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Yes, we are beginning once again with that infamous
Sunday School memory trick but you can’t have the steeple without the people…
And even more important than that—you can’t “be the people” without
Christ. The Gospel of John has some
complex statements from Jesus for us to spiritually chew on this Sunday. These are those “I AM” statements in essence
going back to the first commandments—they are God’s laying out of the promises
and the boundaries we are all to take heed to, become prayerfully obedient
to.
Those beautiful timeless Words are the mortar to the
church we gather in today: “I AM the Way, the truth and the life.” In that same breath, we could almost hear as
a descant chorus from Hebrews 13: “Jesus Christ—the same yesterday, today and
forever.” But as Peter points out to us in another wonderful insight from his
first letter—we are spiritual stones. We are living stones to be built upon
that cornerstone, Christ, to build God’s spiritual home. As we know, stones hurled by those in the
crowd incensed by Stephen’s brutal honesty—vocal mirror to their failings,
reveal our great need for some tuckpointing....
Well as Jack Nickelson’s character in a Few Good Men says: You want the truth? You can’t handle the
truth! What he doesn’t say, but we, as
Jesus’ disciples may perhaps want to say trailing after that: You never have
and I wonder if you ever will!
Our faith calls us however to rebuke this frustration
with as I’ve said before: “Never say never.” Is this being too much of an
idealist? Are these words seemingly coming
from the “flower-power era” of innocence, we have so completely lost today? I
would hope not. But it all depends on
your spiritual tuck-pointing. How well
or healthy is your spiritual house? Is
your heart engaged in the mission of our work together for the greater goal,
purpose of the Gospel, or is it somewhere else? These are tough questions but
what makes a solid foundation to any structure is a solid commitment of craftmanship,
service and in our case, faith. Those
gracious bricks are being formed by your witness and resolve, in the world, on
your journey.
Your journey begins by being built upon that
cornerstone—Jesus Christ. Each, and
every one of us, has something wonderful to share. This is the Good News, that sadly, like those
soon to stone Stephen, we, at some point or another have tried to stifle or
control. Closing ourselves off to the
truth of the Gospel is what begins to chisel away at those walls, robbing us
from the life God intends for us all to find our way to.
Talk about getting your house in order, we just finished
unpacking the last few boxes and hung the last few pictures. There was a giant picture frame of my
graduation pictures from the School of the Art Institute from 1992. The pictures and the tickets, papers inside
were all starting to move and tear away from their montaged position… It took me a moment of thinking about it,
perhaps even praying about it, but I decided to take those 25-year-old pictures
out of the frame putting them in an album and put up a giant new poster of
Jesus, the Good Shepherd, I got from my best friend Jurek. When I hung that picture in my kitchen,
everything came together and made sense.
It was almost as if Jesus looked straight at me and gave my spiritual
house and actual house, peace, resolve and mission.
Philip in today’s Gospel represented our human nature in
saying to Jesus: “show us the Father…” Face it though, we like to be control,
we want to go from A to Z without doing the spiritual tuckpointing, internal
work needed within us to be shaped by the Way, truth and life of the Gospel.
There is often some confusion and unpopularity with the meaning of Stephen, the
first martyr of the Christian faith and today’s lessons. It goes back to that one-stringed banjo, we want
to, at times, close our ears and hearts off to. This would be simply—you gotta
live it to give it—faith that is. Our
response is one that is naturally formed by realizing God’s Grace active in
your lives—HE is that mortar!
What Philip basically reflected here is a view of glory
or responding around faith for the purposes of the self. We do this as well, with feeling the need to
be “works righteous.” Doing things not
really, out of faith naturally, but doing them to “feel good” or “feel
accomplished.” This is not building a firm enough foundation in your heart,
however, to see real justice, or reform society with the Word. The truth of the Gospel—its way and life,
bear and reveal, the gifts of God through our acceptance of reaping God’s grace
as that New Nature within us. Christ,
the New Adam, initiated this New life with His cross and resurrection for our
behalf.
Stephen told it like it was. You could say that he was
the first purveyor of the Honest Planet.
Anyone remember that skit on Saturday Night Live? His faith compelled him to speak the
uncomfortable truth to the crowd—this truth was that they killed off those they
didn’t like to hear from, their prophets.
