The Power of God

Acts 4: 5-12
1John 3: 16-24

Why does something so good, cause so much trouble? The something good is the healing of the lame beggar in Jerusalem. The man began the day as a panhandler, lying pitifully in the dust outside the temple, and he ended the day walking like a new man, leaping, and praising God. At last, a little good news to put in the newspaper.

But no, this apparently wonderful healing set up a chain reaction of misunderstanding, resistance, and opposition. First, those who witnessed the healing misunderstood what had happened. Peter had summoned the healing – “In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, stand up and walk” – but the people assumed that Peter had caused the healing. They assumed that he and John were powerful, shaman like healers. Peter had to straighten out the people’s theology, telling the amazed crowd, “It wasn’t our power at all that caused this healing, but the power of God and the power of faith in the name of Jesus”.

Peter kept on preaching, proclaiming the resurrection from the dead, and that provoked even more trouble, stirring up a hornet’s nest among the temple officials. By nightfall, Peter and John were under house arrest and, if that were not enough, the next day Peter and John were called on the carpet and interrogated by essentially the entire family of the high priest. One would think that the healing of a desperately needy man would evoke hallelujahs all over town, but instead we see theological confusion, widespread suspicion, and a nasty crackdown by the authorities.

Peter and John have been arrested by the Sadducees, who are very annoyed because they have been teaching the people and proclaiming that in Jesus there is the resurrection of the dead. For us 21^st century people to understand more about this passage, we need to know a little more about Sadducees and their beliefs.

Sadducees do not believe in the resurrection of the dead, but that isn’t the only problem here. Peter and John have also healed a man in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, causing some five thousand people to believe what they are hearing about this Jesus. Sadducees knew that Romans do not ignore crowds of five thousand agitated Jews. The Sadducees are in fact among those whom the Romans hold responsible for keeping such crowds from forming. Peter and John are not just doctrinally out of bounds. They are also dangerous to the peace of Jerusalem and, more than that, to the Pax Romana, the peace guaranteed by Rome.

When Peter stands up to defend himself, the first brilliant thing he does is to reframe the charge against him. A good deed has been done to a man who was sick. He and John have done a mitzvah, an act of kindness. What is the big deal? Of course they have not done it under their own power, any more than Peter is speaking under his own power. He is filled with the power of the Holy Spirit.

This leads us to what the real problem was for the Sadducees and for Rome. The power these two men had was the same kind of power Jesus had and it scared them. It was the power of the Holy Spirit, they were filled with a higher, nobler purpose than those around them and it showed. They had the ability to do amazing, wonderful things and they were bringing the people together in a way that caused them problems. They needed to be stopped - immediately.

If we fast forward to today, where are we at? Where is the power that Peter spoke with so confidently? If the church is filled with the Holy Spirit, where are our acts of power in Jesus’ name? Peter and John were in a lot of trouble because they were following Jesus’ commands. The truth is that Jesus’ teachings are still controversial today even after two thousand years of people repeating his words; the message inside of them hasn’t sunk in.

The world still resists God. The world does not want to hear what Jesus has to say which means if we are following Jesus, we will be doing controversial things according to many people, perhaps even our own family.

When I decided to become a pastor, I was working for a successful company and had just been given a significant pay raise and elevated to a more demanding position. I told my family I wanted to go to seminary and that it was expensive. Then I told them that when I get out, I’d be making around the same amount as I’d just been given. My whole family was upset. Why go to school and incur all those loans to make the same amount of money I’m making now? It made no sense to them.

In the world’s point of view, a person goes to school to get an education which will help them get a better paying job than they had before the schooling. It’s the advice I would and have given to others. However, for me, at that point in my life, the advice was wrong. What I needed to do was not the logical or practical choice. It was the least practical choice, but it was also a choice that saved my soul.

That high paying job and better position was slowly killing the joy in my heart. God saved me by calling me away from there. The whole three years in seminary, my family was still skeptical about this decision. They thought I was crazy to do it. It’s only now, 18 months into my first call that some of them have come around and see what I saw from the beginning.

The Holy Spirit is not just a voice that tells us what is right and wrong. The Holy Spirit is God. The Holy Spirit will never lead us to the same path as the world and if our church is to be the united church of Jesus Christ the only way for us to walk is among the fallen. It is at the fringes of society that Jesus found his followers. It is at the fringes of society the Holy Spirit is leading us too. Our path is not an easy one.

