“Saint Eutychus,” a sermon from Hebrews 4:12-16 and Acts 20:5-12
preached by the Rev. Robert Lee Nichols, Jr. at the Fox Chapel Presbyterian Church on July 13, 2008
And that, dear friends, is the story of one of the more important yet lesser known heroes of our faith. If Presbyterians were to ever start recognizing saints, Eutychus would be right up there at the top of the list. At least he was honest. When he got bored with the sermon he didn’t force himself to stay awake like some do, he just let nature take its course during a long and boring sermon until finally he fell fast asleep.
Paul was in the city of Troas. He was on the way to Jerusalem, had been there about a week, and was leaving in the morning. The church was gathered to share a meal and hear Paul speak. At the home of one of the members in an upstairs room. There were people everywhere. Some were sitting in the windows, taking advantage of the breeze, among them a young man by the name of Eutychus.
Paul preached the gospel that day that night and the next day, going past midnight until the dawn. To put it mildly, they got more than they bargained for. As all this was going on Eutychus began to sink off into a deep sleep. When the crucial moment arrived and he nodded off, he fell three floors down. That created quite a stir, as you might imagine.
Which was probably the only thing that could stop Paul’s preaching. He and everyone else rushed down to see if the young man was dead or alive. When Paul got there he bent down and took him in his arms, and said, “Do not be alarmed, he’s alive.”
Then Paul and all the rest of the congregation went back upstairs, ate dinner and then, wouldn’t you know it, Paul started preaching again and went on until dawn. There’s no stopping a determined preacher. I want you to remember this story the next time we go five minutes over our hour.
We don’t know what Paul was talking about that day. The writer of the book of Acts doesn’t care to tell us. Perhaps Paul was retelling the story of the faith, reminding the congregation of their roots, their great history. It’s important to know this. I can just hear him, beginning with the creation and the fall of Adam and Eve, then the flood – Noah, the tower of Babel, the story of Abraham and Sarah and Isaac and Jacob and Joseph. Moses, the escape from Egypt and the entry into the Promised Land, Joshua, Isaiah and Jeremiah, Hezekiah and Nehemiah. . . . Well, you see what I mean! It’s a long story that takes some time to tell. It could be interminable if you’re a young man sitting in a window, listening. Paul probably hadn’t even reached the New Testament era, before Eutychus fell fast asleep.
Or, perhaps Paul was taking another tack. He could have been telling them about his own experience. Preachers err when they become autobiographical. To quote that great preacher, Page Creach, never make yourself the hero of your sermon. But many can’t resist. And I’m sure the people wanted to know what the great Paul had been up to in his journeys across the Mediterranean world. He had been through a lot.
Forty times I have received at the hands of the Jews the forty lashes less one. Three times I have been beaten with rods; once I was stoned. Three times I have been ship-wrecked; a night and a day I have been adrift at sea; in danger, on frequent voyages, in danger from rivers, danger from robbers, danger from my own people, danger from the Gentiles, danger in the city, danger in the wilderness, danger at sea, danger from false brethren; in toil and hardship, through many a sleepless night; in hunger and thirst, often without out food, in cold and exposure . . . II Corinthians 11:24-27
Meanwhile Eutychus was in danger too. In danger of falling asleep and tumbling out the window to the ground three stories down.
Now here’s what worries me. If it could happen to Paul, it could happen to me. So, today, I want to share with you some ways that I know that are guaranteed to keep you awake during even the most boring of sermons. These were taught to me some time ago by a very wise disciple. I pass them on to you now for safekeeping.
The first involves a little bit of exercise, so it accomplishes two things at once. It gets you in shape and keeps you awake. Try holding your feet off the floor about an inch or so. Now hold that. There is no way you can go to sleep doing that. And the beauty of it all is that no one will ever know you’re struggling so hard to stay awake.
You may get tired of doing that though. That takes a lot of effort. I only recommend it in the most dire and desperate circumstance. This one is a lot easier. Just cross your eyes. That’s right. Cross your eyes. There’s no way you can go to sleep doing that. Course it may discombobulate the preacher looking out at a congregation of cross eyed Presbyterians.
Here’s a third way. Lean forward on the pew in front of you. Hold your hands like this. And gently pinch yourself. There’s no way you can go to sleep pinching yourself, and boy will your neighbor be impressed with your prayerlike pose.
If nothing else works, try this one. It’s bound to work. And it’s the simplest and most elegant of all. Just smile. Try it. There’s no way you can go to sleep doing that. If all else fails, just keep smiling. Problem is from here on out Chris and Joan and I will be looking out at you and we’ll know what’s really going on when you’re out there smiling.
The preaching of the gospel, the preaching of God’s Word is central to our life as Christian people. There’s nothing more important. The great Martin Luther put it this way long ago,
One thing, and only one thing, is necessary for Christian life, righteousness, and freedom, That one thing is the most holy Word of God, the gospel of Christ . . . Consider it certain and firmly established that the soul can do without anything except the Word of God and that where the Word of God is missing there is no help at all for the soul.
If it has the Word of God it is rich and lacks nothing since it is the word of life, truth, light, peace, righteousness, salvation, joy, liberty, freedom, power, grace, glory and of every incalculable blessing . . .
