Deadly
Consequences of Sleeping Through Sermons
Pastor Mathew Magera – 9/9/18 – Sermon 303
St. Thomas Lutheran Church, Trufant, MI
To God be the Glory!
Grace and peace to you from
God our Father, from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit.
Amen.
A survey was taken by the
youth of a large Lutheran congregation in South Carolina one year and on this
survey there were two questions. When compiling the responses to the survey,
the answers were pretty clear. When the youth were asked “what was the most important
part of worship for adults?” the majority said the sermon. When the youth were
asked “what was the most important part of worship for youth?” the majority
said the end.
Can someone be bored to
death by a sermon? According to Acts 20, it looks possible. When we discover
this story hidden within the pages of Acts, it often elicits a chuckle or two
because many of us have been in Eutychus' position. A sermon that went too
long, a listener who drifted off to sleep, and the deadly resulting
consequences of doing so when a sudden snore alerts the attention of the
congregation. Without raising your hands, have you ever been bored during a
sermon? Have you ever felt that the preacher spoke on a level that was beyond
you, irrelevant to your daily life, or even if it was, was just a downright bore?
For many Christmas Eves, at
the 11pm service, I would find myself in the front pew of the church nodding
off during the sermon trusting that my mom would wake me up in time for us to
light candles and sing Silent Night. We can laugh at this story of Paul
preaching and Eutychus falling out a window because, to some extent, we can
relate to it. We've been tired. We probably haven't quite fallen out of a
three-story windowsill but maybe we have reached a point that given the choice
between listening to a boring sermon or falling out a window, some of you would
be wondering “that concrete down there can't be that hard, can it?”
What is God trying to teach
us by grabbing the attention of our funny bone as we watch Eutychus slowly succumbing
to that slow head bobbing cadence that will lead to his inevitable journey into
a deep sleep? Let’s look at the story and see what we can see.
“7 On the first
day of the week we came together to break bread. Paul spoke to the people and,
because he intended to leave the next day, kept on talking until midnight. 8
There were many lamps in the upstairs room where we were meeting. 9
Seated in a window was a young man named Eutychus, who was sinking into a deep
sleep as Paul talked on and on.”
In this story we find Paul
preaching at an evening worship service, likely because many Christians in this
area may have been slaves and were unable to worship in the morning. So, before
leaving town the next day, Paul draws them in for an evening service. We don't
get a clear idea on whether Paul's preaching is good or not but we do get clues
that after a few hours, it really doesn't matter. We don't see whether people
are at the edge of their seats excited or bored out of their minds but we do
see people, particularly one person, beginning to feel the weight of their
eyelids. Beginning this story we are introduced to the wide shot of an entire
worship service, but soon we can feel the camera slowing drawing us in for a close-up
of this one individual, Eutychus.
Eutychus is sitting in the
ledge of a window, not exactly a safe place. Eutychus probably knew that too so
we have to imagine the room is packed with people, all of which are likely
tired after a long day's work and the smoke coming from those burning oil lamps
drawing out the oxygen in the room. Still, though Eutychus and maybe others
with him were feeling sleepy, Paul kept right on preaching. It's well after
midnight and Paul talks on and on as Acts tells us. Even before it happens, we
have the punchline already set up. Long sermon plus tired boy plus windowsill
equals, well, we've already anticipated what will happen next.
However, instead of falling
just over the side and into the bushes, humor turns to tragedy as he falls
three stories down onto the hard pavement and is picked up dead. Eutychus, it
appears, was literally bored to death.
Sure there is a lesson about
falling asleep in worship but I think we need to go a bit deeper than that. When
have you felt like Eutychus? When have you felt like you were on the sidelines,
perhaps on a theoretical windowsill, your spiritual eyes struggling to stay open?
When have you felt like you were missing something, not understanding
something, felt the weight of life closing in on you and you were perhaps close
to just falling over? When have you felt like this, that not even Paul's
preaching could keep you awake, and Paul is known to easily be the best
Christian preacher of all time? We know we should go to church, it may have
been what our families have done for years, it may be what we have learned is
good to do, but we simply just go through the motions, our fatigue not finding
any restoration, and becoming sleepy. One of two things will happen at this
point, either you will find the strength to keep going or you will fall into
such a deep sleep that you fall out the window completely.
Maybe there was a time when
you did fall over the edge, you came worship less and less, stopped coming
altogether, stopped coming to church functions, one by one until there was
nothing left. The stresses of life overtake you and you might find yourself
sitting in worship or any church function thinking, "There has got to be something
wrong with me for not understanding what is going on here. There has got to be
something wrong with me that I am not feeling the joy of the grace of God.
