Leader: Jesus is a God of great joy!
People: He welcomes all with open arms!
L: When the lost sheep is found,
P: He throws a party!
L: When the lost coin is found,
P: He had a celebration!
L: And when people grumbled about sinners being welcomed…
P: He invites us to rejoice with him!
L: For what was lost has been found.
All: Let us worship with great joy! Amen.
Wednesday, September 3, 2025
Tuesday, September 2, 2025
“Overlooked Stories: Eutchyus” a sermon on Acts 20:7-12
Acts 20:7-12
“Overlooked Stories: Eutchyus”
Preached Sunday, August 31, 2025
When I was interning at a church in seminary and just starting to preach on a regular basis, a retired minister gave me this advice: “If someone is asleep during your sermon, God knows that person needs rest more than they need your words.”
To be clear…as far as I know, no one was actually sleeping during my sermons…but it made me laugh and reflect on a deep appreciation for those who come to church…even when they are tired. I’ve said this to people throughout my years of standing in pulpits…should sleep take you during a sermon - God perhaps gave you that sleep as a gift.
But really, let’s be honest here, while my sermons are no great show of entertainment, I would hope they aren’t overly boring and at the very least - are not overly long! If I pastor can’t say it in about 15 minutes - then maybe it doesn’t need to be said…
I digress. I say all this because in our reading from Acts this morning, Paul has talked for several hours. We don’t know exactly when Paul started preaching but they gathered for dinner and he was still going come midnight.
It was at this point that Eutychus fell asleep. Unfortunately for him, he did not fall asleep on a hardbacked pew where he might just be a little sore the next day…he fell asleep during Paul’s long speech…and fell three stories to his death. We don’t have many people who sit in the balcony these days and maybe this is why…are you all awake up there? Yeah? All right then - be careful!
Now, Paul stopped preaching, rushed down to Eutchyus, and said “He’s good!” and raised him from the dead. They then sent Eutchyus home and Paul preached through the whole night until morning…
This story could be taken many ways. It could shine the light on Paul’s authority as an apostle - even having the ability to raise people from the dead in the name of Jesus! It could act as a warning for spiritual awareness… I would like to use the story of Eutchyus this morning, not really to talk about him as a Biblical character, as we have the others in this “Overlooked Stories” sermon series…but to look at him as a metaphor of those who “fall from the faith,” “fall from the church,” or de-construct their faith.
How many of you have heard of the term “deconstruction” in regards to one’s beliefs or faith? It basically means exactly what you think it means - if construction is building up - deconstruction would be, tearing down, building down - it means looking at your faith, the Scripture, religion, etc critically - examining each part and, if it doesn’t make sense, doesn’t help, doesn’t lead to abundant life, putting it aside.
In seminary they often make the joke that the whole first year is deconstruction and then the next two years are re-construction.
But I have seen so many of my peers - people my age, give or take some years - I’ve seen them deconstruct, and not be able, willing to, want to reconstruct - and thus they leave behind the church, leave behind their faith. Often these things are tied together. Sometimes they aren’t. They either become the “dones” as in - those done with church and faith and God - or Spiritual nomads - not done with God but not feeling like there is a church or community where they belong.
And part of this is, I don’t think it’s often a “neat” deconstruction but it’s that they fall three stories - or more - from the church, as Eutychus did. Or perhaps even, their faith crumbles around them, and they “fall” in the process.
I want to examine this concept today in light of the story of Eutychus to get us thinking about our own faiths, the faith we pass on, and how we are called to treat those who fall from their faith - or those whose faith crumbles around them.
Epistemology is a branch of philosophy that examines the concept of knowledge. It makes us ask questions like, “How does knowledge work?” “How do we know something is true?” For a long time, epistemology has considered knowledge to be like a wall. You lay a sturdy foundation of knowledge, facts, concepts…and then build another layer on top of that, another lay on top of that, another lay on top of that…you get the point. This is often how we have thought of faith construction too - lay a firm foundation and then build upon it. We even sing hymns about that, don’t we? “The church’s one foundation is Jesus Christ the Lord…” Our reading from 1 Peter talks about Christ as a cornerstone and our faith being a building…which really, is just a bunch of walls with a roof.
Let’s talk for a moment and talk about faith as a wall and see how this affects us…and understand how people can fall from this faith and their faith fall to the ground around them.
