Who Am I to Stand in God's Way? (Acts 11: 1-18) 4/28/13

           

When one of my daughters told me that she was going to Africa for a year through a  youth mission program, I thought that was a little “out there,” but nice.  I was proud of her. She was going to spend a year on another continent helping others in the name of God. That’s great. When she came back home a year later and took six months to get over the anti-malaria drugs, I thought: oh well, now that’s over and she survived. So I was glad when she settled down nearby to teaching again.

That “settling down” didn’t last long. About eighteen months later, my daughter announced one day that she was looking into returning to Africa. Not long after, she was in the airport about to board a plane to Kenya to look at a job she had been offered, when she got another call. It was a headmaster she had met before. He was starting a school in Rwanda and wanted her to join the faculty he was assembling.  She cancelled the flight to Kenya, came home, packed a couple bags, said her goodbyes and ten days later got on a plane to Rwanda.

I know she was a grownup. But after all, I was her father. I had carried her back and forth to college and hauled her bags up and down those dormitory stairs. Cindy and I had helped her nurse herself back to health after Kenya. I was her mentor or so I fancied myself. You would think I might have had a vote in her decision, that I might have been consulted rather than informed. You would think that if she wanted to change the world, at least she could have started in Kenya, a place she had been, rather than some new country.

Well, I wasn’t asked. I don’t remember being consulted at all. I was just informed. She was going to a new job in a new country with a new boss and no friends on a continent with an ocean in between us. She took a job on the phone, changed her life just that fast and ten days later, she was gone. Four years later, she is still gone. In many ways, she is as African as she is American. I am her earthly father, but she answers to a higher voice than mine.

I wanted to stop her. I still want to stop her. I miss her and I worry about her health and all that she is missing. But who am I that I could stand in God’s way? For it was God’s call she answered, not the call of a headmaster. He was only the messenger.

Peter left his comfort zone in Jerusalem and traveled to Lydda, where he healed Aeneas, a paralytic. He was called to Joppa and he prayed for the life of Dorcas and she was raised from the dead. He stayed in Joppa for a time at the home of a tanner, where he had three successive visions. They involved abandonment of the ritual purity laws with which he had grown up. Peter was Jewish and observed these laws as a man of faith. But then he had these visions and he struggled to see what God was telling him. “What God has made clean, do not call common.” What did it all mean? Was it about food or was it about something much bigger?

Meanwhile, up the coast a little ways in Caesarea, Cornelius, the Gentile Centurion, has a vision of his own. He is told to send men to Joppa to fetch Simon called Peter from the house of Simon the tanner. Cornelius is nothing if not a man used to giving and following orders. He sends two servants and a devout soldier to Joppa for Peter. Thus, the stage is set for one of the great revelations of all time. The tongues of fire of Pentecost and Jerusalem are taking wing on the coast of the Mediterranean, and the definition of who are “God’s people “ is about to be expanded.

“What God has made clean, do not call common,” said the voice in Peter’s vision, and no sooner does it end than there comes a knock at the door. It is the three men from Cornelius. Peter tells the Jerusalem Christians that the Spirit told him to go with them. So he went. Six men accompanied him. There is good reason for this. Egyptian law, well known to the Jews, required seven witnesses to prove a case. Roman law required seven seals to authenticate a document. So when Peter took those six brothers along with him, he was making his case as he went. Nothing would be in dispute, for the seven witnesses proved the facts.

So Peter and his men arrive in Caesarea at the house of Cornelius the Centurion. We know that Cornelius is already a devout man, offering up tithes to God for himself and his household. But Cornelius is a Gentile. He is on the outside looking in. Even in the days of the early church, it would seem that the Gospel was for the Jews, God’s “chosen people.” And yet, here is Peter in the house of a Gentile. He is already engaging in highly questionable behavior by his very presence in the home of Cornelius.

Peter’s story to the circumcision party gets very tender here.  He says that he began to speak, and that as he did, the Holy Spirit fell on the people assembled in the home of Cornelius. The way Peter describes it, it is apparent that what he is describing is something that he saw. Peter is almost at a loss for words. He says it’s just like the way it was “on us (meaning the disciples) at the beginning.”

Then Peter says that he remembered the word of the Lord. He remembered his Savior saying these words: “John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.” Peter saw that Holy Spirit come upon those gathered there. No matter that it was the house of a Gentile, a Roman soldier. Peter saw it and it was just the same as he had seen before. Peter then states the only conclusion he can draw: If God gave the same gift to the Gentiles as he did to the disciples, then who was Peter to stand in God’s way?”

What is really happening? The prime mover here is not Peter or Cornelius or the circumcision party or the Jews or even the church. They are all bit players on God’s grand stage. The star of the show is the Trinity: God the Father speaking the message of God the Son through God the Holy Spirit. And the message is that God’s world and God’s love are big enough for all. Peter says the Gentiles received the same gift as did the disciples “when we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ.” Witnessing the scene, Peter humbly realizes the power of God and will not, can not, stand in God’s way. It is Peter’s privilege to be the messenger, but the news is all about God.

Theologian William Barclay reminds us of the importance of this story in the history of the church. Luke is laboriously writing on a scroll of papyrus, the forerunner of paper. There was no printing in those days. A papyrus roll was about thirty five feet long, a cumbersome affair at best, and coincidently just about exactly the size needed for the Book of Acts. Imagine yourself as the writer in those times. You know that you need to consolidate your information in such a way that it will fit on one scroll. Knowing that, you are going to be very choosy about the material that makes it onto the scroll. And yet, when it comes to this story of Peter and Cornelius, Luke practically tells the story twice. Chapter Ten—all 48 verses—is devoted to this story of the Holy Spirit coming to the Gentiles in the home of Cornelius. And then Luke spends 18 more verses in Chapter Eleven to retell the story as Peter presented it to the church leaders and the circumcision party in Jerusalem. That’s a lot of copy, as they say in the newspaper business.

