WEBVTT 1 00:00:01.325 --> 00:00:05.625 Grace to you and peace from God, our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. 2 00:00:05.825 --> 00:00:06.325 Amen. 3 00:00:08.225 --> 00:00:09.725 Brothers and sisters. 4 00:00:09.925 --> 00:00:10.825 Greetings. 5 00:00:13.025 --> 00:00:16.325 Both Church calendar and Chapel schedule list today, as the 6 00:00:16.325 --> 00:00:18.525 commemoration of Silas 7 00:00:18.525 --> 00:00:20.225 fellow worker of St. 8 00:00:20.225 --> 00:00:21.225 Peter and St. 9 00:00:21.225 --> 00:00:22.025 Paul. 10 00:00:23.425 --> 00:00:26.425 After some careful consideration of the matter, however, 11 00:00:27.725 --> 00:00:31.025 I'm convinced that that will not be good enough for us this morning. 12 00:00:32.425 --> 00:00:37.525 We all but especially you men to my left, need to do much more than 13 00:00:37.525 --> 00:00:44.325 to commemorate Silas if by commemorate we mean to call to remembrance 14 00:00:44.325 --> 00:00:49.125 or preserve in memory by some solemnity or celebration. 15 00:00:50.825 --> 00:00:56.625 Rather than call to mind everything, you know about Silas, which may 16 00:00:56.625 --> 00:00:58.925 not be a lengthy endeavor for some of us. 17 00:01:00.225 --> 00:01:07.325 I invite you instead to join with me this morning in imagining Silas. 18 00:01:09.425 --> 00:01:10.225 You see this week 19 00:01:10.225 --> 00:01:13.625 I joined with a couple of brothers in spending some time reflecting 20 00:01:13.625 --> 00:01:16.625 more carefully on the Christian imagination. 21 00:01:17.625 --> 00:01:19.325 Whether they're even is such a thing 22 00:01:19.325 --> 00:01:20.725 and what good it might be. 23 00:01:22.225 --> 00:01:26.625 We solicited the aid of George MacDonald who in his essay, the 24 00:01:26.625 --> 00:01:30.525 imagination, its functions and its culture. 25 00:01:31.625 --> 00:01:34.625 Suggested an understanding of the imagination 26 00:01:34.625 --> 00:01:38.425 quite different from what I had, well imagined. 27 00:01:39.725 --> 00:01:43.625 Rather than finding its best use, when we isolate ourselves from as 28 00:01:43.625 --> 00:01:48.525 much as possible, shutting out sound, perhaps even closing our eyes 29 00:01:49.325 --> 00:01:53.225 and then trying to conjure pictures in our now darkened minds. 30 00:01:54.925 --> 00:01:59.825 McDonald seems to suggest that imagination is best exercised in a new 31 00:01:59.825 --> 00:02:05.025 and constantly improving openness to the world of God around us. 32 00:02:05.625 --> 00:02:06.025 Christian 33 00:02:06.025 --> 00:02:08.825 imagining is not making up stuff 34 00:02:08.825 --> 00:02:10.025 that's not there. 35 00:02:11.325 --> 00:02:11.625 It is 36 00:02:11.625 --> 00:02:18.725 seeing in all its richness of color, crispness of detail and depth of 37 00:02:18.725 --> 00:02:19.525 dimension 38 00:02:20.325 --> 00:02:22.225 what is truly there. 39 00:02:23.825 --> 00:02:29.625 The proper use of the imagination is simply searching out the things 40 00:02:29.625 --> 00:02:30.525 of God. 41 00:02:31.825 --> 00:02:38.025 We are finders and discovers not makers of worlds, but we can see new 42 00:02:38.025 --> 00:02:38.825 things. 43 00:02:40.125 --> 00:02:42.725 And that's what I invite you to do with me this morning. 44 00:02:44.725 --> 00:02:46.525 What do we usually see 45 00:02:47.325 --> 00:02:49.225 when we look at Silas? 46 00:02:51.125 --> 00:02:52.225 I think it's expressed 47 00:02:52.225 --> 00:02:53.325 well by the name 48 00:02:53.325 --> 00:02:57.525 given this commemoration Silas co-worker of St. 49 00:02:57.525 --> 00:02:58.525 Peter and St. 50 00:02:58.525 --> 00:02:59.125 Paul. 51 00:03:00.825 --> 00:03:03.925 Perhaps you expect me now to ask you to imagine 52 00:03:03.925 --> 00:03:05.325 what would that be like? 53 00:03:07.225 --> 00:03:14.625 What must it have been like to work with men, like Peter and Paul? 54 00:03:17.125 --> 00:03:20.025 I'm not going to, I don't think I need to. 55 00:03:20.525 --> 00:03:23.325 I think you've probably been doing that the whole time 56 00:03:23.325 --> 00:03:24.225 I've been talking. 