Let’s build a wall of faith together. Let’s try and build a life-giving faith. A faith that is built on God’s love….that God loves you. Period. That you are a beloved child of God. Full stop. That’s the bottom layer.
And we go up from there.
The greatest commandments, love of God - love of neighbor as self
As Jesus says in Mark 9 and Matthew 25 - have you given a glass of water to someone who was thirsty…
What else? - the imago dei, we are made in the image of God
How we treat others
How we view and interact with Scripture
What our faith says on this issue and that issue
As we go up it gets less and less core value stuff here - right?
So let’s say - let’s say this is someone’s faith - started in childhood - and they are beginning to question their faith, to look at their faith critically, to see how it gives them life and gives it to them abundantly - they might deconstruct some things - I certainly did - we all do this, really - it’s part of growing up and claiming our faith as our own.
So...we pull a piece out - say what the church teaches about LGBTQ people. Or how we understand how the Bible was written - OH Queer people are made in the image of God and loved by God? Cool! The first 5 books weren’t actually written by Moses? I can live with that! The Rapture? - Yeah, that one is getting tossed out...and we deconstruct and continue to re-construct our faith…right, we may add things to our faith, too - not just take them out. Things like…faith practices of serving others or daily rituals or habits of prayer we didn’t have as a child…so we de-construct and we may also re-construct, the shape of our faith is changing, because God is ever complex, and we’re trying to make sense of God in our world with evil and pain, and we’re holding things in tension, learning, un-learning, re-learning…- cause see - we have this solid foundation. And even if some of the top layers fall over, or pieces fall off…we still have that base, right?
But - what if the faith passed down to us - the faith we learned from others - wasn’t primarily based on God’s love, on being loved by God, on loving God and loving neighbor, on giving water to those who are thirsty, on being made in the image of God?
I would like to believe that is the faith I am trying to teach my children. I would like to believe that that is the faith that all of us first encountered in childhood…but that’s probably not the case. Statistically it’s not. In 2009 a study was done that was published in the book, Soul Searching. It found that for the majority of Christians in America, our faith could be summarized with a three word term: “moralistic therapeutic deism.” in other words - faith makes us do the right things (moralistic); it brings us comfort (therapeutic) and, well…there may be a God that is far away and comes after the other two things (deism). The foundation that the church in America has been laying for many years is not based on who God is - that God is love, that God is Good, that God is Just and Powerful and Joyful and with Us, that Jesus is Lord… the foundation isn’t actually based on Christ at all. The foundation that most of us received - and that most will receive is simply this - “Follow the rules and be a good kid.”
And that might even be a best case scenario for some people. What if the foundation that was given to you, taught to you was more about…
Who is the greatest - well, Christians
About Who is in and who is out
About following unquestionable authority of the pastor, of the church, of the Bible
About shame
About fear - from hellfire, from not being loved for being who you are
And as you get older - you realize that not only is this not good for you - it’s harming you and you start deconstructing...
And you’re pulling out pieces left and right and your discarding them - and you’re at a loss and you don’t feel God’s love - especially not from the church that passed on this faith - and you’re pulling our pieces and looking at them and discarding them and pulling them out and pulling them out and the whole thing just falls.
Your faith is in shambles around you, perhaps like the body of Eutchyus who fell from the third floor window…and no one is coming to resurrect you or to help you pick up the pieces of the faith…so it’s easier to just…walk away. And leave a dead faith behind.
How many of us know someone that this has happened to? Too many, too many.
We’re…just gonna leave this here for now.
In her book, “Woven: Nurturing a Faith Your Kid Doesn’t Have To Heal From,” author Meredith Miller, offers us some hope as we look at the pieces of people’s faith that have fallen all around us…she says in her book that faith doesn’t have to be a wall…it can be a web. Webs don’t have foundations. They have core anchor threads that hold the web in place and then internal strands that give it shape and beauty. Moreover, in a web, strands can hold tension and stretch - even without breaking. But if a strand does break, the web doesn't fall apart - it holds together while the spider can re-weave it and make it stronger than before.