On the other hand, there is no more terrible disaster with which the wrath of God can afflict (us) than a famine of the hearing of his Word. . . . The Word is the gospel of God concerning his son, who was made flesh, suffered, rose from the dead, and was glorified through the Spirit who sanctifies. To preach Christ means to feed the soul, make it righteous, set it free and save it, provided it believes the preaching. Faith alone is the saving and efficacious use of the Word of God.
It’s that important for God’s people. And that’s what we’re doing and what we are about.
We are a people who gather in community on a weekly basis, committed to hearing God’s Word, committed to learning how that Word applies to our lives, our life together as the people of God and our lives individually as Christian people as we seek to grow in faith and love of God and one another.
There are three parts to this Word. The Written Word, the Bible is the starting place because it records the Mighty Acts of God as they shape and form the people of the Old and New Testaments, our spiritual forbears. The Spoken Word is the sermon. This takes the Written Word and seeks to interpret it, to help us understand what the passage meant long ago and what it means now. The job of the preacher is to peel away the layers of the Word, written centuries ago, long ago and far away, in a different culture, and to understand its truth for us today. So that the Living Word, Jesus Christ, may be revealed.
In our church it is primarily up to the Senior Pastor to preach. What an awesome responsibility this is. It’s an impossible task made possible only by the power of the Holy Spirit. All preachers are fallible human beings, sinful, incomplete, inadequate. Sometimes, when we open our mouths, we make terrible mistakes. Yet the miracle of grace is that earthen vessels can pour forth Living Water. Secondly, it’s a miracle we can hear. That God can open our ears and our hearts to receive what we need. Not necessarily what we want, but what we need.
In our modern world preaching is becoming more difficult, yet more and more vital and crucial. In the August edition of The Atlantic magazine there’s an article by Nicholas Carr entitled, “Is Google Making Us Stupid? What the Internet is Doing to our Brains.”
Here’s a paragraph from the article which states the premise:
Bruce Friedman, a pathologist on the faculty of the University of Michigan Medical School described how the Internet has altered his mental habits. He says, “I now have almost totally lost the ability to read and absorb a longish article on the web or in print.
He says his thinking has taken on a “staccato” quality, reflecting the way he quickly scans short passages of text from many sources online. “I can’t read War and Peace anymore,” he admitted, “I’ve lost the ability to do that, Even a blog post of more than three or four paragraphs is too much to absorb. I skim it.
Our plugged in world encourages us to take in information the way the Net distributes it, in bits and pieces, in flashes and sound bites. Ten years or so ago we were talking about settling all the problems of the world in the thirty minutes it takes for a television sit com. More like twenty two minutes not counting the commercials. Now thirty minutes seems like an eternity. The author of the article says, Once I was a scuba diver in the sea of words. Now I zip along the surface like a guy on a Jet Ski. Jet Skiing can be fun. But do you see how it’s chipping away at our capacity for concentration and contemplation, how we’re always distracted from anything of real depth and importance. Do you see how this hour right now may be the one time during the week when we stop for more than a mili-second to come into God’s presence for concentration and contemplation so that the Lord might feed our souls.
Preaching helps us do that. It helps us together to become God’s people. It nurtures us as we grow in Christ. Inspires us. Challenges and confronts us. Comforts us. As the Living Word comes to us through the Written Word and the Spoken Word week after week and year after year, the hope is that we will grow into the Word, or more precisely the Word will grow into us and sink the roots of faith deep in our hearts and souls.
There was an interesting story told about Tim Russert. Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan asked the young Russert to come to Washington to serve as his press aide but Tim Russert was afraid of this challenge, worried that he wouldn’t be as good as the Ivy League hotshots that were already assembled on the staff. Moynihan looked at him. And referring to the Jesuit education they both shared coming out of wonderful Roman Catholic schools, Patrick Moynihan said this to him, “What they know, you can learn. What you know, they can’t learn.” Both had been bathed in this wonderful Jesuit tradition. Their hearts and souls were sealed. And over the course of their spiritual formation they had learned the important things.
That’s what we hope for here. That hearing the Word, wrestling with it, letting it bathe us and nurture us, we will learn the important things. Through a gradual process of spiritual formation beginning in childhood, continuing through adolescence, into young adulthood and middle age and beyond. A gradual process of spiritual formation in which we grow into Christ through dedication to hearing the Word.
It takes time. Several years ago, a reader of The British Weekly wrote a letter to the editor:
Dear Sir: It seems ministers feel their sermons are very important and spend a great deal of time preparing them. I have been attending church services quite regularly for the past 30 years and I have probably heard 3,000 of them. To my consternation, I discover that I cannot remember a single one of them. I wonder if a minister’s time might be more profitably spent on something else?
Sincerely . . .
For weeks a real storm of editorial responses ensued. The debate finally was ended by this letter:
Dear Sir: I have been married for 30 years. During that time I have eaten 32,850 meals, mostly of my wife’s cooking. Suddenly, I have discovered that I cannot remember the menu of a single meal. And yet, I received nourishment from every single one of them. I have the distinct impression that without them, I would have starved to death long ago. Sincerely . . .
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Let us pray. Our Father, we give thanks for your Word which comes to us and gives us life. We pray for Chris as he replenishes his spirit during these days of vacation. Give him refreshment and renewal. And we pray for ourselves, your people, that you will give us hearts eager to hear. Allow our community to be shaped by the regular hearing of your Word that we may grow more and more into your likeness. In Christ we pray this. Amen.