It is a lot of copy and for a very good reason. God has introduced this theme through Jesus on several occasions, and now he uses Peter and Cornelius to make it known that the membership of God’s church will be defined not by culture, not by ethnicity, not by observation of rules, but by “belief in the Lord Jesus Christ” (v. 17). The church has no borders, no boundaries, no conditions of admission save one: Do you believe in Jesus? This was news so revolutionary that Peter could barely believe his own words.

And yet, he had seen. He had heard. The Holy Spirit came to Caesarea and to Gentiles as surely as it had come to Jerusalem and the disciples. Peter says: “Who was I that I could stand in God’s way?” Peter realized that it was God’s message. It was God who was calling the Gentiles. Who was Peter to stand in the way of God’s call? And those present that heard Peter fell silent. Then they, too, glorified God for granting the life giving power of repentance to the Gentiles.

Throughout history we continue to stand in God’s way. From the beginning, God has had to keep moving those of us too stubborn to see, too deaf to hear, out of his way. God continues to reveal himself to all who would hear, to save all who would believe. But we are stubborn. We segregate ourselves by religion. We separate our churches by denomination.  We mark our territories, whether they be neighborhoods or lunchrooms or church pews. And like he did with Peter, God comes and gives us visions of togetherness. He still sends the Holy Spirit to dwell not only within us, but among us. He calls us to him in the midst of our stubbornness.

We have so much available to us with which to be illumined. We are invited to feast at His table. Will we dare to separate those whom God has no intention of separating? Will we stand in God’s way or will we help clear the path for him? Although he does not need our help, he wants it.

Instead of asking what one’s credentials might be, let us ask instead if they might worship with us. Instead of invoking rules like the circumcision party of the early church, let us instead show up at the houses of strangers. Let us invite them into our midst and praise God that he might use us to make himself known to them. Let us do as Peter. Let us ask always: Who are we that we could ever think to stand…in God’s way!

Dorcas Rising (Acts 9: 36-43) 4/21/13

          The Book of Acts focuses on the early Church, and the last few weeks, we have been looking at Chapters 6-9. Stephen is martyred. Saul is arresting Christians. There is Saul’s Damascus Road experience and his conversion to Christianity. Halfway through Chapter 9, the emphasis shifts away from Paul and back to Peter. That’s one way of looking at it. But if we look at these stories in another way, the emphasis never shifts at all. Instead, it weaves a tale just like its title. It is telling us about the Acts of the Apostles.

          At the end of Chapter 9 after Paul has been converted and escaped from both Damascus and Jerusalem, the Apostle Peter takes center stage once again. This time he is involved in two miracles. In Lydda, Peter heals Aeneas, a paralytic for some eight years. Meanwhile, in the neighboring town of Joppa, a prominent Christian woman becomes ill and dies. Her name was Tabitha. The Greek translation would be Dorcas.

          Apparently, some disciples were in Joppa. Joppa was a coastal town on the Mediterranean, lying in the fertile coastal plain district of Sharon. It was the seaport most used by those from Jerusalem. The word of Peter’s healing of Aeneas probably spread quickly from Lydda to Joppa, as Lydda was on the route from Jerusalem to Joppa and only ten miles away. One might have stopped in that crossroads town to “gas up” on the way to the coast and Joppa.

          At any rate, Peter got the word that this disciple Dorcas had died. Luke characterizes her as full of good works and charity. As was the custom, her body was washed. She was laid in an upper room. Luke does not tell us that her body had been prepared for burial. Since the custom was to have a burial the same day as death, things were moving along very quickly. Two men were dispatched by the disciples to fetch Peter, who came at once. We can assume he got there fairly quickly, as he wasn’t far away.

 What a time in history this must have been! The Apostles were empowered by the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. They were out in the cities and towns, up and down the roads of the Decapolis. North, South, East and West they spread, bringing the Gospel to everyone they met and doing miracles from God to demonstrate the healing power of Christ. Luke tells us that after Aeneas was healed of his paralysis, “all the residents of Lydda and Sharon saw him, and they turned to God.” This was the time of miracles, and Peter was on the road to Joppa and another miracle.

We marvel at what Peter did in those days. The blind were healed, the lame could walk, the sick were made well. We marvel at the miraculous and mighty acts of the Apostles performed in the name of God. And yet, we think little of the everyday miracles performed by doctors and nurses and first responders. Hearts and livers and corneas are transplanted routinely. We have a polio vaccine, a shingles vaccine, a pneumonia vaccine. We are perfecting cures to disease, and many diseases no longer hold power over us. And yet, because God has allowed us to discover these solutions to health instead of sending someone to heal us in the same way as Peter did, we discount the miracle value. Because some of these everyday miracles are done by atheists and non-Christians, we do not see them as miracles. But aren’t they? Aren’t these modern day miracles from God as well?

Can’t you just almost hear God chuckling at us? Were it not for God, we would have no knowledge, no technology, no modern miracles. Because of God’s permissive will, we have scientific and medical breakthroughs as a matter of custom. And just to remind us periodically that God is and always will be part of the equation, we all have stories of answers to prayer. We all have been witness to that person who was healed and the doctor who had no medical or scientific explanation. Invariably, that person was the subject of hundreds of prayers lifted up in his or her name by faithful Christians. Surprise, surprise!  God acts in our lives and he is faithful to us. We have no idea the power of which we are capable, if only we would tap into the Holy Spirit residing within us.

