Doing College Without Regrets: Paul’s Reunion with the Ephesians Elders (Acts 20)

Acts 20:13-38

MP3 here

In the opening scenes of Gladiator, Maximus Decimus Meridius of the Armies of the North, General of the Felix Legions is about to lead the Roman cavalry in a risky and courageous charge in the epic opening battle. He clasps forearms with his Quintus his first Lieutenant, looks him in the eye and says three words: ‘Strength and Honor’ – Quintus replies ‘strength and honor’ and the phrase ripples through the ranks of those closest to him: ‘strength and honor’ ‘strength and honor’ ‘strength and honor’. Now fast forward 90 minutes into the film, Maximus is a slave and a gladiator. He is trapped in a compound with surrounded by the Roman guard who want to kill him. There is a brief pause in the action while the soldiers break down the gate. Riddley Scott uses this pause in the action for a brief, quiet scene where Maximus looks around at a small unsavory group of gladiators who until now had fought out of motivations of self preservation. He says to them:

“I only need moments, so do not be careless with your lives.”
“If you don't want any part of this, go back to your cells.”

They do not flinch. They have obviously come to love him. To a man, they look back at him and reply in unison “Strength and honor.” This scene kills me. At this point in the film, the room invariably gets mysteriously dusty. But this is actually a conventional narrative device in action movies. I call it ‘the buddy scene.’ Near the end of many action films, there is a brief break in the action, where the characters who are about to face their death in the final scenes, have an opportunity to talk and communicate how much they have come to care for each other. There are great examples of this in Glory, Serenity[1] and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid[2] to name just a few.

Maybe the most famous ‘buddy scene’ of all pre-dates these other examples by about four centuries. In Shakespeare’s Henry the fifth, just before the young king is about to lead his army into a battle where he is outnumbered 5 to 1[3] he gathers his troops and says:

This story shall the good man teach his son…
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be remember'd;
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother

So, why do I go into all this? Because I am convinced that this is precisely what Luke, the author of Acts, is doing in chapter 20. The later chapters of Acts read like an action film. Extended speeches that characterize the early chapters are replaced with riots and shipwrecks and snake attacks in the later chapters. And the opening verses of today’s passage fit the frantic pace of an action film. In fact, v 16, actually sets the pace by explicitly stating ‘they were in a hurry.’ Then they hit 5 islands in 2 verses. If this was a film, verses 14 and 15 would be a sea faring montage.

And this is how the final chapters of Acts go, Luke takes us from city to city, from danger to danger, from jail cell to ship wreck. It is a high pace action film…with one major exception…the rest of Acts 20. Acts 20 is Luke’s ‘buddy scene.’ Before they face their respective deaths in the final chapters of Acts, Paul gathers the Christian leaders he served with during his years in Ephesus one last time and it becomes clear how much they all mean to each other. NT Wright describes Acts 20 like this:

“Here we see Paul in a different mode, vulnerable, meditative…It is as though we have finally found him, no longer running around in a blur, but sitting for long enough to have his portrait painted.”

You almost expect the passage to end with the Ephesians elders saying ‘strength and honor.’

Acts 20 is a totally different kind of story.[4] This is the only speech in Acts addressed to Christians.[5] In it Paul reflects on the three years he spent in Ephesus with the people he came to love there.[6] And it becomes clear has no regrets. It is not a coincidence that the first time this passage really came alive to me was in my last semester of undergrad. I remember the day. I had found a quiet corner of the music building one morning and was just casually reading through Acts. I had read this story several times before. But, but this particular time, with my college years mostly in the rear view mirror, as I looked back over my own three years in that place, I resonated with Paul’s reflective, tone. A lot of people get to that point, where they look back on their college years, and say: “They were supposed to be the best years of my life…and they weren’t that great.”[7]

But as Paul looked back at his three years in Ephesus, Paul gives us at least three keys to doing college without regrets.[8]

1. He Finished the Race

Well, when Paul looked back on his three years in Ephesus, he used an athletic metaphor to describe that season of his life. He described it as a race. He said:

24However, I consider my life worth nothing to me, if only I may finish the race and complete the task the Lord Jesus has given me.”

He ran the race. Having been a runner, I find this metaphor an extremely vivid way to describe the college experience and I just want to highlight two things about it. The first thing you need to know about doing these years without regret, is that you need to do them with and for Jesus. You need to run the right race.

