Acts 2:1-21

“A Miracle of Hearing”

May 19, 2013

Pentecost

 

Paul Harris died last year.  He was pastor to different segments of my extended family at different times over the years and to my immediate family for a couple of years.  He did a great job of staying in contact with people, usually by sending little notes, which was a lot easier for him than phone calls and sometimes even than visiting, because Mr. Harris was hard of hearing most of his adult life and toward the end he was just plain deaf.

When I was in high school he could still manage pretty well on his own.  He made sure to face people directly and pay close attention, and he was not afraid to ask you to repeat your words.  He wore hearing aids, but sometimes, for all the good they did, you got the impression that they were more of a fashion statement than anything else.  In large settings it was even harder, but he had the help of his wife and more than once when someone was saying something in church and he didn’t realize that anyone was speaking, Jane would stand up and wave her hand and say, “Paul!  Paul!” and point toward the speaker.

            When Mr. Harris retired, the congregation gave him a TTY machine.  Anyone who wanted to reach him by phone could then call a central number and an operator would type their words, which would appear on a screen by his telephone.  Years later, I saw him at Cornwall Manor one time and he was told me about their fiftieth wedding anniversary party. There were speeches, so one of his grandsons stationed himself next to his grandfather with a laptop and typed out what was being said.  Somewhere around the fifth or sixth speech he began to type the first few sentences and then, “Blah, blah, blah.”  No one understood why the two of them were giggling.

            From Mr. Harris and his efforts I learned to appreciate that communication has those two sides: speech and hearing.  On the day of Pentecost, when

“All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability” [Acts 2:4]

the Lord brought about a miracle of speech that the crowd also experienced as a miracle of hearing.

            What happened on Pentecost was not what people call “speaking in tongues”, although “speaking in tongues” in the modern usage of the term, is connected to a deep awareness of the presence of the Holy Spirit: that is true.  But when someone “speaks in tongues” the listeners generally cannot understand what is being said.  Personally, my explanation of “speaking in tongues”  is to say that religious experience can leave someone so overcome with emotion they can become tongue-tied and their feelings flow so quickly that speech simply cannot follow.  That’s why I agree that somebody touched by the Spirit may at times be heard to babble incoherently.  Mind you, I can be skeptical when it seems to be turned on and off at predictable times.

            On the day of Pentecost, the miracle was that something was said and that it was heard clearly.  The good news of Jesus was shared by people who thought they couldn’t reach the strangers around them, and people who by all rights should not have understood a syllable got every single word.

            My friends, that has not changed.  That is a miracle that has repeated in various forms and will continue to do so as long as the Holy Spirit fills the people of God with creativity and imagination.

            I’m not suggesting that faith-sharing should rely on gimmicks.  There are enough of those.  I recently googled “evangelism ideas” and saw dozens of sites recommending that churches hand out bottled water or popcorn or donuts or newspapers, each with the church’s name and information clearly attached.  I saw sites that listed all kinds of service projects, each of which had some value, but each of which had the feel of a publicity stunt.  Real giving and real service aren’t about what comes back to the giver or the servant.

            I am suggesting, though, that real and true outreach is what happens when a believer ignores the barriers that normally exist between people to share what is important to him or her as a human being and trusts that the common humanity that God has created in both the speaker and the hearer will respond to the message of God’s love in Jesus.

            There’s a watercolor painter whose work I really like.  He lives near Harrisburg and his name is Larry Lombardo.  One of his paintings[1] and shows two people sitting on opposite ends of a park bench.  One is a teenage girl wearing a sort of punkish/Goth-ish outfit with black jeans and a studded collar and black makeup on her lips and eyes.  The other is an older woman in a purple print dress with a white jacket and tinted glasses.  The girl is looking at her, sort of out of the side of her eyes, and the woman sits calmly, looking straight ahead, and you get the feeling that if only one or the other of them would just start a conversation, each has something to say that would help the other. 

            Called “The Child Has Grown The Dream Has Gone”, the painting takes its title from some Pink Floyd lyrics that say,

 

“When I was a child 
I caught a fleeting glimpse
Out of the corner of my eye.
I turned to look but it was gone
I cannot put my finger on it now
The child is grown, 
The dream is gone.
I have become comfortably numb.”[2]

 

Although the Holy Spirit is called the Comforter, the Holy Spirit can also be called the Great Discomforter, the Nudger, the Elbow-in-the-Ribs-of-the-Soul.  The Holy Spirit is the one who  pushes us out of our comfortable numbness to speak to the person at the other end of the bench, whether or not we think they’ll understand the way we speak or look or think.  The Holy Spirit is the one who gives us words when we need them.  The Holy Spirit is also the one who opens our eyes to the world around us, and who opens the world’s ears to hear what we have to say about it, and to it.

            And what we have to say is simply this:

“God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” [John 3:16]

 

One thing that happens during annual conference each year is a book sale.  A lot of retiring pastors or those who are moving clear off their shelves and some very worthwhile reading can be picked up for a quarter, with proceeds going to the United Methodist Historical Society.  Cokesbury Books also has a mini-store set up.  The result is an influx of books to church libraries, including ours.   

