April 28, 2002
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Vital People: Whose and Who Are You? Prayer: Open your heavens to us, God of all
worlds. We long for the pure spiritual milk you provide so we may grow into
salvation. We are your people, sisters and brothers of your Chosen One. Let us
this day be built into a spiritual house, a community of your faithful people.
Keep us from judging those whose views differ from our own, or from throwing
stones at those with whom we disagree. Incline your ear to us and rescue us from
ourselves, we pray in the name of Jesus. Amen. (Invocation for the 5th
Sunday of Easter Taught by Love by Lavon Baker, United Church Press) Today, I want to suggest that another part of our vitality comes from our sense of knowing whose and who are you. To whom do we belong? If we are married, or in another strong faithful relationship, if there are people we love deeply and are related to by blood and close friendship, we can answer that question. We can say that we belong to a spouse, a partner, a parent, a child, to a group of trusted friends, and they belong to us. We belong to political parties, sororities, fraternities, and other civic and social organizations. We proudly wear the T-shirts, sweatshirts, caps, and other paraphernalia of schools and sports teams to whom we give loyalty and allegiance. Certainly we are formed by those relationships - both for good and for ill. Whose and who are we? Last Monday evening and Tuesday morning, Peter Gomes gave two lectures and a sermon at Trinity Lutheran Seminary. Many of you know that he is the author of The Good Book: Reading the Bible With Mind and Heart. Monday night he reminded us of what Stephen and the early church knew. We are not promised security, perfection, or protection. Life will get hard and there are days when we will be hurt. But, we live with the promise of the eternal love and presence of the One who said, “in this life you will have trouble, but be of good cheer, be of good courage, take heart. I have overcome the world (John 16.33).” He has overcome a world that confuses justice with revenge, reconciliation with seeing things my way, and public advocacy as support for the way things are. We have a relationship beyond those we can grasp, so there is a faith dimension to the question of belonging and identity. We belong to God, we are part of the company of those who bear the name Christian. We are bold to make the claim that our vitality comes from our belief that we can rely on God in good times and in bad times. The witness of Katharina von Schlegel and Jane Borthwick is true and we can say with them: “Be still my soul, for God is on your side Be still my soul, your best your heavenly friend Those “thorny ways” were not unknown to the early church. Stephen, one of the first Christian martyrs (a word which means witness), knew a difficult time as he faced death. The apostle Peter knew thorny ways in his life with Jesus and now has written to a church facing persecution to encourage them to keep and to strengthen their faith in a difficult time. We know that time because our time feels similar to it. It is hard to be a person of faith these days. What are we to make of this time of random violence, clergy sexual scandals, war in the middle east, and other places, students and teachers shot in Germany, two young men killed on the east and west sides of our city. What shall we do, what can we say? The witness of Stephen the end of whose story was read earlier, and the witness of I Peter is that difficult times are precisely the time to keep the faith because of whose we are and who we are. As we draw strength from Stephen’s courage, listen to Peter’s encouraging words and see if you cannot affirm a strong sense of whose and who you are. At the moment of his death, Stephen looked up and saw the heavens open. He prayed for two things, that Christ would receive his spirit, and that his executioners would be forgiven. He could petition for their forgiveness because he knew he would be forever part of the household of God. He knew whose and who he was. Even at the moment of death - while Saul who has not yet had his own experience with Christ, and whose name is not yet Paul - even then Stephen knew he was a Christian, a proclaimer, a deacon, and a servant minister of Jesus Christ. And hear in Peter’s words to the church then and to us now three means of finding our way to becoming vital people. First, hear a word of instruction which can be summed up in three words: let it go. Work it out, pray it out, throw it out. Whatever is weighing you down, and filling you with negativity and poison, get rid of it. That is not easy, if we have been hurt at all, we have a lot of stuff stored up. Peter is clear, “rid yourself of all that gets in the way of good relationships. Don’t be one of those people who never have a good word to say about anyone. Get rid of what embitters, make room in your heart for what encourages. Replace the bile that chokes with the spiritual milk that feeds and soothes. Take in, exercise, nourish, those qualities that help you grow up into a real, eternal relationship with Jesus. Let go of what saps vitality, take in that which feeds it, then we can become vital disciples and followers of his. Second, because we are followers of his, we can hear and accept his invitation to be part of the household of faith. The invitation is that we can be built up stone by stone into our own spiritual house (it’s a better, stronger metaphor for the church than last week’s sheep example). We can look around at what appears to be a heap of rocks and see real live stones. We can see a solid rock on which we can stand. The rock we stand on is Christ himself. We know that he was rejected by people, even by the One credited