A Bubble

A Reflection on the First Reading for May 8th, 2022:
Fourth Sunday of Easter

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Acts
13.14, 43-52

Paul and Barnabas went on from Perga and came to Antioch in Pisidia. On the Sabbath day they went into the synagogue and sat down.

When the meeting of the synagogue broke up, many Jews and devout converts to Judaism followed Paul and Barnabas, who spoke to them and urged them to continue in the grace of God.

The next Sabbath almost the whole city gathered to hear the word of the Lord. But when the Jewish officials saw the crowds, they were filled with jealousy; and blaspheming, they contradicted what was spoken by Paul.

Then both Paul and Barnabas spoke out boldly, saying, “It was necessary that the word of God should be spoken first to you. Since you reject it and judge yourselves to be unworthy of eternal life, we are now turning to the Gentiles. For so the Lord has commanded us, saying, ‘I have set you to be a light for the Gentiles, so that you may bring salvation to the ends of the earth.’” When the Gentiles heard this, they were glad and praised the word of the Lord; and as many as had been destined for eternal life became believers.

Thus the word of the Lord spread throughout the region. But the officials incited the devout women of high standing and the leading men of the city, and stirred up persecution against Paul and Barnabas, and drove them out of their region. So they shook the dust off their feet in protest against them, and went to Iconium. And the disciples were filled with joy and with the Holy Spirit.
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"[A]nd you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth." (Acts 1:8)

Acts 13 is the inflection point in the Great Commission — up till now it’s been happening in Judea and Samaria. Here, is the recording of a pin piercing a bubble. If we could watch a slo-mo video of this moment, we’d see a barrier tearing and falling away, and a releasing of the breath of air contained by the thin soap film. We’d see this new air start to slowly invade the surrounding atmosphere. We’d see the releasing of the Good News into a new place, a movement into the rest of the world that’s still happening today.

The chapter starts with worship and fasting and a word — the Disciples gathered and the Holy Spirit among them. Out of this comes a sending of Saul and Barnabas.

From Syro-Phoenicia to Cyprus
From Cyprus to Perga
From Perga to Pisidia

And a name change. Acts 13 is the last time he’s called Saul and the first time he’s called Paul.  It’s when he moved from being called by his Hebrew name to his Greek name.  

Even though Paul and Barnabas' geography changed, their approach started off the same: Go to the places where Jewish people living in a Gentile land gather. Paul gives a homily (Acts 13:15-42) that the synagogue leaders had asked for, that pulled the whole story along from Moses to David to Jesus. Paul brought them "[T]he good news that God promised to our ancestors [which] he has fulfilled for us, his children, by raising Jesus." People begged them to come back next week.

Next week the whole city comes – not just the Jewish community.  Jealousy shoves curiosity out of the way and solidifies it into rejection. And crystallizes for Paul that his focus is free now to expand in anthropology as it did in geography.  He had left the dust of Judea to walk in the dust of Galatia. Now he shakes off the dust of rejection by his own people to walk into the lives of a people who grew up with different stories in different languages, told around tables with different foods. He carries the story he’s been given, that we’ve all been given, of a God who gave it all away to get us back.

And even in the hardship, the sending continues as it began — in the joy of the Holy Spirit with and in and around them all.


Holy Spirit, come. I am worn thin. My outer shell, like the skin of a bubble is swirling. The different colours I contain chasing each other frantically across the surface. But I don’t ask You to strengthen this diaphanous wall. I don’t even ask you to still it. I ask You to come and touch it. Pierce it, let it peel back that I may move into new territory with You.




Noreen Smith
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