Add to that several selections that have been made recently as resources for the Administrative Council and others active in various ministries and what you get is the book table set up at the back of the church.

Here are a few of the featured items:

Velvet Elvis by Rob Bell – An extended meditation on Christian living by someone who has been very good at explaining the life of faith to people who admire Jesus but are somewhat skeptical about his followers.

Institutes of the Christian Religion by John Calvin – Heavy reading and not for the faint of heart, but a classic of the Reformation.

Naming the Silences by Stanley Hauerwas – “God, Medicine, and the Problem of Suffering” is the subtitle and the subject of the book.

Suffering Presence by Stanley Hauerwas – “Theological Reflections on Medicine, the Mentally Handicapped, and the Church” by a Christian ethicist who is also the father of a child with cognitive disabilities.

Out Live Your Life by Max Lucado – How God uses simple, regular people to share the Good News.

Care of the Soul by Thomas Moore – As the subtitle says, this is “A Guide for Cultivating Depth and Sacredness in Everyday Life”.

Amazing Grace by Kathleen Norris – Consideration of what a lot of those familiar but vague terms you hear in church circles really mean in life.

A God Sized Future by Ron Phillips – A book about moving into personal and social change under God’s direction.

Not the Way It’s Supposed to Be by Cornelius Plantinga – A book about identifying sin in your own life when it does such a good job disguising itself.

Why Jesus?  by Will Willimon – A look at several of the ways that people think about Jesus, including chapters on him as vagabond, peacemaker, storyteller, party person, preacher, magician, home wrecker, savior, sovereign, lover, delegator, and body.

 

Revelation 22:12-14, 16-17, 20-21

“Waiting Impatiently”

May 12, 2013

            A few years ago, the father of one of my friends died and I went to the funeral and then to the cemetery.  His father had had Parkinson’s disease since we were in high school, so none of this was unexpected.  It was a Jewish funeral, so at the graveside everyone was supposed to add a shovel or a handful of dirt as we left, beginning with the nearest relatives.  The widow took her turn and stepped aside, handing the shovel to one son.  He added his shovelful and handed it to his brother.  His brother stabbed the shovel into the pile of earth, then looked down onto the casket, then looked back at the soil, then into the grave, then back at the shovel – and this went on until his mother said, loudly enough for everyone to hear, “Come on!  We haven’t got all day!”

            The Christian Church is very much like that woman, and always has been.  Jesus promised that the day would come when he would return to be with us in a way that would wrap up all of history’s loose ends,

“See, I am coming soon; my reward is with me, to repay according to everyone’s work,” [Revelation 22:12]

and the New Testament is full of the people who were closest to him, whether historically or in spirit, saying, “Come on!  Let’s get it over with!”

“The Spirit and the bride say, ‘Come.’ And let everyone who hears say, ‘Come.’” [Revelation 22:17]

We’ve been standing here for a long time, and except for the formalities, our grieving is done.  We’ve been to the tomb and found it empty.  We’ve been to the graveside and found out it isn’t the end.  So let’s get on with the life of the kingdom.

            If you’ve ever felt that way or thought like that, I want to say, “Good for you.”  You’re in good company.  There’s a poem by Lawrence Ferlinghetti called “I Am Waiting” that puts that sort of general longing well.  It says, in part,

“I am waiting for my number to be called

and I am waiting

for the Salvation Army to take over

and I am waiting

for the meek to be blessed

and inherit the earth   

without taxes

and I am waiting

for forests and animals

to reclaim the earth as theirs

and I am waiting

for a way to be devised

to destroy all nationalisms

without killing anybody

and I am waiting

for linnets and planets to fall like rain

and I am waiting for lovers and weepers

to lie down together again

in a new rebirth of wonder”

            In the early days, the Church had a deep awareness of what could be, an expectation that even led them into living as if the world had already begun to change, with the resurrection of Jesus showing that.  Rob Bell points out,

“To be part of the church was to join a countercultural society that was partnering with God to create a new kind of culture, right under the nose of the caesars.  These Christians made sure everybody in their midst had enough to eat.  They made sure everybody was able to pay their bills.  They made sure there was enough to go around.  The resurrection for them was not an abstract spiritual concept; it was a concrete social and economic reality.  God raised Jesus from the dead to show the world that Jesus is Lord, and it is through his power and example and his Spirit that the world is restored.”[1]

            On the other hand, the Church always has been a little bit like the man with his hand on the shovel, unwilling to bury what has been dear to him, a body without which, even though it is now dead, he would not be alive.  To live in the new reality means letting go of the old one, and that is hard sometimes.

            We see that in times of change.  A huge chunk of the New Testament deals with the newly-forming Church trying to decide what parts of its God-given roots in Judaism and the Old Testament laws to hold onto and which to let go.  Even down to our own day, there are groups like the Seventh Day Adventists who insist that we have been wrong to move our worship from the Sabbath (which would be Saturday) to the day of resurrection (which is Sunday). 

