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Sermons from Commons Church. Intellectually honest. Spiritually passionate. Jesus at the centre. Since 2014.
The truth is, anytime we begin to think that us and them are categories that exist within the kingdom of God, we haven't lost at least part of the plot, and we've begun to serve some type of idol whether we have carvings to display on our mantles or not. Today, we are wrapping up our series in the book of Acts. Now next week is stampede. After that, we're gonna jump into a series on the Psalms. However, before we take one last look at Acts, let's take a few minutes here to look back at where we've been over the last seven weeks.
Jeremy Duncan:Because we've actually been in Acts for about two months now. And we started with four messages on the first half of the book, which is really all about the original disciples of Jesus, making sense of the fact that he's gone, and working to establish a community of Christ with the help of the spirit. And so Bobby kicked us off with a message about moving forward when God seems silent. What do any of us do when the road ahead feels uncertain? Well, the book of acts opens with the disciples caught between Jesus' ascension and the arrival of spirit at Pentecost.
Jeremy Duncan:This story very much begins in a liminal space. One chapter has closed, the next hasn't quite opened yet. And that probably has felt familiar to all of us at some point in our story. From there, we moved to Peter's first sermon. Let's be honest.
Jeremy Duncan:That's a little bit of pressure. Not only was this the first sermon of the church era, but Peter is stepping in to follow-up after, well, I mean, Jesus. Sure, the other disciples who actually knew Peter are probably like, yeah, let's see how this one goes. But you know what? Bless his heart.
Jeremy Duncan:Peter does a pretty good job here. Now sermon is short for sure, but I think it's often better than we remember it to be. Peter sets the stage. There's some really heavy lifting in the early church era. He's reinterpreting the day of the Lord in the light of the cross.
Jeremy Duncan:He's reimagining what the Messiah was all about in the light of the life of Jesus. He's telling us right from the sermon of the church era, everything we thought we knew about God looks different now when we see it through the story of Jesus. And Peter sets that conviction as the foundation of the church right away in chapter two. The clearest we will ever see God is when we look to Jesus. From there, we saw the church struggling with courage and finding it in each other.
Jeremy Duncan:And eventually, we found our way back to Peter. Again, with this time, Peter confronting, I think we could say the implications of his own sermon from chapter two, as he reckons with the realization that no one is impure or unclean. God is active in the salvation of every single person he has ever met. From there, things took a turn. So we shifted into part two of our series.
Jeremy Duncan:As the focus of acts shifts from Jerusalem and the OG's disciples to now this sort of expanding story of good news that's popping up across the empire. In chapter 13, we're introduced to the church in Antioch, A church that evolves almost on its own apart from the disciples with this sort of wonderfully motley crew of leaders. It speaks to this diversity and creativity within the kingdom of God that probably exceeds our expectations and honestly, certainly exceeds the expectations of Jerusalem. In chapter 15, we saw the church wrestling with the implications of this explosion of grace. They grapple with and then even rewrite their own rules to welcome in the non Jewish community.
Jeremy Duncan:And then last week, we followed Paul through the city of Athens. We watched him trust that the expansive story of grace he had encountered on the Damascus Road, and then helped to root in the Antiochian church, all of that was just the beginning. And that moving toward unfamiliar people, even through uncomfortable places, All of that was worth it for what might arrive on the other side of an unexpected conversation. That now leaves us with one more story in our journey through the book of Acts this year. First, let's pray.
Jeremy Duncan:Lord God of grace and peace, God who is present in our business and in our vacations, in our rest and in our work, God who delights in both our play and our creativity. Would you remind us of what it means to celebrate your nearness in every moment, including this one? To put our trust in you, to welcome those who love you, to extend our hearts to encompass those we might have seen on the outside of our story. And God, might we then find the courage to really examine our own walls, our own idols, the things that we work to protect in our own lives. Also, we might begin to see your kingdom as an ongoing challenge to the status quo that surrounds us.
Jeremy Duncan:That we slowly come to see your grace everywhere as the invitation that continually pushes back against the walls that we create, that welcomes us into new and surprising moments with each other. In the strong name of the risen Christ we pray. Amen. Okay. Today is our last look at the book of Acts, at least for this season.
