A Call to Macedonia - Pastor Johnnie Simpson Jr.

Acts 16:9-15

9 During the night Paul had a vision of a man of Macedonia standing and begging him, “Come over to Macedonia and help us.” 10 After Paul had seen the vision, we got ready at once to leave for Macedonia, concluding that God had called us to preach the gospel to them.

11 From Troas we put out to sea and sailed straight for Samothrace, and the next day we went on to Neapolis. 12 From there we traveled to Philippi, a Roman colony and the leading city of that district of Macedonia. And we stayed there several days.

13 On the Sabbath we went outside the city gate to the river, where we expected to find a place of prayer. We sat down and began to speak to the women who had gathered there. 14 One of those listening was a woman from the city of Thyatira named Lydia, a dealer in purple cloth. She was a worshiper of God. The Lord opened her heart to respond to Paul’s message.15 When she and the members of her household were baptized, she invited us to her home. “If you consider me a believer in the Lord,” she said, “come and stay at my house.” And she persuaded us.

In preparation for this sermon, I wanted to look up an article I recalled several years ago about a janitor donating several million dollars to some organizations after they passed away. I did not remember the school off the top of my head, when I searched online for the school, I found out that this had happened multiple times. 

In 2014 Ronald Reed of Brattleboro, Vermont passed away at the age of 92, his estate donated $4.8 million to the local hospital and $1.2 million to the town's Brooks Memorial Library.

In 2004 Genesio Morlacci, gave $2.3 Million to the University of Great Falls in Montana. I started searching some more and saw many interesting occupations leaving multi-million-dollar donations to institutions and no one even knew these people had that kind of money. Everyday people who minded their own business and worked quietly like Thessalonians says. You never know what anyone is capable of, or what they can do if given the chance. There is someone that was very capable of doing big things  in the book of Acts, that many people would have looked over but the Holy Spirit had another plan. 

The Book of Acts follows the outgrowth of the Christian Church after Christ has ascended. In the text, we are following Paul around, and this story is funny because there are many times Paul’s trip to Macedonia almost did not happen. Paul was not trying to go to Macedonia. First, there were not a lot of Jewish people there. There was controversy about even preaching to Gentiles in the first place, then Paul and Barnabas disagreed on where to preach next, so they split ways, then Paul wanted to go to Asia, but the Holy Spirt kept blocking him from going. Paul has a vision of a man telling him to come to Macedonia, 

Ancient Greece was composed of two Roman provinces: Macedonia in the north and Achaia in the south. Philippi was founded in 356 BCE by Philip of Macedon (father of Alexander the Great) but remained an insignificant village until it was “rediscovered” by Emperor Augustus as an ideal place for retired army officers who had faithfully served him during the battle of Actium (31 BCE). 

Macedonia was a town made up of elites, land-owning farmers, pensioned colonists, skilled workers, merchants, service providers, and enslaved people. One of the citizens was a successful businesswoman named Lydia, and Acts tells us that the “Lord opened her heart to listen eagerly to what was said by Paul” (v. 14). She accepted the good news that Paul was sharing, and both she and her household were baptized. Then she offered them hospitality, saying, “If you have judged me to be faithful to the Lord, come and stay at my home” (v. 15). And they accepted.

We know Lydia is important because she had a name. Think about the nameless women in the Bible; there is a story in Matthew, Mark, and Luke where Jesus healed “Peter’s Mother-in-Law.” Jesus healed the woman with the issue of blood. Jesus healed Jairus’ daughter. Do we remember Lot’s wife? What about Pharaoh’s daughter? We admire the generosity of the widow with two mites, and we talk about the woman at the well; we just don’t know their names. However, we know Lydia’s name. Lydia is a Greek name, not a Jewish one, so she was not born into the faith, which is also evident because the text calls her a worshiper of God. Sometimes in the New Testament, you see words like “God-fearing” or “worshiper of God” we read without passing. Still, in Greek, they mean that the person wasn’t born a believer that they learned about God later and started trying to follow Him, still got treated differently by some church people because they were not born into the faith and living it all their lives. 

