For the past few weeks we have been reflecting upon the beginnings of the Christian church – those early years after the resurrection of Jesus. We have witnessed this time mostly through the experiences of Paul, the church’s first missionary, as told by the author of the Book of the Acts of the Apostles.
Now, when you come right down to it, this particular Biblical narrative is quite the adventure story. It has its share of prison escapes, church fights, grisly executions, and a good dose of circumcisions and healings thrown in for good measure.
Today’s story, however, has none of the swashbuckling elements that we have come to expect in the Book of Acts. In comparison, it is a tame piece of prose, a blip on the radar screen. Like a snapshot, it is a story so brief that it would be easy to skim right by it – onward to the next stoning or shipwreck.
However, I think that this little vignette about Paul and Lydia is worth stopping for, worth savoring for a few minutes because its message is terribly important to the Christian faith and particularly to a community church like we are.
The tale begins with a vision which Paul had in Troas, on the shore of the Aegean Sea, in what is now modern day Turkey. Now, in Paul’s day, the Aegean Sea was acknowledged as the boundary between East and West, for on its far coast lay Macedonia in what we now call Greece. So there was Asia on the Turkish side and Europe on the Greek side.
Anyway, here we have Paul enjoying the sunset one balmy evening, dabbling his feet in the briny water. Then, quite unexpectedly, our missionary experienced another one of those pesky visions. This time he witnessed a man standing on the far side of the Aegean Sea, pleading with him, "Come over to Macedonia and help us.”
Having learned to take these spectacles seriously after his experience on the Damascus road, Paul immediately scrapped his idea of heading east into Asia to spread the Gospel message and instead sailed west and arrived in Philippi, a city about as close to being the capital city of Macedonia as you could get.
There he and Silas and his other missionary buddies hung out for a few days until the Sabbath rolled around - and, like most preachers on that seventh day, Paul had the urge to – well – you know - preach. Whether he could not get top billing at the synagogue in the city or whether there were not enough religious males in Philippi to even have a congregation, we do not know.
However, what the author of Luke/Acts does tell us is that Paul ended up outside the city gates down by the riverside that Sabbath morning with a bunch of apparently well-organized women no less who looked for leadership to Lydia, herself not a Jew but still well versed in the Torah (a God worshipper, one translation calls her).
Apparently, these women met regularly in a small house to pray, preach, sing, and praise God. Now doing all this without the men folk was in and of itself quite unusual. Added to that was the fact that the women obviously welcomed newcomers and strangers because Paul and his friends were gladly received and made to feel at home in this small Gentile faith community. Such a welcome was not commonplace either as Jews and Gentiles did not mix freely.
Well, Paul must have preached a heck of a sermon that morning because, when all was said and done, Lydia first and then her whole community were baptized (each and every one of them), and she invited Paul into her home to rest up and stay a while.
Lydia then holds the distinction of being the first Gentile in Europe to be converted to the Christian faith. She is an interesting woman, and we know little about her except that she was in the business of purple cloth, a color of fabric associated with royalty and wealth.
Now we do not know if Lydia used the expensive method of dying her fabric (That would have been by utilizing mollusk shells, a real breach of Jewish kosher dietary regulations), or if she dealt with the knockoff version of purple dye based on a plant derivative.
But either way, it was physically demanding and dirty work and so generally would have been relegated to what the rich folk might have referred to as society’s riffraff. In short, Lydia was a blue collar worker, economically probably smack in the middle of the middle class, like a lot of us.
However, I am not concerned about her socioeconomic status this morning. What I find intriguing about Lydia is her unwavering commitment to hospitality. In a time when welcoming Christians into your home could be pretty dicey (what with all the persecution going on), Lydia opened her doors and her heart to Paul, paving the way for – and here is the interesting part for us - the notion that the church should be a diverse faith community where strangers with their sometimes strange customs and traditions are embraced.
There is a lesson here in Lydia’s little snapshot story. And it is a lesson that we as a community church really need to take to heart. But first, let’s talk about what a community church is – that is, what we here at RVCC are called to be.
My definition of a community church is a faith community that is rooted in the secular community. It arises out of the community itself as the community’s sacred place. When I read Ernie Knight’s history of our church, I found out that is exactly what occurred here. That long ago Ladies’ Mite Society did not set out to create a denominational church. They set out to build a church for their community here in Raymond.
Now we happen to be affiliated with the United Church of Christ, but we are first and foremost a community church. And that means one of our defining qualities is our diversity.
I mean, if you walk into the First Methodist Church or St. Someone or Other’s Episcopal Church, you are going to find a gaggle of Methodists or a passel of Episcopalians. The worship will be pro forma because in a Methodist church you will use the Methodist hymnal and in an Episcopal church you will use the denominational Prayer Book.
However, when you walk into a community church, it is not that straightforward. Because not everyone in Raymond is the same, it would follow that we can not expect everyone in our church to be the same. We come from an enormous spectrum of theological and political beliefs. We grew up with a variety of worship styles that we bring with us here because those rituals and traditions are an important part of who we are.
This inbred and inescapable diversity can be our greatest strength, or it can be our most profound weakness. It can be a source of unending excitement – or potentially destructive conflict.
But the lesson we learn from Lydia and Paul is this: diversity is good. We are called to welcome the politically conservative Baptist stranger and the theologically liberal unchurched newcomer – and so we are called to, maybe not like, but still embrace those rituals and traditions that they bring with them – because their rituals and traditions are as much as part of them as ours are of us.
And I believe that, as a community church – particularly in this day and age of growing narrowness and parochialism – we are called to unceasingly expand our notion of community. As our bulletin reminds us, we are “ministers to the world.”
Think of it this way, if Paul had not preached to the Gentiles with their different customs and strange dietary laws, you and I would not be sitting in these pews today, and Christianity would most likely have remained a sect of Judaism.
So what does all this embracing diversity and welcoming other traditions mean for us? First and foremost, it goes without saying that racism, sexism, ageism – all the isms have no place here. And, for me, as your pastor, it means that I can not possibly please everyone all of the time.
Hey – it is a fact! Someone is not going to like a sermon because it is not inspiring enough – or it is too liberal – or not liberal enough. Someone is not going to like the musical responses because they are in a foreign language or because they have African roots or call for a drum. Someone is not going to appreciate a new hymn when the hymn supplement is filled with the old ones he or she grew up with. And for some of us, the hymn supplement is filled with music we never heard before we came here because those songs were not part of our church tradition.
Sometimes, as your pastor, I feel like I am doing a carefully orchestrated balancing act, seeking to proclaim the Gospel by weaving with Donna between hymnals and musical styles, seeking to proclaim the Gospel by threading my way through ritual and tradition, on the one hand, and new ways of looking at our ancient stories, on the other hand. But as Paul and Lydia would surely agree - this is good – and it is energizing – and it is fun.
In many ways, a community church like ours is similar to Maine weather. You know how the saying goes: if you do not like the weather in Maine, then wait five minutes. Well, if you do not like what is going on in worship or education or mission, wait – it will change. We are a community church – and nothing is written in stone.
I believe that as long as we keep talking with the appropriate people about what we like and not just dissing the music or the sermon or the worship style or the curriculum or whatever we do not like – but instead offer suggestions to make those aspects of our community life more meaningful, our diversity will be the most wonderful source ever of creative dynamism and life.
It may not always be comfortable for everyone all the time here, but a community church is not supposed to always be comfortable. It is supposed to be a place where we can experience God and deepen our spirituality in different ways. Sometimes those styles are well within our comfort zone, but sometimes they are strange or just rub us the wrong way.
But, hey, that is the nature of the beast. That is life in a community church which values openly sharing our faith journeys – different as they may be - , which values being assured that if we stray into narrowness or any of the isms, someone will be there to beckon us back to the openness and acceptance that Jesus expects from us who call ourselves his followers.
Rev. Nancy Foran is pastor of the Raymond Village Community Church, Raymond, Maine
http://www.rvccme.org/
Wednesday, May 19, 2010
Wednesday, May 5, 2010
Revelation 21:1-6 God's Dream
Earlier this week, while she was volunteering in the Church Office folding your bulletins and inserts, Frances saw the Scripture reading and commented that she had never heard anyone preach from the Book of Revelation and did not know that any verses were even included in the lectionary.
In fact, there are just a couple of passages from this strange narrative in our three year cycle of readings – perhaps because the creators of the lectionary intuitively understood that the Book of Revelation, this last book in our Bible, is one that most of us who inhabit staunch New England Protestant churches would rarely touch with a ten foot pole.