Jeremy Duncan:And today, we'll cover Paul as he travels from Athens to Ephesus. We'll look at local attractions, spiritualized economics, outside of fears, and finally, the story that we're really a part of. First, I was thinking this week about the journey we've been watching Paul on over these past few weeks. Of course, he meets Jesus on the road to Damascus. He then travels to Jerusalem to meet with the apostles.
Jeremy Duncan:He leaves for Tarsus, and then is unheard from for a decade. But then he returns to Antioch at the behest of Barnabas to help start a new church, and then he's sent first on to Philippi and then over to Athens, now heading to Ephesus. And I was thinking about all that traveling because we are on the verge of summer vacations. Some of us getting our summer plans together right now. And this year, right after Stampede breakfast, our family will be heading back to Ontario to visit family.
Jeremy Duncan:Now we've lived in Calgary for twenty two years now, so this is home. We're not going anywhere. But there's still something about returning to where you're from. Right? Going back to your hometown, remembering that little weird thing about your hometown that they always like to hold up.
Jeremy Duncan:You know, every town has it. Something kinda completely meaningless, totally inconsequential, and yet something your town likes to hold up as if it's the greatest thing ever. Like, there's this little town near where my parents live called Colburn, Ontario, and they have a big apple. Now, not to be confused with New York City. It's literally just a great big paper mache apple sitting in the middle of a field somewhere.
Jeremy Duncan:And you're just supposed to come and look at it, I guess. I don't know. I'm pretty sure when I kid, it didn't have that face on it. I don't know. I think that's new.
Jeremy Duncan:Does look happy, so points to Colburn, Ontario, I suppose. To be honest, not all that different than Calgary. We have one week where we all cosplay cowboy together, but we get pancakes, so that's a little different. Thing is, in the ancient world, not all that different than today. Each of these cities that Paul travels to had their own tourist attraction to market.
Jeremy Duncan:Philippi had a temple dedicated to Caesar. Definitely a good way to curry favor with the administration, if you know what I mean. But they also had a temple dedicated to Pan, this one you see here. You might remember him as that sort of half goat, half man fellow, probably a lot more fun than Caesar's temple, I would guess. Athens, of course, had the Europa guests, where Paul debated with stoic and epicurean philosophers just last week.
Jeremy Duncan:And they also had this very famous temple dedicated to Athena that drew people from all over the empire. And then Ephesus, where we find ourselves today had its own temple. This one dedicated to the goddess Artemis. Now Artemis and her brother Apollo were two of the most important Greek gods. In fact, Artemis and Apollo are one of the few gods who got to keep their Greek names during the Roman era.
Jeremy Duncan:So when Zeus becomes Jupiter and Ares becomes Mars, Artemis just stays Artemis. And she was among other things, the goddess of the hunt. However, because Artemis and her brother Apollo were so popular, having a temple to Artemis in town actually meant big business for the city. Probably, I'll wager, a little more than a paper mache apple brought into Colburn, Ontario. Who knows?
Jeremy Duncan:But that's really what our story is about today. It's a story about tourism and money and economics and fear. A story about happens when what we really love gets squeezed a little bit. So, let's pick up with Paul. Pretty much where we left off with him last week, he's departed Athens.
Jeremy Duncan:Now in chapter 19, he lands in Ephesus. And this is verse 23. About that time, there arose a great disturbance about the way. Now, pause here. If you remember, when we talked about the church in Antioch, we read that Antioch was the first place where the followers of Jesus were called Christian.
Jeremy Duncan:Essentially, that meant something like little Christs or maybe imitators of Christ. And it's not entirely clear historically whether that was intended as a dismissive or derogatory title or not originally. Either way, that's where the designation first emerges though. Generally though, across the empire, followers of Jesus were known as people of the way. And that was shorthand for people who followed the way of a particular rabbi named Jesus.
Jeremy Duncan:But here in Ephesus, they are known that way, and there arose a great disturbance about them, which honestly kinda makes them sound cool. Right? A little bit epic. This is a very Star Wars coded reference right here. What's going on?
Jeremy Duncan:Well, a silversmith named Demetrius, who made silver shrines of Artemis, brought in a lot of business for the craftsman there. And he called them together, along with the workers and related trades, and he said, you know, my friends, we receive a good income from this business. And you see and hear how this fellow Paul has convinced and led astray large numbers of people here in Ephesus and practically the whole province of Asia. He says, gods made by human hands are no gods at all. You might remember that from last week in Acts 17.
