A curious thing happened to me this week. I was examining the scriptures, reading about Paul on trial before the Jewish court in Jerusalem. At one point, the tribune in charge of him took him back to his jail cell for his own protection, “fearing that they would pull Paul to pieces” (Acts 23:10b).
But that same night, the Lord appeared before Paul and said, “Keep up your courage! For just as you have testified for me in Jerusalem, so you must bear witness also in Rome” (Acts 23:11b, c).
Have you ever had a moment where the Word leaped off the page? This was that kind of moment for me. I felt like I wasn’t just reading anymore. God was speaking right to me.

A New Calling
Jerusalem. Rome. That’s sort of like saying, “You’ve been faithful in Charlotte, North Carolina, and now I’m going to send you to New York City.”
In other words, God, at that moment, was calling Paul to a huge and much larger venue. And Paul had already demonstrated both an extraordinary level of security in Christ and a courage that flowed from that inner security. Paul believed that we are secure in Jesus and that we have in him a true home that actually transcends time and space. It’s more than a destination but, in fact, a kind of spiritual reality in which we now live.
And that’s what John means when he talks about having eternal life. It’s not just a place to which we’re going. It has to do with a present reality that God is born in us. And this reality will carry us into the place where what we have been given now becomes fully manifested all around us, into that place where there is no pain and there is no grief.
So out of all of this huge circle of security that the scripture affirms, here’s God, nudging Paul to leave Charlotte and go to Manhattan. “Just as you testified for me in Jerusalem, so now (meaning ‘in the same way’) go testify in Rome” (Acts 23:11b, c).
And what I heard in my own heart as I was pondering all of that, was in essence a call to step up, to be more public, to be bolder. And then I read a great story online that affirmed the same call. It came from an article in the Washington Times written by Greg Thornbury, president of King’s College.
In 1956, Duke Ellington’s career was headed downward. His jazz was considered old-hat; the new, popular kids in town were Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie. And at that point, Duke Ellington was considered a has-been.
A has-been, that is, until the Newport Jazz Festival of that year, where his music blew everybody out of the water. That one event gave him the resources he needed to do something he had never done before: he composed a piece called “Sacred Concert.” It was premiered and recorded at Grace Episcopal Cathedral in San Francisco and, a number of years later, also presented at Fifth Avenue Presbyterian in New York, where it was actually recorded on RCA.

A New Freedom
What I love about that whole story was what Duke Ellington said about it. In that change, he found a new freedom. “I now can say openly in this piece what I have been saying on my knees,” he said. He could now proclaim in music the deep Christian faith that was his, and that sacred concert became the thing he, in fact, wanted to give the world.
“This is actually the most important thing I’ve ever done,” Ellington said. In many ways he went from Newport Jazz Festival in Charlotte to Manhattan, literally, at Fifth Avenue Presbyterian. He went from a quiet, personal faith to a new openness and boldness, being clear to the entire public about his faith as a Christian.
So I have to ask: Is God nudging you to be bolder? To join me in refusing to take the security that we have in Jesus as a given that allows us to live at peace within our own lives, but rather to see that security as fuel that impels us into new places of boldness as to who we tell the world we are as believers in Jesus Christ?
That’s what Rome was, you know. The world. It was the pagan political centerpiece of the entire Mediterranean. And God was calling Paul to go out there.
I can’t help but believe that he wants to take us from “in here” to “out there,” too. Will you join me?

Is God nudging you to be bolder? How so? Share this blog and your comments on Twitter. Please include my username, @revgregbrewer.

(This post is an adaption of Bishop Brewer’s sermon on May 12, 2016, in the Bishop’s Oratory of the Diocesan Office, Orlando.)
Unless otherwise noted, scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright © 1989 the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

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