So Peter arrives in sunny downtown Joppa and is ushered to the upper room where the body of poor Dorcas lies still. The room was full of widows, all witnessing to her kindness and generosity, holding up things she had made for them. It was a wonderful testimony, but Peter had other things on his mind. God was calling.

Peter thanked the women for their great show of affection and asked them to please leave. He wanted to be alone with Dorcas…and Jesus. He wanted to see what God wanted to do that day. Peter knelt down and prayed.

Peter did not know Dorcas. In the short time he was in the house, he had heard testimonies from those who knew and loved her. On the way from Lydda, he might have heard from the men sent by the disciples. But Peter had never met Dorcas. She was a good woman from Joppa who had fallen ill and died. Why would Peter come from Lydda to the house of this woman? And why, seeing her lifeless body, would he pray for her life?

One way we have to understand this behavior might be to look to the city of Boston this past week. In the aftermath of the bombings at the Boston Marathon, Cappy’s Pizza filled orders from donors for over 100 pizzas to be delivered to Mass General Hospital. Gifts of flowers-daisies-showed up for patients at Tufts Medical Center. And at the Starbucks in the Governmental Center, a lady from Newtown, Connecticut donated $100 to customers in line there…because someone had done it for her and others in the midst of the Sandy Hook shootings. Everywhere in Boston, random acts of kindness are on display to total strangers. The signature of the citizens on this act of terrorism is that mankind is bigger than its violence, nobler than its meanness, kinder than its dark side would have us believe. As it was in New York on 9/11, we say again in lockstep that we are all citizens of Boston. This week, we are Boston strong and our Christianity is showing in our acts of kindness and humanity.

Why would Peter pray for the life of Dorcas? Because he had seen his resurrected Savior. Because he had seen Jesus ascend to heaven. Because ever since Pentecost, he had felt the fire of that gospel in his belly and life for Peter was one long opportunity to spread that gospel. Because Peter was learning that God’s power was without bounds, and Peter was praying in faith for God to act. And because just like the random acts of kindness witnessed all over Boston this week, he was called to a task, a task for his Lord. Peter was learning to show up, to do the praying and let God do the rest. He had seen his Savior do it. He had the faith to trust God. And so he prayed. He knelt down and he prayed. Then he turned to Dorcus’s body and said: “Arise.”

          It is so simple. Trust God. Act for his glory. Expect miracles. In spite of all the evidence, we still dance the dance of doubt. Are we good enough? Do we know enough? Have we exhausted all our choices? Perhaps instead we should ask whether we really have the faith necessary for God to act? He is big enough, but have we the spiritual muscle to call upon his name?

          Peter said: “Dorcas, arise,” and she opened her eyes. When she saw Peter, she sat up. He gave her his hand and she got up. How simple. One person has the fullness of trust and faith to ask, and another is delivered. That God can send us miracles is not news to Christians. In a very real sense, the miracle is that one person can have that depth of faith and trust that God finds acceptable.

          Peter got on his knees and prayed. He said two words, and he witnessed a miracle. Dorcas rose from her deathbed and was presented by Peter alive to the saints and widows waiting there. Luke tells us that the event echoed throughout all Joppa; that many believed in the Lord. Peter had gone out of his comfort zone of Jerusalem to Lydda and Joppa. These cities were only 25 and 35 miles away, but they represented a great reach for Peter. He had gone into the homes of strangers and had called upon God for healing. God answered with two miracles. Though Peter’s acts were probably done for Jews, God was preparing him for something even bigger, for Peter would soon have three visions from God that would find him in the house of Cornelius, the Centurion. Peter was about to open the door of the Gospel to the Gentiles.

          If Peter were here today, CNN would have his face plastered on every TV screen in the land. The cell phone video of the miracle would go virile, and Peter would be offered a book deal. Peter would be dumbfounded. The fisherman turned fisher of men most likely would just look in the camera and say two more words: Praise God!

That’s the lesson. Peter came. Peter prayed. Dorcas rose. Praise God. It still works that way. We come. We pray. God moves among us. Praise God!

Cataracts (Acts 9:1-19( 4/14/13

For a couple years, I had noticed that my vision was deteriorating. During a beach vacation a couple summers ago, I realized that when I looked at someone in bright sunlight, I could see nothing but a silhouette if the person was between me and the sun. I thought I was just hyper sensitive to glare. But it kept getting worse. So did my driving. It finally occurred to me that I might have a problem.

I went to an optometrist, who pronounced that I had not one, but two, dense cataracts on the lenses of my eyes. Over the next several months, both cataracts were removed and I received artificial lenses. Now I see like an eagle. Well, not really, but you know what I mean. Before, my vision was impaired. Now, I can see clearly.

I hope I never forget the day my bandage was removed from my first cataract surgery. It was late spring. I walked outside the hospital to an explosion of definition…and color! I remember that the grass and the leaves on the trees were so much greener than I had noticed in years. And they were even different colors of green. Everything was vivid and full of detail. It was as though I was being re-introduced to sight. I was amazed. I felt like a child, with so many new things to discover. As Cindy drove me home from the hospital, she had to listen to me constantly exclaiming over everything I saw. Even road signs fascinated me. I felt as though I had been blind, and now through a modern medical miracle, I could see again.

The apostle Paul had a similar problem. He had a really bad case of cataracts…only his cataracts were spiritual instead of physical. They blinded his heart from seeing the gospel of Jesus. When Stephen became the first martyr to Christianity, the stoning witnesses laid their garments as Saul’s feet.  Saul later testified in Acts and in his epistles to having been instrumental in that execution. He began to ravage the church. Acts 8 tells us that he “dragged off men and women and committed them to prison.”

