Crushed by the stone the builders rejected
(Acts 4.1-22)
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 saw their courage took note that they had
been with Jesus.
Agnes of Albania didn’t become Mother Teresa or
Saint Teresa 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 sometimes viewed as ignorant and unlearned, ordinary people, into
people who are willing to attack the gates of hell...people with real courage
and mission: saints.