We also know that Lydia is not at a synagogue; they called it a house of prayer; you needed a certain number of Jewish men in the area to make a quorum for a proper synagogue, and Macedonia didn’t have enough of a Jewish population to make the cut. Nevertheless, Lydia is still there by the water, looking to worship the Lord. 

Lydia was a business owner who dealt with purple cloth, which is important because the only people that wore purple during that time were royalty and powerful people in society. Everyone could not just wear purple back then because they liked the color. Lydia had a business, and it was a successful business with high-end clients. Lydia also had a house; the text says that Lydia said to come to my house, not my husband’s house or my son’s house, come to my house. Lydia became the very first European convert to Christianity. She was received into the Christian faith with no concern about purity, past, or even gender. 

The believers baptized Lydia and her household (v. 15). Back then, when the head of the house was baptized, so was the rest of the family, the spouses, children, workers, enslaved people, and everyone followed the head of the household. An excellent scripture to have if someone is trying to get ordained and needs a scripture reference for baptizing infants. Then she opens her house as a base for Paul and his companions, insisting that they stay there while continuing their work in Philippi. 

Lydia established in the Book of Acts one of the most vital churches. Lydia was an outsider, a stranger, an immigrant even. 

In many congregations, welcoming strangers from foreign lands and unfamiliar cultures is a challenge. Across America today, immigrants are coming to church, just as they always have. But where previous waves of immigrants were predominantly European, these new arrivals are coming from non-Western countries with cultures and skin colors more alien to white Americans than that of Europeans.

Sometimes, these newcomers rattle established churches by introducing new worship styles. New worship styles are not always well received, but if we want the church, both this church and the worldwide church, we will have to talk to some strangers. 

The first step in overcoming this challenge is to expand our outreach to people of different races and cultures, based on the understanding that everyone is made “in the image of God,” according to the book of Genesis (1:27). “When you meet another person,” says author and pastor John Pavlovitz, “you are coming face-to-face with a once-in-history, never-to-be-repeated reflection of the image of God. … If God is God, there’s no other option: they are each made of God stuff. … Every single day you encounter thousands of breathings, animated thumbnails of the Divine.”

Whether black, white, Asian, European, African, Latino, or Native American, a person is made in the image of God. In the eyes of God, everyone is welcome.

Next, we need to practice genuine Christian hospitality, showing the same kind of welcome that Jesus showed the people of his day. We do this by sitting down with folks on the margins of society, just as Jesus broke bread with “tax collectors and sinners” (Matthew 9:10) — the scrub bulls of first-century Israel. Such a welcome requires a commitment to embrace all people as God has embraced us in Christ. It involves a willingness to see everyone as a child of God, a sinner for whom Christ died, a person bearing the image of God — no matter how obscured that image might be through personal sinfulness or societal prejudice. Lydia did this as well; she opened her house to Paul and the others. 

Who are some Lydias that we can bring to our tables? Lydia had a lot to offer, and had people been sticklers for rules and traditions; she might not have ever been a help to the church.

Genuine hospitality is practiced when we learn to offer meals where people can gather around tables for conversations, leading to the development of relationships. And a genuine welcome is experienced when newcomers join small groups where they can grow in faith and deep-spirited friendships. 

We must listen for our call to Macedonia and go out and find our way for the church and the kingdom of God. Who are the Lydia we can invite to church, who are the people who we wouldn’t normally speak to that could use Jesus? 

Silent Partners - Pastor Johnnie Simpson Jr.

Revelation 7:9-17

⁹ After this I looked, and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and before the Lamb. They were wearing white robes and were holding palm branches in their hands. ¹⁰ And they cried out in a loud voice:

“Salvation belongs to our God, who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb.”

¹¹ All the angels were standing around the throne and around the elders and the four living creatures. They fell down on their faces before the throne and worshiped God, ¹² saying:

“Amen! Praise and glory and wisdom and thanks and honor and power and strength be to our God for ever and ever. Amen!”

¹³ Then one of the elders asked me, “These in white robes—who are they, and where did they come from?”

¹⁴ I answered, “Sir, you know.”