Not content with his actions in Jerusalem, Saul petitioned for, and got, letters from the chief priests giving him permission to go to Damascus and do the same thing to the Christians there. Luke tells us that he was “still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord.” Paul was a man in a hurry. He was so busy doing the work of a zealous, legalistic Pharisee that he had no time to hear that still, small voice of God inside him. So Saul was not only blind, but also deaf, to the gospel.

Theologian Robert Maddox, Jr. speculates that Saul’s spirit was very restless. He couldn’t be still. He had to be on the move. Maddox wonders if Saul wasn’t about to explode from the inner pressure of doing what must have on some level felt completely wrong to him. All those innocent, kind faces, beginning with Stephen. All those people not fighting back. Maybe it was beginning to have an effect on Saul.

Can you identify with Paul? Paul, then Saul, was so on fire with what he was about that he had little time or little inclination to stop and ask God if he was headed in the right direction.  Perhaps the most notable characteristic of the Pharisees was their devotion to prayer, and Saul was the Pharisee of Pharisees. Yet for all that prayer, he must have been doing a lot more talking than listening. Sound familiar? Sometimes it’s tough to wait for the answer to prayer. It’s tempting for us to inform God what we’re about and figure he will stop us if we are going the wrong way. Our impatience and our desire to make our own decisions get in the way of our faith.

You know, when Jesus wants our attention, he is most certainly going to get it. Saul was no exception. Jesus got his attention on the road to Damascus. There was this incredible light, then the voice and then…blindness. Luke describes the event in Acts 9: “Suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him.” He fell to the ground. He heard a voice, saying “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?” Saul said “Who are you, Lord?”, but I’m thinking he knew perfectly well whose voice it was. He was trying to figure out if he was in a vision or a dream or a close encounter of the Jesus kind. Jesus identified himself and then told Saul to get up and that he would be told what to do.

So Saul gets to his feet. He opens his eyes and sees nothing. How ironic. For the first time, Saul is seeing consistent with his mind. All this time, he has been exposed to people martyring themselves and suffering for the gospel, and he has looked right through them and their witness, seeing nothing. Now he sees nothing for real. He is now physically aligned with his spiritual blindness.

I can remember clearly when my cataracts were removed from my eyes. Although my eyes were sedated, I can remember the room being bathed with much more light. The scales which had covered my lenses from normal sight were gone and the light could once again penetrate my line of vision. I knew even before the surgery was complete that something very significant had happened to me.

I’m thinking that as Saul was led by the hand by his fellow travelers, he too was aware that something very significant had happened to him. He was undergoing spiritual surgery and he was never going to be the same. For three days not only could he not see; he also neither ate nor drank. Saul was being emptied.

Enter Ananias. Ananias is a God-fearing Christian who is minding his own business when God decides to use him. God speaks to him in a vision and the next thing he knows, he has been commissioned to go to the murderer of Christians. God tells Ananias that Saul is his chosen instrument to carry his name before the Gentiles and kings and the children of Israel. Guided by a vision from God, Ananias plucks up his courage and goes to Saul as he is ordered.

So…let’s try to follow this. In a series of ironic twists, the man who cannot see Jesus comes face to face with the risen Christ. The person who sees only his own will loses all sight in order to see God’s will. The leader of the Jewish opposition to Christianity becomes God’s agent to the Gentiles, even though he is not himself a Gentile. A humble disciple who fears for his own life is called to lay hands upon the blind Saul in order to restore his physical sight. And he finds his subject where? On a street called Straight in Damascus, the oldest continuously inhabited city in the history of the world.

The result is predictable. After three days of listening, prayer and an epiphany supplied by God, Saul is ready. He has become weak enough to find his strength in God. He has, in his inability to see anything, become ready to see the truth. Paul’s sight is restored. He is baptized. He is ready to see, not only physically, but spiritually. He has been emptied in order to be filled…filled with the Holy Spirit and the revelation that comes with it. His path from here on will be like the street upon which his sight is restored. For him, the way is now Straight.

I have thought many times since my cataract surgeries that I got a new lease on life with my eyesight. But that experience reminded me that real vision takes not only my eyes, but all my other faculties as well. I have the lesson of Saul to remind me that seeing is only part of vision. There is so much more.

It is no accident that we can read so much symbolism in this story of Saul on the Damascus Road. Like Saul, we all need to meet with God’s disciples on the Straight Street of life. Like Saul, we all need the laying on of the hands of our fellow disciples. And we all need to do what Saul was told by God to do: to rise and enter and wait until we are told what to do. Saul waited only three days. I’m sure it seemed like an eternity to him at the time. But look at what God was able to do with him once he got Saul to see. He became Paul, the thirteenth Apostle.

God can do that for you and me too. We just need to rise and enter that Straight Street…and wait…until he tells us what to do. Ananias will come to us too, or we may find ourselves playing the role of Ananias for a time. He may be named Officer Jones or Uncle Bob or Aunt Sarah, or he or she may be you on God’s errand. He may just be that still, small voice in our heart. But he will come, and give us the vision that we were meant to see…if we rise…and wait…until we are told what God wants us to do.

We Are Witnesses (Acts 10: 34-43) Easter Sunday 3/31/13

There are many great writings. The Bible is thought by most, both religious and secular, to be the most influential book ever written. Of course, the Bible is not really a book as much as it is a collection of writings that form one bound version. It is generally accepted by Christians to be the written Word of God.