In our time, too, we find that doing things the way they were done for the past hundred years isn’t working, but we are afraid to try new things.  Those of us who are here, after all, are those for whom the old ways have generally worked, and worked well.  It’s hard to see declines in church attendance and reports in the news about the waning influence of the institutional Church and not stand around grieving, even worrying whether the Church may be dying, as some folks think it is, and as you occasionally find someone hoping, just like the Roman Empire did.

            Then you hear the words of someone like a Presbyterian pastor in his early thirties say something you could call prophetic about the situation when he says,

“To speak of the death of the church is to betray one's own bad ecclesiology. First, it assumes that the church can die. Wrong. Christ is going to have his church. It just may not look like yours. Second, to talk about the death of the church in mournful terms is to assume that our purpose is to survive. Quite the opposite. Jesus did not ask us to preserve our institutions. He commanded us to follow him, and he went to the grave for people who hated him. Perhaps, a ‘dead church’ is a church that has lost its willingness to die for love.”[2]

            The church that the prophet John came from, and wrote to, was one that was ready to die for love if it had to, because it knew that dying wasn’t the end, and that it wasn’t the worst thing that could happen, either.  It was a church that waited impatiently for the kingdom, so impatiently that it died a little bit every day, at least as the world saw things, so that it could begin to live in the ways of God.  It even prayed on a regular basis, “Your kingdom come; your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”

They waited, but they waited impatiently.  May God grant us to do the same thing.  And may it happen soon.

“The one who testifies to these things says, ‘Surely I am coming soon.’ Amen. Come, Lord Jesus! The grace of the Lord Jesus be with all the saints. Amen.” [Revelation 22:21]

 

 

The Family Worship theme for May 19th is Pentecost: An Outpouring of the Spirit. David Bryant and our Praise Band will lead praise and worship; Pastor Mark will offer an interactive sermon; and Holy Communion will be offered to all. Family Worship will also serve as the Sunday School finale when classes are recognized and teachers are thanked.

As always, expect a few surprises! You will be blessed!

Watch a Kingdom Rock  video here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rF6xajeAYm0

 

VBS VOLUNTEERS NEEDED – Adults and youth are needed to make Kingdom Rock VBS a safe, memorable, and fun event for the children of our church and community. See the signup sheet located on the bulletin board across from the Chapel to find the job that is right for you. Sign up even if you can only donate one or two nights of help. Contact Laurie Pfahler for more information and to reserve childcare for young children.

 

 

MARTHA-ELIZABETH CIRCLE – The Martha-Elizabeth Circle will not be meeting in May.

EUNICE CIRCLE – The Eunice Circle will meet this Tuesday (5/14), 7:30 p.m. at the home of Kay Henzie.

Revelation 21:10, 21:22-22:5

“The View from a High Mountain”

May 5, 2013

 

            It’s hard to tell exactly how much of the material that would eventually find its way into the New Testament was familiar to a given writer at the time of writing.  For instance, since Luke traveled around with Paul we can safely guess that Paul knew of the teachings and events that are described in Luke’s gospel.  In his letters, though, Paul never mentions the stories of Jesus’ birth that we read from Luke every Christmas.  On the other hand, there are spots in Revelation where John refers to Jesus as the Lamb of God, which is a title that John the Baptist gives to Jesus in the gospel of John.  That suggests familiarity with the content of that book, if not of the book itself.  (And some people think that John the gospel writer may have been John the disciple while others think that was a different John.  Then there’s the question of whether the letters of John were written by the John who wrote Revelation or the John who wrote the gospel, or whether they may all have been one person.  Confused?  You’re not alone.)

            The reason I say this is that I may be going out on a limb with my interpretation of this passage from Revelation, but in doing so I may not be as far from the trunk as I think, and you’ll have to judge for yourself.  When I hear John preface his vision as he does, it makes me think of something that happened to Jesus.  John says of a messenger from God,

“And in the spirit he carried me away to a great, high mountain and showed me the holy city Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God.” [Revelation 21:10]

It is a place where

“The nations will walk by its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it. Its gates will never be shut by day—and there will be no night there. People will bring into it the glory and the honor of the nations. But nothing unclean will enter it, nor anyone who practices abomination or falsehood, but only those who are written in the Lamb’s book of life.” [Revelation 22:24-27]

Meanwhile, in Matthew [4:8], we read of Jesus how

“the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor”.

There seems to me to be an echo here.

“And he said to him, ‘All these I will give you if you fall down and worship me.’” [Matthew 4:9]

Which, of course, Jesus emphatically did not do.  I think John may be warning us that we may also be put into that position and offered a deal, and telling us not to take it.

            The devil may hold out the temptation to try to transform the world through any means possible, and if you do that you get caught up in a web of deceit.  God, however, is working in his own way and his own time, and sees to it that the world will be changed by his Spirit – by righteousness and holiness – and not by force.  With this comparison, John shares a message of patience, of encouragement at times when the frustration becomes so great that we want to take matters into our own hands, which rarely if ever ends well.

