07/12/2008

Sunday morning class: Proverbs 30:24. "Four things on earth are small, yet they are extremely wise: 25. Ants are creatures of little strength, yet they store up their food in the summer; 26. coneys are creatures of little power, yet they make their home in the crags; 27. locusts have no king, yet they advance together in ranks; 28. a lizard can be caught with the hand, yet it is found in kings' palaces.

Scripture reading: #94

Vespers @ 5 p.m.: Dialogue on 'sanctification.'

Wednesday evening @ 7 p.m.: “The Age of the Spirit is also the Age of the Church…” for better or for worse. (p 219 “Desire of the Everlasting Hills”)

Crushed by the stone the builders rejected Acts 4.11

Acts 4:1. The priests and the captain of the temple guard and the Sadducees came up to Peter and John while they were speaking to the people. 2. They were greatly disturbed because the apostles were teaching the people and proclaiming in Jesus the resurrection of the dead.

3. They seized Peter and John, and because it was evening, they put them in jail until the next day. 4. But many who heard the message believed, and the number of men grew to about five thousand. 5. The next day the rulers, elders and teachers of the law met in Jerusalem.

6. Annas the high priest was there, and so were Caiaphas, John, Alexander and the other men of the high priest's family. 7. They had Peter and John brought before them and began to question them: "By what power or what name did you do this?"

8. Then Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, said to them: "Rulers and elders of the people! 9. If we are being called to account today for an act of kindness shown to a cripple and are asked how he was healed,

10. then know this, you and all the people of Israel: It is by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified but whom God raised from the dead, that this man stands before you healed. 11. He is "`the stone you builders rejected, which has become the capstone. '

12. Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved." 13. When they saw the courage of Peter and John and realized that they were unschooled, ordinary men, they were astonished and they took note that these men had been with Jesus.

14. But since they could see the man who had been healed standing there with them, there was nothing they could say. 15. So they ordered them to withdraw from the Sanhedrin and then conferred together.

16. "What are we going to do with these men?" they asked. "Everybody living in Jerusalem knows they have done an outstanding miracle, and we cannot deny it. 17. But to stop this thing from spreading any further among the people, we must warn these men to speak no longer to anyone in this name."

18. Then they called them in again and commanded them not to speak or teach at all in the name of Jesus. 19. But Peter and John replied, "Judge for yourselves whether it is right in God's sight to obey you rather than God.

20. For we cannot help speaking about what we have seen and heard." 21. After further threats they let them go. They could not decide how to punish them, because all the people were praising God for what had happened. 22. For the man who was miraculously healed was over forty years old.

Do the people around you know that you “have been with Jesus”?

Who was Agnesë Gonxhe Bojaxhiu?

She was Albanian, born in 1910, although it was called, “Uskup, Ottoman Empire” and has more recently been known as Skopje, Serbia, or Skopje, Macedonia.

By the end of her life she was known as Mother Teresa of Calcutta, India – later, as Blessed Teresa of Calcutta (or, Saint Teresa).

There was once a Jewish boy named Saul, from a city called Tarsus (in modern day Turkey). Tarsus was a wealthy city and a seat of higher education that, in Jewish circles, exceeded Alexandria and Athens as a place of learning. Saul was a Jew undoubtedly because of his mother’s ancestry. He was also born a Roman citizen, undoubtedly because of his father’s ancestry.

I am told that Tersous, Turkey, is now a filthy little town in decay and ruins, still situated in the same place as Saul’s “Tarsus” about 12 miles north of the Mediterranean coastline there in southern Turkey.

By the end of his life he was known as Paul the Apostle – later, Saint Paul.

We could go on and on…What does a ‘saint’ look like?

At what point does someone begin looking like a ‘saint?’

Agnes (who became known as Sister Teresa) started her adulthood teaching school in a convent in India with an order of Irish nuns. From 1931 to 1948 Sister Teresa taught at St. Mary's High School in Calcutta, but the suffering and poverty she glimpsed outside the convent walls made such a deep impression on her that in 1948 she received permission from her superiors to leave the convent school and devote herself to working among the poorest of the poor in the slums of Calcutta. Although she had no funds, she depended on Divine Providence, and started an open-air school for slum children. (Spink, Kathryn: Mother Teresa: A Complete Authorized Biography, HarperSanFrancisco, 1997)

Saul, who became known as Paul, started his Christian experience as someone who was despised and distrusted, not accepted by the church-world.

Peter and John were viewed as “unschooled and ordinary…” – the King James Version says, “they were unlearned and ignorant men…”

Acts 4:13. When they saw the courage of Peter and John and realized that they were unschooled, ordinary men, they were astonished and they took note that these men had been with Jesus. (N.I.V.)

What made the notable difference in Mother Teresa, the Apostle Paul, the Apostle Peter, and the Apostle John?

People who saw their courage took note that they had been with Jesus.

Agnes of Albania didn’t become Mother Teresa or Saint Teresa merely because she decided to change her name; Saul didn’t become the Apostle Paul or Saint Paul because he changed his name; Peter and John didn’t cease being rough, unlearned and ignorant fishermen, hicks from Galilee, by deciding to become preachers…

These powerful changes came about over time because they “had been with Jesus” and took “courage” to face the desperation around them.

Each of them had become ‘crushed’ by “the Stone Whom the builders rejected” – Jesus Christ. They had, in the words of a great song, become “broken and spilled out.”

This is the force of anointing, that which changes those who are viewed as ignorant and unlearned, ordinary people, into saints.