Once in a while, a document comes along, like the Bible, that seems to capture reality and destiny and humanity in just the right way at just the right time. The Creeds and Confessions of the Christian Church possess that kind of importance. So does the Magna Carta (1215), the Declaration of Independence (1776), and the Emancipation Proclamation (1863), to name a few.

Sometimes, a speech, or even a sentence, can incite great things from people. Think of some of those famous one-liners that even now can stir our blood and incite us to action, such as:

Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask instead what you can do for your country. [John Kennedy]

Choose this day whom you will serve, but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. [Joshua]

          Today, as we look as this short passage from the apostle Peter in the tenth chapter of Acts, we see just a few words, just a summary of what the Gospel is all about. But for the gathering of Gentiles in the house of Cornelius, a Roman Centurion, they were all the words that were needed to change their lives forever. One could argue that this is the pronouncement of the greatest, most far-reaching news in history, for here Peter announces that if you believe in Christ, you are “in”, you are saved. Of course, we are gathered here today to celebrate our risen Savior, and that is truly the greatest news of all time. But Peter’s announcement in the house of Cornelius is the result of that very sacrifice.

          Peter has been a busy man. Since Pentecost, he has gone to Samaria with John, then began to witness in the Coastal Towns outside Jerusalem. While in Joppa, he is asked to come north to Caesarea to the house of a Roman Centurion named Cornelius. Peter has gone far outside his comfort zone. The lines are already blurred for this simple Jewish fisherman from Galilee. He has become an Evangelist. Now he is asked to come to the home of a Gentile. Before he is done, he will not only stay there, but also eat there in Gentile fashion, all forbidden actions to a pious Jew. He will end up making another speech that opens the doors of Christianity to the world. This simple fisherman is articulating the Great Commission and inviting everyone to hear the story of Jesus.

          “So Peter opened his mouth…” Luke uses this phrase twice in Acts, the other time speaking of Philip, as a way to introduce something of great importance. And what Peter says next tears down hundreds of years of racial prejudice.  “God shows no partiality.” No matter who you are, no matter what your lineage, if you fear him and do what is right, he will find you acceptable.

          The Gentiles gathered at the Centurion’s house are sitting up and paying attention now. And Peter goes on. God anointed Jesus. God was with Jesus. God raised him on the third day. God made him to appear to those chosen as witnesses. It’s all there. That’s the story of Jesus.

          Well, not quite. There is the rest of the story, as Paul Harvey used to say. The Gentiles are standing and sitting and leaning forward. They don’t want to miss a word that Peter is saying. He said every nation, not just the Jews. What will he say next?

          What Peter said next was the good news that we celebrate today. Jesus “commanded us to preach to the people and to testify that he is the one appointed by God to be judge of the living and the dead.” Every one who believes in him is forgiven.

What are the qualifications? Jewish? No. Circumcision? No. The Law? No. You must believe in Jesus as God’s Son, who came for us, died for us, arose in body and spirit and ascended in glory.  Those are the only qualifications.

          As Peter was giving witness, the Holy Spirit came upon all who heard. The Jews with Peter were amazed. Here was God’s Spirit coming into these Gentiles, these pagans. What is amazing to us now is that those Jews found it amazing. How could it not! It happened in Nineveh when Jonah brought God’s Word to the Assyrians. It happened to the Samarian woman at the well when she met Jesus.  It happened to an Ethiopian eunuch on the road to Gaza when he encountered God through Philip’s witness.

          The Holy Spirit continues to come on all who hear the Word. As surely as the story of Jesus became Peter’s story to tell, it also became Peter’s story. His was the story of a simple fisherman called to fish for men. His was the story of faith strangled by fear…and of courage released by the Spirit. Peter was just like you and me, until the Holy Spirit came into him. Then he became a force, a force so powerful that he was thought of as the head of the early church. Peter had a story to tell, the greatest story ever told.

In the house of Cornelius that day, those Gentiles were baptized in the name of Jesus Christ, and they became part of the seeds of the harvest of believers that continues to this very day.

That story is history. Someone has pointed out that the word “History” looks an awful lot like a compound word. You know, two words that make up one new word. History: His story. That’s what Peter told that day, and many other days after that. “His story” became the telling of the story of Jesus, for once the Holy Spirit had entered him, in spite of his earthly failing, he was never the same man again. He belonged to his Savior, and he told His Story for the rest of his life.

Jesus is that. He went to that cross for you and for me and he did it forgiving us all the way. And today, he is Risen. He conquered death and sin and holds out his hand and says to us right where we are and no matter who we are or where we have been, I forgive you. That is His Story.

Peter was convinced. When he saw God at work, that was enough for him. When he saw the gift of the Holy Spirit poured out upon people not his own, it didn’t matter any more, for they belonged to God. It was God’s Spirit in them. And he said, “Can anyone withhold water for baptizing these people, who have received the Holy Spirit?”

This is the message of Easter. Today, we have again witnessed the telling of His Story. Now that we have witnessed, let us, like Peter, become witnesses. What is your story? Have you been to the Cross? Have you had a visit from Him? If you haven’t, then right now is your time and right here is your place. If you have, then tell His Story. Make the telling of it your story. Don’t worry about the words. If a simple fisherman can tell the story, so can you. God will give you the words, the same way he gave you your life. What has God done for you? That’s the story you need to tell. God will do the rest. If you love him, then spread that love. That’s the way we will make…History.

The New Covenant (1 Cor 11: 23-26) 3/29/13

          In the New Testament, there are several recitations of the events  surrounding the last supper. Although all of the Synoptic Gospels record it, the very first of which we have a written record comes in First Corinthians. Paul writes to a fractured church that is struggling with divisive behavior. They are having trouble even eating together. So Paul reminds them of the meaning and purpose of the meal that he calls the Lord’s Supper.