However, even if we have never ventured to read it from start to finish ourselves, we have certainly heard tell that Revelation is filled with exotic and incomprehensible symbols and psychedelic images of seven headed beasts and seven seals and brides and cities and angels and archangels and warfare and absolute destruction.
The Book of Revelation is that piece of canonized writing that can make us who are theological moderates feel pretty uncomfortable. It is difficult not to associate it with modern day doomsayers who point to chapter and verse as evidence that the end of the world is imminent.
Everything from the creation of the State of Israel in 1949 to the destruction of the World Trade Center in 2001 point to nothing else, they say. No wonder some of those folks railed against President Obama recently when he brought world leaders together to discuss nuclear disarmament. They claimed that the President was inhibiting the inevitable Armageddon by restricting the way we might go about destroying ourselves.
However, in spite of theologically conservative protestations to the contrary, like all of the books in our Bible, Revelation was written at a particular time to a particular group of people who had a particular history and culture and set of issues. As Christian theologian Marcus Borg wrote, like the Bible as a whole, the Book of Revelation needs to be taken seriously, but not literally.
In order to understand the significance for us of this particular passage that we read, we must understand its historical context. And so we begin by acknowledging that the author wrote this passage not for us as a manifesto outlining the sequence of events leading to the end of the world, but rather for a group of early Jewish Christians during a time of significant crisis in the early church.
The Book of Revelation is really a letter to seven churches, and it is written in the apocalyptic style. The community of faith that first heard it probably felt like they were living in some sort of end times – perhaps like you felt after September 11, 2001 or December 7, 1941.
It was as if your world was suddenly and forever changed. It was different and frightening, and you had all sorts of questions that no one seemed able to answer. Would you be safe? Would your family be safe? What was going to happen now?
For the Jewish Christians to whom this letter was written, two equally traumatic events had occurred. First, Roman armies had destroyed Jerusalem and leveled the Temple. The Holy of Holies was no more. All that was left standing was part of a single wall, where Jews today still congregate and wail.
But it was not only the physical razing of the Temple that was so terrifying. It was also the symbolic destruction of more than 500 years of sacred ritual and prayer. It was the death of a way of life. It was the loss of a place that had been central to Jesus and the culmination of his ministry.
And, second, in the aftermath of the destruction, Rome had singled out followers of Jesus for persecution. Jewish Christian men and women throughout the Empire faced social exclusion, economic embargos, and politically motivated religious harassment.
It was within this context of fear and loss that the people of the seven churches heard these marvelous words of hope that we read this morning. You see, the Book of Revelation – and this passage in particular – challenges us to call up our imaginations in even the worst of times.
Just imagine, the author seems to say, a world whether evil does not win. Just imagine a world that is not scary and lonely and out-of-control. Just imagine a world where our reason for being is grounded not only in the future, but also in the present. Just imagine that in the midst of all the evil, all the malice, all the pettiness God is creating a scenario where heaven and earth co-mingle. Just imagine a world where hope is the last word.
Too often our theology limits itself to hope in heaven only, and the earth is left behind or deemed irrelevant. But that is NOT what the author of Revelation tells us. Rather, he says that “God has moved into the neighborhood, making his home with men and women!”
As Church of the Brethren pastor, Peter Haynes, writes, “Here (HERE) then is God’s home, the home which God is even now in the process of making, not in some far off, ethereal never-never land, but here. A new heaven, a new earth, together.”
The passage that we just read is a dream. It is God’s dream, and it is a dream for this earth, not for some future world. And for the author of Revelation (as it should be for us), it is the only dream worth dreaming.
After all, it is what the Gospel is about. Remember how we marveled at Christmas time that the Word – God – had become flesh and was dwelling among us, full of grace and truth. We focused on a baby then. But, oh, the dream is so much bigger than that.
The Word has become flesh and even still dwells among us. And surely, if God is here, dwelling among us, God is in control. So, if nothing else, take comfort that our world – our lives – will not spin off into chaos.
You see, our most profound hope lies with the one who is in control, the one who will make all things new, the one who has been here since the beginning and who will always be here, the one who promises to wipe every tear from our eyes. In the end, we can only stake our lives on that kind of hope and the love it generates – because, in the end, little else will really matter.
The truth of this passage is not that the world will explode in some fiery Armageddon before God’s Kingdom comes. This vision in the final chapter of the final book of our Holy Scriptures is not about an ending. It is about a beginning.
God is at work in our world – creating and re-creating. “Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth – as it is in heaven.” It is a cosmic joining, an eternal intermingling.
And you and I are somewhere in the middle of this great unfolding drama, and our task is to live faithfully into the vision of the author of Revelation. Can we permit ourselves to "see" the unseen, to conceive of the good news of a new heaven and earth, to continue to long for a time of healing when the tears are finally wiped away from our eyes? That is the question.
Can we put to rest all of our pain and loss – as individuals and as this church family - for even a little while, long enough to breathe in the Spirit and trust in the One who makes all things new?
Not new things, by the way, but all things new. God does not start over. Rather God takes what it here and transforms it. God takes our lives and heals them. God takes all the broken pieces that are us and makes them whole once more. That is the big picture – even when the details are devastating.
I read a blog this week entitled “Magdalene’s Musings.” Its author writes that this passage in Revelation “beckons us to that place where we can find that we are already part of a new heaven and a new earth. (And that is why we share in communion together.)
When we gather around the table to break the bread and to take the cup, we are gently reminded that even painful memories, even our most devastating losses, can be gathered together and made holy in community.
They are made holy because, as Revelation reminds us, the home of God is among mortals. That is what our communion is about: we do this in remembrance of the One who suffered… who we lost… but who was raised again, and who lit for us the path to new life, life even after loss, life even after death.”
“God has moved into the neighborhood, making a sacred home…with us.” Thanks be to the Holy One!
Rev. Nancy Foran is pastor of the Raymond Village Community Church, Raymond, Maine
http://www.rvccme.org/
In fact, there are just a couple of passages from this strange narrative in our three year cycle of readings – perhaps because the creators of the lectionary intuitively understood that the Book of Revelation, this last book in our Bible, is one that most of us who inhabit staunch New England Protestant churches would rarely touch with a ten foot pole.
However, even if we have never ventured to read it from start to finish ourselves, we have certainly heard tell that Revelation is filled with exotic and incomprehensible symbols and psychedelic images of seven headed beasts and seven seals and brides and cities and angels and archangels and warfare and absolute destruction.
The Book of Revelation is that piece of canonized writing that can make us who are theological moderates feel pretty uncomfortable. It is difficult not to associate it with modern day doomsayers who point to chapter and verse as evidence that the end of the world is imminent.
Everything from the creation of the State of Israel in 1949 to the destruction of the World Trade Center in 2001 point to nothing else, they say. No wonder some of those folks railed against President Obama recently when he brought world leaders together to discuss nuclear disarmament. They claimed that the President was inhibiting the inevitable Armageddon by restricting the way we might go about destroying ourselves.
However, in spite of theologically conservative protestations to the contrary, like all of the books in our Bible, Revelation was written at a particular time to a particular group of people who had a particular history and culture and set of issues. As Christian theologian Marcus Borg wrote, like the Bible as a whole, the Book of Revelation needs to be taken seriously, but not literally.
In order to understand the significance for us of this particular passage that we read, we must understand its historical context. And so we begin by acknowledging that the author wrote this passage not for us as a manifesto outlining the sequence of events leading to the end of the world, but rather for a group of early Jewish Christians during a time of significant crisis in the early church.
The Book of Revelation is really a letter to seven churches, and it is written in the apocalyptic style. The community of faith that first heard it probably felt like they were living in some sort of end times – perhaps like you felt after September 11, 2001 or December 7, 1941.
It was as if your world was suddenly and forever changed. It was different and frightening, and you had all sorts of questions that no one seemed able to answer. Would you be safe? Would your family be safe? What was going to happen now?
For the Jewish Christians to whom this letter was written, two equally traumatic events had occurred. First, Roman armies had destroyed Jerusalem and leveled the Temple. The Holy of Holies was no more. All that was left standing was part of a single wall, where Jews today still congregate and wail.
But it was not only the physical razing of the Temple that was so terrifying. It was also the symbolic destruction of more than 500 years of sacred ritual and prayer. It was the death of a way of life. It was the loss of a place that had been central to Jesus and the culmination of his ministry.
