How Many Lives Are Touched?

How many lives are touched?

It is really hard to determine how many lives can be touched by a single person. I have done funerals where one person’s life has not only touched all in their family, but the larger community as well. People who remember a kind deed done to them, or whose friendship will be missed. I don’t know of any human being that really understands or appreciates all of the lives he or she has influenced in their time on this earth!

Mother’s day, how many lives has this one mother touched? We think what we do in life has such little impact on those around us. What we say doesn’t matter, how we act doesn’t affect anyone but ourselves. In reality, nothing could be further from the truth.

In our reading from the Acts of the Apostles today we have the “good news” (gospel), the reality of the living God in Paul and Silas, touching many more people than they probably ever imagined or perhaps even intended to touch.

·  Who would have known that casting a demon out of a slave woman who irritated them would turn into a circumstance in which literally the whole city of Philippi would hear the good news of God’s love?

·  This doesn’t mean everyone who hears the gospel will appreciate it or embrace it. The woman who was freed from a demon, the men who owned her and resented loosing their income. The magistrates who tried Paul and Silas, the crowd who watched and agreed with the magistrate’s sentence.

·  The jailer who thought he was going to have to kill himself for loosing the prisoners after the earthquake.

·  The jailer’s “household” who were all baptized and became believers.

·  Those who participated in the gathering after Paul and Silas refused to have their punishment “swept under the rug”.

·  And the Roman colony of Philippi who Lydia (who we met last week) and her household were members. Perhaps even the Roman government itself.

All of this taking place by two people – Paul and Silas.

How many people will you touch by living out the gospel? Take the number of people we have today and consider the number of people each one of us runs into in a regular day. . . at work, in our families, in the grocery store, a waitress at a restaurant, members of civic clubs, at a dinner at church or at a rummage sale! Each word, each action can convey the gospel of Jesus Christ, the good news of the living God alive and well in our world.

I came across an interesting point of view when I was reflecting on the Gospel text this morning. I’ve read this text many times and have heard this concept of “unity” in the church preached about so many times. . . What I realized is that this text isn’t centered on the church members’ unity with one another. There are other scriptures that speak about that more pointedly. This text is talking about the unity between Jesus and his “Father” and the unity between Jesus and his disciples and those who would be disciples in future years, us!

So, we are at unity with Jesus, and in doing that, we are at unity with God’s love, God’s compassion, and God’s truth, which is what was primary in Jesus’ life and ministry. If we take this gospel reading seriously, we are back to the point I brought up before: how many people will be touched by the gospel of Jesus through our words and actions!

In many cultures, the mother is a center of unity in a family. I’m sure we all know families who still gather several generations at “grandma’s house” for a holiday (even though grandma might not want to cook that turkey any more!). Yet, her house is chosen as the point of unity! Now, let’s not get too nostalgic with Norman Rockwell pictures in our heads. All too often in reality, when various generational family members are thrown together there are tensions and sparks. They are not used to being together every day. Yet, even knowing this, how many miles will a person travel to return home for Christmas or Thanksgiving?

The “unity” here does not always mean happiness and peacefulness, but those gathered are joined together by a common thread which they can’t deny.

So it is with us. The gospel of Jesus Christ, however we understand the term, is our common thread. The gospel of Jesus Christ pulls us back to the center, challenges us with the message of love, and empowers us with an identity that we can take with us when we leave.

Our connection together is not out of our own doing, but out of a higher reality. You can’t pick your family, those you are related to, and you can’t pick your Christian family either! It is out of our hands.

We wonder at the sheer power of this unifying force.

Desmond Tutu has an African word for this, which he says includes not only our biological family, and even our family of faith, but our connection with all people. The word is: ubuntu. He calls it the essence of being human. “Ubuntu speaks particularly about the fact that you can't exist as a human being in isolation. It speaks about our interconnectedness. You can't be human all by yourself, and when you have this quality – Ubuntu – you are known for your generosity. We think of ourselves far too frequently as just individuals, separated from one another, whereas you are connected and what you do affects the whole World. When you do well, it spreads out; it is for the whole of humanity.”

So, in reality, what we say and what we do ultimately impacts the whole of humanity. Every mother makes a huge difference in the world! Every father makes an enormous impact on the world! Every child affects the whole world. Every ability or disability influences everything.