When considering the shape of our faith - a wall or a web, Miller puts it like this: “If our faith is a wall, and we learn something new that contradicts our old beliefs about God, we may think the whole thing needs to come down. But our faith isn’t a wall, it’s a web, and sometimes strands break and need to be replaced because they just aren’t true or because they just don’t work anymore. We realize our ways of seeing God don’t match our reality, our ways of experiencing God don’t work like they used to. Our versions of gathered community and collect worship need reimagining. Those strands break, and we can rebuild new strands based on the other parts of the web that are still true, because the whole thing hasn’t unraveled.”
This is all in the abstract so let me give an example: “We may have grown up being told the Bible was trustworthy because of its literal accuracy. But then we hear sermons suggesting that Biblical events are told in a style reflective of the ancient Near East, with its distinct literary styles and genres, meaning, perhaps some events did not literally occur as described. The strand of literalism may break, but other strands- Scripture can be trusted, the God we meet in Scripture can be trusted- keep our web intact while we re-weave our Biblical perspective.”
So Miller stresses that our anchor strands of our web need to be about God and who God is. And whether we are using the analogy of a web of a wall this is vital to a faith that will last. We can only follow God and obey God if we know God and trust God. The anchor strands that Miller suggests are that God is Good, God is Powerful, God is Just, God is Joyful, God is With Us, and that Jesus is Lord.
A faith either built upon or weaved around these core truths about God is certainly one that can weather storms or changes in our world or thinking - for who God is remains steadfast.
So not only does thinking about our faith in this way give us pause as to how we teach the faith we wish to pass on…it should also give us compassion for those who have de-constructed or who have had their faith fall down around them…
Are we coming to the aid of Eutchyus after his three story fall?
And when we get to where he fell, get down to his level - do we scold him for falling asleep during the preaching? Admonish him to act and behave as Good Christian boys and girls do, tell him he must not have believed “hard enough”?…or do we ask why he fell asleep? Do we ask why his faith fell down around him? Do we show compassion and care for his wounds, for “church hurt,” show understanding, willingness even to change our structures and the faith we passed on or inherited… Do we speak Life into what Died? Do we offer to help pick up the pieces, to go slowly, to re-build or re-weave together, journey together in getting to know who God is again…a God that is Good and a God who is Loving…
We are called to show compassion to those who fall from faith or who have their faith fall down around them. We are called to journey together, to discover who God is together, to weave together faiths that are life giving and support one another. It’s not easy…and yet, it’s the work we are called to do. To run down the three flights of stairs, pick up those who have fallen, and continue sharing a God of Love and Life.
May it be so. Amen.
“Overlooked Stories: Eutchyus”
Preached Sunday, August 31, 2025
When I was interning at a church in seminary and just starting to preach on a regular basis, a retired minister gave me this advice: “If someone is asleep during your sermon, God knows that person needs rest more than they need your words.”
To be clear…as far as I know, no one was actually sleeping during my sermons…but it made me laugh and reflect on a deep appreciation for those who come to church…even when they are tired. I’ve said this to people throughout my years of standing in pulpits…should sleep take you during a sermon - God perhaps gave you that sleep as a gift.
But really, let’s be honest here, while my sermons are no great show of entertainment, I would hope they aren’t overly boring and at the very least - are not overly long! If I pastor can’t say it in about 15 minutes - then maybe it doesn’t need to be said…
I digress. I say all this because in our reading from Acts this morning, Paul has talked for several hours. We don’t know exactly when Paul started preaching but they gathered for dinner and he was still going come midnight.
It was at this point that Eutychus fell asleep. Unfortunately for him, he did not fall asleep on a hardbacked pew where he might just be a little sore the next day…he fell asleep during Paul’s long speech…and fell three stories to his death. We don’t have many people who sit in the balcony these days and maybe this is why…are you all awake up there? Yeah? All right then - be careful!
Now, Paul stopped preaching, rushed down to Eutchyus, and said “He’s good!” and raised him from the dead. They then sent Eutchyus home and Paul preached through the whole night until morning…
This story could be taken many ways. It could shine the light on Paul’s authority as an apostle - even having the ability to raise people from the dead in the name of Jesus! It could act as a warning for spiritual awareness… I would like to use the story of Eutchyus this morning, not really to talk about him as a Biblical character, as we have the others in this “Overlooked Stories” sermon series…but to look at him as a metaphor of those who “fall from the faith,” “fall from the church,” or de-construct their faith.