Jeremy Duncan:But Demetrius doesn't like this, so he continues, there is danger not only that our trade will lose its good name, but also that the temple of the great goddess Artemis will be discredited, and that the goddess herself, who was worshipped throughout the province of Asia and the world, will be robbed of her divine majesty. Now sweet Demetrius, so noble, only out here to protect the good name of Artemis, who could possibly find fault with that? But let's be honest here, this guy is more transparent than my kids when they tell me they love me, only to immediately ask for something in the very next breath. This week, my daughter, actually, 100% legit turned to me and said, daddy, you are the best daddy in the world, and you're so handsome, and your muscles are so big, and it works. I gave her whatever she wanted.
Jeremy Duncan:I don't even remember what it was. She got it immediately. She knows what she's doing. See, here's the thing. When you step back and you read this as a disinterested party, the subtext is pretty clear here.
Jeremy Duncan:Right? Conflict of interest is right on the surface. Demetrius has got his mind on his money and his money on his mind. But in the moment here, when it's your job on the line, maybe it starts to feel like Demetrius makes some pretty compelling arguments here. You gotta understand, temples in ancient Rome, not all that different than religion today, if we're being honest.
Jeremy Duncan:It was big business. And the Temple Of Artemis specifically, just like the Big Apple in Colburn, Ontario, it brought tourists to Ephesus. Those tourists then bought artifacts in Ephesus, artifacts that were made by Demetrius and his fellow technites. And that's the word that gets translated craftsman here. That's who Demetrius gathers together here.
Jeremy Duncan:But these would have been all kinds of different artisans. So certainly silversmiths like Demetrius, but also sculptors, woodworkers, painters, whole set of related skills that probably work together in this trade. What I find interesting though is the way that economic concerns become so easily couched in spiritualized language. Notice, Demetrius doesn't start with the priests and the priestesses that work at the temple. He doesn't gather together the most devoted followers of Artemis in town.
Jeremy Duncan:He goes directly to those who make their money off the tourist trade. And he appeals to, I think perhaps what scares them the most, maybe the real idol they're concerned with, which is not artemisian artifacts after all. Instead, it's their bank accounts. Now again, I'm not saying that shifting economic interests in Ephesus aren't a legitimate concern for Demetrius. They are.
Jeremy Duncan:This is his job. What I'm saying is that when economic concerns get dressed up in pious garb, we're getting pretty close to something that's dangerous. And that, I think, is precisely the contrast the writer is trying to set up here. I also think if we're honest, that makes this story far more relevant than we might realize. Like sometimes, crack the bible and you read a story about idols and you imagine these little divine figurines, and it all feels kind of silly and distant from us.
Jeremy Duncan:Like, we're not gonna do that. Until we slow down enough to pay attention to the subtext that's largely about the same forces that are driving our choices today. I know you know this, but our neighbors to the South, The United States, have been engaged in military operations in Iran recently. What you might not realize is that the single biggest factor that has turned public support against that operation, according to multiple polls, by the way, has been the result in increasing gas prices over the last couple months. In other words, our opinions about war are primarily being shaped by how much we pay at the pump.
Jeremy Duncan:That, my friends, is idol worship. And it means that perhaps we are not so different from our Ephesian neighbors after all. So what happens here? Well, Demetrius calls everyone together, and when they heard this, they were furious. And they began shouting, great is Artemis of the Ephesians.
Jeremy Duncan:Again, notice how quickly the language turns back to religious sounding language despite the fact we all know the agenda here is economic. And so because of that, soon the whole city was in an uproar. And the people seized Gaius and Aristarchus, Paul's traveling companions from Macedonia, and all of them rushed into the theater together. Now, this theater referenced is the Theater Of Ephesus, and it was cut into the western slope of a hill nearby. This amphitheater could hold nearly 25,000 people at full capacity.
Jeremy Duncan:Very unlikely this crowd is anywhere near that big, but obviously, we're talking about a pretty sizable and likely pretty intimidating crowd here. Well, what's going on? Well, several times a month in Ephesus, there was a gathering in this particular theater to deal with civic issues. And the city would be invited, and the people would make their cases, and the leadership of the city would then rule on certain disputes that impacted the populace. That means what's happening here is that by dragging these troublemakers into the theater, the crowd is trying to provoke an impromptu civic assembly.
