April 27, 2003
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Today is the last of the sermons in the series Renewed
By Faith. In the weeks between Ash Wednesday and Easter, we explored how to
deepen faith, grow wiser in faith, and to see how faith as a gift that makes it
possible for us to serve God and one another. Last week we celebrated the
victory of our faith through the resurrection. It has been quite a journey. With halleluiahs and the cry, “he is risen”, still on our lips and in our hearts, we live in the aftermath of the resurrection. We see part of it today. The Sunday after Easter is historically called Low Sunday, which is one way to explain the dramatic drop in attendance from last Sunday to this week. It is also about the emotional descent we experience as we move from the high peak of Resurrection day to somewhat below regular Sunday attendance. Even
in the aftermath of the resurrection, we see again what God can do. God sent
Jesus to the world, God mourned as Jesus endured the cross, God raised Jesus
from death to life. The risen Christ is among us and for that we thank God. Today’s
readings help us to know how to live in our gratitude. One of the ways we show
our gratitude and renew our faith in light of the resurrection by forming
communities of faith through which we develop and strengthen our faith. In other
words we become the church. The
church of Jesus Christ is a community of believers. The community grows stronger
when believers in Jesus Christ come together to sing, pray, hear the word
preached, feel the power of the Holy Spirit, find power to live, and find in
their souls the satisfaction of being with others who name Jesus Christ as Lord. That
is part of what the reading from Acts is about. “Acts
is affirmation of the joy, power and well-being that this community receives
when freed from fear according to the good gifts of God. This portrayal of
community is part of the church’s story of power, energy, and generosity given
by the living God” (Texts
for Preaching – Year B. Louisville. Word/John Knox Press. 1993, p.277). Our response in the aftermath of the resurrection is also part of the church’s story. I dare say that the fact that we are part of the church of Jesus Christ, housed in this marvelous congregation makes it possible for us to respond in a positive way in the aftermath of the resurrection. I want to lift up four responses. First,
we respond by committing our resources to the church.
We read early in the book of Acts that the community in Jerusalem and
elsewhere made sure the material needs of their members were attended to in a
way that allowed everyone to live with dignity and hope. Here’s how they did
it. We are told that there was no private possession of anything that could help
the church, instead they held everything in common. Because they committed their resources, the apostles were able to tell the story of how they walked and talked with Jesus Christ. They were freed to teach. They could bear witness to what it meant to learn from him and to preach and pray in his name. They were free to tell how they saw him in his resurrected glory. They were free to speak with great power and the result was great grace – there was an abundance of vitality, hope, and meaning in the life of the early church. The
community was free to praise God and honor Christ because their material needs
were taken care of, in fact the people took care of each other. Then they
brought the proceeds from selling their property and placed it at the feet of
the apostles. Why
would they do such a thing? One writer explains it this way. “Many of the
early Christians were people of ordinary means, which, in the ancient world [and
this one], meant being especially vulnerable to changes in economic fortune. In
Israel of old, the family had usually been the protector of the individual who,
because of sickness or ill fortune, found him-or herself in dire straits. But
the new cosmopolitanism of the Greek and Roman world had resulted in a more
mobile society, one in which individuals – both Jewish and Gentile – were
often separated from the family and its protection. “In
Jesus Christ, however, there was not a new family: the church” (Texts
for Preaching, p. 279).
It
is to this new family, a family some of us have been part of all of our lives,
but which is new to others that we make a commitment. No matter how long we have
been in this family of faith, there is a kind of comfort in knowing that it is
part of what we do and who we are to take care of each other. That is what we do
when we stand with people in their grief and celebrate with them in their joy.
We care for each other as we greet one another by name if we can, and meet new
friends and with warmth always. These acts of care and hospitality along with
our gifts of time and treasure, are what we bring to the church now. I
know that as generous as we are, there is something a bit unnerving about these
verses. If we are being honest, few of us would be willing to sell our homes,
our cars, our jewelry, our books, our tools, our computers, our televisions, our
most prized possessions and give the money to the church. There is something in
us that says there is something fundamentally wrong with holding my possessions
in common with everyone else’s. It doesn’t respect me as an individual.
Besides, it is un-American. Plus, we love our stuff. We work hard for it, we
want to pass it one to our heirs, we might need it later. What do you think we
are a bunch of Marxist? Of course not. Committing our resources to the church, no matter how much or how little is not a matter of politics and punishment for success, but of stewardship. Whether we tithe, or give more than 10% or less than 10% of our money to the church, whether you give your time weekly, monthly, or whenever you can, what you give is a matter for you to pray about and decide. I would just ask you to consider this. All that we have has been given to us by God who gave his only Son to the world. How to we respond to such a gift? In the aftermath of the resurrection, we commit our resources to the church of Jesus Christ. Second,
we acknowledge with the gospel of John that the resurrection can raise up fear
in us. Reflecting on what the resurrection might mean is frightening, especially
for the disciples. My guess is that they spoke in whispers, if they spoke at
all, and when they did speak their language was surely fearful. “Look, the
people who killed Jesus are probably looking for us. So let’s just stay
put”. They might not have been sure about the resurrection, but in its
aftermath they knew fear. It
is possible to recognize the Christ who comes to us even
when we are afraid. So it was for the disciples who sat huddled and
shaking for fear. Early that Sunday morning they had heard about the
resurrection. Mary Magdalene, Peter, and the one known as the beloved disciple
had seen the empty tomb. But having been told, they do not believe it quite yet.