How many of you have heard of the term “deconstruction” in regards to one’s beliefs or faith? It basically means exactly what you think it means - if construction is building up - deconstruction would be, tearing down, building down - it means looking at your faith, the Scripture, religion, etc critically - examining each part and, if it doesn’t make sense, doesn’t help, doesn’t lead to abundant life, putting it aside.
In seminary they often make the joke that the whole first year is deconstruction and then the next two years are re-construction.
But I have seen so many of my peers - people my age, give or take some years - I’ve seen them deconstruct, and not be able, willing to, want to reconstruct - and thus they leave behind the church, leave behind their faith. Often these things are tied together. Sometimes they aren’t. They either become the “dones” as in - those done with church and faith and God - or Spiritual nomads - not done with God but not feeling like there is a church or community where they belong.
And part of this is, I don’t think it’s often a “neat” deconstruction but it’s that they fall three stories - or more - from the church, as Eutychus did. Or perhaps even, their faith crumbles around them, and they “fall” in the process.
I want to examine this concept today in light of the story of Eutychus to get us thinking about our own faiths, the faith we pass on, and how we are called to treat those who fall from their faith - or those whose faith crumbles around them.
Epistemology is a branch of philosophy that examines the concept of knowledge. It makes us ask questions like, “How does knowledge work?” “How do we know something is true?” For a long time, epistemology has considered knowledge to be like a wall. You lay a sturdy foundation of knowledge, facts, concepts…and then build another layer on top of that, another lay on top of that, another lay on top of that…you get the point. This is often how we have thought of faith construction too - lay a firm foundation and then build upon it. We even sing hymns about that, don’t we? “The church’s one foundation is Jesus Christ the Lord…” Our reading from 1 Peter talks about Christ as a cornerstone and our faith being a building…which really, is just a bunch of walls with a roof.
Let’s talk for a moment and talk about faith as a wall and see how this affects us…and understand how people can fall from this faith and their faith fall to the ground around them.
Let’s build a wall of faith together. Let’s try and build a life-giving faith. A faith that is built on God’s love….that God loves you. Period. That you are a beloved child of God. Full stop. That’s the bottom layer.
And we go up from there.
The greatest commandments, love of God - love of neighbor as self
As Jesus says in Mark 9 and Matthew 25 - have you given a glass of water to someone who was thirsty…
What else? - the imago dei, we are made in the image of God
How we treat others
How we view and interact with Scripture
What our faith says on this issue and that issue
As we go up it gets less and less core value stuff here - right?
So let’s say - let’s say this is someone’s faith - started in childhood - and they are beginning to question their faith, to look at their faith critically, to see how it gives them life and gives it to them abundantly - they might deconstruct some things - I certainly did - we all do this, really - it’s part of growing up and claiming our faith as our own.
So...we pull a piece out - say what the church teaches about LGBTQ people. Or how we understand how the Bible was written - OH Queer people are made in the image of God and loved by God? Cool! The first 5 books weren’t actually written by Moses? I can live with that! The Rapture? - Yeah, that one is getting tossed out...and we deconstruct and continue to re-construct our faith…right, we may add things to our faith, too - not just take them out. Things like…faith practices of serving others or daily rituals or habits of prayer we didn’t have as a child…so we de-construct and we may also re-construct, the shape of our faith is changing, because God is ever complex, and we’re trying to make sense of God in our world with evil and pain, and we’re holding things in tension, learning, un-learning, re-learning…- cause see - we have this solid foundation. And even if some of the top layers fall over, or pieces fall off…we still have that base, right?
But - what if the faith passed down to us - the faith we learned from others - wasn’t primarily based on God’s love, on being loved by God, on loving God and loving neighbor, on giving water to those who are thirsty, on being made in the image of God?
I would like to believe that is the faith I am trying to teach my children. I would like to believe that that is the faith that all of us first encountered in childhood…but that’s probably not the case. Statistically it’s not. In 2009 a study was done that was published in the book, Soul Searching. It found that for the majority of Christians in America, our faith could be summarized with a three word term: “moralistic therapeutic deism.” in other words - faith makes us do the right things (moralistic); it brings us comfort (therapeutic) and, well…there may be a God that is far away and comes after the other two things (deism). The foundation that the church in America has been laying for many years is not based on who God is - that God is love, that God is Good, that God is Just and Powerful and Joyful and with Us, that Jesus is Lord… the foundation isn’t actually based on Christ at all. The foundation that most of us received - and that most will receive is simply this - “Follow the rules and be a good kid.”
