Spending Time in Troas

There’s a growing trend in Canada that I’ve never heard of before - people are giving up on watching the news, or at least deciding to take a break from watching the news. I’m told they just find it too stressful and it’s coming at them too fast, so in order to reduce anxiety and stress, they’re just turning it all off.

This movement kind of makes a mockery of an ad campaign from a few years ago. Here in Canada, and I think also in the UK, we saw a proliferation of signs, and also plastered on buses, this message from an atheist organization, “There's probably no God, so stop worrying and enjoy your life.”

I can’t help but think that reassurance rings hollow today, as so many people experience fear, worry and frustration over a very uncertain future. We’re not really doing all that much relaxing and “enjoying ourselves,” even though we’ve been reassured, “There’s probably no God …”

Maybe we need a new ad campaign, one featuring signs reassuring us with these words, “There is a God who has a purpose and a plan for your life.”

At least, speaking for myself, that might make me feel a little better, as opposed to the one promising me an empty and meaningless existence with no one guiding and managing the universe and our individual lives.

Now, stories of hard times are familiar to many of our favourite Biblical characters, and this morning we read a passage from the Book of Acts representing a dramatic turning point in the early years of the Christian movement – the beginning of a new phase of mission and ministry.

Up to this point the good news of Jesus Christ has been confined to the Jewish community, but now, the Apostle Paul and his colleagues – Timothy, Barnabas and Silas, are on the move beyond the boundaries of the Jewish tradition. The great cultural centres of the Greco-Roman world – Ephesus, Corinth, Athens – the citizens of those great cities, are hearing for the first time the good news of Jesus Christ … it’s a critical tipping point in the history of the church. But these early missionaries also know something about frustration, worry and fear. They cover thousands of miles and endure incredible hardships along the way.

We get a taste of what life must have been like, when we read Paul’s second letter to the Corinthians. He says “three times I have been shipwrecked, a day and a night adrift at sea. I have been in danger from rivers and robbers. I’ve experienced danger in the city, danger in the wilderness, danger at sea, danger from false friends, danger in toil. In hardship, I’ve had many sleepless nights – in hunger and thirst, in cold and in exposure. And apart from all these other things, there was the daily pressure upon me of my anxiety for all my churches.”

It makes me tired just to hear about it …

You and I have certainly had a bad night’s sleep now and again or experienced some bad traffic in stormy weather, but our lives are “cakewalks” in comparison to that of the Apostle Paul.

And so today, in our scripture reading, we hear about a particularly frustrating situation for Paul and Silas.

They’d set out with the best intentions to travel to several places in Asia to spread the good news of the Gospel, but the Holy Spirit “blew them back.” They tried to go to Bythinia but the “spirit of Jesus” wouldn’t allow it. This is the only time in the Book of Acts this phrase is used – “the spirit of Jesus.” The spirit of Jesus would not allow them to go.

So instead of going where they’d planned to go, these weary travellers find themselves in a place called Troas - a place they had neither wanted nor planned to visit.

Spending time in Troas …

An autobiography I read a few years ago, helps me to understand what that’s like. This book has a rather discouraging title, but it taught me a great deal about life – particularly when life is challenging.

The title of the book was, “My Losing Season.”

It’s a book by Pat Conroy. He tells the story of his final year at university. Much to his surprise, because he wasn’t the strongest player in the world, he ended up being chosen as captain of the university’s basketball team.

He and his fellow teammates envisioned the most glorious year of their lives – triumph would follow triumph. But what actually happened was, they lost the first game and then the second game … and almost all the other games.

Conroy writes, “Winning is so much more pleasurable than losing. Winning is wonderful, but it is the darker music of loss that resonates in the deep rich places within. Winning makes you feel as if you’ll always “get the girl” or win the million dollars. You grow accustomed in your life to “answered prayers.” That’s the life you expect. But then loss comes, and loss is a fiercer, more uncompromising teacher. I learned some things from the few games we won, but my life is richer because of defeat.”

I know some of you sitting in this sanctuary, but I don’t know all of you really well … It's possible there are some people here this morning who’ve been exempt from the experience of defeat thus far in life. But I imagine, before we get through this life and go back to be with God, every single one of us … will spend some time in Troas … a place in our lives we had hoped never to see or visit …

Just last year, I celebrated the fortieth anniversary of stepping into the pulpit of a church for the first time as an ordained minister of the Presbyterian Church in Canada. I need to tell you, when I started out there was no new graduate as optimistic, as enthusiastic as determined and confident, as I was.

However, since then, I have on many occasions, spent time in Troas – a place I neither planned to be nor wanted to be. Sometimes it was because I was stupid – I did the wrong thing or made the wrong choice because it was the easy thing to do. Sometimes I lost my faith or lost my way for a period of time – weeks or months – like God moved out … and emptiness moved in. Sometimes it was because I thought my ministry or my life or my church was supposed to go in a particular direction, and while I pushed it one way, God was pushing things in a different direction … and I believed I was right and God had a wrong … but you can’t ever win a shoving match with God … sometimes it was because I had to go through painful times with people who were facing the most challenging experiences of their life.

