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The month of May is not only a month of budding flowers, spring-time weather and Mother’s Day, as we celebrated last Sunday, but it is also the month for many to be graduating schools abroad. Graduating from any school is an exciting time spiritually and otherwise… The hope and aspiration for the future can be at an all-time high. When you’re throwing that cap into the air, however, I wonder how many people think of the dove of the Holy Spirit soaring over? Soaring over, keeping watch and encouraging us to continue to grow in our spiritual education to become advocates, ourselves, of the Truth?
Here, once again, is that powerful TRUTH of the Living
Word to reveal itself in your everyday life. Just this past Sunday, we
celebrated with our church family member Nelson, for his accomplishment of
graduating with a second college degree. Some young colleagues I know as well,
graduated from seminary this past week and I am marveling myself at the fact of
it being 3 years’ time already, from my graduation. Here the spirit moved me to
begin an application for an online doctor’s of ministry degree. This degree will be entirely on building
towards the mission and service in our community. It is purely to enable me to serve
our community’s needs at an even greater future capacity.
Education, is, to a certain extent, a very personal
decision, for it does shape your life…
But it shouldn’t control your life to the point of becoming an
“introverted intellectual” about what you know and what you can DO with
it. This leads us into where St. Paul
sets foot today in this wonderful scene from the Book of Acts. He is literally
in the city of intellectual progress for that day and age—Athens. His task there, is to deliver, speak the
truth of the Good News and he gets pretty upset seeing a cosmopolitan,
consumerist understanding of God, being idolatry. Everywhere he seemed to step foot there, was
a god whom they placed to mediate for their individual needs for various
things. In the medieval era, we
digressed into this as well as Christians, with the ‘cult of the saints’ within
the Roman Catholic church…
The cult of the saints has continued on to a certain
extent, into the 21st century, but in a harmless fashion becoming
more a cultural ritual than that of ardent faith. An example of this would be for some Italian
Americans to bury a statuette of St. Joseph in their backyards for protection
of home and family. I have some relatives in my family who have actually done
this… Another cultural example would be
the blessing of the pets which comes from an appreciation of St. Francis of
Assisi and his love for God’s creatures.
When I was doing my discernment time at Ravenswood United Church of
Christ before coming here, the pastor granted me the opportunity of leading the
annual pet blessings service there.
There are many more, I’m sure, of practices, rites and rituals that have
become, “established culture,” but in a healthy sense of culture. Neither St. Francis or St. Joseph we treat as
“gods…” Jesus Christ is our Lord and
Savior, period.
So, what are these Easter season texts trying to teach us
this week? This is our weekly challenge
of wondering why certain texts are connected to one another. What is the common thread? Beyond the obvious, being Christ Jesus, the
common thread is continuing from last week’s:
“You want the Truth? You can’t handle the Truth!” We DO want to hear the Truth of the Gospel,
but how are we handling it? How are we
incorporating it spiritually into our everyday lives? Let’s face it, we NEED help! Who’s that help? Why it is the 3rd person of the
Trinity, our helper, and guide, the paraclete—the Holy Spirit, that’s who!
Beyond the advocacy of the Holy Spirit working on our
first church, the heart, we need to become prayerfully obedient. There’s that uncomfortable word, our human
nature or Old Nature, shrinks from, “obedience.” Would discipline be a better word? Perhaps yes, for many of us here, disciplined
ourselves to stay in school, continue on to grow and learn to become better or
stronger persons… For the Athenian
intellectuals that St. Paul encountered, they acted rather rudely with him
since they, more or less considered themselves as “having arrived,” knowledge-wise,
that is. You’ve probably have run across some people at one time or another
who’ve acted that way. We read it this
morning, they called poor Paul, a babbler…
Their curiosity in what he had to say was rather critical. And who was he anyway? He was a foreigner coming into their town
having the audacity and boldness to witness/share what he couldn’t hold
back—the Gospel, the Good News of Jesus Christ!