And that might even be a best case scenario for some people. What if the foundation that was given to you, taught to you was more about…
Who is the greatest - well, Christians
About Who is in and who is out
About following unquestionable authority of the pastor, of the church, of the Bible
About shame
About fear - from hellfire, from not being loved for being who you are
And as you get older - you realize that not only is this not good for you - it’s harming you and you start deconstructing...
And you’re pulling out pieces left and right and your discarding them - and you’re at a loss and you don’t feel God’s love - especially not from the church that passed on this faith - and you’re pulling our pieces and looking at them and discarding them and pulling them out and pulling them out and the whole thing just falls.
Your faith is in shambles around you, perhaps like the body of Eutchyus who fell from the third floor window…and no one is coming to resurrect you or to help you pick up the pieces of the faith…so it’s easier to just…walk away. And leave a dead faith behind.
How many of us know someone that this has happened to? Too many, too many.
We’re…just gonna leave this here for now.
In her book, “Woven: Nurturing a Faith Your Kid Doesn’t Have To Heal From,” author Meredith Miller, offers us some hope as we look at the pieces of people’s faith that have fallen all around us…she says in her book that faith doesn’t have to be a wall…it can be a web. Webs don’t have foundations. They have core anchor threads that hold the web in place and then internal strands that give it shape and beauty. Moreover, in a web, strands can hold tension and stretch - even without breaking. But if a strand does break, the web doesn't fall apart - it holds together while the spider can re-weave it and make it stronger than before.
When considering the shape of our faith - a wall or a web, Miller puts it like this: “If our faith is a wall, and we learn something new that contradicts our old beliefs about God, we may think the whole thing needs to come down. But our faith isn’t a wall, it’s a web, and sometimes strands break and need to be replaced because they just aren’t true or because they just don’t work anymore. We realize our ways of seeing God don’t match our reality, our ways of experiencing God don’t work like they used to. Our versions of gathered community and collect worship need reimagining. Those strands break, and we can rebuild new strands based on the other parts of the web that are still true, because the whole thing hasn’t unraveled.”
This is all in the abstract so let me give an example: “We may have grown up being told the Bible was trustworthy because of its literal accuracy. But then we hear sermons suggesting that Biblical events are told in a style reflective of the ancient Near East, with its distinct literary styles and genres, meaning, perhaps some events did not literally occur as described. The strand of literalism may break, but other strands- Scripture can be trusted, the God we meet in Scripture can be trusted- keep our web intact while we re-weave our Biblical perspective.”
So Miller stresses that our anchor strands of our web need to be about God and who God is. And whether we are using the analogy of a web of a wall this is vital to a faith that will last. We can only follow God and obey God if we know God and trust God. The anchor strands that Miller suggests are that God is Good, God is Powerful, God is Just, God is Joyful, God is With Us, and that Jesus is Lord.
A faith either built upon or weaved around these core truths about God is certainly one that can weather storms or changes in our world or thinking - for who God is remains steadfast.
So not only does thinking about our faith in this way give us pause as to how we teach the faith we wish to pass on…it should also give us compassion for those who have de-constructed or who have had their faith fall down around them…
Are we coming to the aid of Eutchyus after his three story fall?
And when we get to where he fell, get down to his level - do we scold him for falling asleep during the preaching? Admonish him to act and behave as Good Christian boys and girls do, tell him he must not have believed “hard enough”?…or do we ask why he fell asleep? Do we ask why his faith fell down around him? Do we show compassion and care for his wounds, for “church hurt,” show understanding, willingness even to change our structures and the faith we passed on or inherited… Do we speak Life into what Died? Do we offer to help pick up the pieces, to go slowly, to re-build or re-weave together, journey together in getting to know who God is again…a God that is Good and a God who is Loving…
We are called to show compassion to those who fall from faith or who have their faith fall down around them. We are called to journey together, to discover who God is together, to weave together faiths that are life giving and support one another. It’s not easy…and yet, it’s the work we are called to do. To run down the three flights of stairs, pick up those who have fallen, and continue sharing a God of Love and Life.
May it be so. Amen.
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