And he said, “These are they who have come out of the great tribulation; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. ¹⁵ Therefore,

“they are before the throne of God     and serve him day and night in his temple; and he who sits on the throne     will shelter them with his presence. ¹⁶ ‘Never again will they hunger;     never again will they thirst. The sun will not beat down on them,’     nor any scorching heat. ¹⁷ For the Lamb at the center of the throne     will be their shepherd; ‘he will lead them to springs of living water.’     ‘And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.’”

 

I am the child of an entrepreneurial mother, a risk-taker, and someone who has started several businesses in her life. So I grew up with a vocabulary slightly different from others my age and in my community. I learned words like partnerships, equity, shares, shareholder, business plan, and one that brings me to the message today, silent partner. A silent partner contributes to the company's success by providing money but is usually not involved in the company's day-to-day operations. Silent partners believe in the vision, support the vision, and provide what the company needs to thrive...money. Unless the owner or inventor of the company is independently wealthy, they will need a lot of money to get the business, project, or invention off the ground.

 

It's one thing to have a good idea, and it's another thing to perfect a prototype through months of trial and error in the lab. But successful inventors eventually need to jump from research and development to manufacturing.

 

They need to be able to sell the vision to at least one investor, if not more, to write the checks.

Samuel Colt — inventor of the famous revolver that bears his name — started with money from his father, who owned a textile plant. After he burned through that dough, he formed a traveling medicine show demonstrating the supposed health benefits of nitrous oxide, or "laughing gas." Eventually, he gave up on that scheme and found a group of investors to fund his gun-manufacturing operation.

 

Samuel Morse, who invented the telegraph, was a teacher. A student's wealthy father, who owned an ironworks, was the first to bankroll Morse's electronic research. Later, Morse got substantial grants from the United States and the United Kingdom governments to run the first transatlantic telegraph cable.

 

Alexander Graham Bell was likewise a teacher. Like Morse, he was not above schmoozing two of his pupils' well-heeled dads, a lawyer and a leather merchant. They were happy to fund his scheme for a new and improved telegraph. But that wasn't Bell's real passion. He quietly diverted some of the telegraph research funds into a more speculative project: the telephone.

 

Wilbur and Orville Wright funded their early research using profits from their Dayton, Ohio, bicycle shop. It took them a long time to develop the first airplane because they had to keep traveling back and forth to Dayton to run the business. Once their first plane took off from Kitty Hawk, N.C., the U.S. Army stepped up. The Army offered to buy a Wright airplane for $30,000, but only if it met specific engineering and performance criteria. Working furiously to qualify for the grant, the Wrights experienced disaster: their prototype plane crashed, seriously injuring Orville and killing an Army observer, Lt. Thomas E. Selfridge (the first person ever to die in a plane crash). Undeterred, the Wrights perfected the design and used that money to start their own airplane-manufacturing company.

 

 

I could go on about many famous entrepreneurs and inventors, but I digress; the point is that successful people had supporters behind them, some loud and some silent.

 

The Bible includes some silent partners — spiritually speaking. Their support is not of the financial variety; it's something else altogether. Revelation 7:9 mentions some partners "After this I looked, and there was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, robed in white …"

 

They are what the Apostles' Creed calls "the communion of saints." They stand behind us, the present-day church, quietly lending support in ways we're only dimly aware.

 

 

John is writing in Revelation to a church caught in the middle of either worshiping the emperor or worshiping the savior. They have to decide if they want to be a community that worships the Lamb of God or the world that worships the emperor. The Roman emperor Domitian had people saying Caesar is Lord, and Choirs following him around calling him holy. Roman leaders thought they were the son of God here to save the world, and there was a small group of people who had the nerve to believe that some man from Galilee was the Son of God instead of them.

 

The Roman oppressors demand loyalty to them above all others, and anyone who does not get in line is severely and brutally punished. This message is not a future prediction but present-day comfort.

 

The Gospels referred to crowds repeatedly, indicating that they are the special object of Jesus Christ's ministry.  John witnesses a horde of believers shouting a hymn of praise.  At first, John saw 144,000, then he looked back and saw a number that no one could count.  The text says that the people are from all nations; even though they are diverse, they are unified by the lamb of God. John is speaking of a global community of all nations and tribes, meaning we do not have a lock on heaven; we are not bouncers at the door asking for ID and determining who gets in and who does not.

