Bit Parts, Cameos, and Congregation Land Campaign [OR Lydia – Small Role, Big Impact] Acts 16:9- John 14:23-29

Caitlin Trussell with Augustana Lutheran Church on May 26, 2019

[sermon begins after the Bible reading from the Book of Acts; John reading is posted below the sermon]

Acts 16:9-15 During the night Paul had a vision: there stood a man of Macedonia pleading with him and saying, “Come over to Macedonia and help us.” 10 When he had seen the vision, we immediately tried to cross over to Macedonia, being convinced that God had called us to proclaim the good news to them. 11 We set sail from Troas and took a straight course to Samothrace, the following day to Neapolis, 12 and from there to Philippi, which is a leading city of the district of Macedonia and a Roman colony. We remained in this city for some days. 13 On the sabbath day we went outside the gate by the river, where we supposed there was a place of prayer; and we sat down and spoke to the women who had gathered there. 14 A certain woman named Lydia, a worshiper of God, was listening to us; she was from the city of Thyatira and a dealer in purple cloth. The Lord opened her heart to listen eagerly to what was said by Paul. 15 When she and her household were baptized, she urged us, saying, “If you have judged me to be faithful to the Lord, come and stay at my home.” And she prevailed upon us.

[sermon begins]

There are these moments when you’re hanging out, watching a movie, and suddenly – BAM – someone famous is on the screen that you didn’t expect to see.  But they’re on screen for such a brief moment that you weren’t sure it was them.  Surprise cameos often make the difference between a good movie and a great movie.  Those small moments catch us off guard and can flip the script in the middle of the action.  Some actors are known for cameos.  Samuel Jackson, Julie Andrews, Oprah Winfrey, and Dick Van Dyke are well known for adding that rare gem of gravitas in 30 seconds or less.  Different but similar to cameos are bit parts.  Bit parts are given to lesser known actors.  Bit parts can also make the difference between a good movie and a great movie.  By definition, cameos and bit parts are never the whole cast.  All the parts, big and small, are needed to tell the whole story.

Bible stories, especially in the books of Acts, make me wonder how many great directors and screen writers marinated in Biblical preaching growing up.  Sometimes, when I read certain parts of Acts, I wonder if I’ve ever read them before because they are wacky and surprise me all over again – like I never read them before.  These stories in Acts are filled with main characters, cameos, and bit parts essential to God’s whole story.  We’re well familiar with Paul.  Former persecutor of the church.  Murderer of Jesus’ followers.[1]  He literally had a come-to-Jesus meeting and started preaching the gospel.[2]  In the story today, a few chapters later, Paul has a vision.  The man from Macedonia in the vision could be considered a bit part but a bit part with big impact, sending Paul and Silas sailing toward Philippi in Macedonia.

We never hear about the man in the vision again.  Instead, Lydia shows up in her bit part.  Paul and Silas went ♬down to the river to pray.♪  Lydia was already down at the river to pray with other women in a place of prayer.  She’s from out of town too and also owns a business successful enough that she has her own household that gets baptized as well as hosts Paul and Silas.  I wish we knew more than the bit part we get about Lydia. Her story, the one where she’s the main character, would be fascinating. But we don’t.  The moment that stuck with me this time is the part about the Lord opening “her heart to listen eagerly to what was said by Paul.”  It stuck with me because it flips the script on how we usually think the gospel works.  We often think that we take the gospel out of the church doors and somehow are in charge of it.  We’re not far off.  We ARE called to share the gospel – to communicate with our lives and voices the unconditional love and grace of Jesus for each and every person.  What we tend to forget is how God goes ahead of us, guiding us with visions and opening our hearts, weaving the gospel story of bit parts with cameos of God’s own.

Here in Acts, we have the vision given to Paul and the Lord opening Lydia’s heart.  In the story here today, this equates in the story to a gospel call, gospel shared, and gospel received. Bit parts showing that there’s no such thing as a small role in the unpredictable imagination of the Holy Spirit.