If we are too easily accomplishing our goals, then we have not set the bar high enough. If we are able to walk away from church and not think about God for the rest of the week, we are not fulfilling our Christian mission. If we do not challenge ourselves, we will not grow. If we do not grow, then we will die.

The church is not a place to come and sit for an hour and feel good about ourselves. The church is the place we go to for direction and guidance for the week. The church is the place where God is supposed to reside, where our hearts should be strangely warmed, and a voice should speak so loudly in our ear that we cannot ignore its voice.

Peter and John helped to found Christianity by not ignoring the voice of God. They walked a fine path between the world and Jesus, and it often got them beaten, and thrown in jail, and eventually killed. They, who knew Jesus personally, were not treated with gentleness. If we are to follow Jesus, we must be prepared for the world to hate us and we must be prepared to stand up to the injustices the world will try to force us to be a part of.

And when we are asked by whose authority we do these things, we will shout, “It wasn’t our power at all that caused this, but the power of God and the power of faith in the name of Jesus”.

Amen.

Locked Doors and Disbelieving Hearts

Acts 4:32-35John 20: 19-31

How many of you have a lock on your door and use it every day? How many of you have alarms for your houses and for your cars? I’d say a fair few of us use locks to help keep bad things out and keep good things in. We have been raised to think that everything of value should be locked up and kept away from prying eyes.

A few years ago I watched a show called Reba and in it, her ex-husband decided to put an alarm on the house for her. Instead of using a professional, he and his son in law decide that they can do it themselves. They take a couple days to work at it and when they are ready to test it out, they tell the youngest son to pick a password and to type it in. Then the ex-husband said, “Now, when you pick this password you cannot tell ANYONE what it is, this is very important, do not tell ANYONE.” The son agrees not to tell and picks a password and types it in. Then when they go to test the alarm, sure enough it begins to shriek and the man turns to his son and says, “Okay, tell me what the password is.” The son refuses so the man says it again. Again, the son refuses to tell him. The alarm continues to shriek loudly. “Why won’t you tell me?” the man yells in frustration. The son replies, “Because you told me to not tell ANYONE, so that means you too, Dad.”

We often try to lock away not only those things we find valuable in this world, but ourselves too. That is where we find the disciples in this passage of John. They are terrified because their Messiah is dead, and they are miserable because one of them betrayed Jesus, one of them denied him, and the others ran away when he needed them most. They are sitting locked in a tiny room, trying not to get too upset at the way their lives have suddenly been ruined.

They had left their jobs, their homes, and their families to follow Jesus. And now Jesus is gone. Killed by the very Roman Empire he was supposed to overthrow; killed by the synagogue leaders who seemed so harmless when Jesus was preaching in their midst. The shock and anger, the self-pity and sadness must have hung thick in the air. They probably didn’t speak much, but when they did it was probably with sharp bursts of words before silence reigned again. They were utterly lost and alone.

Suddenly, Jesus appeared and said into that heavy silence, “Peace be with you”. The passage says the disciples were overjoyed to see Jesus. That word does not seem like a big enough word to describe what they must have felt as they saw his hands and side and realized this really was Jesus, their Lord. How would you have felt at that moment?

They went from a moment of utter hopelessness to the complete opposite – joy. Joy is filled with promise, excitement, laughter, and hope. Some of them must have been overwhelmed as well as overjoyed. Not only was Jesus standing before them, appearing suddenly in a locked room, but then he goes on to say, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.” Then he breathes on them and tells them he is breathing the Holy Spirit upon them, which means if they forgive anyone’s sins, God forgives their sins; but if they do not forgive them, God will not either.

There they were, ten men locked in a tiny room and filled with despair, and then in one moment of revelation they have been given the power to forgive a person’s sins. In two short paragraphs, John has created a complete turnaround; a total transformation for these ten men. Jesus changes everything.

This is true for our own lives as well. Some of you have probably been Christians your whole life. Others of you came to Jesus later on. But whether you have been a Christian since a child or an adult, we all have experienced doubt and disbelief. We all have tried to lock ourselves away from the world so that nothing and no one can hurt us. We try to insulate ourselves from the rest of humanity and we wonder why we’re miserable when we do that. We put up walls and we think awful thoughts and we judge others in an attempt to keep ourselves safe.