 

"Salvation belongs … to the Lamb" because our relationship with God and all the benefits that relationship brings us are a consequence of Jesus' death on the cross. 

The believers are choosing one type of blood over another, and they are choosing the blood of Jesus over the potential bloodshed they will receive for not worshiping the emperor.

 

They are promised a great reward, but that does not exempt them from suffering.

John is asking why they are singing. They are singing because the blood of Christ has redeemed them. Christ took those dirty robes, washed them in his blood, and they are now white as snow.

 

Everyone knows that even stringent bleach is often insufficient to restore whiteness to garments stained with blood. Therefore, how could anyone believe that blood can itself make something white?

 

Such an image is, of course, a paradox — a statement that, on its face, must be wrong that's asserted to be true nonetheless. Paradoxes challenge us to reject what appears plain and obvious, and they confront us with a reality contrary to what our experience has taught us is accurate. Christ's blood doesn't stain; it cleanses.

 

 

God is going to take care of our needs as well. John is calling back to Isaiah 49:10, where it says

10 They will neither hunger nor thirst,

    nor will the desert heat or the sun beat down on them.

He who has compassion on them will guide them

    and lead them beside springs of water.

 

God will provide for his believers and take care of those in need. God will wipe away our tears and be victorious over the enemies of the faith. Not only is God going to take care of us, but while we are in the struggle, we can know we are not alone.

 

Sometimes things go well; we sense the Holy Spirit at work in our world and realize we're surrounded by God's love, constant as the air we breathe. In bright moments like these, we know that this Christian faith of ours works — that it's the most eminently practical guide for living ever devised.

 

Of course, there are other times when we feel discouraged and disheartened. Life seems to make us take one step forward and two steps back in such moments.

 

 

Yet, in every season — in good times or in bad — we can take comfort in this reassuring fact that we are never alone. Those silent partners, the communion of saints, surround us on every side. The saints are among us spiritually and physically in the life of the church.

 

Saints are ordinary people who struggle with their faith like anyone else. The communion of saints is the community of the forgiven, not the unnaturally saintly.

Believe in the communion of saints. It is one of the greatest supports for the Christian life in this world and the next!

Walking Away From It All - Pastor Johnnie Simpson Jr.

21 Afterward Jesus appeared again to his disciples, by the Sea of Galilee. It happened this way: 2 Simon Peter, Thomas (also known as Didymus), Nathanael from Cana in Galilee, the sons of Zebedee, and two other disciples were together. 3 “I’m going out to fish,” Simon Peter told them, and they said, “We’ll go with you.” So they went out and got into the boat, but that night they caught nothing.

4 Early in the morning, Jesus stood on the shore, but the disciples did not realize that it was Jesus. 5 He called out to them, “Friends, haven’t you any fish?” “No,” they answered.

6 He said, “Throw your net on the right side of the boat and you will find some.” When they did, they were unable to haul the net in because of the large number of fish.

7 Then the disciple whom Jesus loved said to Peter, “It is the Lord!” As soon as Simon Peter heard him say, “It is the Lord,” he wrapped his outer garment around him (for he had taken it off) and jumped into the water.8 The other disciples followed in the boat, towing the net full of fish, for they were not far from shore, about a hundred yards. 9 When they landed, they saw a fire of burning coals there with fish on it, and some bread.

10 Jesus said to them, “Bring some of the fish you have just caught.” 11 So Simon Peter climbed back into the boat and dragged the net ashore. It was full of large fish, 153, but even with so many the net was not torn. 12 Jesus said to them, “Come and have breakfast.” None of the disciples dared ask him, “Who are you?” They knew it was the Lord. 13 Jesus came, took the bread and gave it to them, and did the same with the fish. 14 This was now the third time Jesus appeared to his disciples after he was raised from the dead.