            In Jesus’ day, there were people who had the idea that the kingdom of God was something that could be brought about and imposed on the world.  There’s an odd verse in Matthew where Jesus says,

“From the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven has suffered violence, and the violent take it by force.” [Matthew 11:12]

In fact, people were trying to do that.  A group called the Zealots were going around, enforcing the observation of the Law and working for the ouster of the Romans and the restoration of a Jewish state centered in Jerusalem.  A subset of the Zealots known as the Sicarii, from the Latin word sicarius (which was a dagger)  would occasionally slip up behind a Roman soldier or a Jewish collaborator in a crowd and stick a sicarius between their ribs.  Some people think the name “Iscariot” (as in Judas) is a version of this word.  If you think in modern terms, these were sort of like the religious police in Iran or even the Taliban.

            Christians have also fallen into that trap at times.  During the Middle Ages the Inquisition went around imprisoning people whose views were heretical.  If there were no heretics, there were always Jews to kill.  As for us Protestants, even we have had our days when we have sinned deeply as we have tried to enforce purity of thought or worship.  The first woman legally executed in the English colonies of North America was named Mary Dyer who had returned to Massachusetts from religious exile in Rhode Island..  In 1660, she was hanged on the Boston Common for the crime of being a Quaker

            What makes her death, and the deaths of countless others, so tragic is that those who condemned Mary Dyer did so from a genuine conviction that they were doing God’s work.  They thought that they could use the secular power that they controlled to protect the souls of those under their care from false teachers who would lead them astray.  They truly meant well.  Before condemning them, think of the parents of a child who has become part of a cult.  Do they not use every means at their disposal to rescue that child?  If your son or daughter had joined with the Branch Davidians or Jim Jones’s crowd, would you not have wanted them taken away before those groups ended up going down in violent confrontation or mass suicide? 

            There is a point where warped belief turns into criminal action, and someone has to step in, but there is a difference, and an important one to recognize, between maintaining decent order and trying to overrule someone’s conscience.  If a Scientologist wants to believe that “In July of 1952, L. Ron Hubbard became the first to scientifically isolate, measure and describe the human spirit, while objectively demonstrating spiritual potentials well in advance of scientific thought,”[1] that’s their right.  It’s incredibly wrong, but it’s their right.  If a Fundamentalist Mormon woman agrees to enter into a polygamous arrangement, there is no way to stop her, even though we recognize only two spouses in any marriage.  However, the moment that same community marries off a fourteen-year-old girl to a sixty-seven-year-old man who calls himself a prophet, it’s time for someone to take action.

            Only, proceed with caution.  The kingdom of God, the New Jerusalem, begins from the inside, and cannot be imposed.  It comes down from God out of heaven, and is built first and foremost in the human heart.  If we think it comes from ourselves, we get caught in the temptation that the devil put in front of Jesus.  If we recognize that it comes from God, then we approach the reform and renewal it brings with humility.  We first let it take root and grow within us and then, by God’s grace, in the world at large.

            And be certain that it will grow, and spread, and last far beyond our own systems and institutions, far beyond our egos or our understandings.  There’s an old hymn that we don’t sing too often because it was written for evening services, “The Day Thou Gavest, Lord, Is Ended”, that says, in part:

“So be it, Lord; Thy throne shall never,
Like earth’s proud empires, pass away:
Thy kingdom stands, and grows forever,
Till all Thy creatures own Thy sway.”[2]

Everywhere that the kingdom has been in evidence, it has been because Christians have allowed God’s grace to fill their own hearts, to bear fruit in their own lives, and to nurture the hurting world around them.  That, rather than the grand schemes that so often capture the imagination, is where God is to be found at work.  And when God’s people walk in God’s light, that is when the Day of God begins and never ends.

“As o’er each continent and island

The dawn leads on another day,

The voice of prayer is never silent,

Nor fades the sound of praise away.”

 

The “TRUST FALL”

 

Do you know what a “Trust Fall” is?

A “trust fall” is when you stand in front of someone and fall back.  You must trust that the person standing behind you will catch you before hitting the ground!

I never attempted this feat until Saturday when our Youth Group and I attended a Low/High Ropes Course in Quarryville, PA.  A scary thing to do, Yes!

All the kids seemed to do it very easily and without hesitation.  Hey, no problem, I can do that!  Well….not so easy for me.  How am I supposed to fall backward and trust that I will not fall to the ground? 

So, it was my turn.  All the kids were watching.  I spent some time standing in front of Kirt- thinking very long; he’s not going to catch me and I am falling hard!  Trust!  I needed to trust Kirt.  Here I go, just do it Cheryl, he has my back, he’s not going to let me fall…right?

This event was one of the many team-building activities of the morning schedule.  We learned to build our communication skills, to listen to one another and to collaborate effectively.   We gained a mutual respect for one another.  We learned to trust one another, something we quickly appreciated when we attempted the ropes course later in the day. 

Trust is powerful, sometimes giving up control and allowing someone or something to guide you.  We strengthened our trust in God on Saturday, also.  We learned He is who He says He is, and He will guide us.  He is our peace, our peace when we doubt, our peace when we don’t understand and we can Trust Him.

