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A question arose this week in thinking about all of our texts today… about forgiveness, but is this our source of pain? The author of ‘Living in the Kingdom,’ Alvin Rogness, seems to capture what the Living Word is declaring to us to hear, the author states: “To be forgiven is not easy even for you. You will already have changed radically when you recognize your need for forgiveness. To be deeply sorry is one of the hardest things to do. To be in the position of having to receive mercy from someone else, as an undeserving beggar, goes against every instinct of pride we have.” The author continues to pinpoint the route for our release from pain: “To throw ourselves upon the mercy of God is to enter the door to a whole new world—a world where you love and forgive, as you are loved and forgiven…”
Wow, I don’t know about you but that last line sounds
like an echo of the culmination of the Gospel being the Kingdom of God realized
through the fantastic vision poetically declared in John of Patmos’ snippet
from the Book of Revelation: “And He will wipe away every tear from every eye.”
What a beautiful thought! Something we have a very hard time wrapping our minds
around… am I right? The same can be said
for the Word Joy. Outside of it being a
word incredibly robbed or held hostage by our needs and desires…. It is meaning here something truly divine,
truly ABOUT Grace!
What’s been unique about my faith journey is not really
unique at all because we all go through our formation with a Lord and savior
that truly shows no impartiality. A God
who indeed came down to us, preached to us, struggled to teach His disciples
the TRUTH of the Kingdom of God is to be revealed in our surrender! Surrendering the ego, surrendering the dogma,
intellectualism, labels, anger, hatred and contempt for others who are not “aligning”
to what we “feel” is right. As the
saying goes, “pride goeth before a fall…”
Do we have to fall so hard, though? Do we have to have
those tears go unanswered to the point of confusion and bewilderment? Welcome
to the beginning of the birth pangs for the Disciple of Christ Jesus who is
supposed to be embodying or at least beginning to practice—mercy, love,
kindness, forgiveness and compassion!
I always have found God’s sense of timing especially when
He’s trying to teach me to HEAR & LIVE His declarations, uncanny or almost
surreal. For just the other day, I not
only had something awful and unforgivable to happen to me but within the
Franciscan Order I was given an assignment ironically to address something I
find near impossible to forgive… That is the act, TO forgive! Outside of increasing my intake of Aleve for “the
pain….” I need to address this!
Where do I begin?
Where do any of us begin? Stinkin’ thinkin’ does nothing for the Gospel
yet alone for anyone around you! It’s
hard though, for we all too wantonly seek to judge and condemn… We enjoy making
the gap in the door smaller as we become smaller… Which speaking of that… another incident on
social media always amazes me on how far people will go to hurt one
another. For a young pastor receives a
horrible letter from most likely or disturbingly from perhaps another pastor or
congregant to her husband that he should get away from her and seek an
annulment.
If this is indeed from another pastor who sent this as an
overly indulgent evil act of malice just because they are from one camp of
thought versus the other… They certainly
cannot fathom what the Gospel is calling us ALL to do at all! This leaves me to wonder…What then are they
sharing on a given Sunday morning? What does it all mean if we can’t practice
what we preach?! We are more than aiding
the Evil One’s plans for divisiveness and division of the Body!
We can try with no success frankly to avoid the Holy
Spirit… but we only hurt and rob ourselves from the beauty of perhaps realizing
the TRUTH in the declaration that God will bring us peace and KNOW how to live
in that Kingdom, a Kingdom of Grace! The root Word for Grace is charis which is
also the same root Word for joy. It’s
2,000 something years later people…. Are we still sitting metaphorically around
Jesus as those dumbfounded disciples from today’s gospel?!
The disciples then are a lot like us now since we need
the answers and solutions NOW… We can’t wait God, everything has taken too long… We need that elixir, we need those easy
answers because we feel we’ve gone through a lot! As my oldest friend a long time back drew the
best cartoon for it… he drew a picture of the Easter bunny stomping and
throwing a fit saying: “I want, what I want, when I want it!” Wow, if that isn’t the battle cry of the “Me”
generation, I don’t know what could be better!