57 00:03:25.325 --> 00:03:30.825 What an honor that must have been to be Paul's field worker. To be 58 00:03:30.825 --> 00:03:33.925 Saint Peter's vicar. To be 59 00:03:33.925 --> 00:03:38.625 Paul's choice, Paul's right-hand, man. 60 00:03:39.025 --> 00:03:40.325 Just imagine. 61 00:03:42.425 --> 00:03:48.525 But such imagining is the dreamy eyes closed tight kind of imagining 62 00:03:49.125 --> 00:03:52.625 that doesn't even amount to proper commemorating. 63 00:03:54.525 --> 00:04:01.325 Silas the co-worker of Paul. Silas is the prophet of the most high 64 00:04:01.325 --> 00:04:07.325 God. Silas is the prophet of the Lord Jesus Christ. 65 00:04:08.025 --> 00:04:09.625 Paul's right hand man. 66 00:04:10.425 --> 00:04:12.925 Silas is the hand of the church. 67 00:04:12.925 --> 00:04:17.025 The Hand by which the apostles and Elders write there letter to 68 00:04:17.025 --> 00:04:18.825 believers around the world. 69 00:04:18.825 --> 00:04:23.425 Silas is the hand of the body of Christ. 70 00:04:25.125 --> 00:04:29.125 Silas is a recognized leader in a community in which Paul has had to 71 00:04:29.125 --> 00:04:32.625 fight for any kind of acceptance and trust. 72 00:04:33.925 --> 00:04:36.725 And there's good reason to suspect that 73 00:04:36.725 --> 00:04:43.825 it was Paul's reputation that gained the most when he and Silas became 74 00:04:43.825 --> 00:04:44.725 coworkers. 75 00:04:46.425 --> 00:04:55.525 How misshapen our imagine our image of Silas has been. How poor our 76 00:04:55.525 --> 00:04:57.425 imagining of him. 77 00:05:00.025 --> 00:05:04.825 Had he used both a Greek form of an Aramaic named Silas and the 78 00:05:04.825 --> 00:05:06.725 Greek form of a Latin name 79 00:05:06.725 --> 00:05:11.725 Sylvanus suggest that he was comfortable in the two worlds of his 80 00:05:11.725 --> 00:05:15.425 world. His Roman citizenship and even more 81 00:05:15.425 --> 00:05:21.125 clearly his effectiveness in both Jerusalem and Antioch and beyond 82 00:05:21.825 --> 00:05:24.025 makes this more than a suggestion. 83 00:05:25.425 --> 00:05:32.125 Silas, the leader. Silas, the prophet. Silas, the voice of the Apostles. 84 00:05:32.625 --> 00:05:33.025 Silas 85 00:05:33.025 --> 00:05:37.225 the paraclete of the people, the comforter of the church. Silas, the 86 00:05:37.225 --> 00:05:39.625 strengthener of the faithful. 87 00:05:41.625 --> 00:05:43.625 Is this how you've been imagining Silas? 88 00:05:45.825 --> 00:05:48.725 But our imaginations are not safe, yet. 89 00:05:49.425 --> 00:05:51.625 You have to look even more closely. 90 00:05:51.625 --> 00:05:57.625 Open our eyes wider still, and listen, carefully to what we are told 91 00:05:58.225 --> 00:05:59.425 about, Silas. 92 00:06:01.625 --> 00:06:03.825 Of all the things said about this man 93 00:06:03.825 --> 00:06:07.325 I think the most important has barely been mentioned so far. 94 00:06:08.425 --> 00:06:14.125 The most important for you and me of all the titles and accolades that 95 00:06:14.125 --> 00:06:15.525 should go into our image 96 00:06:15.525 --> 00:06:19.125 of this man is not Silas the anything. 97 00:06:20.725 --> 00:06:24.925 It is no set of three letters that follow his name 98 00:06:26.225 --> 00:06:29.125 that has true significance. 99 00:06:31.125 --> 00:06:34.625 It's the set of three letters that comes before his name 100 00:06:36.125 --> 00:06:37.825 that we must pay attention to. 101 00:06:38.925 --> 00:06:44.825 And those three letters are Delta, Yoda and Alpha. 102 00:06:46.025 --> 00:06:48.625 The Greek preposition Diaw. 103 00:06:49.525 --> 00:06:53.425 That means here, through or by means of. 104 00:06:55.725 --> 00:06:59.925 The translators of the ESV were, I'm sure just doing their job of 105 00:06:59.925 --> 00:07:06.125 rendering the Greek of our text into smooth idiomatic English. 106 00:07:07.025 --> 00:07:09.125 But they made the beginning of verse 23 107 00:07:09.125 --> 00:07:14.025 so smooth, that our little word Diaw got ironed right off the page. 108 00:07:15.325 --> 00:07:16.825 We just heard read. 109 00:07:16.825 --> 00:07:21.225 They sent Judas called Barsabbas and Silas leading men among the 110 00:07:21.225 --> 00:07:23.625 brothers with the following letter. 