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When I started to think about these texts for this Sunday,
I started to see the image of the hand of God beginning to create something.
Probably the artist in me saw someone begin to sketch and I don't know how many
of you see the art I make each week for our posters advertising our church, but
this week I had my hand beginning to sketch a heart and express the activity of
the Holy Spirit moving about me.
The author of life... what a wonderful image that Luke, the
Gospel writer and prolific writer of Acts, gives us to think about Jesus and who
we are. That's why I am seeing the idea of how we are to be obedient to God to
allow him to author our lives and that we are called to have this New life rise
within us. I've said this before and it's just a wonderful thing to keep in
your mind, because it's such a fantastic image… but Luke was one of the fellow companions
of Paul, and Barnabas and Peter and a number of other disciples who WERE the
early church. They were the church Planters. They were the first pastors. They,
in some senses, were the first to be “theologizing” about the magnificence and
mystery of Christ.
I have also said that someday when I die I still want to
ask God exactly what happened in the book of Acts. He'll just point to a cloud
and we'll see a fantastic movie of exactly what these brave first century
disciples were doing for the Church of God. The book of Acts has this
wonderful sense of being almost like a collection of drama mini-series episodes
of interactions the disciples had either among themselves or with the crowds.
We must keep in the back of our mind that Luke was very interested perhaps
extremely interested in reaching out to the Gentiles. He was never an actual witness
more than he was a witness to the testimony of Peter and others who shared that
eye witness of faith.
This little snippet from Acts chapter 3 verses 11 through
21 is one of Peter’s famous speeches where he is downright giving them a good
old-fashioned “Catholic Guilt Trip” as I'd like to call it. All those years of
Catholic grammar school and a couple years of Catholic High School made me
great Protestant 😊
All humor aside, we have to wonder what the intensity of this guilt and honesty
is to mean for us this week as we look at the other faceted side of what I
would like to call the diamond of Christ.
There is a wonderful thought— the diamond of Christ, the
jewel in the center of our hearts that has given us life, that is truly the
author of life. Jesus, who is a healing presence and has given us the gift of
Grace for us to live into a New life. The season of Easter is a time for us to
continue to study, to have some understanding of the importance of the
Resurrection and the importance of turning the heart to God. This reminds me of
a conversation I had on an online forum, where basically my passion to talk about
spiritual transformation was belittled into being an apologetic of
"emotionalism." This couldn't be further from the truth, but then
some people only want to see things in terms of intellectualism and doctrine
and they don't want to hear about God's call within the Word to shape our
hearts to become New people.
I thought of that song, which I won't quote, I promise(!)
Woodstock. Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young did it and Joni Mitchell sang it as
well. I was only one year’s old when the actual Woodstock was happening, but I
love that the song begins talking about a child of God walking along the road,
and the song continues to repeat about being like Stardust, and that we have to
return to the garden. If you recall, the garden is that wonderful place, that
we heard about on Easter Sunday where Jesus appeared to Mary. Jesus is The
Gardener of our souls; the author of life and He has been trying to set our
souls free. He has done this in order for us to break from that Chrysalis shell
to turn into those butterflies set free in order to create a New life that has Him
at the center, out of love for Him and neighbor.
All of these passages this morning is so very important
to hear, whether it is something of a sentence or word that pops out, it is a
part of that education as the Easter people to continue to look inward and grow
from. Our second lesson is from the first letter of John again and this time he
is trying to define for us what sin is, and sin is lawlessness. Lawlessness
begins out of those two pillars, that I had mentioned the week before, these
are the pillars of greed and indifference. Greed, pertaining to the self, the
desire for power and indifference. Indifference is basically our unwillingness
to look beyond ourselves, in consideration of our neighbor. Just the thought,
of not being able to be faithful, truthfully to love God and neighbor, is a
part of our problem and the challenge of sin. Many a preacher could go rogue
with this and become “fire and brimstone” with these passages but that's not
what I am called to bring to light for you, as a part of my love in serving
this flock here.