I remember sitting down late one afternoon with a young woman. We were having coffee and cookies as she poured her heart out to me.

She was a bright young woman. She’d always wanted to be a doctor – go to medical school. Fall semester of her first year at university, she failed her course in organic chemistry. The door to the future she had dreamed of … it was closed.

Troas, that place we land – the place we had not wanted or expected …

The Apostle Paul and his friend Silas had their hearts set on going to Bithynia, but the spirit blew them back.

So close … but no … you are not allowed to go …

For a long time … and still … I have a love/hate relationship with that sunny little verse in the Book of Romans. Do you know the one I’m talking about?

“All things work together for good with those who love God …”

I’m guessing Paul didn’t write those words in the middle of this windstorm as he was going here and there

I know plenty of people who have loved the Lord, with all their heart and soul and mind and strength – and yet their lives are laced by all sorts of hard and tragic circumstances.

There are many days in my life where it takes a lot of teeth gritting for me to say, “I know God is working for good in all of this …”

But is it possible … we have to say it – possible, despite those advertisements we used to see on the side of the bus, that it’s necessary for us to say “there probably is a God” – a God we can trust, a God we can know, in and through and despite the terrible things that happen to us? Is it possible God will somehow bring joy out of misery – that the universe has a direction … and it’s a direction of hope, joy and life.

And if you want to go to the real bottom of this, there’s only one place to go. We need look no farther than the cross of Jesus Christ. In the worst thing … God was working for good … in the worst thing …

I can think of little that is more alien to our modern mindset than the fact that there is another strategic plan in mind … other than our own. “The God whose thoughts are not our thoughts, whose ways are not our ways.”

Sometimes when I’m saying my prayers, I realize I am giving lip service, and only lip service, to what I am trying to preach to you today.

I say, “Thy will be done” but somewhere in the back of my mind there’s a little voice saying, “and of course, I would like for you to do it in these particular ways.”

The problem with that attitude is it denies the will of God and precludes the working of God’s spirit, which is entirely free of human control.

Paul slept that frustrating night in Troas with the tatters of his strategic plan under his pillow, and while he slept, he had a dream, and a man from Macedonia appeared and said, “Paul, come over here and help us.”

Paul had wanted to go north, but the spirit wouldn’t let him, and now it became clear that he was needed … the gospel was needed - in Macedonia. To the best of our knowledge, Paul had never even considered going to Macedonia … “where was Macedonia?”

But it turns out that God’s thoughts and Paul’s thoughts were not the same.

And so off Paul and Silas sail to Macedonia in response to the man who had appeared in Paul’s dream. And then, in a city of Macedonia called Philippi, Paul spoke to a group of women. He told them for the first time about a man who lived far away in Galilee. His name was Jesus. He had been betrayed, mocked, killed – talk about failure – crucified by Pontius Pilate. And yet, out of that defeat came life.

The passage tells us, amongst those receiving the good news with gladness was a woman named Lydia – she and her whole household were baptized.

Now, if there’s anybody here who might be of European ancestry, I want to suggest that you can trace your spiritual roots back to one person – Lydia … seller of purple goods - the first convert to Christianity on European soil. And it never would have happened, if the spirit had not blown a door shut before blowing another one open.

I close with a story told by Taylor Branch in one of the volumes of his wonderful trilogy about Martin Luther King, Jr. – the leader of the civil rights movement in the United States.

Taylor Branch writes of how it was that Martin Luther King, Jr. was graduating from Boston University with his doctorate in theology.

Two churches – two search committees had expressed interest in Dr. King. They invited him to come and preach for the call in both of these churches.

One church was a prestigious congregation in Chattanooga, Tennessee. The other was a little church made up of low income people in Montgomery, Alabama.

King went to Chattanooga first, and preached his best sermon there. A congregational meeting was held after church. When the votes were counted, believe it or not, the congregation voted not to call Martin Luther King, Jr.. He was devastated … Troas … Troas …

As his fallback position he decided to accept an invitation to go preach at the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery. That congregation voted to have him come and be their pastor.

Three months after he and his family arrived in Montgomery, a woman named Rosa Parks got on a bus, and when the bus driver told her to go to the back, she said, “No sir, I’m sorry, I’m not going to be doing that.”

The city erupted and the Montgomery community didn’t know where to turn, and so they asked the new, young, unproven preacher over at Dexter Avenue, if he thought he might be able to help them out a little.

That church, and their pastor, Martin Luther King, Jr. led the crusade that tore down the walls of legal segregation.

I respectfully suggest to you today, try not to be too offended or frustrated when a door shuts in your face. That slam you hear … it might just be the voice of God …