          It was the Passover Meal, a huge event in the religious life of Israel. It was the annual remembrance of the Passover, the last of the Plagues to strike the kingdom of Egypt as God delivered his people from bondage. It was the watershed event in the history of the nation of Israel.

           The similarities are striking. As Paul retells the event, the words of Jesus are remarkably similar to those in the Gospels, especially the passage narrated in Luke. How could Paul have known so closely what Jesus said on that night in the Upper Room? We can only surmise that the oral tradition which had so well preserved the tradition of Torah over hundreds of years had been equally well applied to the sayings of Jesus over some 25-30 years following his death and resurrection until the writing of First Corinthians.

          Paul says Jesus “took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said: ‘This is my body which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.’” Some of the ancient texts read Jesus’ body as “broken for” instead of just “for,” an even more graphic reference to coming events. Of course, Jesus was sitting there with his disciples, so the bread was symbolic of things which were to come. It was not his actual body.

          Paul goes on. “In the same way also he took the cup, after supper, saying, ‘This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.’”

          Think back to the Exodus, to the giving of the Law by God through Moses. Moses builds an altar and offers a sacrifice of oxen. Moses reads the law to the people. Each person promises to keep that law. Then Moses memorializes the event by throwing some of the ox blood on the people, saying “Behold, the blood of the covenant that the Lord had made with you…(Exo. 24: 8). Thus the Mosaic Covenant was sealed with blood. The blood symbolically bound God’s people to Him in covenant. God brought freedom from the bondage of slavery to Egypt and sealed it with the blood of animal sacrifice. God gave his people the Law to define that which was wrong; that which was disobedient in his sight.

          Flash forward about 700-900 years to the prophet Jeremiah. Jeremiah lived through both a time of revival under King Josiah and also witnessed the fall of Israel to Babylon. He saw his beloved people in a downward spiral away from God. But Jeremiah also envisioned a return from exile and a future filled with God. He foretold of a “New Covenant,” where God would declare: “I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people…for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest…For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more” (Jer. 31: 33-35).

          And Jesus says, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood.” The blood of bulls of the old covenant is replaced with the true sacrifice: the blood of God’s Son. As surely as the blood of animals sealed the covenant of old, the sacrificial blood of our Savior sealed the new covenant for all who believe. His disciples did not understand the significance of his words that night. Indeed, they didn’t truly understand for some time. But in time, they came to understand and witness to the Gospel, the good news that Christ came and substituted himself for us, that we might be sealed in freedom from the bondage of sin. The Law had been fulfilled by the coming of God in the form of his Son and by his life, death and resurrection. The Law had done its job. It had kept us within some sort of containment for its time. But the Law could not save us, for we could not keep it. Only God could do that.

          When we eat the bread and drink from the cup, do we eat the body of Christ and drink his blood? No. But we do, in some high mystery that belongs to God, partake. We partake in the suffering. We partake in the presence. We partake in the promise. We may not understand how it works, but we may take comfort in the fact that it does. We do this in remembrance, and we do it in proclamation.

Paul tells us that Jesus went on to say that “for as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.” We don’t just remember. We proclaim! Jesus is the new covenant. He is the way, the truth and the life. He is the door through which we enter the gates of heaven. Yes, we mourn that he had to die to save us. But we shout the victory that he claimed for us. When we come to the foot of the Cross with belief and faith in Jesus, we are forgiven.

God remembers our sin no more. This is the New Covenant. We proclaim his death because in that death came victory over death and victory over evil. In that death came life…and life eternal.

Nothing Is Everything (Philippians 2: 5-11) 3/24/13

          Heroes. We love heroes. We all have heroes, although it seems like they’re harder to find these days. I think it depends on where you look for your heroes. If you’re looking in the sports or entertainment world, you will find plenty of bright stars.  But you won’t find many who can stand the test of time very well.

          Here are some heroes for you. Mother Theresa. Gandhi. Nelson Mandela. Albert Schweitzer. Dietrich Bonheoffer. What do these people have in common? Well, for one thing, they certainly didn’t plan to be heroes. They didn’t direct their lives in order to become famous or even loved. These are lives which were filled with actions based upon principle and ethics of the highest order. These are men and women who lived in poverty, were subjected to ridicule, even put to death. They saw nothing particularly unusual about the way they lived their lives. Their path was laid out in front of them and they took it. I suspect if we interviewed them, we might find them surprised that so many others chose paths that would take them away from the Promised Land.

          And yet, that is the story of mankind. The great majority of us spend our lives getting and spending, with little regard for the appetite we have for consumption. We consume everything at voracious rates. That is not the way of heroes. They consume little. They are in the giving business.

          We get it honestly, this desire for consuming everything. Adam and Eve got the ball rolling in the Garden of Eden. They had it all. But then Satan came along and got their greed going. There are a lot of ways to explain the story of Adam and Eve. One simple way is that they wanted to know what God knew. They wanted to be their own Gods. Their appetite to have more, to be autonomous even in the face of their Creator, changed the world. Those who would be God instead became creatures subject to pain, to hardship, to doubt, to selfishness and greed. They lost their chance to be hero and heroine because they wanted to be God.  

          Today’s Scripture passage is often referred to as the “hymn of Christ.” It traces in these few very poetic verses Jesus’ preexistence, incarnation, life, death, resurrection and ascension to the right hand of God. It points us to a model of humility, selflessness, servanthood and love.