What are we keeping ourselves safe from? Jesus must have wondered the same thing when he appeared to the disciples not once but twice in a locked room. Nothing will change or get better if we stay hidden away. We will learn nothing if we do not step out of our comfort zones. Jesus challenges the disciples to leave the locked room and begin a new journey. Jesus reminds them that he did not call them to be hopeless, but he called them to bring hope to the world. That cannot happen if they remain stationary. It cannot happen if they remain locked into four walls.

Jesus is also calling us. I told you that last week. Just as he gave the disciples a job, a mission, Jesus has also given us one. We come to church for many reasons. Some of us come for a peaceful hour of singing and companionship with fellow believers. Some of us come to worship God and to remember that God is with us. Some of us come to remember we are not the Messiah, Jesus will save people and our job is to point the way to Jesus. Some come because their parents made them and now they make their children come.

Whatever reason brings you here, it is what you leave with that matters most. The disciples came into that locked room without a mission and without any hope in their hearts. They left that room with joy, filled with a new purpose and a new goal. They were no longer useless or empty. Jesus had filled up all those empty places with the Holy Spirit so that when they came upon scary moments after Jesus ascended to heaven, they were not left without an anchor. They left that room changed. Forever.

Do we leave church as changed people? Do we accept the Holy Spirit into our hearts the way the disciples did? Has the Holy Spirit transformed our lives or do we ignore that voice that speaks to us so quietly?

We may not lock ourselves into the church, but we often lock away our hearts from others. We tell ourselves that putting money in the offering plate is enough. We tell ourselves one hour of the week to worship God is plenty. We tell ourselves that a prayer before bed at night is enough communication with God. We tell ourselves a lot of things.

But what does Jesus say when we stop talking? What has Jesus called you to do when you stop making excuses? You may not be locked into a tiny room like the disciples were, but if you are ignoring God, then you are locked away from Him. WE are the ones that put up the walls and we are the ones that turn the key. God loves us so much that he took on human flesh to save us. God has opened Himself up completely, through Jesus; God is completely vulnerable to us.

His arms are wide open, waiting for us to receive Him, and God has given us a choice whether to run to Him or walk away. When Jesus calls us to spread his word and to do good works in his name, he is asking us to accept the Holy Spirit as he once asked the disciples to accept. Jesus is reminding us that if we are to call ourselves His followers, then we need to remove the chains from our hearts and be open to others. Instead of turning away, Jesus is asking us to show the world how much he cares by caring for the world.

Will you leave this church with an open heart, or will you leave with your heart closed?

Amen.

I Have Seen the Lord! - Easter Sermon

Isaiah 25: 6-9
John 20: 1-18

Why did Jesus have to die? I asked my bible study the other day, “If Adam and Eve had never fallen by eating the apple, would we still need Jesus?”

What is interesting about Adam and Eve’s story is that there is no timeline. We never know how long it was before Eve was tempted by the snake. They could have been in the Garden for fifty years before that happened. The truth is it doesn’t matter if it was fifty days or fifty years, it would have happened eventually. It would have happened if it had been you and me in the Garden rather than Adam and Eve. Human beings are easily led off course.

On Good Friday we finished the last segment of the video, “24 Hours that Changed the World” and in it, Adam Hamilton spoke about John’s version of the Resurrection. That is the bible passage we read today. In it, the author makes several references to Jesus being buried near a garden and Mary Magdalene even mistakes Jesus as a gardener at first. Hamilton believes that the author does this to remind us of Adam and Eve. We are taken right back to the very beginning of creation when Jesus rises from the dead.

Jesus restores what was lost that day; the connection to God that had been missing for so many years. Last week I described what happened when Jesus died for us and was risen from the dead to my Confirmation class. I told them that Jesus is like the peanut butter and jelly in the middle of two slices of bread. Without him, God is up in heaven looking down on us and we are standing on earth looking up at God. We are unconnected and out of touch, but with Jesus mediating between God and humanity, there is a connection and spark. He connects us together.

Now, when God looks upon humanity, He sees his Son and loves us. When we look for God, we see Jesus and his compassion for us, and we love Him. Jesus has restored humanity to God so that we can speak with God, and even walk with God once more.

