Get Over It!
When I give a talk to a group, I occasionally say something to get their attention.
Well, of course I want their attention throughout the talk, but i believe that attention spans are shrinking rapidly these days. If it can't be communicated in a tweet, chances are it won't be heard, read or even noticed.
So storytellers have ways of testing our attention as they talk, structuring their sentences and phrases to tickle the ear and get us to question what we just heard.
That way, if we hear anything they are saying, they will know by our reaction to the word or phrase that seems out of place.
But Jews came there from Antioch and Iconium and won over the crowds. Then they stoned Paul and dragged him out of the city, supposing that he was dead. But when the disciples surrounded him, he got up and went into the city. - Acts 14:19-20
In this reading, Luke employs a similar technique. In just a few words, he says something that must have sparked gasps and sighs among the crowd when they heard it.
The crowd attempted to stone Paul to death.
What may be more shocking is that they believed they had killed him, so they dragged his body outside the gates of the city.
What is even more amazing is that Paul got up and went back into the city.
I don't know if I could do that. It sounds almost miraculous, doesn't it? I mean, here is a guy who was most likely knocked unconscious, and he might have even had broken bones, if not a cracked skull from the stones the crowd threw at him.
He had to be in pretty bad shape for them to think him dead, right?
And he gets up, brushes himself off and walks back in?
The next day he went on with Barnabas to Derbe.
The next day?
Come on!
Luke tells us that the disciples stood around him and he got up. Why don't we remember this as a miraculous healing?
The way we tell a story matters. If Luke had focused our attention on this, rather than rush through it, if he had given us more details, how might we react to it?
How do we tell others about Christ?
It's a tough question, I know, because many of us don't like to venture into controversy. We may think it is something others might not want to hear, so we brush past the details and focus on the highlights, or the trimmings of our faith.
That may be safe, but it also a bit selfish in a way.
What if I want to hear more? What if I need to hear more?
We may be living in a micr-burst world, where Tweets of up-to-the-minute updates on the highlights of individual lives is all we get.
The excerpt from Acts is only 226 characters, too long to be a Tweet, but still enough to provoke serious discussion. Is that what happens with those Tweets we share?
Somehow I doubt we spend any time at all thinking or talking about what we believe, or what we question in our belief. Maybe that's good if we want to fit in and not be controversial, but how can we gain any insight into our thought on the subject if remains unchallenged and unquestioned?
For me, faith is a muscle. If I don't exercise it and put it to use with some strenuous work, it will become weak. And when the muscles atrophy, I may never recover my strength.
On the other hand, with constant use, I can pick myself up, brush off the dust, and wipe the sweat and blood from my eyes, and move on, like Paul. Maybe that's the message in this micro-burst from Luke.
Get over it!