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Acts 14:11 and 14
‘When the crowd saw what Paul had done, they shouted in the Lycaonian language, "The gods have come down to us in human form!"But when the apostles Barnabas and Paul heard of this, they tore their clothes...’
Paul heals someone and the crowds all of a sudden think that they are Greek gods. Paul and Barnabas are not gods and they are not happy to be called gods. I get unhappy sometimes, but I don’t usually express this by ripping my clothes off and running around; not that the idea isn’t appealing: it would show people that I was really, really unhappy.
Paul and Barnabas are not gods, but messengers of the Gospel. They bring the Good News in word and action. They reveal God to the world. The ultimate revelation of God to the world was in the human person of Jesus Christ. Everyone knows that if you think too long about God becoming human, dying, and coming back to life - being human and God at the same time - you soon realise that you are facing a profound mystery that is too big for us to wrap our heads around. Next God reveals himself in the world through you and I, imperfect humans, which is, even more difficult to understand than God becoming human and living and dying.
What are the implications of the fact that God has chosen you and I to reveal him to the world?
In a connected matter there are lots of things happen in church (and all other areas of life) for reasons that we sometimes forget, or sometimes misunderstand. Some people call this tradition. Some recognise that good tradition is the living faith of the dead - vibrant, real, meaningful, and that bad tradition is the dead faith of the living - empty actions which have no meaning or purpose. Therefore, it is a bit simplistic to label all the things that we do through routine but have forgotten the meaning of as ‘tradition’.
There was once a tradition in the church that the priest who presided at Communion would stand with his back to the congregation as he led the prayer. Some people like this tradition but most of us would find it rude if we went for a meal at someone’s house and they talked to us whilst facing away from us. The reason for the tradition was (so I heard) that in doing this the priest showed that he represented the people before God; he stood in front of the congregation (with his back to them) and faced God. This is not the same as a priest representing Jesus to the people.
We are all Christians (little christs), and we all represent God to the world. Are we all priests? Yes. Should we represent God to the world? Yes. Should we represent the world before God? An interesting question...
Like Paul and Barnabas we have power, we are Jesus’ disciples. But power can be misunderstood, both by the people who see it in action and those who use it (and those who use it can misuse it). Like a tradition, even if it is good its meaning is not always clear. So what does it mean to be powerful, but to not grasp on to and misuse power, but instead to serve the people? The answer to that brings us right back to Jesus. So we have the awesome task of being Jesus in the world. Perhaps the hardest part of that is not being powerful or famous, but serving and striving to be unknown.