He knows what He is doing!

I leaned back, let myself fall, I trusted, and Kirt caught me…. 

                                                                        ~Cheryl Cini

 

Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths.

~Proverbs 3:5-6

 

Revelation 21:1-6

“Renewal”

Fourth Sunday of Easter

April 28, 2013

 

            There’s a medieval legend, which we have absolutely no reason to believe, from either the Bible or any historical record, that during the years he was growing up Jesus traveled to Britain with Joseph of Arimathea, whom the legend – again, with no basis – describes as a tin merchant checking on his supply chain.  The only reason I mention it is that at the start of the Industrial Revolution, at a time when the streams in the English Midlands were beginning to become seriously polluted and the sky was starting to get clogged up with coal smoke from the iron and steel foundries, William Blake looked back on those legends and wrote a poem that conveys an awareness that is basic to human aspiration: that the world, created by God, who called it good, is not yet what God would have it be, and that God’s people are charged with a mission to work for the day when all that is less than good is put away.

 

“And did those feet in ancient times

Walk upon England’s mountains green,

And was the holy Lamb of God

In England’s pleasant pastures seen?

 

And did the countenance divine

Look forth upon these clouded hills,

And was Jerusalem builded here

Among these dark, Satanic mills?

 

Bring me my bow of burning gold,

Bring me my arrows of desire,

Bring me my spear: O clouds, unfold!

Bring me my chariot of fire!

 

I will not cease from mental fight,

Nor shall my sword sleep in my hand

Till we have built Jerusalem

In England’s green and pleasant land!”

                                                                                                               

            People and societies alike go through times that are dark and troubled, when the worst in human nature takes over.  Greed and the hunger for power push everything else aside, and people who cannot keep up for whatever reason get crushed.  The Industrial Revolution was one of those periods.  Child labor kept the mines going and sixty hour work weeks kept the factories running.  People died of Black Lung and mechanical accidents on a regular basis and it was just part of business.  (By the way, have you ever wondered how our own discount stores keep their costs down, or exactly why we began outsourcing work to other countries?)

 

            People and societies alike go through days when they see violence as the answer to every problem.  The Romans kept discipline in the army through “decimation”, from the word “decem”, which means “ten”.  If an army unit showed any sign of cowardice, they were ordered to stand in formation.  Every tenth man would then be ordered to step forward.  These men were then killed.

 

            Civilians who rebelled against the Empire could expect worse.  In the year 70 A.D., the Jews revolted against Roman rule and after Jerusalem sustained a prolonged siege, it was overrun.  We have the history from a man named Josephus who was there.

 

“Now as soon as the army had no more people to slay or to plunder, because there remained none to be the objects of their fury, (for they would not have spared any, had there remained any other work to be done,) Caesar gave orders that they should now demolish the entire city and temple, but should leave as many of the towers standing as were of the greatest eminency …in order to demonstrate to posterity what kind of city it was, and how well fortified, which the Roman valor had subdued; but for all the rest of the wall, it was so thoroughly laid even with the ground by those that dug it up to the foundation, that there was left nothing to make those that came thither believe it had ever been inhabited.”[1]

 

            Twenty years later, a Christian leader, himself imprisoned by the Romans, had a vision of something far better.  John had a vision of a new Jerusalem that could not be overthrown by violence, a city that was to be eternal and a place where people met not the fury of human sin, but the glory of God’s mercy. 

 

            Twenty years after the earthly Jerusalem was turned to rubble, John was given a vision of what God has in mind, and it is not the subjugation of people or their enslavement to any earthly system, political or industrial or social.  John’s vision is about how God builds where we destroy.  It is about how God renews, and will renew, the whole earth in his way and in his time.

 

“Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, ‘See, the home of God is among mortals. He will dwell with them as their God; they will be his peoples, and God himself will be with them; he will wipe every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more, for the first things have passed away.’ And the one who was seated on the throne said, ‘See, I am making all things new.’” [Revelation 21:1-5]

 

            Yes, the circumstances under which God spoke to John have changed, but the hope and promise, the vision itself, have not changed.  Wherever violence is glorified, wherever people see raw power as something to be pursued and used for its own sake, wherever the weak are ridiculed or the small are held to be unimportant, that vision appears again and again, to keep before God’s people the awareness that not only is there something more but also that they are a part of it. 

 

            In fact, the one who brings that kingdom among us is one who gave up all the glory of heaven to be among us, who lived his life as a servant, and died a humiliating and shameful death to bring life to everyone, including the poor in spirit and the meek, those who mourn, and those who hunger and thirst after righteousness.  And, having laid down his life, God restored him – and in him, we, too, are restored and we can look forward to so much more that is on the way.

 

 

 

“As for me, I am already being poured out as a libation, and the time of my departure has come. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. From now on there is reserved for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will give me on that day, and not only to me but also to all who have longed for his appearing.”