Last week, Pastor Ann preached that the “doors of the church are open” through Peter’s experience of being called by the gospel to eat with people that his coworkers in the gospel thought were problematic.  When Peter was called to account for his reckless grace, he responded to his accusers with the memorable line, “Who am I to hinder God?”  A few chapters later, we find Paul in similar circumstances.  Sailing across the sea to Macedonia, encountering Lydia who was not from Macedonia but from Thyatira, also an out-of-towner.  Brought together in a place of prayer by the gospel, by God.  Neither one of those people could have imagined their encounter or the changes that would come from it.  Lydia’s household was baptized and she became recorded in history for her hospitality and generosity.  She’ll turn up one more time in next week’s Bible story from Acts after yet another plot twist for Paul and Silas.  Stay tuned…

As we play our bit parts, the challenge for us becomes listening with open hearts prepared by God.  We’ve all seen situations where the gospel has been used manipulatively to pump up egos and limit grace to a select few.  Bit parts like Lydia’s remind us that the unlimited grace of God moves outside the boundary lines we draw for ourselves and other people.  Paul meets her outside the city gate by the river, explicitly drawing us a picture of how the gospel works.  The city gates and the doors of the church are indeed open.  Much like today’s scripture, we can often get a glimpse of this reality by looking backwards to imagine forward.

Last spring, this congregation began a process to imagine where God might be calling us by the gospel.  A group of people that included Pastor Ann and me began meeting to plan strategically.  The congregation began talking and individually answering questions in the hopes of revealing common themes and a unified direction.  One of the things identified in that process was the congregation’s decade long history of vacant land that was originally slated for senior housing.  Congregation members long ago took out additional loans on their own homes to secure that land on behalf of the church’s commitment to the gospel.  For a variety of reasons, including the city of Denver at the time, the vision of senior housing didn’t materialize.  That very land continued to pulse with possibility even in its dormancy.  Transforming that land became a goal. A few congregation members in powerful bit parts of their own, attended a breakfast last fall hosted by Interfaith Alliance and discovered the Congregation Land Campaign.[3]  A Campaign that over the last few years identified almost 5,000 acres of unused land on faith community property that could be used for affordable housing.  One acre of that land sits at the bottom of the hill here, next to and behind our park on the slope. New meetings began here in the congregation that dovetailed the goal of Transforming Our Vacant Land and the Congregation Land Campaign.  Last week the congregation voted 98-7 to continue that process and figure out what Permanent Affordable Housing with a land lease could look like.  Those Holy Spirit cameos are inspiring a whole lot of bit parts adding up to exciting, unimaginable times for Augustana’s hospitality meeting deep need for people in our city.  Does it get any better than that?!

The Holy Spirit is already out of ahead of us.  Imagining. Inspiring. Softening hearts.  What we call a Strategic Plan is simply us trying to get a bead on where and how that’s happening. To get on board with what the Spirit is laying out ahead of us.  Next week on June 2, there’s a meeting between worship services for ministries in the congregation to strategize boldly because we are emboldened by God’s grace to continue to see what the Holy Spirit is imagining ahead of us.  Are we going to get it right?  Hardly.  Are we going to make every effort to be faithful?  You betcha.

It would be easy to sentimentalize our faith into solely a personal experience or to fall into despair for the wounded world.  We are made of stern stuff, my friends.  In water, wine, and bread we become what we receive – the risen Christ in the world.  We are emboldened by the grace of God into bit parts of the Spirit’s leading for the world God so loves.

Thanks be to God.  Amen! And Allelulia!

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[1] Acts 7:54-8:1

[2] Acts 9:1-22

[3] Congregation Land Campaign is a partnership between Interfaith Alliance and Radian Architecture (non-profit). https://interfaithallianceco.org/clc

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John 14:23-29Jesus answered him, “Those who love me will keep my word, and my Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them. 24 Whoever does not love me does not keep my words; and the word that you hear is not mine, but is from the Father who sent me. 25 “I have said these things to you while I am still with you. 26 But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything, and remind you of all that I have said to you. 27 Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid. 28 You heard me say to you, “I am going away, and I am coming to you.’ If you loved me, you would rejoice that I am going to the Father, because the Father is greater than I. 29 And now I have told you this before it occurs, so that when it does occur, you may believe.

Lee McNeil and I Speaking Together Again about Racism and Abolishing Constitutional Slavery with Amendment A

Lee McNeil of Shorter AME Church and Caitlin Trussell

Together Colorado Annual Meeting and Celebration, May 23, 2019

I went first.  Lee’s comments brought it all home.  She and I spent the last year presenting together to committees in the Colorado Legislature as well as the Amendment A campaign launch.  We were invited to present together again this evening.