15 When they had finished eating, Jesus said to Simon Peter, “Simon son of John, do you love me more than these?” “Yes, Lord,” he said, “you know that I love you.” Jesus said, “Feed my lambs.” 16 Again Jesus said, “Simon son of John, do you love me?” He answered, “Yes, Lord, you know that I love you.” Jesus said, “Take care of my sheep.” 17 The third time he said to him, “Simon son of John, do you love me?” Peter was hurt because Jesus asked him the third time, “Do you love me?” He said, “Lord, you know all things; you know that I love you.”

Jesus said, “Feed my sheep. 18 Very truly I tell you, when you were younger you dressed yourself and went where you wanted; but when you are old you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will dress you and lead you where you do not want to go.” 19 Jesus said this to indicate the kind of death by which Peter would glorify God. Then he said to him, “Follow me!”

 

I am sensitive to burning out, I believe in the theory of decision fatigue, and I constantly do things to make sure I don't burn out. I practice regular sabbath keeping; I exercise regularly, see a therapist, participate in a spiritual formation group, and keep up hobbies to avoid burning out. 

Pastor is a profession where people want to walk away. According to a survey of pastors:

• 75% of pastors report being "extremely stressed" or "highly stressed" (1)

• 90% work between 55 to 75 hours per week (2)

• 90% feel fatigued and worn out every week (1)

• 70% say they're grossly underpaid (2)

• 40% report a serious conflict with a parishioner at least once a month (1)

• 78% were forced to resign from their church (63% at least twice), most commonly because of church conflict (1)

• 80% will not be in ministry ten years later; only a fraction make it a lifelong career (1). On average, seminary-trained pastors last only five years in church ministry (2)

• 100% of 1,050 Reformed and Evangelical pastors had a colleague who had left the ministry because of burnout, church conflict, or moral failure (2)

• 91% have experienced some form of burnout in ministry, and 18% say they are "fried to a crisp right now" (7)

• 53% of pastors do not feel that seminary or Bible college prepared them adequately (2)

• 70% of pastors say they have lower self-esteem now than when they entered ministry (1)

• 70% constantly fight depression (2)

• 50% feel so discouraged that they would leave their church if they could but can't find another job (2)

• 80% believe their pastoral ministry has negatively affected their families and 

• 33% said it was an outright hazard (1)

Pastoring is not the only profession where people feel like they want to walk away. 

Dustin Snyder had enough. Dustin was tired of the long work weeks, low wages, and grumpy customers. Dustin was assistant general manager of a McDonald's restaurant in Bradford, Pa. In early September 2021, Dustin drafted a petition for the regional office and invited his workers to sign it.

"We are all leaving," his petition stated, "and hope you find employees that want to work for $9.25 an hour." Nearly all of the 24-day-shift employees added their names. (They all knew that, just 20 miles away, employees at a McDonald's across the border in New York did identical work, receiving that state's $15-an-hour minimum wage.)

It wasn't a strike, and it wasn't a protest, and it was a simple statement of fact to Dustin and his low-wage employees.

Dustin faxed the petition to the regional office in Buffalo. Moments later, his phone rang, and it was the regional supervisor. "Why did you do it?" she wanted to know.

"I was trying to get better pay for my people."

"There are better ways to go about this," scolded the supervisor. "No one gets a raise," she told him. "If your workers don't like it, they can quit."

And so they did. Nearly all of the workers quit on the spot, and they took off their headsets and abandoned their stations at the drive-through and cash registers.

The line at the drive-through began to grow longer. Mystified customers watched the employees assemble in the parking lot. Then they watched Dustin lock the building and hang a sign on the door. On it, he'd scribbled in blue highlighter — the only pen he could find — "Due to lack of pay, we all quit."

"Hey!" a man called out to Dustin from his car. "We just want a Quarter Pounder and fries."

"Well, we just want to be paid more and treated better," Dustin replied.

When Dustin told Stephanie Kelley, the store's general manager, what they'd done, she wasn't upset. She was sympathetic. More than that, she decided to join them. She texted her night shift employees, telling them what the day shift had just done and that she, too, was quitting. Most of the night shift did the same. Dustin and Stephanie spent the next few days helping their workers find better jobs — in some cases driving them to other fast-food restaurants with vacancies.