[II Timothy 4:6-8]

 

Paul wrote these words from prison, facing the imminence of his death.  He saw dying as crossing a finish line.  It meant the completion of earthly life.  To have lived well meant being able to look back with a sense of accomplishment, not regret.  To have lived well meant being able to look forward with confidence instead of apprehension.

The terrible events at the Boston Marathon today brought innocent people to their own finish line sooner than expected, but the final judge of the race is one who hands out the trophies freely.  May the pain of running be offset, in his time, and may he guard them in a victory lap that no violence can touch.

Revelation 1:4-8

“Alpha and Omega”

April 7, 2013

Second Sunday of Easter

            If you listen to the theologians and the liturgical purists, today is “The Second Sunday of Easter”, and that’s what’s written across the top of the order of worship sitting in your hand or tucked into your hymnal as a bookmark.  From a practical perspective, though, it’s “The Sunday after Easter” or (as it’s also been known in English-speaking countries for at least three centuries) “Low Sunday”.  It’s low because attendance is low, and it’s low because after the joyous certainties of the Resurrection that come with Easter lilies and trumpets, the “Hallelujah Chorus” and chocolate bunnies, the everyday juxtaposition of doubt and faith reasserts itself. Traditionally, the gospel reading for this week is always about good old Doubting Thomas who will not believe until Jesus himself appears and tells Thomas to put his hand out and touch the wounds his body sustained on the cross.

            This is a day to reassert what we declared so clearly last week, that Jesus Christ is risen from the dead.  Only now we do it without all the fanfare, in a way that has to speak on the level of regular living.  Regular living, for most people, involves living in a world that does not support faith and can often be hostile to belief.

            We are not the first in that, and certainly do not face anywhere near the difficulties that Christians have historically known.  According to Irenaeus, a bishop who lived in Southern France around the year 150, the book of Revelation was written about five decades earlier during the reign of the emperor Domitian, whose insistence on being worshiped as a god set up a situation where Christians (who declined to do that) found themselves being treated as enemies of the state.  The conflict especially came to a head in the area that is now Southwestern Turkey, where the churches to which Revelation was addressed were located.  The writer, a man named John, appears to have been a leader among them who was sent to the island-prison of Patmos.  Even there, however, this man who had lost his home and possibly people close to him as part of the persecution, heard and repeated a clear message that it is not the death-dealing emperor who is in charge of the world, but the life-giving God known to us through

“Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth.”  [Revelation 1:5]

            Sometimes I think that a mature, living faith, can only be known in the face of the harsh realities of life.  I would never want any of us to face the sort of persecution that led to the visions of John embodied in the book of Revelation.  I am grateful for those visions, however, because they speak to circumstances that no one can avoid and to questions that everyone has to answer somehow at some point:  Is this world all that there is?  Does our living and dying have any meaning to it?  Is there a God who oversees it all; and, if so, does God care about the details of what happens to us?

            Faith hears the words spoken long ago, declaring that there is such a God, who is the beginning and end of everything, whose purposes are greater than any petty tyrant’s, who is eternal, and

“‘I am the Alpha and the Omega,’ says the Lord God, who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.” [Revelation 1:8]

This is the God we meet in Jesus, who even in his grandeur and majesty counts us in as part of his plans,

“who loves us and freed us from our sins by his blood, and made us to be a kingdom, priests serving his God and Father, to him be glory and dominion forever and ever.” [Revelation 1:5-6]

            Real faith in a real God comes up against real life, and finds itself confident of a life that the world does not understand.  Real faith can live with the questions and sometimes can say, “I don’t know all the answers, but I trust God with them.”  Sister Joan Chittister, a nun who lives in Erie, wrote about hearing herself speak the words “I believe” as part of the Apostles’ Creed in worship one Easter.

“Year after year it had always been the same.  Year after year I had done it automatically.  But this Easter night was different.  ‘Do you believe?’ I asked myself.  It was the year my mother died.  Her grave was fresh in the ground, her voice still fresh in my heart.  But gone.  ‘Do you believe?’ I asked myself.  ‘Do you?  Really?  And if so, what?’  The answer was neither a simple one, nor a simplistic one.  It had been hard won, still forming, always new.”[1]

Her answer was, “Yes.”  But she goes on to say that living life with faith changes both faith and life.  It moves our faith from being faith in the ideas we have or the words we say to where it really belongs.  It moves us to experience faith as trust in God, who is far bigger than we are.

         It doesn’t matter if we understand everything about God and how he does things.  It doesn’t matter if we know what Jesus is up to all the time.  It matters that we know God’s love because of Jesus and through his life, and that we trust him both with what we know and don’t know. If it helps to give it a theological label, you can call that “justification by faith”.  That’s a very Protestant term, but it is this Benedictine nun who puts so very well what it means to have that kind of faith:

“When it is at its best, religion offers more than a list of answers designed to resolve the unanswerable; it tenders a way to deal with the questions that plague our lives and puzzle our hearts.  I know the transition from certainty to faith, from faithful answers to faithful questions. … I believe a great deal less about the historical or scientific dimensions of the faith and a great deal more about the mystery of creation, the ongoing struggle of redemption, and the commonplace of sanctity.  And furthermore, I believe that just about everybody else does, too.”[2]

            It always strikes me that when Jesus appeared to Thomas and said he could go ahead and put his hand into the wound  in his side where the spear had ripped his body open, Thomas doesn’t do it.  He just stays where he is, not even claiming the proof that he demanded, and says, “My Lord, and my God!” [John 20:28]

 

 

I Corinthians 15:1-18

“Dead is Dead – Or Is It?”

