Now during those days, Jesus went out to the mountain to pray; and he spent the night in prayer to God. And when day came, he called his disciples and chose twelve of them, whom he also named apostles. (Luke 6:12-13)

Then Ananias said to Saul, “The God of our ancestors has chosen you to know his will, to see the Righteous One and to hear his own voice; for you will be his witness to all the world of what you have seen and heard. And now why do you delay? Get up, be baptized, and have your sins washed away, calling on his name.” (Acts 22:14-16)

We hear this morning from both books in Luke’s “orderly account” — the Gospel that bears his name and the Book of Acts — about the naming of Jesus’ first apostles and the dramatic conversion of Saul, who became Paul, the apostle to the Gentiles.

Being an apostle implies both a close relationship to Jesus and a mission to share his message.

If we are in relationship with Jesus, we will do what he does — spend the night in prayer to God and follow the way of the cross, which we will find is “none other than the way of life and peace” (BCP 99).

If we are sent on a mission like Paul, we will not delay but will instead live into our baptism now by sharing the Good News of what the living Lord is doing in our lives.

Immediately after reading the lessons in either Morning or Evening Prayer, we recite the Apostles’ Creed, the early baptismal creed of the church.

Every day, twice a day, we reconnect to the very first apostles of Jesus Christ and pledge ourselves — using the same words their followers used — to share in their mission.

“Glory to God, whose power, working in us, can do infinitely more than we can ask or imagine. Glory to him from generation to generation in the Church, and in Christ Jesus for ever and ever. Amen.” (BCP 102)

Then the tribune came, arrested him, and ordered him to be bound with two chains; he inquired who he was and what he had done. Some in the crowd shouted one thing, some another; and, as he could not learn the facts because of the uproar, he ordered him to be brought into the barracks. (Acts 21:33-34)

This morning, as I read the biography of St. Francis provided in the Church of England’s Twitter feed, I was reminded that Francis, too, was bound in chains early in his life when his father took him to court for selling bolts of cloth (and the horse that had pulled the wagon) and giving the money to a local church.

In both cases, public opinion was sharply divided over these followers of Christ. In both cases, neither side of the debate got at the heart of the matter.

Was Paul teaching against Jewish law and actually bringing Greeks into the Temple? Was Francis undermining good order by his dramatic poverty and his embrace of lepers?

We’ve seen in history what happened to these two followers of the Gospel.

Paul’s radical new community — no longer male nor female, Jew nor Greek, slave nor free — became more accommodated to Greco-Roman society, even within the time period of the Nw Testament, and ultimately became the state religion of the Roman Empire.

Francis’ Friars Minor, even during his lifetime, preferred to live in convents like the other monastic orders — approved bastions of the Roman Church and medieval society 1,200 years on from the New Testament days — rather than following his simple rule of begging and preaching.

What still gets lost in the debate, even today, is the central question each of these men faced: How complete is Christ’s claim on my life?

Some shout one thing, some another, but what is the voice of the living Lord trying to say?

Will your wonders be known in the dark?
or your righteousness in the country where all is forgotten?

But as for me, O Lord, I cry to you for help;
in the morning my prayer comes before you. (Psalm 88:13-14)

Many years ago, about the time that we moved to Wisconsin, I struggled through a period when I was certainly clinically depressed.

I was stuck in my head, unable to translate any plan into action. We lived in a beautiful wooded area near Lake Geneva, and I thought it would be lovely to take a walk in the morning, but I could never even make myself actually put on my shoes.

At the time I was reading Steven Covey’s Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, and I was impressed by a concept he calls the “daily private victory.”

Whatever simple action or task you decide, if you accomplish it, by definition the day is won. The daily private victory is won, and you have not failed.

I remember reading that description, thinking “I will make walking my daily private victory,” and then getting up and walking through the door! As I came out into the actual sunshine, I felt I had also come out of the darkness in my mind.

The psalmist knows the interior darkness, knows what it is to live “in the country where all is forgotten.” He also knows, as I do, that coming out of the dark is not simply a matter of will.

I could never have simply willed myself out of my depression. It took an insight, a grace from outside of me, to help me take one single step.

That is the central message of our Christian faith. By ourselves we cannot save ourselves. It takes grace from outside ourselves that helps us take the first faltering steps into the sunshine. “We have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth” (John 1:14). Or, to put it in another way, “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me” (Phil. 4:13).

The daily private victory is also a cumulative process. “In the morning my prayer comes before you,” says the psalmist, and it is the same for us. As we daily practice the basics — walking, praying, being thankful — we get stronger and stronger until one day we fear the dark no longer.

Some of them were persuaded and joined Paul and Silas, as did a great many of the devout Greeks and not a few of the leading women. But the Jews became jealous, and with the help of some ruffians in the marketplaces they formed a mob and set the city in an uproar …. When they could not find them, they dragged Jason and some believers before the city authorities, shouting, “These people who have been turning the world upside down have come here also, and Jason has entertained them as guests. They are all acting contrary to the decrees of the emperor, saying that there is another king named Jesus.” (Acts 17:4-7)

“Turning the world upside down.” Just what was so crazy about Paul and Silas’ preaching that prompted such a backlash?

Well, for one thing, their message resonated not just with some of the Jews in the synagogue at Thessalonica, but also with some “devout Greeks,” those Gentiles known as “God-fearers” who were attracted to Jewish worship and teaching. We’ve also been reading over the last several days about the presence of “leading women” like Lydia, slave-girls set free from evil spirits, and jailers treated with kindness finding a place in the new community and being baptized as new believers.

Paul and Silas, and the communities they were creating, mixed up Jews and Gentiles, slaves and free, jailers and prisoners, men and women into a new family of believers that was in sharp contrast to the divided, patriarchal Greco-Roman culture of their time.

Their egalitarian preaching so threatened some people’s sense of order that Jewish believers joined up with “ruffians” to attack someone’s house, drag him before the authorities, and loudly support the emperor’s position.

Think about that for a minute.

When was the last time you saw such angry energy directed against people who believe that everyone has a place in Christ’s new community of love?

When was the last time you saw believers joining with those in power to keep women and the poor and prisoners “in their proper place”?

The world still needs to be turned upside down.

“Lord Jesus Christ, you stretched out your arms of love on the hard wood of the cross that everyone might come within the reach of your saving embrace: So clothe us in your Spirit that we, reaching forth our hands in love, may bring those who do not know you into the knowledge and love of you; for the honor of your Name” (BCP 101).