There has got to be something wrong with me for not feeling awake." Maybe
you have been there. Maybe you are there right now.
The problem we see in the
story of Eutychus is not that Paul preached too long. It's not that this youth
got so tired that he fell out of a third story window. Rather, what the problem
is, is that nobody seemed to notice and see the potential danger in what was
going on. No one intended for him to fall, but he did. No one intends for anybody
to fall away from the church, even themselves, but it happens. The problem is
that we don't always notice the danger until we've heard the thud three stories
down. Instead of being proactive, we become reactive. Whether we have at one
time fallen away or we have witnessed someone else falling away from the
church, we would much rather prevent it from happening rather than live into
the spiritually deadly consequences after the fact.
What do we do now? What
happens next in the story is where our hope comes from. We are not left alone.
We are not left, having fallen, to remain below. “10 Paul went down,
threw himself on the young man and put his arms around him. “Don’t be alarmed,”
he said. “He’s alive!” 11 Then he went upstairs again and broke
bread and ate. After talking until daylight, he left. 12 The people
took the young man home alive and were greatly comforted.”
Eutychus is not left for
dead. Paul, likely with the whole assembly with him, go down to him. Everything
is interrupted to go after the one who fell out the window. Maybe this seems a
bit like Jesus going after the one sheep that went astray. Paul does the very
thing Jesus would do. He stops and he goes down to him. He stops doing the
expected and begins doing the unexpected. Not only did Paul go down to Eutychus
but he threw himself on top of him. Forget all dignity and formal
conversations, Paul gets right into his personal space. He completely invested
himself in this boy. Paul was imitating Jesus and the very role of the church.
At this point, we might
expect the conversation to be directed toward blame. Who pushed him out the
window? Whose sermon was so boring that he fell asleep? Who wasn't watching him
when he was nodding off? Why didn't he take better precaution when choosing
where to sit? Take a look at Scripture. None of those questions are there.
There is absolutely no blame whatsoever. The reason there is no blame is
because the point of the story is not who was wrong, it's not even about who
was right, it's about the sheer act of grace in being found. After seemingly
being dead, Eutychus is found with life in him. "Paul understands that it
is more important to find life rather than find fault."[1]
This is exactly what Jesus
does for us. Jesus comes to find us when we are lost, when we are spiritually
dead. Jesus comes for us. We might be tempted to believe that when someone
falls away from the church they are spiritually dead and that there is no hope
remaining. Jesus never does that with us. With him there is always hope when we
struggle, hope when we are lost, hope when we are dead. Jesus is our hope and
with him there is never a moment we are without it.
Paul saw something in
Eutychus that nobody else did. He saw life. Even as we read this story and are
caught up in the logistics, the fall, the height, how he landed, the horrible
sight of his body laying on the ground, Paul looks and listens deeper and so
does Jesus, for us. We live in the promise of our Baptism, we live in the
promise of the Holy Spirit that was given to us in Baptism and because of that
promise, there is always life, always hope.
Jesus comes to us when we
would otherwise be left for dead. The Church imitates Christ and goes alongside
of others who would otherwise be left for dead. That is our calling as the
Church, as the body of Christ, to be Christ for those that have fallen just as
we rely and trust in Jesus to come to us.
Someone might be in danger
of being spiritually dead, being lost, and it might be us. Those in danger must
be awakened, pursued, embraced until they come to know the grace of being alive
of being found, being home. This is what we are called to be and do for those
who have fallen out of the window or who may be close to a deep sleep. Rather
than looking at how someone has fallen away, look and listen deeper than that
and bring that gift of grace and find them.
We are called to model what
Jesus has done and continues to do for us. When we fell away in sin, he did not
wait for us to come back to him. He didn't wait for us to decide that we don't want
to live in this life of sin anymore. He didn't let us lay in the street after
falling away, he came down to us and like Paul who gave up his very dignity and
stretched out his hands and threw himself on the boy, Jesus also gave up his
very dignity for you by stretching out his hands and dying for you on a cross. Jesus
comes to you, he takes away the blame, he throws himself onto you and restores
you. Not even a three story fall can take that new life from you. When you
fall, Jesus is there. And even after such a horrific three story fall, we can
be sure that as Jesus gets to us, he announces his life within us and restores
us to our rightful place in him. To God be the glory, now and always. Amen.