As for the Bradford McDonald's, it wasn't long before the store was up and running again. The franchise owner also owned the store across the border in New York. He bussed in $15-an-hour workers from that location to re-open the drive-through, then hired a whole crew of new employees from Pennsylvania. But he had to do it for $10 an hour, giving his new workers the 75-cent raise his former employees had requested.1

In the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, workers across America — professionals and shift workers — have been rethinking the work they do. In some cases, they've decided to walk away from it, sometimes to new jobs, and other times to no jobs. People have different reasons for walking away, better job opportunities, deciding to go back to school, more money on unemployment than working a job, training for a better job in the future, burnout, or maybe even suffering a significant loss. No matter the reason behind it, people walk away, and the fact remains that they walked away. 

Today's gospel lesson tells the story of someone who walks away from it. It's the apostle Peter, and the job he walks away from is commercial fishing. Remarkably, this incident from John 21 is the second time the gospels describe Peter walking away from that job. The first time was in Luke 5 when Peter was not having a good day fishing. Jesus invited Simon Peter to go out one more time to catch some fish, and this time Peter came back with a net full of fish. Peter, James, and John started following Jesus right then, walking away from their fishing jobs. 

The disciples are together near the Sea of Tiberius before nightfall. The Jews called it the Sea of Galilee, and everyone else called it the Sea of Tiberius. The Disciples have faced the catastrophe of the cross. Jesus has risen, but they don't know that yet. They only know about the empty tomb. The disciples are lost after losing their Savior and are dealing with grief.

The disciples go back to what they know, which is fishing. They have fished all night and into the morning and haven't caught any fish. I can only imagine the pain and struggle of leaving what you know for something new; that new thing comes crashing down, going back to what you know, and failing at what you know. Some people may have a problem with the Disciples going back to fishing. We look at this story already knowing the end; the people in the story did not. We act like we would have great faith amid the trial when in actuality, minor things can shake us up. We will walk away from church over music and committee appointments so I can sympathize with men who walked with Jesus dealing with a front-row seat at his public execution. 

I submit that the Disciples were not committing apostasy, nor were they being aimless; instead, the disciples' actions were aligned. You can find the Lord in the ordinary and the routine. At this moment, the fishers of the sea were called by the fisher of men on the shore.

God is a God of restoration. No matter if you have walked away or are in the process of walking away, God can restore you just like Jesus did in this passage. 

Peter denied Jesus three times during the crucifixion; Jesus told Peter to feed my sheep three times.

Jesus told Nathaniel in John chapter 1 that Nathaniel would see greater works; in John chapter 21, Nathaniel saw the risen Savior.

The disciples were near the Sea of Tiberius in John 21, the same place where Jesus fed the multitude in John 6. It was bread and fish the first time around and the bread of life the second time around.

Jesus called Peter by name and by his family; Jesus knows who you are and whose you are. When Jesus gets involved, there is more than enough. Jesus filled Peter's nets again with fish just like he did the first time. 

When Peter realizes who filled his net, he leaps from his fishing boat into the water. So eager is he to leave behind the futile striving of his old occupation that he doesn't mind getting wet. He doesn't even wait for the boat to ride on the beach. He goes to Jesus immediately.

For the first time in his life, Peter truly knows this. And for the first time in his life, he's received a call so compelling he'll never return to his fishing boat again.

There's an old Jewish story about a rabbi walking through a neighboring village late at night. He encounters another man walking alone, and together the two of them walk down the street in silence. Finally, the rabbi turns to his new companion and asks, "So, who do you work for?"

"I work for the village," the man answers. "I'm the night watchman."

They walk on some more in silence. Then it's the night watchman's turn to ask this newcomer to his village a question. He asks the rabbi, "And who do you work for?"

The rabbi answers: "I'm not always sure. But this I will tell you. Name your present salary, and I'll double it. All you have to do to earn that extra money is one thing. You have to walk with me from time to time and ask me, 'Who do you work for?'"

We could all use someone to ask us, from time to time, "Who do you work for?" We could all use someone to meet us on the beach and challenge us to declare, truthfully, if our nets are empty or full. Then, having made that self-inventory, may we have the courage to leave it all behind, to walk away from it all, if that's what it takes to obey the command of the one who says, simply, "Follow me."