If you want a love message to be heard, it has got to be sent out. To keep a lamp burning, we have to keep putting oil in it. -Mother Teresa

Texts:

Psalm 22:25-31

Amos 8:1-7

Acts 8:1b-8

What does it look like to proclaim faith when everything else proclaims otherwise?  What is it to tell this story when all of the other stories seem to want to claim our interest?  Most of us do not know what it is to live in the face of persecution.  Most of us wear our faith when convenient, when it doesn't get in the way, when it seems to fit with the things around us.  What do we do, however, when it does not fit?

Acts 8:1-8, in these short verses, goes from great sorrow to great joy.  The shrieks of mourning give way to the shrieks of joy.  It is a gift to have a faith in which there are room for both.  So often we forget to leave room for the deep sorrow that exists in our lives.  We attempt to comfort each other, saying, "It will be all right," though we have no idea whether or not it will be all right.  We say, "It will get better," hoping our words, repeated often enough, will become true.  To be honest, though, most of us do precious little after having said these words because they are more said for us and to make us feel better than they are said for the Other.  What if, rather than our words, we came alongside our brothers and sisters, walking together, mourning together, allowing space for sorrow, and waiting for the time in which sorrow gives way to true joy.  What if these words were an invitation to not walk alone; no longer empty, no longer platitudes, but an expression of the reality into which we are committed to living together?

"Now those who were scattered went from place to place, proclaiming the word."  This word, which refuses to be silenced, whether in the face of persecution, in the face of sorrow, or in the face of adversity, continues coming.  It is not a magic fix, it is not a collection of empty words from long ago and far away; this points to a reality in which when we say, "It gets better," we take the hand of our brother or sister and walk with them until, indeed, it does.