Romans 15:26-33 “Refreshing Company”

I have always thought that coming to church should be like that long cool drink of ice tea on a hot day that I remember as a boy. You see, as long as I can remember I have been a gardener, putting seeds in the soil. My daughter Kim reminded me of this not too long ago, and I went to our old photo albums to dig out a picture of what my vegetable garden looked like as a boy growing up in southern California. In those days, I also got into the habit of making sun tea. I would drop two tea bags in a big pickle jar with water and just set it out on the deck railing to let the sun cook it up. I would actually pour it over a glass filled with ice when it was ready. After being in the hot sun working in the garden I found that to be the most refreshing drink in the world.

Okay, we are discussing “refreshment” today. Paul shares this idea with the church in Rome. He says that he hopes to come to them in order that he might be refreshed in their company. We need to come to church to be refreshed in the company of other Christians.

To me that almost sounds like an oxymoron. Do we not usually in this world try to get away from others in order to be refreshed? Do you know what I am saying? Remember Jesus after feeding the five thousand? We can check Matthew 14:22, “Immediately he made the disciples get into the boat and go on ahead to the other side while he dismissed the crowds. After he had dismissed the crowds, he went up the mountain by himself to pray.” Even our Lord Jesus Christ went out alone in order to be refreshed spiritually. What is Paul trying to tell us then?

It is really funny how we in the church always just read the end of the story of the Feeding of the Five Thousand to excuse ourselves for some private time alone. We forget that those five thousand came together in order to be refreshed! They sought out Jesus in a great company. Indeed, the disciples wanted Jesus to send them away! Instead, Jesus tells the disciples to “feed” them. In other words, refresh them. Give them strength again.

Yes, going out alone to pray can be spiritually refreshing, but we can also be refreshed in the great company of others—especially when Jesus is also there. Matthew 18:20, “Where two or more are gathered in my name, there I will also be,” says Jesus. If you want to be refreshed in the company of Jesus; therefore, you must go seek out other Christian company.

I want to be really precise. You see, the word that Paul uses to denote “refreshed” in English is one really long ugly Greek word. I will not bore you with my pronunciation, or maybe I will just for fun: συναναπαύσωμαι. However, stuck in the middle of this big long Greek word is the phoneme for “pause” in Greek. What Paul is conveying to the Romans is that when he comes to them, hopefully, while he is on his way to Spain, he wants to rest there in Rome, just pause his ministry for a while. BTW this word appears many times in the bible without the “συν” in front of it. In Matthew 11:28, for instance, Jesus tells the people “come to me ye heavy laden and I will give you rest.” This is a reference to eternal rest actually. However, even eternal rest in Greek is merely a temporary pause as the word implies. Death itself is only a pause on the journey to God. Since we are reborn then, we keep on going!

The journey from Jerusalem, where Paul would have handed over the offering that he had collected in Macedonia and Achaia, is treacherous. We can read about this in the Book of Acts when Paul does finally make the journey, he is stopped in Cyprus because of bad weather and is eventually blown off course and shipwrecked in Malta. It was much easier always to go from Rome to Jerusalem than from Jerusalem to Rome because of the prevailing natural winds over the Mediterranean Sea. That is why those ancient ships had oarsmen. They might have to row the whole way. Neither the jib sail nor the propeller had been invited yet.

Today, travel for us usually means resting on the plane. I remember once getting on the plane in Lihue, heading back to Los Angeles. I closed my eyes just for a minute, the next thing I knew the plane had landed. The stewardess was happy to see that in fact I did wake up when we landed. She told me that I was so deep in sleep that I could not be roused. I have been very fortunate always to be able to rest on planes. I know that not everybody can. For the most part all I have to do is wipe the drool off my chin and step off the jetway wherever I am going.

For Paul, when he is writing to the church in Rome about seeking refreshment in their company, he is literally asking for a place to pause from the exhaustion of the journey. Roman and Greek ships were not suited for sleeping at all. There would always be activity on board night and day and no personal sleeping quarters. Even if you had a relatively good journey with following winds, you would arrive in a sleep-deprived state. The first thing you would do is seek a place to sleep–a recovery pause for the journey!

I think the people of the day of Paul and the Apostles would be aghast to think that today we take pleasure cruises. We actually pay to go on a ship that literally just sails in a circle for our amusement. I think this would have been incomprehensible back in biblical times.

In Roman times, if you were on a ship journey, you found any place you could to sleep, perhaps on top of provisions, folded sails or cargo. Here is a “fun fact” The idea of hanging hammocks to sleep on ships was taken from the Mayan civilization of Mexico, so in the time of Hernan Cortez (early Sixteenth Century). I am amazed that nobody had come up with the idea of a hammock before then! What about hammocks in the church? If we are supposed to find our rest with Christ, we should have hammocks in the nave!

Let us consider this for a moment and put it into context. Paul is saying that he would be excited to be in Rome, in the company of other Christians, so that he can finally take a nap. When I was serving the church in West Los Angeles, after worship on Sunday mornings we would load up the family in the car and drive the hour or so out to my mother’s house to see her. Well, after Sunday worship and then driving the freeways of Los Angeles, I would want to take a nap. That was the house where I grew up. My bedroom was still there.

My mother would make complaining little jokes about how I would come all the way out to see her only to fall asleep on the bed when I got there. I would just take ten or or fifteen minutes of respite. Yet, I can share with you now that that was the best ten minutes of sleep in the entire week.

If you really want to know if you have a friend who is part of the family, go knock on their door one day and ask them if you can take a nap on their couch. I remember once helping a family to move house. After carrying in the sofa, they invited me to try it out. So, I took a nap.

Very quickly I want to lift out one more related idea to this. Paul asks the people in Rome to pray for him during his journey to them. This is a new idea actually. In Matthew 10:5 and on, Jesus sends out his disciples for the first time as apostles. There is no mention of a group that stays behind and prays for their journey. There is maybe a hint of this when Jesus asks the disciples to stay up and pray with him in the Garden of Gethsemane on the night of his betrayal, but this is the first time that I can recall that an Apostle openly asks for prayers from the community over his ministries.

I see this as the idea that the refreshment of Christian leadership is supposed to come constantly through prayers of the church. Right? We can refresh, give strength back to an exhausted soul, by praying for them wherever they may be in the world. We pray for the mission of Christ to be successful in others—that they feel our prayers strengthening them in their calling.

Corporate prayer is the refreshment of the body of Christ. Therefore, stop all of the business and pray! We do this all the time in this church. We stop, we refresh ourselves in prayer, and then continue on. This is our refreshment even before Aloha hour.

Find refreshment this day in this company of saints. Be refreshed through prayer.

Mathew 11:28-29 Jesus says “Come to me to find your rest. . . “

Amen.