          Here is the only time in history that a human being actually can aspire to know what God knows, to do what God does. He is Jesus, the God-Man. For once there stood a man who could calm storms, tame the wind, heal the lame and feed multitudes with a few loaves of bread. For once, there came into our midst a man who was also divine.

He did all those mighty acts. No one should rightly deny the many miracles performed by Jesus. And yet, he did nothing…that’s right…nothing for himself or for his personal gain.  Paul says that Jesus was in the form of God. Most certainly he was, for he was with God in the beginning. He was the God, the Son, the second person of the Trinity.  Although the divine part of Jesus, the part that was fully God, was certainly equal with God, the Father, the human part of Jesus, the part that was fully Man, refused to use that divinity to gain some advantage on earth. Paul says that Jesus “did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped.” In a sense, this is the most miraculous characteristic of Jesus. He was obedient to his…and our, Heavenly Father from the beginning to the end of his life here on earth. Not once did he reach for himself. It was always about us, about his love for us…and about obeying the Will of God. He allowed himself to be treated as the least among us, while he treated each of us as if we were ourselves kings and queens.

          Let’s talk about Jesus. He was the greatest of all time. He could have KO’d Mohammed Ali. He could have won American Idol. He would never have lost on Jeopardy. He could have taken every gold medal at the Olympics. Instead, he washed his disciples’ feet. He could have been King, or Emperor. Instead he owned but one garment and one pair of sandals.

          He is the most powerful figure in all history, and yet he frames his kingship in the form of a donkey ride. Although influential people like Nichodemus look for ways to bring him into the limelight, he chooses to dine with sinners and tax collectors. Paul says he “made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant.”

          He made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant. I know what Paul means and I couldn’t agree more. But I need to rephrase Paul so that I can grasp the significance of those words. I think Paul is pointing out to the Philippians that the vocation of servanthood is part and parcel of what it means to understand Jesus’ love for us,  that the practice of unselfishness is the path that Jesus chose not only for himself, but for those who would follow him. 

          The Greek word for servant is douloj (doulos). Not surprisingly, it also means “slave.” He made himself nothing, taking the form of…a slave. What could be lower? A slave was a piece of property. And yet, that is what Paul represents—accurately—to us, as what Jesus, the Son of God, became. He became nothing. Isn’t that something!

          In the 1940’s, the comedy team of Abbott and Costello did this great routine about baseball. The base runners consisted of a fella named “Who” on First Base, another fella named “What” on second, and a third guy called “I Don’t Know” on third.  Even if you’ve never heard the gag, you can imagine how confusing it was to describe the base runners to someone. Costello asks “Who’s on first” and Abbott answers “Absolutely.” You get the idea.

It might seem to be a gag at first to talk about our Savior as someone who aspires to be no one, as someone who becomes nothing in order to be something. In that life and in that example, we see him humble himself. How far will he go? Paul says, as we now know, “to the point of death, even death on a cross.” In that life, Christ elevates nothingness to the point of greatness. Selflessness becomes the aspiration of those who would follow Jesus, for in his so-called nothingness, he has become everything, certainly everything that really matters to the Christian.

          It is the greatest love. Jesus laid down his life for you and me. He laid down his life for your sons and your daughters. He was obedient even unto the last measure of devotion. And his reward, says Paul, was to be bestowed the name above all names, the name to which every knee in heaven and on earth and under the earth…shall bow, the name to which every tongue shall confess…that the name of Jesus Christ…is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

          So I have my hero. I hope he is yours too. Today, on a Sunday not so long ago, he rode on purpose toward a hanging tree. His last corporate act the night before his death was to serve and bathe his friends.

          When it comes to how to act in this life, our Savior shows us the way. Nothing…is everything.

Amen.       

PRESSING ON (Philippians 3: 4b-14) 3/17/13

          I really should have called this “Cindy’s Sermon,” or maybe  “Kathryn’s Sermon.” I have known my wife Cindy almost 20 years now. If there is one phrase by which she could be identified, it would be “Press On.” She gives all the credit to her mother Kathryn. According to Cindy, that was not only her mother’s mantra; it was also her advice to her children whenever they were in a pickle. Look for the answer, but don’t stand still. Press on. Don’t give up. Don’t quit. Keep moving and things will get better.

          Kathryin McCabe Scott had a good idea. It worked well for her daughters and it works well in life. It you’re looking for a creed to live by, you could do a lot worse. Press on. Now that Kathryn is a member of the Church Triumphant, I suspect that she has been able to compare notes with the apostle Paul and that they have had some stories to swap about what happens when you “press on.”  

I’ve gotten and given plenty of that sort of advice in my life. It’s practical and it’s perfect advice for someone who needs to shut down the pity party and get moving again. But here, Paul takes the principle a giant step further. He makes it a mantra by which to live the Christian life. When Paul gives us that advice, he finishes the thought with words that will not only show us the road, but also give us the reason why to take it. They are some of the most famous words ever uttered, certainly some of the most quoted in all of Scripture.

          Paul says: “Forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal of the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.”          “Forgetting what lies behind…” Paul had a lot to forget. He was the Jew of Jews, the Pharisee of Pharisees, a persecutor of Christians. He was hardly the stuff of which Christians were made.  If they were giving out awards for the people who most despise Christianity, Paul would have been the grand prize winner. When Paul came to town, Christians hid in their homes.  Yes, Paul had plenty to forget.    

          “Straining forward to what lies ahead…” Paul also had plenty of reason not to strain forward. He wrote these words sitting in prison, most likely in Rome. The days ahead for anyone else but Paul would have been marked by only the certainty that life as he had known it and the freedom that he was used to, were over. His fate would be decided by the powers of Rome. But Paul came to Rome for a purpose. That purpose would cost him his life. He had had his chance at Caesarea to walk away, but chose instead to appeal to Caesar as a Roman citizen. Paul walked to the sound of a different drummer.