111 00:07:25.925 --> 00:07:28.225 A little less smoothly. 112 00:07:29.325 --> 00:07:30.225 That would be. 113 00:07:31.425 --> 00:07:38.325 And they sent them having written Diaw written through their hand. 114 00:07:39.725 --> 00:07:41.025 And then the letter follows. 115 00:07:42.825 --> 00:07:44.125 Luke doesn't spell out for us 116 00:07:44.125 --> 00:07:48.125 exactly what part Silas and Judas had in the production of the letter, 117 00:07:48.125 --> 00:07:50.025 but one thing is clear. 118 00:07:51.025 --> 00:07:58.825 The letter happened through them became letter through their agency. 119 00:07:59.225 --> 00:08:02.825 They were the ones who placed the letter in the hands of the intended 120 00:08:02.825 --> 00:08:09.325 recipients, but they were also the men sent to themselves tell you the 121 00:08:09.325 --> 00:08:12.125 same things by word of mouth. 122 00:08:14.225 --> 00:08:17.725 As Peter would write more simply at the close of his first letter. 123 00:08:18.425 --> 00:08:23.025 I write to you Diaw seluagnu. 124 00:08:24.725 --> 00:08:26.325 Through Silas. 125 00:08:28.625 --> 00:08:30.825 And this brings us back to George MacDonald. 126 00:08:33.225 --> 00:08:37.225 McDonald's warns that we have to be careful, very careful in speaking 127 00:08:37.225 --> 00:08:40.325 of the creativity of man's imagination. 128 00:08:41.525 --> 00:08:45.525 It's better to keep the word creation for that calling out of nothing, 129 00:08:45.725 --> 00:08:47.625 which is the imagination of God 130 00:08:47.625 --> 00:08:48.525 he suggests. 131 00:08:49.725 --> 00:08:53.025 He then goes on to give us the following picture of the difference 132 00:08:53.025 --> 00:08:55.425 between what happens when we imagine 133 00:08:56.525 --> 00:08:59.225 and what happens when God imagines. 134 00:09:01.625 --> 00:09:06.625 We discover at once, he writes that where a man would make a machine 135 00:09:06.625 --> 00:09:08.325 or a picture or a book. 136 00:09:08.925 --> 00:09:15.025 God makes the man who that makes the book or the picture or the 137 00:09:15.025 --> 00:09:15.825 machine. 138 00:09:16.725 --> 00:09:18.425 Would God give us a drama. 139 00:09:19.625 --> 00:09:24.525 He makes a Shakespeare or would he construct, a drama more immediately 140 00:09:24.525 --> 00:09:28.525 his own. He begins with the building of the stage itself 141 00:09:28.525 --> 00:09:30.625 and that stage is a world. 142 00:09:30.625 --> 00:09:32.125 A universe of worlds. 143 00:09:32.425 --> 00:09:38.225 He makes the actors and they do not act, they are their part. 144 00:09:38.825 --> 00:09:44.725 He utters them into the visible to work out their life, his drama. 145 00:09:46.425 --> 00:09:50.225 When he would have an epic, he sends a thinking hero into his drama. 146 00:09:50.225 --> 00:09:54.025 And the Epic is the soliloquy of his Hamlet. 147 00:09:54.825 --> 00:10:00.425 Instead of writing his lyrics, he sets his birds and his maidens a 148 00:10:00.425 --> 00:10:01.025 singing. 149 00:10:03.725 --> 00:10:07.425 And now at last, we've come to the whole point of our exercise in 150 00:10:07.425 --> 00:10:08.225 imagining. 151 00:10:10.025 --> 00:10:12.225 You men gathered in the front, over here 152 00:10:12.225 --> 00:10:15.325 will leave this Chapel this morning as Vicars. 153 00:10:17.725 --> 00:10:19.425 How are you imagining that? 154 00:10:21.625 --> 00:10:23.025 And someday very soon 155 00:10:23.025 --> 00:10:28.525 most of the rest of you will leave this Chapel as called Servants of 156 00:10:28.525 --> 00:10:29.225 God. 157 00:10:30.925 --> 00:10:32.525 How are you imagining that? 158 00:10:35.125 --> 00:10:38.425 Some of us leave this Chapel every day, as called Servants of God. 159 00:10:38.425 --> 00:10:41.025 Are we still imagining it at all? 160 00:10:42.925 --> 00:10:47.025 No one ever leaves this Chapel, unrelated to the God and Lord 161 00:10:47.025 --> 00:10:53.225 they have just listened to and spoken with thanked and implored sought 162 00:10:53.425 --> 00:10:54.425 and found. 