And, second, in the aftermath of the destruction, Rome had singled out followers of Jesus for persecution. Jewish Christian men and women throughout the Empire faced social exclusion, economic embargos, and politically motivated religious harassment.
It was within this context of fear and loss that the people of the seven churches heard these marvelous words of hope that we read this morning. You see, the Book of Revelation – and this passage in particular – challenges us to call up our imaginations in even the worst of times.
Just imagine, the author seems to say, a world whether evil does not win. Just imagine a world that is not scary and lonely and out-of-control. Just imagine a world where our reason for being is grounded not only in the future, but also in the present. Just imagine that in the midst of all the evil, all the malice, all the pettiness God is creating a scenario where heaven and earth co-mingle. Just imagine a world where hope is the last word.
Too often our theology limits itself to hope in heaven only, and the earth is left behind or deemed irrelevant. But that is NOT what the author of Revelation tells us. Rather, he says that “God has moved into the neighborhood, making his home with men and women!”
As Church of the Brethren pastor, Peter Haynes, writes, “Here (HERE) then is God’s home, the home which God is even now in the process of making, not in some far off, ethereal never-never land, but here. A new heaven, a new earth, together.”
The passage that we just read is a dream. It is God’s dream, and it is a dream for this earth, not for some future world. And for the author of Revelation (as it should be for us), it is the only dream worth dreaming.
After all, it is what the Gospel is about. Remember how we marveled at Christmas time that the Word – God – had become flesh and was dwelling among us, full of grace and truth. We focused on a baby then. But, oh, the dream is so much bigger than that.
The Word has become flesh and even still dwells among us. And surely, if God is here, dwelling among us, God is in control. So, if nothing else, take comfort that our world – our lives – will not spin off into chaos.
You see, our most profound hope lies with the one who is in control, the one who will make all things new, the one who has been here since the beginning and who will always be here, the one who promises to wipe every tear from our eyes. In the end, we can only stake our lives on that kind of hope and the love it generates – because, in the end, little else will really matter.
The truth of this passage is not that the world will explode in some fiery Armageddon before God’s Kingdom comes. This vision in the final chapter of the final book of our Holy Scriptures is not about an ending. It is about a beginning.
God is at work in our world – creating and re-creating. “Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth – as it is in heaven.” It is a cosmic joining, an eternal intermingling.
And you and I are somewhere in the middle of this great unfolding drama, and our task is to live faithfully into the vision of the author of Revelation. Can we permit ourselves to "see" the unseen, to conceive of the good news of a new heaven and earth, to continue to long for a time of healing when the tears are finally wiped away from our eyes? That is the question.
Can we put to rest all of our pain and loss – as individuals and as this church family - for even a little while, long enough to breathe in the Spirit and trust in the One who makes all things new?
Not new things, by the way, but all things new. God does not start over. Rather God takes what it here and transforms it. God takes our lives and heals them. God takes all the broken pieces that are us and makes them whole once more. That is the big picture – even when the details are devastating.
I read a blog this week entitled “Magdalene’s Musings.” Its author writes that this passage in Revelation “beckons us to that place where we can find that we are already part of a new heaven and a new earth. (And that is why we share in communion together.)
When we gather around the table to break the bread and to take the cup, we are gently reminded that even painful memories, even our most devastating losses, can be gathered together and made holy in community.
They are made holy because, as Revelation reminds us, the home of God is among mortals. That is what our communion is about: we do this in remembrance of the One who suffered… who we lost… but who was raised again, and who lit for us the path to new life, life even after loss, life even after death.”
“God has moved into the neighborhood, making a sacred home…with us.” Thanks be to the Holy One!
Rev. Nancy Foran is pastor of the Raymond Village Community Church, Raymond, Maine
http://www.rvccme.org/
Sunday, May 2, 2010
Acts 9:36-43 Resurrection Legacy
Call her Tabitha – or call her Dorcas, if you happen to favor the Greek. Whatever name you use, understand that she was a pillar of the early church in Joppa, a town which was about 30 miles northwest of Jerusalem. Tabitha was greatly loved and respected by her congregation and by others whom she served throughout the community.
It has been said that “many are full of good words, who are empty and barren in good works; but Tabitha was a great doer, no great talker." (Matthew Henry) Tabitha must have had seemingly unending energy, for her ministry was a broad one.
This woman (who incidentally is the only female in the New Testament to be explicitly called a disciple), this woman felt called by God to a life of simply “doing good and caring for the poor.” Apparently, she was particularly sensitive to the abject poverty and significant needs of widows in her society.
There is evidence that she was exceedingly generous with her time – and with her resources. As the Gospel writer of Luke/Acts notes, Tabitha fashioned tunics and other garments for those in need, be they the beggars who wandered the streets or the widows who ate at the soup kitchens and inhabited the homeless shelters of Joppa.
As Presbyterian pastor, Laurie Anne Kraus imagines… “A child, dressed in a gown Tabitha had made, glowing with pride as she lifted her face for the water of baptism…..A poor man, rags discarded, clothed in sturdy homespun, standing straighter, his dignity restored….. Extra food, slipped onto the church's common table-always without a word…. Packets made up and slipped into the bundles of the widows who were too proud to beg, but whom, everyone knew, had too little to live on.” That was Tabitha. She noticed enough to care about everyone.
And then one day, Tabitha fell ill. Her body just gave out on her, and she died. Maybe she had been sick for a long time and just had not told anyone. Maybe she was worn out from all her caring. Maybe she was just old. But she died – and everyone in the Joppa church was in mourning.
The children wept in their baptismal gowns. The poor men sobbed in their homespun. The widows carried the coats and dresses she had made for them in their arms – almost as if by doing so they carried a piece of Tabitha close to their hearts – and they cried too.
Tabitha was so generous that her death first rattled and then devastated the little Christian community – as deaths of church pillars often do. Who would help the many widows of that city, the ones she had cared for? How would they survive now with her gone?
And in the midst of all the grief and the guesswork, someone must have figured that Joppa needed a grief counselor, and so two of the men in the community travelled the distance to Lydda and found Peter, the recognized leader of the nascent Christian movement. “Please hurry and come to us,” they implored. And Peter did.
But when he arrived, Peter did not sit down with the widows and children and poor men whom Tabitha had served. He did not ask them how they were feeling and encourage them to express their sadness even more openly. No – Peter sent them all away from the room where Tabitha lay in state. And what followed was a powerful and empowering moment.
Peter shut the doors and knelt by the dead woman’s body and prayed. You can almost hear the quiet because the author of Luke/Acts does not include any long winded and theologically complicated prayers. In fact, we do not know what Peter prayed about. We can only speculate – give me courage, give me strength, I do not know if I can do what I sense you want me to do, I do not know if I really am filled with your Holy Spirit and can do all the things you ask me to do in your name.
But whatever Peter prayed, he eventually came around to whispering “Amen.” Then he looked down at the still form of the saintly woman. “Tabitha, get up,” he said – simple words – and most definitely to the point – words that echoed the ones that Jesus had once said to the daughter of Jairus, lying years before on another deathbed. “Get up.” And Tabitha opened her eyes and did just that.
And we are left to wonder – and UCC pastor, Kate Huey, does “what went through Peter's mind, what was in his heart, what memory and what hope gave him the audacious confidence that he could say two words, and then count on God, right then and there, to do something so astonishing. In this Easter season, perhaps we don't really have to wonder long, and Peter's confidence is testimony to the power of God in his life, the things he has seen and experienced, and the effect all of it has had (on him).”
Then, without a word, Peter offered his arm to Tabitha as any gentleman would do to such a great and well-respected lady and helped her up. He opened the door and took Tabitha out into the sunshine and her mourners saw her alive once more.
Told in the style and even using some of the same vocabulary as similar stories in the Gospels, this tale of Peter and Tabitha harkens us back to the ministry of Jesus himself. It reminds us – as well it should – of stories such as Jesus bringing Lazarus back to life and raising the daughter of Jairus. Yet, here, in our tale this morning, it is not Jesus who restores life but Peter – and this fundamental difference is significant - for us and for the church.
As United Methodist minister, Daniel Hilty, notes, “You know, it’s a funny thing: before Easter in the Bible we’re only told about Christ himself doing this kind of work that Peter and Tabitha do in our Scripture reading today.