Jeremy Duncan:Other words, they're trying to force a political resolution with a sheen of legitimate respectability onto what is largely an angry mob. Next, we hear Paul wants to go down. He wants to address the crowd, but his friends are like, dude, don't do that. Some of the city officials even go to Paul, and they're like, like, this is a bad idea. Don't go down there right now.
Jeremy Duncan:Tempers are high. Let us try to calm things down. In fact, in verse 32, we read, the assembly was in confusion. Some were shutting one thing, some another. Let's be honest, most of the people didn't even know what they were there in the first place for.
Jeremy Duncan:Like, Luke really wants to drive this home. This is a mess. There's no meaningful argumentation. It's not a real debate. Just anger and resentment, frustration, and realistically unfounded fears derived from economic anxieties now turned into scapegoating fantasies.
Jeremy Duncan:If we get rid of them, it'll all be better. What's really interesting to me here, though, is that Luke uses incredibly loaded, very conspicuous language here to describe this mob. In English, he calls them the assembly. In Greek, he uses the word ekklesia. And you might have heard that word before because that's the Greek word for church.
Jeremy Duncan:Now, it had a secular use as well. In fact, that was the primary use of the word before the church claimed it for themselves. So this is a very fine and normal way to use the Greek word. But here, it's hard for me to imagine that this word choice isn't intentional. As if Luke is using it to subtly acknowledge this mess, this mob, this church, if you will, is an image of all of the worst of our religious tendencies reflected back to us.
Jeremy Duncan:Maybe our economic concerns or maybe our weaponized fear of the outsider or maybe our attempts to legitimize our fears through an appeal to our religious paradigms. Remember, this story is about idols. Right? I think Luke is doing some important work naming them for us. And if you think I'm reading too much into that, look at the next verse.
Jeremy Duncan:The Jewish people in the crowd pushed a representative, a guy named Alexander, to the front, and they shouted instructions to him. So he motioned for silence in order to make a defense before the people. But when the crowd realized he was Jewish, they shouted in unison for hours, great is Artemis of the Ephesians. No. Now you've got this ostensibly religious language being used, just to defend economic interests, but to mark out ethnic boundaries.
Jeremy Duncan:You're not one of us. We're not gonna listen to you. Now some background here. We don't really know who this Alexander was, but likely what's happening is that this whole situation that started because Demetrius was worried about Paul and the Christian converts disrupting the artemisian artifact trade has very quickly evolved into, actually, we don't want any of these outsiders in town at all. And so the Jewish community in Ephesus is watching this happen, watching how quickly this is escalating, and they're thinking, look, we gotta get out in front of this.
Jeremy Duncan:We gotta either distance ourselves from these Christians, or we gotta calm this mob down because this is not going in a good direction for any of us. I mean, the directory trajectory from Demetrius' original complaint here is pretty alarming how quickly it's gone. In fact, Luke spells it out. Right? Like, some are shouting one thing, some another.
Jeremy Duncan:Most of them didn't even know what they were there for. And then when they found out this guy Alexander wasn't one of them, they shouted him down without listening to him. This is a story about idols. It's just not about the ones that Demetrius made out of silver. It's a story about what happens when our financial interests are impacted.
Jeremy Duncan:It's a story about what happens when people who aren't like us move in next door. It's a story about what happens when the status quo beneath us begins to shift, and it feels destabilizing for us. Because this is a story about what happens when we allow our idols to bring out the worst of our scapegoating tendencies, and then we dress that all up in the most pious language we can find. What's important though is that for Luke, I think the story isn't just about offside Ephesians. The story is a warning for a church that is expanding and growing, a church that is increasing its influence and reach.
Jeremy Duncan:Yes, absolutely. This story is about the challenge that this church faces on the underside of the equation in the Roman Empire. That's the narrative that the book of acts is grounded in. But the language here also seems to be delicately chosen to suggest that perhaps this is a challenge that our ecclesia will face as well. Even more particularly, when we find ourselves with the power to muster our religious language to either support our neighbors or to vilify them.
Jeremy Duncan:The truth is anytime we begin to think that us and them are categories that exist within the kingdom of God, we haven't lost at least part of the plot, and we've begun to serve some type of idol, whether we have carvings to display on our mantles or not. At its core, this is not a story about statues. It's about all the ways in which we slowly replace God with what serves our self interest, and then we call it divine regardless. And, of course, very few of us will ever go to bed with a statue of Artemis on our bedside tables. Just not our thing.
