Bloom Where You're PLanted

• Seventh Sunday of Easter / Ascension Sunday

with Acts chapter 8

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• How many of you are second or third or fourth generation where you live?
What would it take for you to leave your home?
It’d have to be serious.
What would your attitude be if you left?

Today’s Acts reading precipitated by the stoning of Stephen and the rise of Saul the zealous persecutor, armed with authority to arrest and imprison (or worse) Jewish Christians.
People left their ancestral homes.

And Luke (author) uses the word diaspiro (1289), a word for scattering, sowing, planting (as opposed to much more common diaskorzo (1287), wasteful scattering a la the prodigal son squandering his inheritance)

Can you imagine blooming where you’re planted?

• Christians are scattered, planted throughout the Mediterranean, including Samaria. Yes, that Samaria, of Good Samaritan fame. Jews and Samaritans got along like Hatfields and McCoys. Like Jonah and the Ninevites.

To be ousted from your ancestral home and to go to the people your clan has despised. It’d have to be serious.

• Philip goes to Samaria and preaches Christ, and like Jonah and the Ninevites, the people respond overwhelmingly favorably. Philip blooms where he’s planted and bears fruit immediately, strong ripe beautiful fruit immediately.

• The apostles in Jerusalem catch wind of God is doing in Samaria through Philip, and Peter and John are sent to strengthen the witness. Again, folks are praying earnestly for what we might call their enemies, and they go not for their own purposes but to witness about Christ and to bear the Holy Spirit to them, which they bear by prayer and by presence, the laying on of hands.

And their witness is fruitful as well. They preach to many Samaritan villages, who hear and receive the Word.

• It must’ve been serious for folks to leave their ancestral homes and face folks traditionally avoided. But they do so because they have the Holy Spirit and because they recognize it is not theirs to keep but they are compelled to share, not merely in prayer but in presence.

The Word they share is life in Christ, empowered by the Holy Spirit.

As the bishop shared last week, life in Christ which knows no bounds, indeed is boundary breaking, empowered by the Holy Spirit a la Star Trek, to boldly go where no one has gone before, to offer connection to the living God.

• That’s what you have. That’s what we have.
A God worth proclaiming,
a God worth risking for, a God worth living for.

• We are called to make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world.
To share the love of God with people in a hurting world.

What will we let stop us?

• Hymn 539 O Spirit of the Living God

Acts 8:1-25  (CEB)

At that time, the church in Jerusalem began to be subjected to vicious harassment. Everyone except the apostles was scattered throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria.² Some pious men buried Stephen and deeply grieved over him. ³ Saul began to wreak havoc against the church. Entering one house after another, he would drag off both men and women and throw them into prison.

⁴ Those who had been scattered moved on, preaching the good news along the way. ⁵ Philip went down to a city in Samaria and began to preach Christ to them. ⁶ The crowds were united by what they heard Philip say and the signs they saw him perform, and they gave him their undivided attention. ⁷ With loud shrieks, unclean spirits came out of many people, and many who were paralyzed or crippled were healed. ⁸ There was great rejoicing in that city.

⁹ Before Philip’s arrival, a certain man named Simon had practiced sorcery in that city and baffled the people of Samaria. He claimed to be a great person. ¹⁰ Everyone, from the least to the greatest, gave him their undivided attention and referred to him as “the power of God called Great.” ¹¹ He had their attention because he had baffled them with sorcery for a long time. ¹² After they came to believe Philip, who preached the good news about God’s kingdom and the name of Jesus Christ, both men and women were baptized. ¹³ Even Simon himself came to believe and was baptized. Afterward, he became one of Philip’s supporters. As he saw firsthand the signs and great miracles that were happening, he was astonished. ò

¹⁴ When word reached the apostles in Jerusalem that Samaria had accepted God’s word, they commissioned Peter and John to go to Samaria. ¹⁵ Peter and John went down to Samaria where they prayed that the new believers would receive the Holy Spirit. (¹⁶ This was because the Holy Spirit had not yet fallen on any of them; they had only been baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus.) ¹⁷ So Peter and John laid their hands on them, and they received the Holy Spirit.

¹⁸ When Simon perceived that the Spirit was given through the laying on of the apostles’ hands, he offered them money.¹⁹ He said, “Give me this authority too so that anyone on whom I lay my hands will receive the Holy Spirit.”

²⁰ Peter responded, “May your money be condemned to hell along with you because you believed you could buy God’s gift with money! ²¹ You can have no part or share in God’s word because your heart isn’t right with God. ²² Repent, therefore, change your heart and life! Turn from your wickedness! Plead with the Lord in the hope that your wicked intent can be forgiven, ²³ for I see that your bitterness has poisoned you and evil has you in chains.”

²⁴ Simon replied, “All of you, please, plead to the Lord for me so that nothing of what you have said will happen to me!” ²⁵ After the apostles had testified and proclaimed the Lord’s word, they returned to Jerusalem, preaching the good news to many Samaritan villages along the way. ò