Before Easter it was Christ who went around bringing the dead back to life, it was Christ who brought hope and compassion to the poor and the forgotten. Sure, the disciples gave it a try too from time to time, and every now and then they’d do OK, but most of the time they’d fall flat on their faces, or they’d miss the point.
But all of that seems to change after Easter. After Christ’s resurrection things are different. Suddenly, folks like Peter are bringing life to the dead. Suddenly, people like Tabitha are offering hope to the widows and outcast.
Something seems to change at Easter: it’s almost as if Jesus’ work and power have been passed right along to the folks who came after him. After Easter, there’s a cosmic shift. Things are different because Christ has conquered the grave, and after that all other obstacles seem small by comparison.”
Belief in that “cosmic shift” lies at the very core of the church and its ministry – our ministry. This story of Peter healing Tabitha presents the apostle in the role of continuing the ministry of the risen Christ. This story would demonstrated to the early church – and should demonstrate to us - that Jesus is alive and still ministering to the world – through the apostles, through the believers, through the church.
You see, the church is so much more than dutifully sitting here on Sunday morning – though being here as one body and one community is important and not to be taken lightly. Here we are restored each week with strength and courage to go forth and minister in Christ’s name. However, that is a sermon topic for another time.
Today, if you leave this place with nothing else, carry with you a belief in the power of this faith community and the power of us as individuals within the church. Trust that within us – even you and me - is the same power that allowed Peter to bring new life to Tabitha and Tabitha to bring new life to the children, the poor, the widows she served.
As Biblical scholar and theologian, Walter Brueggeman, writes, “Clearly the narrative attests that Peter—the church—is entrusted with the resurrection power of Jesus who himself carries the force of the creator God. The church is entrusted with the power to create new life. . .bodily, concretely, locally.”
Because we are the church, you and I are resurrection people – like Peter and Tabitha. And that is both exciting and daunting. You and I have been touched by the Spirit and like our forebears in this story are capable of creating new life around us.
Oh, we may not do the laying on of hands thing and be quite as dramatic as Peter was, but surely we have it within us to minister with the depth and compassion of Tabitha. Through our efforts and the power of the Holy Spirit, our little corner of the world really can be transformed.
You see, the resurrection legacy has been passed on to us – to you and to me. We are what make the resurrection real in this crazy world we live in. We have been given the tools to dispense the miraculous power of life.
Those tools are in our hearts. They are in our hands and feet as we forge a strong commitment to go about – not thinking about or talking about - but actually doing the works of love and reconciliation to which the Gospel calls us. As Francis of Assisi once said, “Preach the gospel, and when necessary, use words."
Because you see, in the end, the Gospel is not about words. It is not about the words that say that what is most important is the personal relationship we may claim to have with Jesus. It is not about the words that point only to the future and where we fit into all eternity.
The Gospel is about doing. It is about action, about loving acts now, in this world. "The good news is about bringing life where there is death, love where there is hate, healing where there is brokenness.” (William Loader)
If Easter taught us anything, it should have taught us that the story is not over. The story is never over – because, as Peter and Tabitha illustrated in this little tale in the Book of the Acts of the Apostles, the power of the resurrection has been handed on to us – it is our legacy.
Rev. Nancy Foran is pastor of the Raymond Village Community Church, Raymond, Maine
http://www.rvccme.org/
It has been said that “many are full of good words, who are empty and barren in good works; but Tabitha was a great doer, no great talker." (Matthew Henry) Tabitha must have had seemingly unending energy, for her ministry was a broad one.
This woman (who incidentally is the only female in the New Testament to be explicitly called a disciple), this woman felt called by God to a life of simply “doing good and caring for the poor.” Apparently, she was particularly sensitive to the abject poverty and significant needs of widows in her society.
There is evidence that she was exceedingly generous with her time – and with her resources. As the Gospel writer of Luke/Acts notes, Tabitha fashioned tunics and other garments for those in need, be they the beggars who wandered the streets or the widows who ate at the soup kitchens and inhabited the homeless shelters of Joppa.
As Presbyterian pastor, Laurie Anne Kraus imagines… “A child, dressed in a gown Tabitha had made, glowing with pride as she lifted her face for the water of baptism…..A poor man, rags discarded, clothed in sturdy homespun, standing straighter, his dignity restored….. Extra food, slipped onto the church's common table-always without a word…. Packets made up and slipped into the bundles of the widows who were too proud to beg, but whom, everyone knew, had too little to live on.” That was Tabitha. She noticed enough to care about everyone.
And then one day, Tabitha fell ill. Her body just gave out on her, and she died. Maybe she had been sick for a long time and just had not told anyone. Maybe she was worn out from all her caring. Maybe she was just old. But she died – and everyone in the Joppa church was in mourning.
The children wept in their baptismal gowns. The poor men sobbed in their homespun. The widows carried the coats and dresses she had made for them in their arms – almost as if by doing so they carried a piece of Tabitha close to their hearts – and they cried too.
Tabitha was so generous that her death first rattled and then devastated the little Christian community – as deaths of church pillars often do. Who would help the many widows of that city, the ones she had cared for? How would they survive now with her gone?
And in the midst of all the grief and the guesswork, someone must have figured that Joppa needed a grief counselor, and so two of the men in the community travelled the distance to Lydda and found Peter, the recognized leader of the nascent Christian movement. “Please hurry and come to us,” they implored. And Peter did.
But when he arrived, Peter did not sit down with the widows and children and poor men whom Tabitha had served. He did not ask them how they were feeling and encourage them to express their sadness even more openly. No – Peter sent them all away from the room where Tabitha lay in state. And what followed was a powerful and empowering moment.
Peter shut the doors and knelt by the dead woman’s body and prayed. You can almost hear the quiet because the author of Luke/Acts does not include any long winded and theologically complicated prayers. In fact, we do not know what Peter prayed about. We can only speculate – give me courage, give me strength, I do not know if I can do what I sense you want me to do, I do not know if I really am filled with your Holy Spirit and can do all the things you ask me to do in your name.
But whatever Peter prayed, he eventually came around to whispering “Amen.” Then he looked down at the still form of the saintly woman. “Tabitha, get up,” he said – simple words – and most definitely to the point – words that echoed the ones that Jesus had once said to the daughter of Jairus, lying years before on another deathbed. “Get up.” And Tabitha opened her eyes and did just that.
And we are left to wonder – and UCC pastor, Kate Huey, does “what went through Peter's mind, what was in his heart, what memory and what hope gave him the audacious confidence that he could say two words, and then count on God, right then and there, to do something so astonishing. In this Easter season, perhaps we don't really have to wonder long, and Peter's confidence is testimony to the power of God in his life, the things he has seen and experienced, and the effect all of it has had (on him).”
Then, without a word, Peter offered his arm to Tabitha as any gentleman would do to such a great and well-respected lady and helped her up. He opened the door and took Tabitha out into the sunshine and her mourners saw her alive once more.
Told in the style and even using some of the same vocabulary as similar stories in the Gospels, this tale of Peter and Tabitha harkens us back to the ministry of Jesus himself. It reminds us – as well it should – of stories such as Jesus bringing Lazarus back to life and raising the daughter of Jairus. Yet, here, in our tale this morning, it is not Jesus who restores life but Peter – and this fundamental difference is significant - for us and for the church.
As United Methodist minister, Daniel Hilty, notes, “You know, it’s a funny thing: before Easter in the Bible we’re only told about Christ himself doing this kind of work that Peter and Tabitha do in our Scripture reading today.
Before Easter it was Christ who went around bringing the dead back to life, it was Christ who brought hope and compassion to the poor and the forgotten. Sure, the disciples gave it a try too from time to time, and every now and then they’d do OK, but most of the time they’d fall flat on their faces, or they’d miss the point.
But all of that seems to change after Easter. After Christ’s resurrection things are different. Suddenly, folks like Peter are bringing life to the dead. Suddenly, people like Tabitha are offering hope to the widows and outcast.
Something seems to change at Easter: it’s almost as if Jesus’ work and power have been passed right along to the folks who came after him. After Easter, there’s a cosmic shift. Things are different because Christ has conquered the grave, and after that all other obstacles seem small by comparison.”
Belief in that “cosmic shift” lies at the very core of the church and its ministry – our ministry. This story of Peter healing Tabitha presents the apostle in the role of continuing the ministry of the risen Christ. This story would demonstrated to the early church – and should demonstrate to us - that Jesus is alive and still ministering to the world – through the apostles, through the believers, through the church.