163 00:10:56.025 --> 00:10:59.425 How do you imagine that relationship? 164 00:11:02.725 --> 00:11:05.725 I will try to confirm this when I see him, but I think Dr. 165 00:11:05.725 --> 00:11:08.125 McDonald will forgive me for paraphrasing 166 00:11:08.125 --> 00:11:10.225 his words to make my point. 167 00:11:11.925 --> 00:11:13.725 Would God give us a letter? 168 00:11:15.225 --> 00:11:18.225 He makes a Peter or a Paul. 169 00:11:19.125 --> 00:11:23.025 Would God have that letter placed in the hands, spoken into the ears, 170 00:11:23.025 --> 00:11:25.225 planted in the hearts of his people. 171 00:11:26.425 --> 00:11:28.025 He makes a Silas. 172 00:11:29.325 --> 00:11:31.825 He makes a you. 173 00:11:33.225 --> 00:11:38.525 One cent with his word in hand to place it in the hands of all who 174 00:11:38.525 --> 00:11:39.225 need it. 175 00:11:40.025 --> 00:11:45.725 But sent also to say in your words, these same things. 176 00:11:47.025 --> 00:11:52.425 The God who in these last days has spoken to us in his Son in one who 177 00:11:52.425 --> 00:11:53.825 is son. 178 00:11:55.025 --> 00:11:57.325 That same God has chosen you. 179 00:11:58.325 --> 00:12:01.125 To be one of his diaz. 180 00:12:02.225 --> 00:12:03.625 One of his ways 181 00:12:04.025 --> 00:12:07.325 He will get his word to his people. 182 00:12:08.625 --> 00:12:10.425 Imagine that. 183 00:12:15.125 --> 00:12:18.425 A concluding exegetical postscript. 184 00:12:20.325 --> 00:12:24.325 Much has been written about the nature of the message entrusted to 185 00:12:24.325 --> 00:12:29.725 Silas and Judas. What exactly have the apostles and elders and the 186 00:12:29.725 --> 00:12:32.725 whole church in Jerusalem decided. 187 00:12:33.725 --> 00:12:38.225 What was the news sent to Antioch and to the wide world Beyond? 188 00:12:39.925 --> 00:12:42.725 But what has been passed over far too quickly. 189 00:12:42.725 --> 00:12:45.325 What has been too little imagined. 190 00:12:46.625 --> 00:12:49.625 Is what happened when the message got there. 191 00:12:51.125 --> 00:12:54.625 And what that tells us about the message itself. 192 00:12:56.525 --> 00:13:01.325 We dare not think that Silas walked all the way to Antioch to place 193 00:13:01.325 --> 00:13:03.425 into the hands of the people there 194 00:13:04.425 --> 00:13:07.825 the newly revised edition of the Jerusalem 195 00:13:07.825 --> 00:13:09.125 Synod bylaws. 196 00:13:11.425 --> 00:13:19.225 The people Luke tells us were filled with joy because of the 197 00:13:19.225 --> 00:13:20.425 encouragement. 198 00:13:22.725 --> 00:13:29.325 The prophetic voices of these men made strong, their hearers, strong 199 00:13:30.225 --> 00:13:31.225 and joyful. 200 00:13:33.025 --> 00:13:40.525 You like Barnabas and Paul are devoting your lives to the name of the 201 00:13:40.525 --> 00:13:40.825 Lord 202 00:13:40.825 --> 00:13:42.125 Jesus Christ. 203 00:13:42.625 --> 00:13:48.925 You like Silas and Judas have been sent with a message that Jesus 204 00:13:48.925 --> 00:13:52.025 Christ is the Lord of all. That 205 00:13:52.025 --> 00:13:57.325 Jesus Christ is the savior of all friend, of all lover of all. That his 206 00:13:57.325 --> 00:13:58.025 blood 207 00:13:58.725 --> 00:14:02.625 not the blood of bulls and goats in Jerusalem and not the blood 208 00:14:02.625 --> 00:14:07.925 demanded by pagan, God or pagan King, his blood and his blood alone, 209 00:14:07.925 --> 00:14:12.225 sets us free to be people of God. 210 00:14:13.825 --> 00:14:16.725 Entrusted to the grace of God 211 00:14:16.725 --> 00:14:20.825 we go. Filled with his word 212 00:14:21.425 --> 00:14:25.125 we go. Led by his Spirit 213 00:14:26.025 --> 00:14:26.725 we go. 214 00:14:27.825 --> 00:14:35.025 More and more, clearly imagining, all that he has done is doing and 215 00:14:35.025 --> 00:14:35.925 will do 216 00:14:36.825 --> 00:14:43.725 we go. In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.