flinging dust

Despite being arrested and hauled away because of a riot, Paul had the mob in the palm of his hand. With the permission of the office of the Roman guard, he spoke to them. Because he spoke in Aramaic, their language, they calmed down and listened. And as he recited his pedigree and history, they became more and more settled.

And then this, from Acts 22:21-23: “‘Then the Lord said to me, “Go; I will send you far away to the Gentiles.”’
“The crowd listened to Paul until he said this. Then they raised their voices and shouted, ‘Rid the earth of him! He’s not fit to live!’”
“As they were shouting and throwing off their cloaks and flinging dust into the air, the commander ordered that Paul be taken into the barracks.”

Just the thought that God might reach out to other people made that crowd nuts. Once again, if it wasn’t so serious, it would be funny: look at them, throwing their coats off and flinging dust in the air, getting it all over themselves and everything else.

Flinging dust. All of a sudden, I have a new phrase for what we do with our disagreements. We grab our rage in both hands and toss it all over everyone in reach. We take great fistfuls of deceit and use them to obscure the truth. With our handfuls of outrage, we stoke everyone around us. All because someone we don’t like might get something we already have.

That’s bad enough when it’s politics or business, but when in matters of faith this is horrible. God wants everyone to hear what he has to say; when we think one group or another shouldn’t belong, we’re assuming God’s rightful role of judge.

I want to be done with flinging dust. I want to love all my neighbors the way God loved the Gentiles. It would do me good to remember that, as a Gentile, in this matter of the covenant I was one of those others the faithful wanted to exclude. And all the dust-flinging was over the idea that I might be included.