died, why we had to face the experience at all. There are things that overtake us in this life—storms in the sky, storms in history, storms in the soul—and in those moments we feel very small indeed.

That is part of what makes Acts 9 such a powerful text.

Because Acts 9 is not just about a road.
It is about a man under orders.
It is about a collision with a force far greater than himself.

Scripture portrays Saul as overwhelmed by the terrifying nearness of the risen Christ—fallen to the earth, blinded by glory, and reduced from a man of force to one who must be led by the hand.

Let us pray,

 Que las palabras de mi boca y las meditaciones de nuestros corazones sean agradables a tus ojos, oh Dios, roca nuestra y redentor nuestro. Amén.

Homily

Saul begins the story as a man of certainty, a man of momentum, a man of religious fervor. He is not hesitant. He is not conflicted. He is “still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord.” Violence is in his lungs. Zeal is in his bones. He believes he knows exactly what he is doing.

And yet in one terrible and merciful moment, all of that certainty collapses.

Sometimes Christ meets us that way, by interrupting the life we thought we controlled. Sometimes grace arrives as disruption. Sometimes truth comes as collapse. A veces, Cristo resucitado nos encuentra no en nuestra fuerza, sino en nuestra debilidad. Sometimes the risen Christ meets us not in our strength, but in our weakness.

And so as we come to this story, we do not come merely to admire Saul’s conversion from a safe distance. We come as people who know what it is to be brought low, to have our certainties shaken, to ask what on earth just happened, and what do we do now.

Acts 9 is not only the story of Saul’s conversion. It is also the story of how Jesus interrupts violence, how blindness can become the beginning of true sight, and how the church is called to receive even the one it most fears.

“Meanwhile Saul, still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord, went to the high priest…”

That is how the story opens. Saul is not merely irritated. He is not simply mistaken.  He is a man so certain of his cause, so convinced of his righteousness, that he believes persecution is holy work.

That is one of the most unsettling truths in all of scripture: it is possible to be zealous for God and yet resistant to God. It is possible to be religious and wrong. It is possible to think we are defending truth while we are actually wounding Christ.

Saul is fervent. Focused. Devoted. He has official backing. He has a mission. He is going to Damascus to bind disciples and drag them away.

And then, on the road, everything changes.

A light from heaven flashes around him. He falls to the ground. And he hears a voice saying, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?”

That sentence is at the heart of the whole passage.

Jesus does not say, “Why do you persecute my people?”
He says, “Why do you persecute me?”

Christ so identifies with the church, with the suffering, hunted, trembling body of believers, that to strike them is to strike him. To wound them is to wound him. To terrorize them is to terrorize him.

This means the church is never merely a voluntary association or a club of like-minded people. The church is bound to Christ. The body belongs to the head. Jesús resucitado se toma como algo personal lo que se le hace a su pueblo. The risen Jesus takes personally what is done to his people.

And this also means something else. When anyone is trampled, degraded, humiliated, or brutalized, Christ is not distant from that suffering. The crucified and risen Jesus is the one who still says, in every age, “Why are you persecuting me?”

The voice of Christ echoes across history—across jail cells, lynching trees, prison camps, ghettos, slave ships, detention centers, ruined villages, and frightened homes. Christ is not neutral where human beings are crushed.

But notice: Jesus confronts Saul yet does not destroy him.

The first word Saul receives is judgment, yes—but judgment in the form of revelation. Saul is forced to see that the one he opposes is the Lord. The one he thought he was defending God against is, in fact, God’s Anointed One. The risen Christ unmasks Saul’s righteousness as rebellion.

But Jesus does not kill Saul on the road. He stops him.

The grace of God is often like that. It interrupts before it rebuilds. It knocks us down before it raises us up. It unmasks the disease before it heals.

And then comes the strange mercy of blindness.

Saul opens his eyes, but he can see nothing.

The man who thought he could see clearly turns out to be blind. The man who believed he had clarity, certainty, and theological precision is suddenly dependent on others to lead him by the hand.

He came to Damascus to take captives.
Instead, he enters Damascus a prisoner of his blindness.

He came with authority.
He arrives helpless.

He came breathing threats.
He arrives in silence.

For three days he neither eats nor drinks. Three days. A familiar length of time in the Christian story. It sounds like death, burial, waiting, undoing. Saul is in a kind of tomb. The old Saul—the self-assured, violent, self-justifying Saul—is being dismantled in darkness.

Sometimes we speak of conversion too lightly. As if it were merely changing one’s opinion or adjusting one’s beliefs. But in Acts, conversion is more like death and resurrection. It is not a tweak. It is a collapse of the old order. Saul’s world caves in on the Damascus road. As Paul later wrote to the church of Corinth, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: ¡Lo viejo se ha ido, lo nuevo ha llegado! The old has gone, the new is here!”

Some of us know what it is to have a world we trusted come apart. We know what it is to discover that our certainties were too certain, our judgments too sharp, our righteousness too self-protective, our religion too aligned with our fear.

Some of us know what it is to be brought low enough that we must be led by the hand.

But that is not the end of the story. Acts 9 is not only about Saul. It is also about Ananias.

The Lord comes to a disciple in Damascus and says, “Go.”