Jeremy Duncan:But a lot of us, myself, we do fall asleep thinking about how to protect what we have, and that's not how we learn to dream well. Now here's what's interesting about the story. It's a bit of an ironic ending here. It's not actually our heroes that overcome the mob in Ephesus. Paul never actually makes his way down to the theater to address the crowd at all.
Jeremy Duncan:In fact, in verse 35, we read that it was the city clerk that finally quieted the crowd. And he asked, look, fellow Ephesians, doesn't all the world know the city of Ephesus? And that we're the guardian of the temple of the great Artemis and her image which fell from heaven? Therefore, since these facts are undeniable, you ought to calm down and stop doing something so rash. You brought these men here, though they have neither robbed temples nor blasphemed our goddess.
Jeremy Duncan:He goes on to say, look, you've got a valid accusation. You can take them to court. But if they haven't done anything wrong, it's time to go home. And here's what I love about this odd little story to end our series in Acts for this season. The church never actually defeats Artemis in Ephesus.
Jeremy Duncan:Like, they don't take over the city. They don't put Demetrius out of business. They don't destroy the temple. In fact, if you keep reading history, the temple stood for centuries after Paul left. It's kinda even still there and is still drawing tourists to the city.
Jeremy Duncan:Because winning isn't the point of the story in Acts. It certainly isn't the point of our story today. They, we, aren't called to conquer anyone, certainly not our neighbors. What we are called to do is recognize that the spirit of God is at work in the world right now, creating a different kind of people from within. People who don't need to protect themselves at their neighbor's expense.
Jeremy Duncan:People whose security isn't found in their economic superiority or their ethnicity or their political clout. But solely within their trust, that the story of Jesus is at work right now slowly rewriting the world around us. And that's why throughout this series, we have watched the same movement happen over and over again. The way the spirit helps us reinterpret our world. There's the disciples locked behind closed doors, and then they discover their courage.
Jeremy Duncan:Peter, cautious, but then acknowledging no one is unclean. The church in Antioch demonstrating that diversity isn't a threat. It's evidence of the spirit at work. There was the council of Jerusalem finding that traditions must bend before grace. Is Paul realizing that God is present among people who've never even heard the divine name?
Jeremy Duncan:And now in Ephesus, we're reminded that the greatest threat to the church isn't always persecution from the outside. Sometimes it's actually the temptation to become just another crowd and just another mob convinced that our fear should be allowed to bend our religion to its whims. And our job now, all these years on from the book of Acts, is not all that different than it was back then. It's to take all of those lessons all the way along, hard won as foundation for us, and then to honestly look for new ways to push them into new conversations with unexpected partners in our city today. To uncover those surprising spaces where the same spirit is still at work healing the world through the story of Jesus.
Jeremy Duncan:All the way down to our conversations with our neighbors across the fence this week Because that's where spirit lives. Let's pray. God, thank you for the season that we're moving out of, the season that we are entering this summer, for the opportunity to slow down and reflect, the opportunity to engage new conversations with perhaps those we haven't met, that live in our neighborhoods and near us, those that have different stories about how they've come to this place in this city. Stories that we can share about our faith and the way that you have guided us to this moment. Stories that we can learn from as we listen to each other.
Jeremy Duncan:And we trust that working for each other, with each other, is part of how the kingdom takes root. God, might we trust that entering into new relationships, A cross device that one time seemed too large to bridge. That this is how your grace and peace moves through us, into neighborhoods, into neighbors, into cities, into a kingdom of God that begins to take shape around us. So the grace and the peace of Jesus becomes a viable way through the world that we and those around us can be invited to follow. In the strong name of the risen Christ, pray.
Jeremy Duncan:Amen. Hey Jeremy here and thanks for listening to our podcast. If you're intrigued by the work that we're doing here at Commons, you can head to our website commons.church for more information. You can find us on all of the socials commonschurch. You can subscribe to our YouTube channel where we are posting content regularly for the community.
Jeremy Duncan:You can also join our Discord server. Head to commons.churchdiscord for the invite, and there you will find the community having all kinds of conversations about how we can encourage each other to follow the way of Jesus. We would love to hear from you. Anyway, thanks for tuning in. Have a great week.
Jeremy Duncan:We'll talk to you soon.