with writing this letter. But because God held him precious and he holds us precious, we too can come and grow with the living stone. Our reading says we can be built into a spiritual household because we follow the one who is the cornerstone of the household. A cornerstone serves several functions in a building. Simply put, the role of the cornerstone is to unite two walls. It is Jesus himself who has united us in spite of our divisions. A cornerstone represents a starting point - our Christian faith begins and ends with him. A cornerstone is indispensable - where would we be without our relationship with him? It is the chief foundation on which a thing is built. Our faith stands on the love of Christ for us and ours for him. As important as the symbol of the cornerstone is, other translations [the NIV] of this passage refer to Jesus not as the cornerstone, but as the capstone. Both images are helpful to us. A capstone is the finishing stone of a structure, it is at the center of the arch of a structure, it pulls together what came before and what will come after. Whose are we? We belong to the One on which households of faith are built. Our invitation is to come to the one on whom the whole structure of our lives depends. And we are invited to invite others in. Some will come in gladly if they are convinced that there is life and love and hope for them here. Others will look at us and see only stumbling blocks and a useless rubble of broken stones and they will go on their way. They may reject this stone, but we who have accepted the invitation to come in will find vitality, wholeness, and joy. But we do not just rest on the rock. We do not rest because of the third thing we find. Because we are followers of his, we have an life changing, eternal identity in him. We have this identity so that we can proclaim day by day the mighty acts of Christ who called us from the dim darkness of our lives into God’s great light. Christ himself has given us light. We need not stumble around in darkness any longer. But the witness of scripture is that we are God’s own people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation. We are among those anointed by God’s own Holy Spirit to declare that we have some mighty acts of our own. We have sacred work to do. Who are we? We are people committed to justice. The prophet Micah tells us that justice is what God has shown us we are to do. When we are about justice, people and institutions are held accountable, people who are fed, and housed, healthcare is accessible, and streets and nations are safe. We do justice when we live in balance with God and with others. We are called to do justice. We are committed to acts of reconciliation and public advocacy. We are doing mighty acts when we practice justice and live as reconciled people. II Corinthians declares that we have been given a ministry of reconciliation - of bringing people together with us and of being in right relationship with God. I believe that a commitment to justice and reconciliation leads us to public advocacy which calls us to take some risks. Matthew 25 talks about public advocacy: the hungry are fed, the naked clothed, the sick and imprisoned are cared for, Jesus himself is seen and served in the lives of the least among us. Justice, reconciliation, and public advocacy mean committing ourselves to being an anti-racist, pro-reconciliation church, and congregation. Rich Haines, Marshall Barnes, and Mary Anne Glover are part of a regional team that is training lay people and clergy, as they did here yesterday in this important issue and we are looking for a way for all of you to hear about their work. There are other important issues for us to consider. We have met in Church School for the last several weeks and we’ll meet again in a few weeks to continue to discern how we say publicly that we welcome people without regard to race, age, class, gender, or orientation into every aspect of this congregation’s life. That decision will not be without controversy, but I believe and I believe you believe that it is what God has called us to do. And I believe that every time we gather, we declare one more time that we believe that the Christ who gave his life for the sake of the world is the corner and capstone of our lives and offers himself to everyone. We are a chosen race, God has placed us here to represent the good news of Christ in the world, and we are loved. We are a royal priesthood, there is sacred work for us to do as we serve each other and the people around us. We are God’s own people, we have a sacred covenant with God and with God’s people. There is this one caution, being a chosen race, a royal priesthood, God’s own people is not a mandate for us to dominate anyone, not another group of people, not another individual, not another culture, not another nation. Remember, these words of Peter’s have been translated in most of the languages of the world. The entire literate world can find hope in them. So we hear as do people throughout the earth an institution, an invitation, and a means for finding vitality through identity as one of Christ’s own. Because we are followers of his, we know who we are - we once were not a people. We had no vitality, little purpose, little hope, and little mercy. Now we are God’s. Now we are sons and daughters of God, sisters and brothers of each other, who want to know Christ as Savior, who want all the vitality, hope, purpose, and mercy we can find. That is our good news, it is what we live and what we share and for it, and for Jesus Christ who embodies that God news, we says, thanks be to God forever and ever. Amen.
Dr.
LaTaunya M. Bynum |
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Broad
Street Christian Church
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