You see, the church is so much more than dutifully sitting here on Sunday morning – though being here as one body and one community is important and not to be taken lightly. Here we are restored each week with strength and courage to go forth and minister in Christ’s name. However, that is a sermon topic for another time.
Today, if you leave this place with nothing else, carry with you a belief in the power of this faith community and the power of us as individuals within the church. Trust that within us – even you and me - is the same power that allowed Peter to bring new life to Tabitha and Tabitha to bring new life to the children, the poor, the widows she served.
As Biblical scholar and theologian, Walter Brueggeman, writes, “Clearly the narrative attests that Peter—the church—is entrusted with the resurrection power of Jesus who himself carries the force of the creator God. The church is entrusted with the power to create new life. . .bodily, concretely, locally.”
Because we are the church, you and I are resurrection people – like Peter and Tabitha. And that is both exciting and daunting. You and I have been touched by the Spirit and like our forebears in this story are capable of creating new life around us.
Oh, we may not do the laying on of hands thing and be quite as dramatic as Peter was, but surely we have it within us to minister with the depth and compassion of Tabitha. Through our efforts and the power of the Holy Spirit, our little corner of the world really can be transformed.
You see, the resurrection legacy has been passed on to us – to you and to me. We are what make the resurrection real in this crazy world we live in. We have been given the tools to dispense the miraculous power of life.
Those tools are in our hearts. They are in our hands and feet as we forge a strong commitment to go about – not thinking about or talking about - but actually doing the works of love and reconciliation to which the Gospel calls us. As Francis of Assisi once said, “Preach the gospel, and when necessary, use words."
Because you see, in the end, the Gospel is not about words. It is not about the words that say that what is most important is the personal relationship we may claim to have with Jesus. It is not about the words that point only to the future and where we fit into all eternity.
The Gospel is about doing. It is about action, about loving acts now, in this world. "The good news is about bringing life where there is death, love where there is hate, healing where there is brokenness.” (William Loader)
If Easter taught us anything, it should have taught us that the story is not over. The story is never over – because, as Peter and Tabitha illustrated in this little tale in the Book of the Acts of the Apostles, the power of the resurrection has been handed on to us – it is our legacy.
Rev. Nancy Foran is pastor of the Raymond Village Community Church, Raymond, Maine
http://www.rvccme.org/
Sunday, April 25, 2010
Acts 9:1-20 "Get Up And Go"
For some of us, the story of Paul’s conversion stands out among all the Biblical narratives. If we attended Sunday School as children, the beginning of today’s Scripture passage includes some of the oft times remembered verses. They are right up there with the story of the birth of Jesus, the empty tomb, the 23rd Psalm, and the Parable of the Good Samaritan.
For those who might be new to this story or who might be a bit rusty on the details, Saul (which was Paul’s name before he was baptized) experienced a vision while en route to Damascus. His name change was an important symbol and signified that he was a new man, transformed, a different person.
At the time, Saul was carrying arrest warrants, a list of those people - all followers of Jesus – that he was bent on eliminating. Before his dramatic encounter with God when sacred light literally blinded him, Saul was at the forefront of the Christian persecution movement.
He was a rising star in formative Judaism and a multilingual scholarly rabbi. Saul was born a Hellenistic Jew in Tarsus and was a Roman citizen. He considered himself to be a strict Pharisee and so was part of the majority party or sect operant in first century Judaism.
Saul was passionate about his religion and devastated to see it being tainted by what Pharisaic Jews considered to be the unorthodox theology of Jesus’ followers. Saul was on a personal vendetta to stamp out the heresy he saw springing up around him.
He went to Damascus with one purpose in mind - to nip this heretical teaching in the bud. Saul did not see Jesus’ teachings as a new religion but rather as a wedge being driven into his Jewish heritage.
Saul spared no effort to stifle the spread of the Gospel. It was he who had initiated and carried out the grisly instances of religious persecution in Jerusalem and who intended to stop this perturbation of Judaism in the Holy City.
From overseeing the stoning of the apostle Stephen to, as the Gospel writer of Luke/Acts narrates, “just (going) wild, devastating the church, entering house after house after house, dragging men and women off to jail” with fire in his eyes, Saul went above and beyond the plain language of his Pharisaic job description.
And yet, even as Saul persecuted the believers, as the author of Luke/Acts calls the followers of Jesus, those believers scattered to far off lands – and, horror of horrors to someone like Saul, continued to preach and heal with even more vigor and vitality.
Saul was loath to see heretics bastardize his blessed religion, and so he pursued them. It was then that the incident on the road to Damascus happened. Out for the kill, Saul “got to the outskirts of Damascus. He was suddenly dazed by a blinding flash of light. As he fell to the ground, he heard a voice: "Saul, Saul, why are you out to get me?"
He said, "Who are you, Master?"
"I am Jesus, the One you're hunting down. I want you to get up and enter the city. In the city you'll be told what to do next." (The Message)
And the rest, of course, is history. Paul was struck blind and was led by the hand into Damascus where he did not eat or drink anything for three days. However, before the week was out, he was no longer Saul but Paul, and he was preaching the Good News of Jesus the Christ.
Paul would go on, of course, to become Christianity’s first missionary, traveling throughout Asia Minor, first beginning and then visiting churches in Corinth, Philippi, Thessolonika, Ephesus, and elsewhere.
We remember him best however for the letters he wrote to those churches – letters of encouragement, letters discussing polity and procedural issues, letters expressing his version of the meaning of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. Many of Paul’s letters are the earliest written material we have about the Christian church and are dated even before the Gospels themselves. Writings by Paul and his associates make up more than half of the canon of our New Testament.
However, our view of Saul/Paul is one of 20/20 hindsight. From our perspective 2000 years later, we can understand his radical transformation and its impact on our own religious heritage. We can see that of all the people God could have chosen to spread the Good News of Jesus, Paul was an excellent pick. He was intelligent, educated and literate, and above all passionate beyond measure.
Paul loved God and God’s work in the world more than anything else. He was willing to travel – and ultimately would suffer and face imprisonment for his convictions. We know that God chose Paul for his passion and simply gave him an opportunity to focus that passion in a positive way.
But Paul is not the only character in this story. The other one, Ananias (already a Christian), does not get much press. Paul is the big cheese, and Ananias is a side light. However, he, like Paul, also had a vision – but unlike us did not have the benefit of 20/20 hindsight – and that is important in understanding Ananias’ significance.
"Get up and go over to Straight Avenue (as we read in The Message translation of this story). Ask at the house of Judas for a man from Tarsus. His name is Saul. He's there praying. He has just had a dream in which he saw a man named Ananias enter the house and lay hands on him so he could see again."
Ananias protested, "Master, you can't be serious. Everybody's talking about this man and the terrible things he's been doing, his reign of terror against your people in Jerusalem! And now he's shown up here with papers from the Chief Priest that give him license to do the same to us."
But the Master said, "Don't argue. Go! I have picked him as my personal representative to non-Jews and kings and Jews.”
And you have got to hand it to Ananias. He had probably lost family members and friends already to this murderous man, Saul. This was highly irregular from his perspective, and it is easy to understand his reluctance.
However, he did as God told him and laid his hands upon Saul’s eyes. The author tells us that something like fish scales fell to the floor (what a marvelous detail!), and Saul regained his sight. Ananias baptized him, and as we have said, the rest is history.
Ananias intrigues me much more than Paul does in this story because Ananias forces us to ask that difficult question: What would I have done in his shoes?
When God said, “Get ready and go” - would I have trusted my rational intellect that was screaming no, no, no – this man is dangerous, and I would be foolish to get within a mile of him? And besides, he deserves to be blinded for all the evil he has done.
Or when God said, “Get ready and go” - would I have trusted that little voice in me that was pleading that I put my faith in the Almighty and trust that good could somehow come from even this evil?
Oh, you and I will probably never have anything quite as dramatic as a vision like Ananias did. We will probably never be put into his difficult position of having to trust that God was indeed speaking to him in a circumstance that held the lives of hundreds of people in the balance.
However, surely each one of us will be – or has been - called to put aside our rational selves and to trust in a power greater than our own – as, in the end, Ananias was called to do. Let go, and let God, so to speak.
Maybe the world will hurl insults at our idealism, but we will hear that little voice inside of us whispering “Get ready and go” – make a difference, one school kit, one health kit, one heifer animal at a time. Trust that change can come out of the world’s irresolute cynicism.