Easter Sunday

March 31, 2013

 

            I’ll soon be coming up on twenty-five years in full-time ministry, and have been taking inventory.  During that time I have presided at a funeral or memorial service for over 200 people.  Some of them have been memorable.

 

            The first was on my twenty-fourth birthday, for a man named Walter whose last name was unknown.  He died in a state hospital in Delaware and was buried there.  Six people were present, counting a couple of the nurses and the gravediggers.  At the other extreme was a former Philadelphia Captain of Police, where the viewing had to be extended three hours because of the crowd.

 

            There was one where the funeral director took the body to the wrong church and so the man really was late to his own funeral.

 

            At one, we buried a six-month-old who died of HIV-related complications.  At another, we recalled what was going on when the woman was born and James Garfield was president.

 

            There was a poet in Allentown who ended up having three different memorial services: one for family, one for friends, and one for the writers and artists who only realized what had happened three months later.

 

            There was the woman whom we laid to rest exactly 365 days after we had commended her husband to the Lord’s care.

 

            There was the man who was so heavy that an extra-wide, reinforced casket had to be ordered.

 

            There was the woman who had her ashes taken to Hawaii to be scattered because she thought her grandson worked too hard, and that was her ultimate way of forcing him to take a vacation.

 

            I could go on.

 

            In many of these instances, I was present along with the family at the very strange, holy second when someone entered eternity.  I’ll tell you now not to be afraid of that, and to realize that time itself seems to change in those moments.  That’s one reason we should never judge people and stand in humility when it comes to speaking of someone’s eternal destiny.  None of us know the fullness of what transpires between God and the soul in those moments.

 

            One thing I can say about all of these people, however, with total certainty, is that none of them have returned from the grave.  So why should I believe that Jesus did?  How do I know that the women who went to his tomb to embalm his body and not only found it gone but weren’t imagining things or making it all up?  Anybody who thinks that is in good company.  Luke says, that even Jesus’ closest followers thought so.

 

“Now it was Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the other women with them who told this to the apostles. But these words seemed to them an idle tale, and they did not believe them.” [Luke 24:10-11]

 

The thing is that they changed their minds.

 

            What happened was that they saw him for themselves.   It wasn’t a matter of him not being in the grave.  After all, someone could just have removed his body – and that was a suspicion that the gospels also record.  But instead, Jesus began appearing all over the place.  It became a matter of him actively being at large in the world.

 

“For I handed on to you as of first importance what I in turn had received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, and that he was buried, and that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers and sisters at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have died. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me.” [I Corinthians 15:3-8]

 

I cannot make anybody believe that.  I can only bear witness to it.  There are all sorts of arguments for the resurrection, but none of them are as strong as the argument that dead is dead.  So I won’t waste my time on them.

 

It is no waste of time, though, to say that there have been millions of people whom you couldn’t make not believe, because they also have encountered a risen Jesus, and their stories are worth hearing.

 

They have met him, some of them, in visions when they’ve been afraid or grieving or troubled, and he has appeared to them and called them by name and they have known sudden, unexpected, irrational peace.

 

They have met him, some of them, speaking through the gospels.  They have caught a voice that speaks of the kingdom of God, where the captive are freed and the world is fair; where war has been replaced by peace, and violence by nurture, and hatred by love.

 

They have met him, as he said they would, in the hungry and the sick and the lonely, when in serving someone else and recognizing the image of God in every human being, they have seen the image of the most human one of all, the one who got every aspect of being human right.

 

They have met him in moments of intense joy, when their souls cry out, “Alleluia!”  They have met him in moments of forgiveness, given and received, when old anger or old guilt has fallen away – or, more accurately, has been lifted off of them by someone who has said, “Here, let me take that for you.”

 

They have met him when they were wrestling with difficult questions and asked for guidance.  They have met him when they were struggling to do what they already knew to be right but just didn’t have the strength to follow through on until that strength suddenly appeared out of nowhere, like the apostle Paul who wrote of his changed life,

 

“I am the least of the apostles, unfit to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. ¹⁰But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me has not been in vain.” [I Corinthians 15:9-10]

 

There is no end to the ways in which Jesus, risen from the dead, makes himself known.

 

So when I think about all the people whose souls I, with others, have commended into his care, I feel confidence that he is able to take charge of them, and I will go so far on this Easter morning to invite you, here and now, whatever is going on in your life or not going on in your life, to hear the words of the funeral service that I have read over and over and over:

 

“Help us by day and by night,

at all times and in all places,

to commit ourselves and those whom we love

to your never-failing care in Jesus Christ our Lord.”