What they know is fear. Have you ever been so afraid that you didn’t want to
open the door, answer the phone, look out the window, or move from your seat?
Have you ever been so paralyzed by fear that you were nearly numb? Then you know
how the disciples felt. Here’s
the thing for the disciples and for us. When we are overwhelmed by fear, the
Christ who has looked out for us, taught us, loved us, kept us, received our
prayers will come to us. Jesus came to them in the middle of their fear and
trembling. He comes to us in the midst of ours and says, “peace be with you”
and in that word there is power for the disciples then. “The
disciples need it because they are acting like disciples whose leader is
dead.” Their fear “puts them, of course, in the same camp as the parents of
the healed blind one and secret disciples like Joseph of Arimathea…Apparently,
even the formerly ‘beloved’ disciple has been reduced to this sorry state of
fear” (Howard-Brook,
456) (www.lectionary.org/April27_John_20_19-31.htm). We need that same assuring word, “peace be with you”. We need it because we too live every now and then as if Jesus was laid in a tomb never to be seen again. We live as if fear is inevitable and controlling, as if hope were useless, and as if our lives are meaningless. It just may be that when we are down, the risen Christ shows up and lifts us up. The disciples recognize Jesus by his wounds and they rejoiced. As
they rejoiced, they begin to learn the third lesson of
the aftermath. It is that the risen Christ has some gifts for us. He
gives his peace again, but that is not all he is given. God through the risen
Christ gives the gift of the Holy Spirit, breathed into us. We have Christ’s
own vitality in our being. We have the power to forgive or retain sins, to let
things go or to hold onto them. I vote for working things through and letting
them go, otherwise our lives will get too and too consumed by what hurts rather
than what heals. Imagine
how excited the disciples were with that gift of life and love from Christ.
Imagine how their excitement was challenged by Thomas who was not present and
then missed the gift and the blessing. “We
have seen the Lord!” they say. Thomas says, “I won’t believe it till I
have real physical proof. I want to see the nail prints in his hands and wounds
in his side. Then I will believe!” Thomas is so us. We want to see for
ourselves – we sometimes require proof of who Jesus is – we say, “I need a
miracle. I need to know without a doubt that what you say is true”. It
may just be that when we are in a doubting mood, Jesus shows up to give us hope.
Look at what Jesus does. He offers to let Thomas touch him. He says to him, “if
you need proof, here it is. But how much more will you be blessed, if you simply
believe?” We don’t know if Thomas touched Jesus. Maybe it was enough
for Thomas to see Jesus as he was. What we do know is this: as a result of his
encounter with the risen Christ, Thomas makes a bold proclamation. “My Lord
and My God”. My redeemer and
creator, my sovereign and my savior. The risen Christ has offered his gift of
life and spirit to us, will we receive it? I
pray we do, because when we do, we will have learned the fourth
lesson which is that Jesus, the risen Christ, will give us what we need
to believe the good news of the resurrection. He
was dead, now he lives. We were afraid, now we have courage. We did doubt, now
we have hope. That good news leads us to act in ways that declare that we are at
peace with God and active in the world. It shows that the gift of the Holy
Spirit is ours and we will act boldly in its name. The good news is that we
desire and pray, and act, and declare that we do not doubt, but believe. Jesus
said to the disciples, “as God has sent me, so I send
you”. Jesus commissions his disciples as he did in Matthew’s great
commission. But being sent out raises the question, what are we being sent to
do? When Bill Edwards was here leading our transformational evangelism workshop
a few weeks ago he shared the Mission Imperative of the Christian Church
(Disciples of Christ). A copy of the imperative is on my study door. Listen to
what our whole church is about, and see if you don’t agree that we can claim
this imperative, this statement of what we are about for this congregation. What
is the imperative? It is to proclaim a vision, “to
be a faithful growing church that demonstrates true community, deep Christian
spirituality, and a passion for justice”. It is to declare a mission, “to
be and to share the Good News of Jesus Christ, witnessing, loving and serving
from our doorstep to the ends of the earth”. And it is to “strengthen
congregational life for this mission.” We
have chosen in this congregation to strengthen ourselves by making it clear that
when we open our doors to all who are seeking a relationship with Jesus Christ,
we really do mean all. We have a story to tell and lives to help transform. And
on your behalf, the people who were at the Transformational Evangelism meeting a
few weeks ago accepted the challenge to introduce a person to the gospel of
Jesus Christ, and to introduce them to this congregation by April, 2004. Can we?
I believe we can. I
believe we can because as we live in renewed faith, we give witness to all the
world that we serve a risen savior who was dead, but now lives forevermore. And
because he lives we too will have life to live, to share, to receive. Dr.
LaTaunya M. Bynum |
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Broad
Street Christian Church
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