Maybe the world will turn its back on us and we will feel so very much alone and ready to pack it all in, but we will hear that little voice inside of us whispering “Get ready and go” – go back into the world and you will find people to care for and people to care for you. Trust that community can come out of the world’s worst loneliness.
Maybe the world will flatten us with a loss so devastating that we will feel we have been stripped of everything we ever loved, but we will hear that little voice inside of us whispering “Get ready and go” – for you are not alone, for I am with you always, in all your struggles, in all your losses. Trust that life – new life – can come out of death, any death.
And above all, trust – as Ananias did - that in the end good will emerge out of what we can see now as only evil – for in the hands of God, all things are possible. In the hands of God, we are meant for change, for love, for life.
Rev. Nancy Foran is pastor of the Raymond Village Community Church, Raymond, Maine
http://www.rvccme.org/
For those who might be new to this story or who might be a bit rusty on the details, Saul (which was Paul’s name before he was baptized) experienced a vision while en route to Damascus. His name change was an important symbol and signified that he was a new man, transformed, a different person.
At the time, Saul was carrying arrest warrants, a list of those people - all followers of Jesus – that he was bent on eliminating. Before his dramatic encounter with God when sacred light literally blinded him, Saul was at the forefront of the Christian persecution movement.
He was a rising star in formative Judaism and a multilingual scholarly rabbi. Saul was born a Hellenistic Jew in Tarsus and was a Roman citizen. He considered himself to be a strict Pharisee and so was part of the majority party or sect operant in first century Judaism.
Saul was passionate about his religion and devastated to see it being tainted by what Pharisaic Jews considered to be the unorthodox theology of Jesus’ followers. Saul was on a personal vendetta to stamp out the heresy he saw springing up around him.
He went to Damascus with one purpose in mind - to nip this heretical teaching in the bud. Saul did not see Jesus’ teachings as a new religion but rather as a wedge being driven into his Jewish heritage.
Saul spared no effort to stifle the spread of the Gospel. It was he who had initiated and carried out the grisly instances of religious persecution in Jerusalem and who intended to stop this perturbation of Judaism in the Holy City.
From overseeing the stoning of the apostle Stephen to, as the Gospel writer of Luke/Acts narrates, “just (going) wild, devastating the church, entering house after house after house, dragging men and women off to jail” with fire in his eyes, Saul went above and beyond the plain language of his Pharisaic job description.
And yet, even as Saul persecuted the believers, as the author of Luke/Acts calls the followers of Jesus, those believers scattered to far off lands – and, horror of horrors to someone like Saul, continued to preach and heal with even more vigor and vitality.
Saul was loath to see heretics bastardize his blessed religion, and so he pursued them. It was then that the incident on the road to Damascus happened. Out for the kill, Saul “got to the outskirts of Damascus. He was suddenly dazed by a blinding flash of light. As he fell to the ground, he heard a voice: "Saul, Saul, why are you out to get me?"
He said, "Who are you, Master?"
"I am Jesus, the One you're hunting down. I want you to get up and enter the city. In the city you'll be told what to do next." (The Message)
And the rest, of course, is history. Paul was struck blind and was led by the hand into Damascus where he did not eat or drink anything for three days. However, before the week was out, he was no longer Saul but Paul, and he was preaching the Good News of Jesus the Christ.
Paul would go on, of course, to become Christianity’s first missionary, traveling throughout Asia Minor, first beginning and then visiting churches in Corinth, Philippi, Thessolonika, Ephesus, and elsewhere.
We remember him best however for the letters he wrote to those churches – letters of encouragement, letters discussing polity and procedural issues, letters expressing his version of the meaning of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. Many of Paul’s letters are the earliest written material we have about the Christian church and are dated even before the Gospels themselves. Writings by Paul and his associates make up more than half of the canon of our New Testament.
However, our view of Saul/Paul is one of 20/20 hindsight. From our perspective 2000 years later, we can understand his radical transformation and its impact on our own religious heritage. We can see that of all the people God could have chosen to spread the Good News of Jesus, Paul was an excellent pick. He was intelligent, educated and literate, and above all passionate beyond measure.
Paul loved God and God’s work in the world more than anything else. He was willing to travel – and ultimately would suffer and face imprisonment for his convictions. We know that God chose Paul for his passion and simply gave him an opportunity to focus that passion in a positive way.
But Paul is not the only character in this story. The other one, Ananias (already a Christian), does not get much press. Paul is the big cheese, and Ananias is a side light. However, he, like Paul, also had a vision – but unlike us did not have the benefit of 20/20 hindsight – and that is important in understanding Ananias’ significance.
"Get up and go over to Straight Avenue (as we read in The Message translation of this story). Ask at the house of Judas for a man from Tarsus. His name is Saul. He's there praying. He has just had a dream in which he saw a man named Ananias enter the house and lay hands on him so he could see again."
Ananias protested, "Master, you can't be serious. Everybody's talking about this man and the terrible things he's been doing, his reign of terror against your people in Jerusalem! And now he's shown up here with papers from the Chief Priest that give him license to do the same to us."
But the Master said, "Don't argue. Go! I have picked him as my personal representative to non-Jews and kings and Jews.”
And you have got to hand it to Ananias. He had probably lost family members and friends already to this murderous man, Saul. This was highly irregular from his perspective, and it is easy to understand his reluctance.
However, he did as God told him and laid his hands upon Saul’s eyes. The author tells us that something like fish scales fell to the floor (what a marvelous detail!), and Saul regained his sight. Ananias baptized him, and as we have said, the rest is history.
Ananias intrigues me much more than Paul does in this story because Ananias forces us to ask that difficult question: What would I have done in his shoes?
When God said, “Get ready and go” - would I have trusted my rational intellect that was screaming no, no, no – this man is dangerous, and I would be foolish to get within a mile of him? And besides, he deserves to be blinded for all the evil he has done.
Or when God said, “Get ready and go” - would I have trusted that little voice in me that was pleading that I put my faith in the Almighty and trust that good could somehow come from even this evil?
Oh, you and I will probably never have anything quite as dramatic as a vision like Ananias did. We will probably never be put into his difficult position of having to trust that God was indeed speaking to him in a circumstance that held the lives of hundreds of people in the balance.
However, surely each one of us will be – or has been - called to put aside our rational selves and to trust in a power greater than our own – as, in the end, Ananias was called to do. Let go, and let God, so to speak.
Maybe the world will hurl insults at our idealism, but we will hear that little voice inside of us whispering “Get ready and go” – make a difference, one school kit, one health kit, one heifer animal at a time. Trust that change can come out of the world’s irresolute cynicism.
Maybe the world will turn its back on us and we will feel so very much alone and ready to pack it all in, but we will hear that little voice inside of us whispering “Get ready and go” – go back into the world and you will find people to care for and people to care for you. Trust that community can come out of the world’s worst loneliness.
Maybe the world will flatten us with a loss so devastating that we will feel we have been stripped of everything we ever loved, but we will hear that little voice inside of us whispering “Get ready and go” – for you are not alone, for I am with you always, in all your struggles, in all your losses. Trust that life – new life – can come out of death, any death.
And above all, trust – as Ananias did - that in the end good will emerge out of what we can see now as only evil – for in the hands of God, all things are possible. In the hands of God, we are meant for change, for love, for life.
Rev. Nancy Foran is pastor of the Raymond Village Community Church, Raymond, Maine
http://www.rvccme.org/
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
Acts 5:27-32 "Where is the Evidence?
It was important to the High Priest that he maintain control in Jerusalem, especially during Passover when thousands of Jews were descending on the Holy City. After all, the Roman authorities expected as much, and, besides, the provincial governor, Pilate, was in town.
That was why Jesus had to be done away with. He had been a troublemaker from the moment he had staged that ridiculous parade through the secondary city gate. Everyone knows that parades lead to crowds that at some point become uncontrollable.
And, of course, that spectacle was followed by his rampage in the temple atrium – overturning tables and angering the sacrificial dove vendors. And who can forget Jesus’ showing up the temple Pharisees, beating them at their own intellectual game of theological cat-and-mouse.
Getting rid of Jesus was the only option. Burying him was surely the best solution. Then the High Priest would be done with the latest possibility of civil unrest and could set aside his deep fear of a mob scene.
And besides, he had the specter of Rome to consider. You never knew when something like this Jesus thing might draw the attention of the Emperor himself – and nothing good ever came from being anything other than far below the radar screen. And so, by means of a monkey trial and a series of complicated finger pointing, Jesus was executed – and all was quiet once more.
