May 16, 2004
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Education
specialists say that the difference between receiving new information and
learning is our ability to internalize, to make a part of us the knowledge we
gain. On those days when Lanie comes in to practice on the organ, I like to turn
off the radio in my office and listen to the music. I will do the same thing
when Marc comes back in July, and I did it last Friday when Jessica was here
practicing. My ears hear them playing. My mind knows they are playing notes
beautifully, and my spirit is lifted as they practice their art. I know what
they were doing, but I have not internalized it to the point that I can sit down
and play anything other than random discordant notes. On
the other hand, since the first months of this year, we have internalized the
need for our congregation to be radically changed. There has been a burst of
energy; there is a movement of the Holy Spirit inside us that is emerging into
our lives and into our church. And from the inside out, we are being transformed
as surely as was the unnamed man Jesus healed at the pool that day. The
man at Bethzatha, which is the same place that some Bibles refer to as Bethesda
sat on a mat on a porch in the thirty-eighth year of an illness. He knew what
was necessary for healing, but he was unable to move close enough to the water
to be ready to jump in when the water’s healing powers were high. He
knew the tradition that said, “for an angel of the
Lord went down at certain seasons into the pool, and stirred up the water,
whoever stepped in first after the stirring of the water was made well from
whatever disease that person has” (verse
4, omitted from most manuscripts). The
Spirit of God does move and flow and heal, and can stir up what is inside us so
that it can find its way out. The man was not able to get to the water in time
but there was something inside him that was stirred up when Jesus asked if
wanted to be healed. After hearing that he was unable to get to the water, Jesus
said to him, “what you desire, the power to be restored, renewed, healed is in
you. You have inside you that which is ready to come out of you now. Let me help
you work from the inside out. Do these things three things for me: “Stand
up. Take up your mat. Walk”. Jesus
spoke three short sentences and the man immediately discovered that the voice of
Jesus is strong enough and powerful enough that the healing waters he sought
were not really necessary. What was necessary what that he respond to the word
of instruction Jesus spoke. The words had the power to change his life and they
have the power to change ours. Stand
up. To stand is to show that we have some strength in our legs and in our backs.
It means that we have something to receive for sure, but even more, something to
give in this place. Stand here for an inclusive community, a nurturing and
welcoming spirit, an environment for learning no matter our age and not matter
what we already know – because there is always more to learn. Inside this
congregation, we will stand up for the sake of the gospel of Jesus Christ
because we do indeed want to be healed of the sometimes paralyzing fear of
change that surrounds us so that we can embrace the new things God is doing
here. We
can take up our mats that too often have been places not of rest, but places of
resistance and shake off and shake out the “we can’t afford it, there are
too few of us, we did it once, and it didn’t work” attitude. We
can with restored hearts and minds walk with an attitude that says we remind
ourselves daily that we are not the end of what has been. We are indeed the
beginning of the great things God has in store for us and we will start where we
are and walk into a future that beckons us to move forward in hope and joy. Are
we ready to walk into a ministry of welcome and hospitality that helps our
visitors and regular attenders learn the history of our church, this building,
and our ministries? I believe we are. We
walk because inside us waiting to come out is a response, a positive response to
the question, “do you want to be made well?” Yes we do. And the way to find
healing is by the power and grace that have come to us through our faith in
Jesus Christ. He makes it possible for our spirits to stand up and take up our
mats, because we are the church of Jesus Christ, we are invited by him to walk
with him into the world around us, a world so broken and troubled that we are
feeling and broken too, except we have this mission to let ourselves be
transformed from the inside out. That
is what Paul did. When we left Paul a few weeks ago, he had experienced his own
transformation. From the inside out he was changed from a persecutor of the
church to one who fearlessly proclaimed that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. But
first he had to take up his mat of hatred and walk into a new relationship with
Christ. Now
he and his traveling companions Silas and Timothy are in Philippi. They have
made their first trip to Europe through what is now Greece and Turkey because
Paul had a vision in which a man said simply “come help us in Macedonia”. We
don’t know what the need was but we do know that there was something in Paul
that caused him to understand that the call to go to Macedonia was a call from
God. As
he goes, Luke, who wrote both the gospel of Luke and the Acts of the Apostles,
is telling us something about the mission of the church. “Luke keeps
reinforcing his central theme of expansion of the church into the whole world