And Ananias rsponds with the facts: “Lord, I have heard from many about this man…”

In other words:
Lord, do you know who this is?
Lord, do you know what he has done?
Lord, do you know what he came here for?

Ananias is not faithless. He is honest. He knows the danger. He knows the stories. He knows the trauma Saul has caused. He knows that “welcome” is not cheap for people who have been hunted.

Pero el Señor dice: «Ve, porque él es un instrumento que yo he escogido…»

Yet the Lord says, “Go, for he is an instrument whom I have chosen…”

This is astonishing. God chooses the persecutor. Not because the persecution did not matter. Not because the harm was unreal. Not because God waves away the suffering Saul caused. No—God chooses Saul because grace is stronger than Saul’s past. La gracia es más fuerte que el pasado.

That does not minimize sin. It magnifies mercy.

Ananias goes.

This may be the hardest part of the text, honestly. Saul’s conversion is dramatic and memorable, but Ananias’s obedience is perhaps even more difficult.

Ananias must walk into the house where his enemy is staying. He must cross the threshold of fear. He must trust that Christ is already at work in someone he would never have trusted on his own.

And when he enters, his first words are breathtaking:

“Brother Saul.”

Brother.

Not “former enemy,”
not “dangerous man,”
not “suspect,”
not “problem,”
not even “convert.”

Brother.

Before the scales fall, Ananias speaks kinship. Before Saul has preached a sermon, planted a church, or written a letter, Ananias names him as family.

That is what the church is called to do—not cheaply, not foolishly, not without truth—but with the deep, trembling courage that believes Christ can make a new creation where we may only see a threat.

Ananias lays hands on Saul. Saul’s sight is restored. He is filled with the Holy Spirit. He rises and is baptized.

Maybe today some of us need the Saul word.
We have been too certain.
Too quick to call our own fear “conviction.”
Too ready to wound in the name of righteousness.
And the risen Christ is merciful enough to stop us.

Some need the Ananias word.
We are being asked to go where we do not want to go.
To cross a threshold we did not choose.
To trust that Christ may already be at work in the person we fear, avoid, or resent.
And obedience feels dangerous.

Some need the church word.
We are not merely individuals with private spiritual lives. We belong to one another in Christ. What is done to one member is done to all of us. The wounds of others are not somebody else’s problem. Christ says, “Why do you persecute me?”

And some need the resurrection word.
Our blindness is not the end.
Our darkness is not the end.
Our undone place is not the end.
God knows how to use even the tomb-like places that fill our souls.

Again and again in Scripture, God meets fearful, overwhelmed, disoriented people and makes a way where there seemed to be none. Paul himself will later admit that he came “in weakness and in fear and in much trembling.” La Biblia no oculta el miedo humano. Revela a un Dios que se encuentra con las personas en medio de él. The Bible does not hide human fear. It reveals a God who keeps meeting people in the middle of it.

We often think faith should remove fear entirely. But scripture is more honest than that. Faith is not always the absence of trembling. Often it is what happens when trembling people keep going because God has met them where they shiver and shake.

This means grace is not merely about making nice people a little nicer. Grace is about new creation. Grace does not simply smooth over rough edges. It raises the dead and rips off the grave clothes. It takes enemies and makes them kin. It takes what is curved inward on itself and bends it toward love.

The church, then, is called to be the place where this strange and difficult miracle keeps happening. Not that we become naive about harm. Not that we forget wounds. Not that accountability disappears. But that we refuse to believe anyone lies outside the reach of the risen Christ. Nos negamos a creer que alguien esté fuera del alcance de Cristo resucitado.

So perhaps part of the sermon today is this: someone else’s healing may depend on your willingness to go.

Your willingness to knock on the door.
Your willingness to enter the room.
Your willingness to pray.
Your willingness to trust that Christ has gone ahead of you.

And perhaps part of the sermon is this too: your own healing may depend on letting someone come to you.

Letting yourself be seen in your blindness.
Letting yourself be led.
Letting yourself receive touch, prayer, kindness, and naming.
Letting the community do for you what you cannot do for yourself.

So this morning, wherever you find yourself in the story, hear the good news.

If you are frightened, Christ speaks peace to frightened people.
If you are blind, Christ can open your eyes.
If you are ashamed of what you have done, Christ can heal you.
If you are reluctant like Ananias, Christ can still send you.
If you are wounded by what others have done, Christ sees that wound as his own.

The voice that spoke on the Damascus road still speaks today.

Still interrupts. Still confronts. Still blinds false vision. Still opens true eyes. Still joins himself to the wounded. Still sends disciples into difficult places. Still makes apostles out of enemies and saints out of the shattered.

So may the Lord who met Saul meet us. May the Lord who sent Ananias send us. May the Lord who restored sight restore our own. And may the scales fall from our eyes—whatever they are, however long they have clung—so that we may finally see Christ, and in seeing Christ, also rise with him in power, witness, and glory.

Amen

"Peter replied, 'Repent and be baptised, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.'"

Acts 2:38 #Bible #repentance #HolySpirit

Remorse Must Be Demonstrated

Saying sorry is the prescription, but remorse is the medicine. #inspiration #remorse #repentance #repent #reconciliation #restitution #reconcile #getright #faith #wordofgod from Bishop Shammah Womack-El

https://bishopshammahwomackel.wordpress.com/2026/04/16/remorse-must-be-demonstrated/