Jesus had to die so that we could live - one death for many. The scripture in John tells us that Mary Magdalene went to the tomb early that Sunday morning and found Jesus gone. She didn’t understand that he had risen from the dead; she thought that Jesus’ enemies had stolen his body. Jesus had many enemies during his life. What is so scary about his enemies is that they were church going people. They were the pillars of the community and they hated Jesus and his ways.

Jesus died because the Pharisees and the Sadducees could not afford to let him live. Jesus used their fear of him to further his own cause which was his own death, but they didn’t know that. They killed him out of greed and fear and envy. Jesus was a dynamic person with a powerful speaking ability; he had a way with words and could illustrate his points so that everyone could understand even if they had to think about it for awhile.

Jesus did not teach like the others priests. He taught as if he had real knowledge of God. He was not repeating scripture to sound knowledgeable; Jesus would quote scripture as if he had been there when it was written. He was not rigid with the laws as the Pharisees were as shown when he allowed his disciples to pick grain on the Sabbath to eat. He understood human desires and weaknesses better than those who sinned and forgave it, as shown when he stopped the people from stoning the adulterous woman.

Jesus was turning the Jewish religion on its head. He had a new teaching for the people that threatened the Sanhedrin and all those Jewish leaders were scared and angry. They had allowed the laws in Leviticus and Deuteronomy to become so entrenched that there was no longer room for growth and renewal in their faith. They had stopped depending on God for answers and looked only to the laws for what to do. This is the way it has been done for hundreds of years, how dare Jesus try to change it now?!

When we look around the Christian faith and see all the many churches with their less than full sanctuaries on Sunday morning, I have to wonder if we have fallen into the same trap that the Sanhedrin fell into. Have we allowed outdated traditions and ways of doing things to stifle the Holy Spirit? Have we clung so fiercely to our past that we no longer have a future? If Jesus came today and looked around our church and the churches in this area, would he have the same condemnations to make that he had for the Jewish council?

When we allow ourselves to fight over whether to have communion monthly or weekly, when we fight over whether to allow women to be leaders and pastors, when we fight over whether to allow ex-cons in the church, when we fight over whether gay people should have positions of authority in church, when we fight over baptizing children or adults, I have to think that Jesus would shake his head in sadness and say, “Have you learned nothing from the past?”

Jesus loved everyone. Jesus gave everyone a chance to come to him. No one was turned away. No one was told that they couldn’t be part of his disciples. Not the lame, the blind, or the crippled. Not the prostitutes or the tax collectors, not even the Pharisees and the Sadducees were turned away. Jesus accepted the Gentiles even though most Jews would have considered them unclean. We nitpick over certain bible passages trying to figure out if a gay person can be a Sunday school teacher while children go hungry at night. We nitpick over baptism, when some people have no roofs over their heads. We fight over giving money to this project or that one when Jesus is probably yelling in the background, “JUST GIVE!”

Easter is supposed to be about the lighter side of Christianity. We’re supposed to all sing Alleluia and He is Risen! However, Easter is also about redemption. It’s about remembering that Jesus has accepted us into his family, Jesus died for all of us. He suffered terribly, was humiliated over and over, he was spit upon and treated like a criminal so that we could be reconciled to God, so WE could be given grace and eternal life.

How do we respond to that? Is it enough to just shout Alleluia one day out of the year, or should we be doing more? I can’t imagine that Jesus’ idea of being a Christian is a half-hearted yell on Easter morning. That’s a rather bland and pale imitation of the Christianity the disciples helped to create. After seeing Jesus that day, after speaking with Him, they were changed forever. And they acted like it.

We Christians have become a rather lukewarm and pale imitation of what Jesus meant for us to be. We ignore the helpless, we ignore our church, we ignore our God who is calling us to Him.

Mary didn’t recognize Jesus until he called her by name. He said, “Mary” and then she saw, she knew him as Lord. Jesus is calling your name. Jesus is calling us to a vibrant and exciting Christian life, one that is not always easy but it is much better than the faith we’ve shown in the past. Will you heed Jesus’ call or will you turn away? Will you shout, “I have seen the Lord!” or will you quietly walk out of here and pretend that God has never called your name?  

Amen.

The Briefest Glory

Isaiah 50:4-9a
Mark 11: 1-11

Palm Sunday is often treated as the feel good Sunday of Lent. Many churches have the children do plays and wave palm branches around, singing happy songs of hallelujah. However, Palm Sunday holds a lot more meaning when we think about what is coming next, Good Friday. In the passage of Mark, Jesus is the only one that knows the ending to the story.