Being able to see your potential to change, to live into
that word, I've been teaching since Lent— metanoia, that change of mind and
heart, puts gladness in my heart, as the psalmist says this morning. What is
happiness though? but that gigantic Pandora's Box word of so many things that
we have usurped from its true definition, or Godly pure definition to mean. I
have a friend we are at odds I should say on different things politically, but
she is adamantly against the movement she thinks the new social order is trying
to impose, in regard to happiness. I think it's a little over the top… but how
much have we usurped the idea of having peace in the heart, what does true
happiness really mean for us? The Grace alone that Christ released into the
world, should be a great source of happiness for us even some 20 + centuries
later. But we are fickle children. We have gotten spoiled and complacent and Satan
has found new ways to weave into our lives despair, hopelessness, fear and
anxiety which create doubt and robs us of a true sense of being quote happy.
It's been hard to believe that it's been a decade for my
dear friend Jurek to have begun to feel any kind of happiness. These last few
months have been a horrible challenge for him. If it wasn't for the kindness of
strangers, a neighbor across the way… God Bless Him! … He would be homeless
living in a YMCA. All of it is still very evil, all of what happened, and I
will always still feel sad for him but hopefully even thousands of miles apart,
my prayers and hopes for him will once again begin to help him plant happiness
back into his life. 31 years of friendship does that. We have potential friends
all around us as I preached about last week all we need to do is just make the
effort to be a friend to someone share our faith journey and join in that fellowship,
the gift of being children of God. It's really not that much work. It just
needs your heart to be committed to change. Being committed to change yourself
and being committed to help to change the world! Yes, it's a tall order but the
commission from God is not to be dismissed as a pleasant thought, a nice piece
of poetry from 2000 years ago… it is a lesson for our hearts to faithfully utilize.
The Gospel we have for this morning, is yet another
perspective of that same morning. That's the same morning we had Mary's
testimony to seeing Jesus in the garden. That's the same day that Thomas just
had to see the proof, had to see the evidence. And now it's Luke turn to
probably relay what Peter shared as an eyewitness to him, about Jesus coming in
the room and scaring the pants off of the disciples! I almost kind of wonder,
if it's a humorous element, that you know He says, hey what you got to eat? You
almost have to wonder next, if He's going to ask for a glass of wine! The words
that are repeated however, that we saw in John's Gospel and we heard in the
Gospel of Mark is: “peace be with you.”
Peace be with you ... I love passing the peace in our
little Community here. The Holy Spirit does seem to be unruly at times and take
us a couple minutes to settle down, but this is a part of what being in fellowship,
in community together truly means. One of the things that I truly believe in is
the ever inclusive extravagant welcome that Christ brings to all believers to
understand. It's a shame how some people don't understand that, or don't
want to see it, and want to make the Gospel, their exclusive book. The Seminary,
I'm doing my doctoral studies at, was just accredited a few months back, and
has had lots of people still congratulating and asking questions on social
media just what they intend to be offering, and to whom they will be serving.
It is always extremely unfortunate when it comes down to the issue of women
serving in Ministry. You see the same tired conversations that have not only
divided the church but have darkened it with judgment and thoughts of spiritual
death.
I always have to hold myself back and not respond,
because Satan loves to make us become divisive and angry apologists for the
faith… that everyone should be allowed to serve. God is the one who wants us to
all join in, as the priesthood of all believers, in the world. And it should
never be an issue of sex and so forth. Many of the articles I read on different
topics of counseling and caring for my flock is about listening to where they
are. It is sad to hear that so many people are hurt by the established church.
And that many do not see a purpose in even coming anymore, because they don't
feel welcome or they’re discriminated against or someone is harboring a
judgment against them about something or another. This is the evil one's work
in our hearts to drag us away from that metanoia, that change of heart and mind,
that God needs us to live in to.
The last few lines of our Gospel today literally have
Jesus opening the minds of the disciples to understand the scriptures and He
tells them once again, a part of the truth about the Messiah and His rise and
that's repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed everywhere. He
reminds them that they are His Witnesses. This is all before Pentecost, which
is a few weeks away here, but we are getting Jesus beginning to reveal what the
Holy Spirit will be doing through our lives, for the sake of the Gospel. The
only thing that's going to always impede us is this lawlessness, which is sin.