Almost ten years ago I was had a business trip to Denver and after the meeting I took a couple days off, rented a car, and climbed a couple mountains.[9] The first day I noticed that there was a major race through the town that I was staying near. The second day I climbed Mount Massive.

When I got to the summit I hung out there a while and several other climbers eventually came along including an attractive young woman who had climbed the mountain alone. There was also a dude that had climbed the mountain alone and I watched as made his way over and started to hit on her. I felt bad for the guy because it was pretty clear that she had just climbed the second tallest mountain in Colorado and wasn’t really interested in being chatted up.[10] But pretty soon it came out that they had both been in the race the previous day. Then they discovered that they had both placed second in their class. And she was totally beginning to warm up to him. I have to say that at that point, I thought his chances of getting a phone number were in the range of , say, 40%...until…he admitted that the reason he came in second was that he had missed a turn and cut several miles off the race...and even with that, someone beat him. Let’s just say, he went down that mountain alone. I think about this guy from time to time, though. He worked really hard. I’m sure he had a great race. But it was the wrong race. And he was left with regret…and no shot at the cute hiker.

The key to doing college without regret is to run the right race. You could work really hard in college. You could run a great race for your parents or for your future or for some cause or for some girl or some guy…but it’s the wrong race. Paul says that the key to looking back on his three years in Ephesus without regret was that he ran the race that Jesus Christ had given him. He ran with and for Jesus.

Paul could look back on his three years in Ephesus without regret because though, as we shall see, he had a lot going on while he was there, including a full time job, his time there belonged to Jesus from beginning to end.

Some of you may be running the wrong race. Maybe you are part way through your college years and are just realizing, ‘there has to be more than this.’ There is. You can finish the race for Jesus. Doing college with and for Jesus is the road to looking back at these years without regret and the great thing about Christianity in general and this community in particular, is that it is never too late to start running the right race.

A few months ago, Zach put this clip up on his facebook.



I love that clip, but my favorite part is the contrast between how the guard and the tackle respond to the broken play. The tackle realized that the game is going on without him and just lets it go. He is refused to join the play late. But the guard, once he realizes that the game is going on without him, he jumps out of his stance and makes a play. And a disaster turns into a respectable gain.

But some of you have been faithful in your first few years, and are thinking about coasting into the home stretch. To you, I think Paul would say, you want to leave this place without regret, leave it on the field…finish the race….complete the task.[11]

I have a close friend in who leads a college ministry comparable to CL at the University of Buffalo. We spent some time together this summer and he told me, ‘you can’t build a college ministry on seniors. They are done. They’re already looking to the next thing.’ I want to challenge you[12] to buck this trend. When I look at the kind of Senior Years that (just for example) Casie Wilson and Michelle Balaz are turning it, I think it is clear that you can build a college ministry on seniors running hard to the end. They are leaving it on the field.[13] (Of course, I also get the feeling they enjoyed their college experience). So Paul says the key to doing his three years in Ephesus without regret was to run the right race, the one Jesus set before him, and to complete it.

The second thing we notice about Paul’s look regret free retrospective is that:

2. He Worked Hard[14]

34You yourselves know that these hands of mine have supplied my own needs and the needs of my companions. 35In everything I did, I showed you that by this kind of hard work we must help the weak, remembering the words the Lord Jesus himself said: 'It is more blessed to give than to receive.' "

Paul’s time in Ephesus had something in common with your time at Davis. Christian community and ministry happened on his own time despite substantial competing commitments of a ‘secular vocation’. He was what we call ‘bivocational’ just like many of you who are trying to balance Christian community and ministry and enormous academic and even work commitments. The flat reality is that if you are going to make time for God at college, you are going to have to work hard.

But here is the interesting thing about Paul’s approach: did not separate his life into ‘secular’ and ‘spiritual’. Both his ministry and his work were done for God. Whatever he was doing, he was throwing himself into it. But he also worked hard so that he would have something left over to give.

Don’t write your studies off as unspiritual. Whatever you do, do it fully. Work hard at your studies because they are a great privilege and the vocation that God has called you to in this season. But if you are going to make time for Jesus, his people and his purposes in college, you are also going to have to work hard at your studies to produce the margins your life needs to ‘run the race’.

But here is the thing about Kingdom hard work done with and for Jesus. There is a lightness to it. There is a sweetness to it. There is a joy in it. And, Paul teaches elsewhere, that it is because in a non-trivial way, God himself gets involved with it.[15] Check out these two other places where Paul talks about hard work:

1Cor 15:10 “But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace to me was not without effect. No, I worked harder than all of them—yet not I, but the grace of God that was with me.”