How disappointing then for the High Priest that the calm which always followed such gruesome crucifixion incidents only lasted three days. You see, those disciples of Jesus then came out of hiding and proclaimed that he was here once more – come back from the dead – raised to new life – resurrected.
The High Priest was currently in a peck of trouble since that first resurrection proclamation several months ago. Deterring the disciples (now called apostles) from preaching, healing, and teaching Jesus’ message was impossible. The one named Peter was the worst by far. Was there no understanding of the predicament the High Priest and his holy underlings faced?
As Church of the Brethren pastor, Peter Haynes, writes, “Jerusalem was dangerous enough as it was. Zealots were all over the place, people sick of Roman domination - ready to die in some holy war at a moment’s notice. With the benefit of history, we know that a generation down the road the fires would erupt among the people, and Rome would crack down with an iron fist, tearing apart the city brick by brick, so that all that would remain of the Temple would be one wall at which Jewish believers today still gather and wail, praying through their tears….Jerusalem was a powder keg ready to explode.”
Who were these blasted disciples – these ignorant men who dared to stand up to the vast intellectual capabilities and spiritual skills of the Jewish temple leadership? “Everyone said they were just fishermen and tax collectors - ignorant Galileans who ought to be frightened out of their wits by a show of power. They should have learned their lesson at Calvary.” (Haynes)
Peter, who all his life had led with his mouth – right up until the end when he had three times denied even knowing Jesus – Peter had already been jailed once for witnessing to Jesus and his message and for preaching an alternative and contrary Jewish theology. Then he had broken free and went back on the streets to tell the story of Jesus to as many people as he could before he was rounded up again.
This is where our Scripture lesson picks up. Hauled in before the Sanhedrin (the Jewish Council), Peter faced a High Priest who did not mince words. “Didn't we give you strict orders not to teach in Jesus' name?” the High Priest queried. “And here you have filled Jerusalem with your teaching.”
Impassioned by the Gospel message, Peter courageously responded with a confession of faith so bold that it angered the Jewish Council beyond measure. More thought out than his spontaneous outcry at Caesarea Philippi when he was first proclaimed Jesus as the Messiah, Peter spoke this time with a hint of steely resolve in his voice, “It is necessary to obey God rather than men.”
And if that was not confrontational enough, Peter went on to accuse the High Priest of killing Jesus, whom God had raised from the dead, pointing out explicitly how God’s power was more effective than the High Priest’s. “And we are witnesses to these things,” he finished triumphantly.
“You can imagine the uproar this must have caused in the high court: Pandemonium. A gavel banging repeatedly, drowned out by the roar of voices from the bench calling out in protest. A chorus of voices demanding the deaths of these people who were thumbing their noses at the legal system, even blasphemously daring to claim the authority of God for their actions and words.”
Here was a new Peter, a transformed Peter. This was not the Peter who, along with the other disciples, had been clueless about their calling for the three years they had tagged along with Jesus. As Presbyterian pastor, Heidi Petersen writes, “That was before: before Jesus’ crucifixion, before Peter’s own denial, before Peter saw the risen Christ, before the church received the gift of the Spirit. At this point, when the High Priest forbids Peter to witness, he might as well have been forbidding Peter to breathe.”
Of course, none of the apostles had started from this posture of astounding belief. They had all run away when Jesus was arrested. They had watched the grisly scene unfold from a distance – or not at all. Peter had not even believed when he saw the empty tomb. In one way or another, they had all been afraid, but not any more.
Now – with one another, in community - they stood up for Jesus, proclaiming his message and witnessing in his name.
This is surely a real swashbuckling tale of courage and resolve and standing firm in the face of tremendous odds. But what could it possibly say to us? After all, we are not likely to be brought before the Supreme Court to defend our Christian beliefs. So how does this story touch our lives?
You know, as I read the Scripture for today earlier this week, I thought that this text is really too good to be read the Sunday after Easter, when attendance is back to normal, and all the Easter church goers are doing what they usually do on Sunday mornings.
Would it not be fun some year on Easter to substitute this reading for the traditional empty tomb story? We could still have lilies and spring flowers. Scott could still play the trumpet. We could even sing the usual Easter hymns. But the scripture would be something like this passage from the Book of the Acts of the Apostles – because this is what is really important about Easter – and the Easter church goers never hear this part of the story.
They never hear specifically how encountering the Living Christ resurrects something deep inside you – how being part of a like minded community makes you foolish like Peter was in proclaiming the message of Jesus even when it flies in the face of cultural norms.
They never hear specifically how encountering the Living Christ transforms your life – how being part of a like minded community makes you courageous like Peter was in proclaiming the message of Jesus and going out to change the world, one healing at a time.
You see, this passage in Acts illustrates beautifully what is supposed to happen when we know the story of the empty tomb. In short, we are challenged to harness that Easter joy and faith we felt so deeply last week – and do something with it.
The author of Luke/Acts calls this “doing” “witnessing.” That is what Peter was up to when he challenged the Jewish authorities. Academic professor Kevin Wilson defines it like this: “Witnesses are not simply passive observers of an event; they must actively make known what they have seen."
You and I profess that we have encountered the Living Christ. You and I say that we are witnesses to this extraordinary event. That is why we are part of the church, part of this like minded community.
That being said, then I think that you and I are supposed to be courageous like Peter when it comes to being a Christian - whether we are in the pulpit or the pews. We are to try for that steely resolve.
I think you and I are meant to share our faith in words as well as deeds because doing so is the cost of discipleship, the cost of following Jesus, the cost of participating in the resurrection – even when Jesus’ vision, clashes with the cultural norms that remind us day in and day out that might makes right, that it is better to be safe than sorry, that we must first take what we need because there is not be enough to go around.
Witnessing as Peter witnessed means living as men and women who understand the sacrifice Jesus made on tour behalf and who respond with the love he called his followers to practice in his name, who both believe that the love of God in Jesus has overcome every barrier between them and God, and who react by proclaiming that forgiveness and love to all who will listen.
There was once a popular bumper sticker that read: “If you were charged with being a Christian today, would there be enough evidence to convict you?”
It is an intriguing question that bears serious thought – particularly right after Easter when we like the Easter church goers are sucked back into the ho hum of our lives. Yet, for us who have chosen to be part of the church, part of this community of like minded people, it is not that easy because now we have seen a glimpse of what Easter is all about, witnessed through the lens of Peter’s outspoken resolve.
“If you were charged with being a Christian today, would there be enough evidence to convict you?” Think about it.
Rev. Nancy Foran is pastor of the Raymond Village Community Church, Raymond, Maine
http://www.rvccme.org/
That was why Jesus had to be done away with. He had been a troublemaker from the moment he had staged that ridiculous parade through the secondary city gate. Everyone knows that parades lead to crowds that at some point become uncontrollable.
And, of course, that spectacle was followed by his rampage in the temple atrium – overturning tables and angering the sacrificial dove vendors. And who can forget Jesus’ showing up the temple Pharisees, beating them at their own intellectual game of theological cat-and-mouse.
Getting rid of Jesus was the only option. Burying him was surely the best solution. Then the High Priest would be done with the latest possibility of civil unrest and could set aside his deep fear of a mob scene.
And besides, he had the specter of Rome to consider. You never knew when something like this Jesus thing might draw the attention of the Emperor himself – and nothing good ever came from being anything other than far below the radar screen. And so, by means of a monkey trial and a series of complicated finger pointing, Jesus was executed – and all was quiet once more.
How disappointing then for the High Priest that the calm which always followed such gruesome crucifixion incidents only lasted three days. You see, those disciples of Jesus then came out of hiding and proclaimed that he was here once more – come back from the dead – raised to new life – resurrected.
The High Priest was currently in a peck of trouble since that first resurrection proclamation several months ago. Deterring the disciples (now called apostles) from preaching, healing, and teaching Jesus’ message was impossible. The one named Peter was the worst by far. Was there no understanding of the predicament the High Priest and his holy underlings faced?
As Church of the Brethren pastor, Peter Haynes, writes, “Jerusalem was dangerous enough as it was. Zealots were all over the place, people sick of Roman domination - ready to die in some holy war at a moment’s notice. With the benefit of history, we know that a generation down the road the fires would erupt among the people, and Rome would crack down with an iron fist, tearing apart the city brick by brick, so that all that would remain of the Temple would be one wall at which Jewish believers today still gather and wail, praying through their tears….Jerusalem was a powder keg ready to explode.”