The “Me” generation is like oil and water to the
Gospel. The Gospel calls us to not only
eat that humble pie but live and declare selflessness! Yes, you heard that one right—this is the
radical heart and structure of that New Creature within you! And Satan and his helpers are more than happy
to lance it from your heart to help make you a complete success at being a
heartless, indifferent being to live purely for the world and utterly deny the
Gospel! C’mon! The Gospel’s TRUTH is like eating those awful Brussel sprouts
that neither bacon nor good wine can wash away….
Instead of accepting the way things are and growing from
them, we are all too easy prey to lamenting and grieving what we can’t get NOW… The Old Nature is a beast sated by constantly
battling for its’ own agendas. The Old
Nature is the ego, is the struggling sinner, is that aspect of who you are that
you have a near impossible time to willingly KILL but when you battle with a
peace in your heart you don’t really understand yet… you are being led by the
Holy Spirit.
Let’s face it, the Old Nature LOVES those buttons being
pushed… just like Edith, Lot’s wife, we find ourselves turning back going
against God’s declarations to us and becoming like an immovable pillar of salt.
Jesus said as well in another Gospel that salt sewn upon the ground cannot reap… All these small things the Living Word tries
to teach us in order to be ever moving forward… But more often we are dead-set
against them and justify ourselves over and above God.
Those tears will not dissolve the chains you have bound
your heart to… Neither will Aleve, hypnosis for positive thinking or a good
glass of wine. Contentment is a lonely journey if you never allow your heart to
grow, reap that New Nature within you to take your place within that New heaven
and New earth—the one built by, for, and through Grace.
Peter’s conversion took a while, in some senses you could
say that it was in stages… From Jesus
giving him a hard time as well as reminding him in the previous Sunday’s reading
from the Book of Acts of his three denials, and the new task at hand to now
realizing the inclusiveness and impartiality of the Gospel through the “Kosher
sheet” vision, dream he has teaching him the real importance of ministry is to
reach out to everyone…
Our laws are not God’s laws and this is true as well for
the Gospel. For our gospels—our agendas,
“cherry-picked” perspectives on the TRUTH are certainly NOT what the reality of
the Gospel of Christ Jesus truly is! It’s not an “Us” vs. “Them” Kingdom, It’s
not a political kingdom, it is not a worldly sense of entitlement/ justice
kingdom…. It is truly NOT ABOUT us… it’s
about God! Loving God and neighbor is one
of the most misunderstood and misrepresented declarations God has ever given
us. It is tragic… BUT we must remember
that we have the capacity to not turn back, but move forward.
We have the capacity to be and become wonderfully free
and responsible servants to the Gospel of Jesus! Fully Accountable, Fully altruistic
(selfless), fully covered with that beautiful peace Christ Jesus gives us when
we bear those spiritual fruit. This is that moment when you will feel your
heart’s tears are being wiped away… When we bear that Holy Spirit prompted New
Creature through love, kindness, compassion, mercy and most importantly
forgiveness. We must seek it and we must
give it! Seek Ye first the Kingdom of
God! And what is truly given unto us is something definitely not cheap, but
ever so wonderful and costly Grace! Live it to Give it!
AMEN
Let us Pray,
Gracious Lord Jesus,
You know how much Your children stray and are suffering
The Suffering more often the chains we have fashioned
Help our hearts to be shaped by the TRUTH
In order that we may declare that Joy
We will come to know, when we let go…
May Your love and light shine deeply upon those dark
recesses of the soul…
BRING us into Your Truth!
To Thine be the Glory and Alleluia—
AMEN
April 24th
2016; Fifth Sunday of Easter; Year C; SOLA Lectionary
Sermon By:
Reverend Nicole A.M. Collins, FODM
Psalm 148; Acts
11:1-18; Revelation 21:1-7; John 16:12-22
https://youtu.be/osK1clr2P-w
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