Col 1:29 “To this end I labor, struggling with all his energy, which so powerfully works in me.”

But here is the catch. You only get to claim his power if you are after his purposes.

Finally, the third thing we see about why Paul looked back at his three years in Ephesus without regret is:


3. He Developed Intimate Jesus Focused Friendships[16]

36When he had said this, he knelt down with all of them and prayed. 37They all wept as they embraced him and kissed him. 38What grieved them most was his statement that they would never see his face again. Then they accompanied him to the ship.

This is almost a romantic passage. This passage practically drips with tenderness and intimacy. These guys have so much genuine affection for each other that they are sneaking around despite the non-trivial risk of death, just to see each other one last time.[17] The Ephesians had to make at least a day’s journey to Militus and Paul must have paused at least three days for this meeting…each day increasing the probability that he would hit rough winter seas on the way to Jerusalem. You cannot read this passage carefully without coming away with the realization that it documents a serious ‘bromance.’ And this made me think of a song:[18]



From: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lL4L4Uv5rf0

Slide: “Can’t one heterosexual guy tell another heterosexual guy he thinks his booty’s fly”[19]

Platonic guy love is considered weird in our culture…but it thrives in the church. And particularly, here in this community. And there is a reason that bromance (as well as substantial, intimate relationships between women that is more socially expected and, thus, does not have a cool moniker) is a mark of Christian community.


It is because the strongest most intimate friendships are about something bigger than the friendship.[20] The great irony of friendship is the same irony we found when we talked about marriage. Relational intimacy is undermined by the quest for relational intimacy in and of itself. It emerges from a shared external passion.

Friendships based on the emotional goods and services that the friend provides are fragile because as soon as they don’t offer that service, the friendship is disposable. My favorite line in mewithoutYou’s new album gets at this idea: “when they say my love is real, they mean I like the way you make me feel”

But friendships based on a shared passion or mission tend to sustain. The emotional benefits are a substantial side effect of a relationship that is based on bigger things but they are not the thing in itself. The paradox is that because the friendship is focused on something other than the friendship, it is more durable and more fulfilling. [21]

CS Lewis tackles this idea in his book: The Four Loves “That is why those pathetic people who simply “want friends” can never make any. The very condition of having Friends is that we should want something else besides Friends…[22]There would be nothing for the Friendship to be about; and Friendship must be about something, even if it were only an enthusiasm for dominoes or white mice. Those who have nothing can share nothing; those who are going nowhere can have no fellow-travellers.”

Friendships that are based on something bigger than how the person makes you feel are more substantive, more intimate and last longer. Friendships base on a joint passion for Jesus have the added benefit of outlasting death itself. If you throw yourself into a Jesus centered life during your college years and are intentional about doing it in community, there are people in this room who will be at your wedding…because you cannot be involved in something as real and as transformative as serving Jesus without developing sustained and genuine affection for those who are doing it with you.

And here is one of the truly original things about friends in the Church. It often looks weird because of its intimacy but also because of the pairings. You find some of the most unlikely friendships in the church because the intimacy does not emerge from sameness of personality but sameness of passion.

Let me wrap up with a story. Near the end of my college experience I was in the science building studying for my last final. The lab started out full of well meaning students but as it wore on, one by one, they opted for either their beds or the bars (and more for the latter than the former). Finally, it was just me and a geologist named Lauren. Then, three guys from the campus ministry I served with showed up. These are guys who, for three years, I had prayed with, worked with, grown with and faced disappointment with. They convinced me to take an hour study break to toilet paper our college pastor’s van. And so I did. I made it back to the lab around 2 just as Lauren was leaving, so I offered to walk her home before I got back to my studying. On the way to her place she asked where I disappeared to suggesting ‘I don’t exactly have you pegged as a bar guy.’ I told her what had happened and wrapped up the little story by saying, without really thinking about it, ‘It was totally worth it. I really love those guys.’ She was quiet. Then she looked at me and said, “You know Stan, you’re really lucky. I am about to leave this place, and can’t say that about anyone I have met here.”

You want to do college without regrets? Do you want to look back on your three to five years here and feel that they were well spent? Get connected to a Christian community if you aren’t. If you are…leave it on the field. Run the race to the end. Work hard, in your studies and in ministry. And throw yourself into friendships that are about something bigger than the friendship.

