Shipwrecked and Snakebitten - August 27

Today’s Readings: AM Psalm 16, 17; PM Psalm 22; 1 Kings 5:1-6:1,7; Acts 28:1-16; Mark 14:27-42

Today’s Reflection

As we’ve been reading through the Acts of the Apostles these past several weeks in our Daily Lectionary, you’ve probably picked up on a central theme: those who follow the Way of Christ are called to a life that may seem very different than the people and cultures around them. The Apostle Paul is cast as being a very different kind of man than other characters we meet in the apostles’ stories, as told by Luke. Just the other day, in Tuesday’s reflection, I looked at how Festus, a local government official, said to Paul, “You must be out of your mind, Paul! Too much learning has driven you insane!” That’s how different Paul seemed from everyone else—that he was seen as being out of his mind.

People who go against the grain stand out to other people. In today’s reading from Acts 28 (the final chapter in Acts), Paul and his shipmates end up washing ashore on the island of Malta. Storms had set them off course for a while, but now they are on Malta, which put them back on course in their journey toward Rome. When they wash up on the island, it was rainy and cold, so Paul set about building a fire: “When Paul had gathered a bundle of sticks and put them on the fire, a viper came out because of the heat and fastened on his hand.” The Maltese islanders at first assumed this was a bad omen about Paul. Everyone is surprised, then when Paul “shook off the creature into the fire and suffered no harm. They were waiting for him to swell up or suddenly fall down dead. But when they had waited a long time and saw no misfortune come to him, they changed their minds and said that he was a god.”

A seminary classmate in the year ahead of me, Philip, was known around campus to be “the snake handler.” More than once when there was a snake either on campus or in the sidewalk or street near our family housing, Philip was always called to the scene. People took pictures on their phones, which were of course shared on social media and fed into the legend in the making of Philip the snake handler. This isn’t the only thing that marked him as different. I remember when I visited campus as a prospective student, he was the one who was wearing his black cassock around campus to classes and to lunch—and he was known to break out his authentic Scottish kilt for special occasions. Philip was different—but in so many good ways. He worked as a social worker before seminary, so he was a really good at listening and understanding. He walked my daughter to school a couple days a week the semester that my ethics professor was tired of me rolling into class late (the school bell rang at 7:45 a.m., and I needed to be in my seat in ethics by 8 a.m.). Philip and his family were our neighbors and some of the most warm and welcoming people we knew during our time in Austin. Being a snake handler was just one of the outward signs of his inward condition as a person who couldn’t help but be salt and light, spreading the love of Christ wherever he went. (And he’s still doing that today as a priest in a nearby diocese.)

Paul and Philip both remind me of that Apple ad campaign from back in 1997-98: Think Different. There are two versions of this television commercial, one narrated by Richard Dreyfuss and the other by Steve Jobs himself. The one-minute ad celebrates people from across time and place who went against the grain—Albert Einstein, Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr., Maria Callas, and several others—and encourages others to follow suit. Setting aside the fact that this whole campaign was devised to get more people to think the same and buy Apple products (that’s gone pretty well for them), the television ads, magazine spreads, billboards, and posters left a strong imprint on U.S. and global pop culture:

Here’s to the crazy ones.
The misfits.
The rebels.
The troublemakers.
The round pegs in the square holes.

The ones who see things differently.

They're not fond of rules.
And they have no respect for the status quo.

You can quote them, disagree with them,
glorify or vilify them.
About the only thing you can't do is ignore them.

Because they change things.

They push the human race forward.

While some may see them as the crazy ones,
we see genius.

Because the people who are crazy enough to think
they can change the world, are the ones who do.

As we consider the life and travels of Paul—especially his great turn-around from persecutor of Christians to becoming the chief evangelist and missionary of his time—it’s important to reflect on the ways his words and actions went against the grain, the ways in which he struck others in the ways he thought differently. Even when bitten by a viper, Paul’s reacted differently—he was not overcome by fear, but in confidence he believed he was fully protected by God.

—Becky+

Questions for Self-Reflection

When have you felt like you didn’t fit in with the people around you? When has that been a good thing? When has that felt like more of a challenge?

Daily Challenge

You can see the Think Different ad campaign here.