They turned away from spiritually working upon themselves to hear God’s
message to lead them. Instead they
created a political, legal system to control and redirect their way over and
above God’s. The Pharisees and the
Sanhedrin, as we well know, did this very successfully. We’re just as guilty of this today… Politics have no place in the Gospel. Faith, believing in Christ Jesus and living
spiritually in His footsteps, is the way, truth and the life of the Gospel,
period. That’s why we need to keep our
spiritual house in sync, in order. There
are many ways to do it, but that is for God to reveal to you, where you are, on
your individual faith formation journey.
Over the centuries, Christians have been searching for
ways to shape their lives to Christ. Some people have slapped the label of
religion upon these pursuits which I firmly believe over simplifies and robs the
spiritual aspect of what it means to have a living faith. The Franciscans come
to mind as a great example of living faith. A young Monk in Assisi Italy, Francis and a Nun
named Clare, envisioned a way of life that was centered in living to give to
others through service. This is what they heard from the Gospel. Living together in a community that built the
walls of their order by and through prayer, where their influence is still
being felt, today.
Religious Orders in general are a scarce phenomenon in
the 21st century. People
assume that it is an exclusive practice to those who are seeking to be in
formal roles such as priests, pastors, nuns and deaconesses in the church, as
well as that it belongs to the Roman Catholic faith, alone. Quite the contrary, things have changed quite
a bit. There are still Orders out there
but people who belong to them are from all different backgrounds, Protestant,
Catholic and Orthodox alike, living in their own homes, and come together on
occasion via retreats and fellowship gatherings.
A few years back I originally joined a Franciscan order
which sadly closed when the gentleman running the Order decided to retire. The Order I would come to join and am active
in today, is the Order of the Most Holy Theotokos. This order includes people from many
Christian faiths who appreciate Mary the Mother of Our Lord. Yes, let us not forget that today is Mother’s
day and we DO appreciate not only our parents, but Mary, the bearer of Jesus
into our world. This is just something
my faith formation has creatively incorporated into who I am as an active
disciple of Jesus.
We were given life and most importantly New life through
Christ to blossom and bear witness uniquely in how He leads us. Could we say it is by a spiritual ethic or
discipline that we are to find our way?
Yes, this is a truth for us individually and as a church family. I say this, for hopefully in the next few
weeks, we will all be contributing to re-envisioning our statement of mission
and purpose as this hopeful band of witnesses of the Gospel, here, In Las
Vegas, Nevada. This can be a wonderful
process of discovery not just as a church family but individually as that
living stone, member of the church.
Church planting, as where I began to serve through,
starts at ground zero with just that cornerstone Christ spiritually laid and truth
be told, not much else! Can’t really find a formula in a book of how to plant
and grow a community—you need to come together and share. In a dining room of a friend’s house, at
least 20 or so former congregants of Pastor Dawson’s first church gathered to
start the conversation in February of 2012, on building a whole new
church. By the time of Easter Sunday, a
new congregation called the ‘Gathering for Christ,’ was born, in the basement
meeting room of the Courtyard Marriott hotel in Lombard, Illinois.
Willow Creek, a now famous non-denominational mega-church
had its humble beginnings in a movie theater… no matter where you are on your
faith journey, God opens your eyes to what He is calling you to DO through His
Gospel. Finding the Way, Truth and the
Life of Jesus is not an easy road, and it can’t be found without Him. It can’t be found as well, alone. We need one another, as Peter says, to be a
Holy Priesthood ready to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through
Christ. We have to stop stumbling over “our will,” and strive to serve His and
love our neighbors.
Let us Pray—
Gracious God,
May this firmly be the mortar to our soul that
You are the Way, the Only Truth and the Life
The Life we need to share the Gospel
To build a firm foundation of faith
Within the hearts of our neighbors
As we work together in vision, mission and service
Through Your Holy Name—
AMEN
May 14th, 2017;
Fifth Sunday of Easter; Year A; SOLA Lectionary
Sermon By:
Reverend Nicole A.M. Collins, OSST
Psalm 146; Acts
6:1-9; 7:2a, 51-60; 1 Peter 2:2-10; John 14:1-14
~
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