Jesus is the one that orchestrates his triumphal entry into Jerusalem for the last time. He sends two of his disciples into town, telling them they will find a colt that has never been ridden. He tells them to untie it and bring it to him and if anyone tries to stop them, say, “The Lord needs it and will send it back here immediately.”

The two men go into town and find everything to be just as Jesus had told them. They untie the colt and bystanders ask them what they are doing and when they give Jesus’ response, they are allowed to take the donkey. The colt represents several things. A donkey was often ridden by warriors and kings to signal they came in peace. A donkey that had never been ridden is fit for ceremonial use.

Jesus is making a statement that only makes sense to those who know what is going to happen later in the week. The honored Jesus is also the humiliated Jesus. As he rides by these people, who are laying down palm branches and their own clothing, shouting Hallelujah and Praise be to God, we are left to wonder what is going on in Jesus’ mind. What would be going on in our own minds?

This happy entry into Jerusalem does not diminish the fact that Jesus knows he will soon die a violent death. Is he reveling in the moment, or is he cynically looking down upon those who lift him up today, but will spit upon him tomorrow? Is he rejoicing with the people as they shout Hosannas to God or is his heart filled with a combination of pity and compassion for he knows their hearts are not true to God?

How would we feel if we were Jesus? How would we react to this throng of people and the situation?

Jesus’ statement is one of dignity and power despite what some may think. Jesus has come to fulfill his Messianic destiny. He will change the world; he will triumph over Rome and the High Priests of the temple. He does so not in the way the people want or expect the Messiah to do it. They expected blood and death and war.

Jesus comes in peace. Jesus comes in love. Jesus sacrifices his own happiness and wellbeing and his own relationship to God the Father to save the world. The people wanted a Messiah that was more like a king, who would take over and tell them what to do. Jesus allows the people to feel and think what they want, to act on their own wishes rather than his.

God’s love for humanity is unlike human love. Human love is too often selfish and greedy, and the things we love about others are often the things we take pride in ourselves. But God sees our sinfulness, he knows the skeletons in our closet, and he does not turn away. God does not love only the good things about us, because of what Jesus did for us, God loves everything about us.

Have you ever heard the phrase, “The end justifies the means”? For Jesus, this couldn’t be less true. A human, can justify performing the same atrocities committed against them to win a war or to accomplish a goal. For many of us, we may see no other alternative, no other solution if we want to succeed.

I’m not sure how many of you are familiar with the Hunger Games, it is a book written by Suzanne Collins for teenagers and young adults. The movie was just recently released as well. In this book, Ms. Collins is making some very powerful statements about humanity’s character. In the book, after the United States fell because of all the things scientists have warned us about for years, a new government rises up called Panem. There were 13 districts to Panem, and some of the people decided to rebel against the strict laws and rules of the new government. The government won the war and completely destroyed the 13^th district and created the Hunger Games as a message to the people to never go against the government.

The hunger games forced each district to offer up one boy and one girl from the age of 12-18 to play in the games to the death. There is only one winner out of 24 children. It is to serve as a reminder of what the government can and will do to the people if they ever again think of rebelling. Well, after seventy-five years, a rebellion does begin. The leader of the rebellion chooses to make some awful choices to win the war, performing the same hideous acts that the people were rebelling against - all in the name of winning the war. The end justifies the means.

Jesus could have had the same mentality as many of us would have. God could force his will upon us at any time he chose. He created us, he can command us. But God’s love is not like human love. God’s love is selfless rather than selfish. God’s love is pure rather than tainted with greed and desire. God’s mission was not tainted by an obsessive need to win at all costs. God sent his Son to DIE so that we could be saved.

Jesus knew from the day he was born, that someday he would die an awful death for all the people he encountered in his life. Whether they spit upon him or spread cloaks for him, Jesus died for them all. By selflessly giving up his life, Jesus created Christianity because the disciples he left behind were changed for all time by what he had done. Jesus could have taken up a sword and fought his way to victory. He could have sent hordes of angels down to smite his enemies. Instead, with ultimate love and peace, he saved the world with only one death – his own.

What was Jesus thinking about as he rode into Jerusalem on that donkey? I’m not sure, but I do know that whatever he was thinking about, his thoughts and motives were much more pure than our own would have been.

Amen.