_________________
[1] I think this is the clearest example of what I am trying to get at. But I am sensitive to my own Joss bias, so I did not feature it.
[2] Amanda and I had a long discussion if this actually ‘counts’ as a buddy scene by my definition because it is, in some senses, a comedic deconstruction of the genere (despite being the oldest example). But I think that in the passive aggressive banter between Cassidy and Sundance (culminating in the epic line ‘for a minute there, I thought we were in trouble’) is the evidence of deep, mutual affection.
[3] Note: I was scanning the web for Henry V images and I found this film version rated NC 17 for “violence, action, bad hygiene”.
[4] And the detail. You get the sense that you are actually there. The passage starts with ‘we’ suggesting that Luke joined the party at this point and that this is an eye witness account.
[5] Several commentators agree that this is why the content of this speech, more than any other, correlates with the content of Paul’s letters – which essentially serve the same purpose but by a remote communication rather than a meeting.
[6] The longest he spent in any one place.
[7] I think I owe this observation to Cory Randolph
[8] Why is March Madness so popular? Why do people LOVE college football, even prefer it to the NFL, when the skill level of the athletes does not really compare. It is because it college sports are devastatingly final. Labron, Wade, Linscome, Manning, Brady, they will all have another shot at it next year. But college athletes, many of them will never again experience that sort of perceived significance. You can bet that they don’t wish those years away. Their stories are public. We get to experience their joy and heartbreak with them. We get to watch their regret. But their stories parallel the short window of potential significance and potential regret that typify the college years.
[9] Which, after sex and preaching, is my favorite thing to do…hold on, did I say that out loud. Actually, I didn’t – I cut it. This is just one reason why I write a manuscript and try to minimize extemporaneous banter.
[10] My wife wasn’t even there and I could hear her say, ‘get a clue dude, bad time’ as she has said about so many ill fated attempts to hit on her at the gym.
[11] Way too many sports illustrations in this point, but I had this one here:
I used to run track in HS to keep in shape for soccer. I ran the two mile. We had a distance coach that would run with us sometimes. I remember times that I felt like my body was about to shut down, he would tell me, “just run to the next telephone pole.” Then at that pole he would say ‘How about one more?’ and that went on until I had run through the pain and found the pace again.
“Run to the next pole.”
[12] I want to call out the Junior class here. We all know that you are one of the epic CL classes of all time. There is a tendency to fade out in campus ministry.
[13] For my fifth sports illustration in this point (interesting, since I don’t think I’ve used even one before in 1.66 years preaching at college life) I wanted to tell the story of the final soccer game of my High School year…but I will refrain.
[14] This point got cut in the final talk
[15] Rejected sports illustration #4 – this reminds me of the Olympics a few years ago when the Dad came out of the stage to help his injured son cross the finish line.
[16] This point may appear as indebted, as usual, to Keller. The truth is, in this case, the similarity is convergent (independently developed and later recognized as similar) rather than genitive (due to me stealing). I would be lying if I said that this did not thrill me.
[17] I didn’t have a good place to put this, but really liked it: “to need and to want deep friendships is not a sign of spiritual immaturity but a sign of maturity. It is not a sign of weakness but of health. If you are lonely, you are not dysfunctional, you are fine. You are lonely because you are not a tree.” -Keller
[19] Flight of the Conchord’s reference:
[20] It is only weird if the foundation of the intimacy is soley the emotional connection.
[21] Amanda and I have talked about this and realized that many of the friendships that we maintain from college have moved beyond the point where the friendship is based on the performance of the friend. They have become grace based. We are unconditionally for them.
[22] ellipsis: “Where the truthful answer to the question Do you see the same truth? would be “I see nothing and I don’t care about the truth; I only want a Friend,” no Friendship can arise—though Affection of course may.”
Here are two more Four Loves quotes: "It is therefore easy to see why Authority frowns on Friendship. Every real Friendship is a sort of secession, even a rebellion. It may be a rebellion of serious thinkers against accepted clap-trap or of faddists against accepted good sense; of real artists against popular ugliness or of charlatans against civilized taste; of good men against the badness of society or of bad men against its goodness. Whichever it is, it will be unwelcome to Top People.”
“The Friendship is not a reward for our discrimination and good taste in finding one another out. It is the instrument by which God reveals to each the beauties of all the others.”