 

I invite you to commit yourself to the one who died and rose and who lives.  I invite you to make his life part of your own, here and now, to join the adventure of faith with those tale-telling women and the people who did not believe them until they knew for themselves, firsthand, in their hearts, that Christ is risen and goes before us in life and in death and in life beyond death.

           

            

John 13:1-17, 31b-35

“One Another”

Maundy Thursday

March 28, 2013

 

            Jesus told his disciples,

“I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another.” [John 13:34]

That night he had demonstrated what he meant when he washed their feet in an act of deep humility and intimacy.  We wear shoes around here, so we don’t have the same sense of how necessary and how messy that would be in a place where people went barefoot or wore sandals, the roads were unpaved, and animals roamed freely. 

Those things have changed, but the need to treat one another with a love that shows itself in deep humility remains.  Would you wash someone’s bathroom floors if they needed it?  Would you empty their trashcans?

If you look up how the phrase “one another” shows up in the New Testament, a lot of the references talk about that kind of attitude.  Sometimes it’s as simple as having good manners:

                         “So then, my brothers and sisters, when you come together to eat, wait for one another.”  

                         [I Corinthians 11:33]

For the most part, though, it’s a bit more profound than that, pointing toward a willingness to serve that others would possibly judge as extreme.

                         “For you were called to freedom, brothers and sisters; only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for

                         self-indulgence, but through love become slaves to one another.”  [Galatians 5:13]

                         “Be subject to one another out of reverence for Christ.” [Ephesians 5:21]

                         “Live in harmony with one another; do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly; do not claim to be wiser

                         than you are.”  [Romans 12:16]

 

            You’ll also come across directions to lift each other up in the way we even speak:

                         “So then, putting away falsehood, let all of us speak the truth to our neighbors, for we are members of one

                         another.”  [Ephesians 4:25]

                         “Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have stripped off the old self with its practices.” [Colossians 3:9]

                         “Beloved, do not grumble against one another, so that you may not be judged.”  [James 5:9]

 

            Then there’s this whole, unfortunate bit about treating each other with the kind of forgiveness that Jesus’ love led him to show us.

                         “and be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ has forgiven you.”                          

                         [Ephesians 4:32]

“Bear with one another and, if anyone has a complaint against another, forgive each other; just as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive.”  [Colossians 3:13]

 

Is that impractical?  It gets more so.  Paul wrote that

                          “In fact, to have lawsuits at all with one another is already a defeat for you. Why not rather be wronged? Why                                                   

                         not rather be defrauded?” [I Corinthians 6:7]

 

            Yet it all comes down to recalling how Jesus has treated us.  Sometimes that seems simplistic, but it is, after all, what he said.

“For I have set you an example, that you also should do as I have done to you. Very truly, I tell you, servants are not greater than their master, nor are messengers greater than the one who sent them.” [John 13:15-16]

The catch is to do that from the heart, and not just for appearance.  Mother Teresa once said,

“I pray that you will understand the words of Jesus, ‘Love one another as I have loved you.’ Ask yourself ‘How has he loved me? Do I really love others in the same way?’ Unless this love is among us, we can kill ourselves with work and it will only be work, not love.”[1]

What sustains us and keeps that love alive is nothing more or less than the Spirit of Christ within us, a Spirit that he renews not only in service but also every time he joins us at this table, the way he did with other disciples also on the night before he died – for them and for us, and all for love.

 

Our family worship services are designed as a laid back alternative to our traditional services with a strong emphasis in participation from our youth and is great for families of all sizes!

Not Afraid of Darwin or Christ

A Webinar on Theology, Evolution, and Human Nature

Wednesday, April 17, 2013
7:00 - 8:30 PM EST

Overview

Can science and religion coexist? Should Christians be afraid of Darwin or scientists afraid of Christ? We will tackle these and other provocative questions in a webinar with two dynamic professors who are currently fellows at the Center of Theological Inquiry in Princeton.

If you and a group in your congregation or university want to join the discussion, Princeton Seminary will provide you with free access to this webinar. Don't miss this opportunity to enrich your church's teaching ministry or campus life.

Agenda

Part 1:     What is Theology & What is Evolution—with an eye towards clarifying misconceptions and enhancing thoughtful reflection.
Part 2:     Why are some Christians afraid of Darwin and why are some scientists afraid of Christ?
Part 3:     How can we get it right? A discussion on human nature and the interface between faith, knowledge, and the quest for understanding.     

Leaders

Dr. Conor Cunningham is a specialist in Darwinism, evolution, metaphysics, and systematic theology. He is assistant director of the Centre of Theology and Philosophy at the University of Nottingham, England, author of Darwin's Pious Idea, and wrote and presented the acclaimed BBC documentary Did Darwin Kill God?.

 

 Dr. Agustín Fuentes is an American primatologist and biological anthropologist whose work focuses largely on human and non-human primate interaction, pathogen transfer, communication, cooperation, and human social evolution. He is Professor of Anthropology at the University of Notre Dame, author of Evolution and Human Behavior, and Race, Monogamy, and Other Lies They Told You: Busting Myths about Human Nature.