across every barrier. Luke hopes that we will be able to identify with his
accounts of the dilemmas within early congregations by comparing them with our
own congregations and attempt to live out the faith in our day” (Interpretation
series. Acts. William Willimon. Atlanta: John Knox Press. 1988, p.133). One
thing we learn from Paul’s journey is that we have within us the ability to go
where the need is. Listen to the voices all around us. Come help us we hear,
build a better community. Come help us declare that God desires a just and
peaceful world. Come help us grow closer to the God in whose image we are
created. Come help us care for the least among us, strengthen every family among
us and, love all among us. Certainly
the heart of Paul’s trip to Philippi is a visit to a prayer group by the
river. He goes to find people of prayer and discovers by the riverside a group
of women including the businesswoman Lydia, a dealer in fine fabrics. She is a
seller of purple goods, the colors of the priesthood and royalty. She is also a
believer in God, and something within her is so moved by what Paul has to say
that she and her household offer themselves to Christ in baptism. By her act of
faith, Lydia is the first European converted to Christianity. That Lydia is a
woman is not insignificant for the church. William
Willimon reminds us that “when compared to conventional Jewish, and Greek and
Roman ideas about women, the church must have seemed radical in the way it
welcomed women and featured them as leaders and prophets (I
Corinthians 11.2-16). Women could be members
of this movement without the permission of their husbands, and they may, though
Paul advised against it, initiate divorce from a pagan husband (I
Corinthians 7.13). The early church had women
leaders like Lydia even though it seems to have struggled to square the cultural
norms about women with the experience of the gifts and leadership of women
within early congregations. Again, Luke signals that the church will be for
everyone. Lydia
is also a woman of means. While Luke warns the church that attachment to our
possessions can be a dangerous trap, he does not condemn the wealthy for being
wealthy. In fact he tells story after story of people using their resources for
good causes: Zaccheus
is redeemed by Jesus and gives half his money to the poor; it is the Good
Samaritan who pays the bills for a victim of random roadside violence. Cornelius
who Peter met in our reading last week, is known for his charitable works, and
now Lydia, the successful businesswoman not opens her home to Paul. Paul accepts
her generosity and ushers in a new era of inclusiveness. “That
Paul consented to stay in her house as the recipient of her hospitality
indicates that barriers which sometimes divided male and female or divided Jew
from gentile Jewish convert within synagogues do not hold in the church. Lydia
is now free to be hospitable, and Paul is now free to welcome her as a sister in
Christ” (Willimon, p. 137-138). So,
what do we learn from the man at the pool and the woman at the river about our
own life of faith? What is inside us waiting to come out and show itself as
servants of Christ all in the name of God? We
learn that we can develop and strengthen our desire to let God’s love show
through us in our relationships with people. Jesus gave healing love to the man
at Bethzatha. Paul talked about the love of Christ and prayed with Lydia. Their
lives were changed forever as they learned that the good news of Jesus Christ
can strengthen the weak, encourage the downhearted, liberate the minds and souls
of the oppressed, and help raise the self-esteem of the emotionally defeated. It
is a presence like no other and it has been given to us as a gift. What will we
do with this gracious gift of love? Our
friend at the pool and Lydia by the river were changed because they internalized
what they heard. The man believed at last that he could stand up and walk. Lydia
believed and received Christ as her savior and then was moved to offer Christian
hospitality to the traveling evangelists. They both acted on the word they
heard. Today we talk about investment and ownership and about being a
stakeholder. All of which means that we have made a commitment to being part of
the church, and that we will act on that commitment by helping to build up our
part of the body of Christ. Finally
there is the water that the man thought he needed to enter and the water Lydia
and her household did enter to show that she had been made new in Jesus Christ.
Whether an angel moves the water when we need it to, or not, water still has the
power to stir us. Water is life. We lived in it before we were born. We need it
now for safe food and healthy bodies. Water is the means by which we make public
the spiritual decision to join our lives to Christ and to the church. We come to
the water for baptism and so commit ourselves to live as Christ’s followers in
the world. Some in this congregation now have expressed a readiness to be
baptized and we will welcome them and others into the membership of this
congregation after a time of preparation that will begin this summer. As
we baptize new members we will continue the heritage of the man at Bethzatha and
Lydia and countless others who have been changed forever from the inside out,
all by the name and grace of Jesus Christ. As we do, may Jesus Christ be
praised. Thanks be to God.
Amen. Dr.
LaTaunya M. Bynum |
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Broad
Street Christian Church
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