So about 32 A.D., Jesus stopped this man Saul in his persecuting tracks, turned him inside out and made him Paul. Three missionary journeys and twenty five years later, Paul sits in prison and writes to his beloved church in Philippi. His message is positive, upbeat. He is still a man in a hurry. His Savior is coming and he wants to be found ready.

Paul had everything. His family tree was pure. He was Jewish through and through. He was an Israelite, with roots all the way back to Jacob. He was of the favored tribe of Benjamin. You will remember Benjamin as  the only child of Rachel actually born in the Promised Land. Saul’s (Paul’s) namesake was of the same tribe and was the first king of Israel. There were only about six thousand Pharisees in Israel and Paul was among the most prominent. His was a rising star.  And then Jesus called.

Isn’t it ironic the way we work so hard, travel so far, piling up credentials, working and climbing to claw out our place in the world, striving to carve our name on the wall, only to find out that that for which we have worked so hard is of little value.  I once knew a fellow who was really driven. He worked hard to educate himself, went to prominent universities. He served in the military. Although he was a small town fella, he took job after job in big cities, moving up the ranks. He went to Law School and started his own law practice. He built a strong law firm. He went to church, became a deacon, then an elder. He joined all the clubs. He did all the right things to move up in the world. He got elected to the school board and was about to become President of the Chamber of Commerce---when it all came to a halt. His wife was beset with mental problems that were out of control. His four children were the silent victims of all that dysfunction.

That fella realized one thing. He had to protect his children. That decision changed everything. It cost him his marriage, his law partners, his community standing. Even his church began to murmur about who was at fault. He had nowhere to turn, no one to turn to. Like Paul, one decision changed his life.

And Paul tells us the “whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ.” He goes on to say that all that he gave up, he now counts as rubbish. He counts all the achievements of his life to that point as so much more garbage, because they stood in the way of gaining Christ.

That fella I mentioned, he thought he knew Christ. Paul had a communication straight from Jesus on the road to Damascus. This fella didn’t have that. He just walked around the block a few thousand times and prayed. He would have walked somewhere else but his children were in the house asleep and he needed to stay close. So he walked round his house. He pressed on. He kept on going to church, although it was awkward. He dropped everything else except his job so he could raise his children. He didn’t have an epiphany, like Paul did. He just tried to pray and keep going. Over time, he too got the answers for which he prayed.

Paul tells the Philippians from his jail cell that he wants to be found in him, meaning Christ. Paul wants to be found in Christ. We usually think of Christ, or the Holy Spirit, being found in us. But Paul says he wants to be found in Jesus Christ. Perhaps he is thinking of standing before the judgment seat of God and wanting to be found in Jesus. I don’t know for sure what Paul means, but I am sure that he wants his life to be so wrapped up in Jesus that when you look at the one, you can’t help but see the other.

Paul says his righteousness does not come from him. His righteousness is spun from the threads of faith that life in Jesus has taught him. Faith is Paul’s answer to gaining Christ, and Christ is not only the object of faith; he is also the path to faith. Jesus says it like this in the Gospel of John: “Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me” (Jn. 15: 4).  If Paul were living today, he might say “that’s what I’m talkin’ about.”

Did Paul get there in this life? Paul certainly didn’t think so. He spent the rest of his life in devotion to Jesus, preaching the good news from the hills of Athens to the prisons of Rome. He preached on riverbanks, in synagogues, on highways and in house churches. He pressed on.

Paul wanted resurrection. He believed in the resurrection of the body and he wanted to obtain that which his Savior had promised. He never took it for granted that he had done enough. He never believed that he had done enough. This is not a “works” doctrine. It is a love doctrine of the highest order. He tells the Philippians that “I press on to make it my own, because Christ has made me his own.” Even in prison, Paul exhorts himself and other Christians to stay in the race, to press on.

I was recently at a lecture series in which Robert Cooley was the featured speaker. Dr. Cooley has a storied fifty year career as a seminary professor and scholar as well as being quite an archeologist. After the lecture we spoke for a moment. I encouraged him not to quit, to which he remarked that the word retirement is not in the Bible.

Certainly retirement never occurred to Paul. He had too much to do, too many people to whom to carry the Gospel. Paul had God’s work to do, not only because it needed doing in other people’s lives, but because it needed doing in his own life.

That fella I mentioned? Twenty five years later, he enrolled in seminary, answering a call that had come in the shape of catastrophe and was formed in the stillness of midnight prayers. He didn’t have an epiphany like Paul, but the call was just as unmistakable. Long ago, he found that shedding baggage is the necessary task of service to the Master. That task still continues for him, too, as he tries to press on. I know that to be true, because I am that fella.

We press on. We press on toward the goal. What is the goal? It’s the prize, of course. So what is the prize? Listen now. Listen. Do you hear? You can hear it in the rustle of leaves in the wind. You can see it in small ripples of water as they make their way upstream. You can touch it in the innocence of a child’s hand. You can taste it in the breath of spring that now knocks on the doors of this community.

What is it? It is Jesus calling. Paul says it is the upward call of God---in Christ Jesus. Do you have something standing in the way of gaining Jesus Christ? Shed that baggage. Count it garbage and get rid of it. Press on toward that upward call.

 Listen. You can hear it and see it and touch it and taste it. Jesus is calling you. He called Paul. He called this messenger. He’s calling you too. He wants to make you “his own.”

Amen.