You could probably call Paul the first “contagious”
Christian. A couple of years back when I
was in a summer intensive church planting boot camp at TEDS (my seminary), we
read a wonderful book that maybe the church council members here, can read some
time, it is called: “Becoming a Contagious Christian” by Bill Hybels, the
founder of Willow Creek. It is all about
evangelism, strengthening your inner commitment to live into your faith in your
daily lives and in serving together as a community. Being contagious with the Gospel and for the
Gospel is hard work… Peter picks up on
this in this week’s snippet from his first letter by reminding us of why we
suffer to carry on as disciples, because Christ suffered and died for us. Peter teaches us as well, that Baptism isn’t
what we’ve made it into today—an initiation rite to join a church… it IS living church! It is living most importantly from that
internal church first—the heart! The Heart then works through our mind, voices,
hands and feet.
The heart is not only where the Holy Spirit does His most
important work but it is where the Christian as proclaimed by Christ himself in
today’s Gospel is to begin to LIVE! The New Nature is that New life within us
that Christ freed us to see, believe and incorporate fully with ourselves. The
Gospel of John is a beautiful Gospel but it is a complex one, as well. It is one that it almost seems like Jesus
went to seminary. Jesus throughout the
Gospel of John speaks in complex thoughts and parables. This week’s Gospel is no different. He begins with that wonderful preposition of
the mirror of the law, being that word, IF.
IF is pivotal, it jars your attention to discern, you can’t avoid it. If I only did this over that, how would the
outcome have changed? Jesus strikes that
hammer of the law through talking about love.
He says: “… If you love me, you will keep my commandments.” He is clearly seeking the obedience of their
hearts to love Him and neighbor through love, itself.
Could we prayerfully say the ultimate truth of the Gospel
is Love, in some form or fashion, alone? We could, but then we may be
over-simplifying and zapping the efficacy of the Gospel’s impact in the
world. Love is a monolithic Pandora’s
box of meaning, one that we still and most obviously have spiritually, enclosed
in a box! The love that Jesus is talking
about is infinite and most contradictory to human nature—unconditional. Conditions is what we’ve bracketed the whole
of society with. On my terms, on these
terms, and so forth. We’ve gotten so
good at this we’ve actually shaped these conditions into becoming ideologies.
There’s that word we’ve heard a lot of recently, on the
news, “ideology.” What is it? One
definition concludes it to mean: a system of ideas and ideals, especially one
that forms the basis of theory and policy. Another states it, as the ideas and
manner of thinking characteristic of a group, social class, or individual. What’s the key difference however from this
word and the word idolatry? Not much apparently, but the degree of how it is
observed, and practiced through the “self.” We don’t consider ourselves to
serve an unknown God… but when we are justifying the agenda of our will and
purposes over and above the Gospel’s, we most sadly are.
The truth hurts and heals, but welcome to the cost of
being a disciple in this current “here and now” but hoping to be an agent of
Change with the agenda by and for Christ, out of love for Him and for our
neighbors. The Cross and resurrection of
Christ alongside our Baptism are those guiding forces to not have us stumble
over ourselves and our knowledge. We must always humbly remember, that we are
works in progress. The Holy Spirit has a
lifetime of work to do within us to keep us true to whose we really are:
Christ’s children of Grace and promise.
We are all in school together here, in this loving church
family. We will always be challenged to
listen, love and learn together for the Gospel’s sake. We will go back and forth with willingly
being “contagious Christians” in the world needing to continue to spread the
Good News… because its hard work inside and out of ourselves, but the fruit it
bears for the Lord… Is the blessings and
glory of the Kingdom of God!
Let us pray—
Gracious Lord Jesus,
Your love is the end of the Law
We are to be prayerfully obedient students of
We are daily challenged to grow beyond ourselves
With Your Gospel to share in this hurting and troubled
world
May Your Holy Spirit continue to abide within us
Transforming us each and every day
For Your blessing and glory
The Kingdom of God in the here and now—
AMEN
May 21st, 2017;
Sixth Sunday of Easter; Year A
Sermon by:
Reverend Nicole A.M. Collins
Psalm 66:8-20;
Acts 17:16-31; 1 Peter 3:13-22; John 14:15-21
The link below is to this sermon's delivery at First Congregational Church 9:30am
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