[My remarks]

I’m Pastor Caitlin Trussell and I bring you greetings from the sinner/saints of Augustana Lutheran Church.  I’m also a Faith Leader on Together Colorado’s Transforming Justice Team working to transform the criminal justice system.  Mostly I’m happy to be standing here with Lee McNeil.  She and I have been on quite the circuit together over the last year – standing together to share our stories so that something new can be born.  It’s in that spirit that I share the following…

When my first child was born a little after 3:00 in the morning, the doctor spent eternity telling me that it wasn’t time to push when I was sure my body was telling it was definitely time to push.  In the weeks before my second child was born, I spent time practicing how I was going to respond if that happened again.  Again, it was a little after 3:00 in the morning.  I quietly let anyone who was nearby know that the baby was coming and was again it wasn’t time. I’d finally had it, rolled over and shouted, “I am pushing NOW!”  My husband loves to regale people with the ensuing chaos of doctors reaching for gloves and nurses running every which way.  My point is, the people who thought they had the power to put the pushing on hold, didn’t have the power to stop new life. Something new is being born, my friends, and we’re laboring to bring that new life into the world.

Racism was born into the very air we breathe in this country when the very first white toe stepped onto this land over 400 years ago.  By self-proclaimed white supremacy armed with guns and disease, indigenous people were either killed or relocated and black Africans were imported and enslaved to work the newly claimed land.  I am the great-great-great granddaughter of a family who bought, worked, and sold slaves in South Carolina in the mid-to-late 1800s. Abolishing slavery and indentured servitude as punishment for a crime from the Colorado constitution, by passing Amendment A in the ballot box last November, was deeply personal, redemptive, and way past due.

Passing Amendment A took many people from many different groups, including Together Colorado, working together in a coalition to educate state legislators and voters.  Passing Amendment A took digging deep into our particular faith traditions to sustain the intensity of the campaign and encourage each other in the work.  Passing Amendment A took each of us in the coalition becoming clear about where our personal story fit into our country’s story of slavery and racism to love people into freedom by taking action, to love our neighbors as ourselves.  Passing Amendment A was one important push in dismantling racism.

People we love are dying. We can neither wait for permission nor a more convenient time to push through racism into the new life that takes its place. It’s way past time for new life to be born, for something new in the air we breathe.  It’s time to push…

[Lee’s Remarks]

Testimony for Together Colorado Annual Celebration (433)

AMENDEMENT A      –          May 23, 2019

My name is Lee McNeil, a Board Member with Together Colorado, a Community Leader and member of Shorter Community AME Church.

I am, ALSO, the Great granddaughter of a slave.  Both, My maternal Great grandmother and Great grandfather, came out of slavery, which places me very close to Slavery…Very close to the Pain.  I often reflect on some of my mother’s stories, the history of SLAVERY, and I am reminded of the cruelty, pain, the inhumane treatment of many and the suffering that so many families lived through and witnessed and continue living through today.   Slavery really wasn’t that long ago, because my Mother who is 106 years young is still with us.

Many families are still in bondage.    It isn’t as simple as “Just get over it” or “Why don’t they just move on; Racism is a thing of the past”.  The Pain is REAL.  A Space should be available for our communities, families, schools and places of worship to focus on the common good of the people so that they are able to thrive.

Removing “the exception” in the language that allowed for “Slavery and Involuntary Servitude” from the Colorado Constitution has been an important step for the State and Most Important to me, Personally.  It is just one step in moving forward with a process of healing and reconciliation among our families, our communities.

Pastor Caitlin and I share our testimony with legislators and throughout the state.  Our testimonies come from different perspectives, different life struggles.  The Dialogue, the Conversations are also a much-needed step in moving forward with the healing process and Dismantling Racism.

At such a time as this, with so much Racism, Hate, and White Supremacy in our midst, it is a struggle to feel that there is real and true freedom & equality for all: The Dialogue and the Conversations must be had, they must continue.

We, at Together Colorado are making a conscious effort and have begun a process to dismantle racism, come out of that place of darkness, and be at the forefront of change for our communities, where we no longer living in FEAR, Isolation, and to work toward Liberation and Life and a Beloved Community for “WE the People”………………This is a work in progress!

We must continue to build relationships and work together, in hopes that you will take part in moving with us on this Moral Decision/Moral Journey to Liberate our Communities.  STAND with US!

Let us continue on this Journey of Hope for the future of “WE the People”, begin/continue this journey of Healing for the many hurting communities.  Let us lay out a path, a journey together towards Liberation, Life, and a Beloved Community.