Letting go, and letting God lead in your life doesn't
mean that we sit back as a spectator. It means that we need to begin to author
where God is seeing us to tread forward. We need to help create that road. We
need to help with spreading that weed killer. I may have a brown thumb as a
gardener in real life, but spiritually I am always conscious of keeping that
Garden pure for God's work to Bear the most fruit within me. This is what
John is talking about in his little writing here. John is talking about this
hope in Christ, to purify ourselves, just as He is pure. Some reformers would
consider this a part of our remembering our baptism, as that cleansing water to
begin New Life, and perhaps that's a part of what he is meaning here. For we're
always going in process. Everyday there is a sunrise and there is a sunset. Every
day, you are growing a day older, not necessarily wiser, but the fullness of
life is there for us to reach out and grasp.
That fullness of life begins with Jesus. It begins with
the Resurrection and is to live within us to shape us into New people, the New Creation.
Yes, we can create things, but it depends on where our priorities are set… if
we are creating things for the benefit of others, or for their
destruction. A part of creating and reaping that New life has been
realized the past few weeks in being in a new prayer group with some new
friends out in Pahrump. I have never been to Pahrump before and it was a fascinating
drive out there. This is just one of a few groups that some of the Via de
Cristo people have started on their own, to not only socialize, but get
together and share our real Joys and concerns of prayer for ourselves and
others. I've driven through most of rural Illinois and saw a lot of flat land
of course… but I have never seen such extravagant beauty and wilderness out
here, in this desert of beautiful mountains. The few times Mary and I have
driven out there, seems like we're going into another world and we're seeing
the magnificence of God in these gigantic formations of stone and Earth. I have
yet to see the mountain goats and the wild horses as there are signs warning of
along Blue Diamond Road, but it just says something wonderful about connecting
with creation, being a creature yourself of God.
Much like the early church, this small group gathers in a
parishioner's home out in the middle valley between the mountains. it's
gorgeous out there, but frankly I would need to have a helipad in the backyard.
It's wonderful thinking about what we've learned from God's Word and sharing
that together. This is something we will be doing shortly here today, with ‘the
Wired Word,’ during our time of fellowship. The setting out there, though,
wasn't in church, it was a part of living into that scattering after gathering
as church. We prayed for everything and everyone, and even our pets too! These
are one of those moments of realizing the Peace of Christ, when you get to
share with one another. This is not only your faith, but reaching out in love
to neighbor.
When Jesus is continuing by saying— “peace be with
you,” He is reaching out in love to them, not only to quiet their fears, but to
get them to see the reality of where things are. There are little moments in
our every day, that allow us to share the Peace of Christ and live into that
resurrected life, that change of heart and mind… When we go out and visit
people and be there with them during their times of grief and suffering. Just
this past Thursday, we had the memorial service for Stan Marx. It was lovely to
see how many friends and family of Mary and Stan, came and shared their
memories, and their thoughts of love and healing, for the whole family. I only
had a small part in this service, but I was grateful to be able to be a part of
the peace and healing Love of Christ to give to others.
This third Sunday in Easter, as I have been saying, is the
time to realize that repentance and forgiveness of sins. This realization not
only helps us to wash away what things hinder us, but it is living into that New
life. It is being a co-author alongside God to creating a New world, we have waiting
for us. We have a new chapter right around the corner for us on the day
of Pentecost. There's a lot of work ahead, and a lot of challenges… but know
that the Peace of Christ, His Grace and His Love, is right there with us, for
us, to help us to be the church, He needs us to be.
Let us pray,
Gracious and loving God,
May we never not be grateful for the Amazing Grace You
have flowed upon our lives, to washing our sins away.
May we be lights in the wilderness, may we realize our
lives are to be for learning
And may we most faithfully return to that Garden, reaping
the fruit You need our lives to be invested in.
For Your Glory and Peace—
Amen
April 15th,
2018; Third Sunday of Easter; Year B; SOLA Lectionary
Sermon by:
Reverend Nicole A.M. Collins, OSST
Psalm 4; Acts
3:11-21; 1 John 3:1-7; Luke 24:36-49
The link below is to this sermon's delivery at First Congregational Church @ 9:30am
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