Sermon on Acts 16:9-15
Pastor Jennifer Garcia
In one of Disney’s newest animated films, Encanto, there’s a Colombian family that has miraculous gifts that they share with their community.
One of the characters Luisa has super strength, and she fixes all kinds of problems around the village, from moving pallets of bricks to collecting a bunch of escaped donkeys (at the same time).
But, her younger sister, Mirabel, realizes that Luisa is having a hard time beneath her tough exterior. A twitching eye betrays the pressure Luisa is holding in.
Luisa explains in her song, “Surface Pressure,” that though she
“take[s] what [she’s] handed, [she] break[s] what’s demanded,” but “under the surface / [she] feel[s] berserk as a tightrope walker in a three-ring circus.”
She’s been trying to keep up with all the demands on her time and energy and look completely unfazed. She’s trying to serve everyone, and she’s burning herself out in the process.
Burnout has been a popular topic over the past few years. It’s been a problem for a long time and got its current name in 1973.[1]
A few years later, Christina Maslach, a social psychologist at UC Berkeley, defined burnout as “a syndrome of emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and reduced personal accomplishment that can occur among individuals who do ‘people work’ of some kind.”
The understanding of burnout has expanded at least in everyday speech to applying to people in any form of work, including parenting and really, just living, especially during a global pandemic.
We don’t know in our reading from Acts whether Paul and Silas were burned out, but they had been going through a tough time. The Holy Spirit kept steering them away from places they wanted to go. And then, finally, Paul has a dream about someone from Macedonia asking him for help.
Finally! Some sense of direction!
So he and Silas make their way to Macedonia, to the city of Philippi. And then, they spend several days there apparently without anything noteworthy happening.
Then, on the Sabbath, they start talking to a group of women at a place where people gathered for prayer.
And one person listens to them: Lydia, a cloth merchant living far from where she’s from.
She’s not only open to their stories about Jesus, but she and her whole household get baptized.
Then, she invites Paul and Silas to stay with her. She offers them hospitality.
None of them know that very soon Paul and Silas will be arrested. Their tough times are about to get tougher.
And when they’re released, they will go and stay with Lydia again.
They need this respite—and they may not realize how much they need it yet.
And they need this connection with Lydia, who will provide respite and safety again.
Paul and Silas have been doing the important work of traveling and spreading the good news about Jesus, and raising up and encouraging leaders and communities of Jesus followers. And after being steered away from plan after plan by the Holy Spirit, they need relief.
And Lydia has eagerly listened to them and been energized by their stories of Jesus. She offers what she has to give—a generous gift of hospitality to these weary travelers.
Where are you right now?
Do you resonate with Paul and Silas? Do you feel like every door is being shut? Do you resonate with Luisa? Are you weary, burned out, taking on tasks you’re too tired for, not realizing you need rest?
Or perhaps do you resonate more with Lydia? Are you finding energy in some area of your life? Is there something new in your life that you’re excited about?
Sometimes God calls us into offering hospitality.
Sometimes God sees that we need hospitality and offers it to us through other people.
In the wake of racist and politically-motivated shootings in Buffalo, NY, and in Laguna Woods—so close to us and in a church, no less—
In the wake of the ongoing conflict in Ukraine—
In the wake of this seemingly never-ending pandemic—
Not to mention the many other painful and difficult things in the world around us and in our own lives—
Burnout is understandable.
We need rest—not just sleep, but many types of rest, including the type of renewal and connection that comes from story and hospitality.
If we pause and look around us, we might see ways God is offering us hospitality in ways we weren’t expecting. But if we don’t want to miss out on it, we have to pause.
Our story from Acts shows us an example of Jesus followers coming together, supporting each other, offering each other what they had to give and receiving those gifts in return.
And in Encanto, Luisa finds a balance between working hard using her gift of strength and taking time to rest and renew.
The whole family, in fact, discovers that they don’t have to do it alone. The family experiences a difficult time—(spoiler alert) their house literally comes crashing down around them. They lean on each other to rebuild, and then, the whole town comes to help them, too. The family has helped the town with their miraculous gifts, and then the town bears them up when they need it most. It’s a beautiful image of community, connection, and shared strength.
And that is what God invites us to. Of course, God is always with us, strengthening us along the way. But God does not expect us to do it alone. God provides community, like this one, for us to lean on.
Drs. Emily and Amelia Nagoski, the authors of the book Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle, were on a podcast I was listening to a while back, and they said, “if there’s anything we learned in the process of writing the book, it is that the cure for burnout isn’t and can’t be self-care, it has to be all of us caring for each other.”
There is, of course, more nuance to the concept, but for the purpose of what we’re talking about today, these two have literally written the book on burnout, and they say we can’t fix ourselves on our own. We need the support of others.
Paul and Silas found shelter and safety in Lydia’s hospitality in this story and upcoming ones.
Luisa needed the support of her family to finally give herself permission to rest. And her whole family needed to learn to lean on each other and accept the help of the entire town.
Whether you’re in a season where you can offer hospitality and support or you’re in a season where you need hospitality and support, pause.
See what opportunities are around you.
What do you need right now?
What do you have to offer?
Who around you might need connection too?
Beloved children of God, you are not meant to do this alone.
We are in this together.
Let’s learn to ask for what we need, accept the generosity of others, offer what we have to give, and lean on each other.
May God and this community be with you.
[1]https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/05/24/burnout-modern-affliction-or-human-condition