Who were these blasted disciples – these ignorant men who dared to stand up to the vast intellectual capabilities and spiritual skills of the Jewish temple leadership? “Everyone said they were just fishermen and tax collectors - ignorant Galileans who ought to be frightened out of their wits by a show of power. They should have learned their lesson at Calvary.” (Haynes)
Peter, who all his life had led with his mouth – right up until the end when he had three times denied even knowing Jesus – Peter had already been jailed once for witnessing to Jesus and his message and for preaching an alternative and contrary Jewish theology. Then he had broken free and went back on the streets to tell the story of Jesus to as many people as he could before he was rounded up again.
This is where our Scripture lesson picks up. Hauled in before the Sanhedrin (the Jewish Council), Peter faced a High Priest who did not mince words. “Didn't we give you strict orders not to teach in Jesus' name?” the High Priest queried. “And here you have filled Jerusalem with your teaching.”
Impassioned by the Gospel message, Peter courageously responded with a confession of faith so bold that it angered the Jewish Council beyond measure. More thought out than his spontaneous outcry at Caesarea Philippi when he was first proclaimed Jesus as the Messiah, Peter spoke this time with a hint of steely resolve in his voice, “It is necessary to obey God rather than men.”
And if that was not confrontational enough, Peter went on to accuse the High Priest of killing Jesus, whom God had raised from the dead, pointing out explicitly how God’s power was more effective than the High Priest’s. “And we are witnesses to these things,” he finished triumphantly.
“You can imagine the uproar this must have caused in the high court: Pandemonium. A gavel banging repeatedly, drowned out by the roar of voices from the bench calling out in protest. A chorus of voices demanding the deaths of these people who were thumbing their noses at the legal system, even blasphemously daring to claim the authority of God for their actions and words.”
Here was a new Peter, a transformed Peter. This was not the Peter who, along with the other disciples, had been clueless about their calling for the three years they had tagged along with Jesus. As Presbyterian pastor, Heidi Petersen writes, “That was before: before Jesus’ crucifixion, before Peter’s own denial, before Peter saw the risen Christ, before the church received the gift of the Spirit. At this point, when the High Priest forbids Peter to witness, he might as well have been forbidding Peter to breathe.”
Of course, none of the apostles had started from this posture of astounding belief. They had all run away when Jesus was arrested. They had watched the grisly scene unfold from a distance – or not at all. Peter had not even believed when he saw the empty tomb. In one way or another, they had all been afraid, but not any more.
Now – with one another, in community - they stood up for Jesus, proclaiming his message and witnessing in his name.
This is surely a real swashbuckling tale of courage and resolve and standing firm in the face of tremendous odds. But what could it possibly say to us? After all, we are not likely to be brought before the Supreme Court to defend our Christian beliefs. So how does this story touch our lives?
You know, as I read the Scripture for today earlier this week, I thought that this text is really too good to be read the Sunday after Easter, when attendance is back to normal, and all the Easter church goers are doing what they usually do on Sunday mornings.
Would it not be fun some year on Easter to substitute this reading for the traditional empty tomb story? We could still have lilies and spring flowers. Scott could still play the trumpet. We could even sing the usual Easter hymns. But the scripture would be something like this passage from the Book of the Acts of the Apostles – because this is what is really important about Easter – and the Easter church goers never hear this part of the story.
They never hear specifically how encountering the Living Christ resurrects something deep inside you – how being part of a like minded community makes you foolish like Peter was in proclaiming the message of Jesus even when it flies in the face of cultural norms.
They never hear specifically how encountering the Living Christ transforms your life – how being part of a like minded community makes you courageous like Peter was in proclaiming the message of Jesus and going out to change the world, one healing at a time.
You see, this passage in Acts illustrates beautifully what is supposed to happen when we know the story of the empty tomb. In short, we are challenged to harness that Easter joy and faith we felt so deeply last week – and do something with it.
The author of Luke/Acts calls this “doing” “witnessing.” That is what Peter was up to when he challenged the Jewish authorities. Academic professor Kevin Wilson defines it like this: “Witnesses are not simply passive observers of an event; they must actively make known what they have seen."
You and I profess that we have encountered the Living Christ. You and I say that we are witnesses to this extraordinary event. That is why we are part of the church, part of this like minded community.
That being said, then I think that you and I are supposed to be courageous like Peter when it comes to being a Christian - whether we are in the pulpit or the pews. We are to try for that steely resolve.
I think you and I are meant to share our faith in words as well as deeds because doing so is the cost of discipleship, the cost of following Jesus, the cost of participating in the resurrection – even when Jesus’ vision, clashes with the cultural norms that remind us day in and day out that might makes right, that it is better to be safe than sorry, that we must first take what we need because there is not be enough to go around.
Witnessing as Peter witnessed means living as men and women who understand the sacrifice Jesus made on tour behalf and who respond with the love he called his followers to practice in his name, who both believe that the love of God in Jesus has overcome every barrier between them and God, and who react by proclaiming that forgiveness and love to all who will listen.
There was once a popular bumper sticker that read: “If you were charged with being a Christian today, would there be enough evidence to convict you?”
It is an intriguing question that bears serious thought – particularly right after Easter when we like the Easter church goers are sucked back into the ho hum of our lives. Yet, for us who have chosen to be part of the church, part of this community of like minded people, it is not that easy because now we have seen a glimpse of what Easter is all about, witnessed through the lens of Peter’s outspoken resolve.
“If you were charged with being a Christian today, would there be enough evidence to convict you?” Think about it.
Rev. Nancy Foran is pastor of the Raymond Village Community Church, Raymond, Maine
http://www.rvccme.org/
Friday, April 9, 2010
John 20:1-18 It's Not About Us
It did not begin with the light we associate with joy. It did not begin with a chorus of alleluias. It began in darkness. It began with tears. And it began with a string – ludicrous almost – a string of muddled mistakes and misconceptions.
First of all, Mary thinks Jesus’ body has been stolen, carried off by grave robbers, so she ends up with swollen eyes, crying a river of tears because the body of her Lord and Teacher is gone, vanished.
When Peter arrives on the scene, he has the hutzpa to actually venture into the tomb, but he sees only emptiness and absence and the linen wrappings set in a crumpled pile with the cloth which had covered Jesus’ face folded neatly at the back of the cave. All Peter can muster up is a shake of the head and a thoughtful pull of the beard. He does not have a clue what is going on and so just turns around and goes back home to bed.
Peter’s unnamed buddy only sticks his head into the cave, maybe because he was overwhelmed by that creepy feeling you often get when you enter a cemetery in the dark. Yet, for some reason he believed (though John never tells us exactly what he believed). However, he sees no reason to stick around either, so he also goes back to bed - or maybe just ventures out to get his morning coffee.
So Mary ends up – again - in the garden alone while the dew is still on the roses. Well, not exactly alone because there is someone else there. It is Jesus – we know that – but she thinks he is the gardener. Then when she figures out who the stranger is, she throws herself at him, bent on an enormous bear hug, and he puts out his arm to fend her off, telling her she can not touch, she can not cling.
When you come right down to it, the whole empty tomb story is a pretty inauspicious and fragile way to begin a religion that has ended up lasting over 2000 years. I mean, the four canonical gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John) can not even agree on what happened that morning. I mean, if you lined up all the versions side by side, you would see a whole bunch of conflicting details.
And yet, each Easter, we insist upon focusing our energy on that pile of rocks in the garden. As Episcopal priest and religion professor, Barbara Brown Taylor writes, our concern is “on that tomb, on that morning, on what did or did not happen there and how to explain it to anyone who does not happen to believe it too.
The resurrection is the one and only event in Jesus’ life that was entirely between him and God. There were no witnesses whatsoever. No one on earth can say what happened inside that tomb, because no one was there. They all arrived after the fact. Two of them saw clothes. One of them saw angels. Most of them saw nothing at all because they were still in bed that morning, but as it turned out that did not matter because the empty tomb was not the point.”
It is a waste of our energy to try to rationally figure out this resurrection business. So if you came here wondering if (or maybe even hoping that) I would have some new insight into constructing a logical synthesis of that first Easter morning, then you will be deeply disappointed. For myself, I fall back on the whole faith thing – though I know for at least some of you, that does not cut the mustard.
But you are here. You chose to be here. You could have stayed at home and enjoyed another pot of tea and a second hot cross bun. Ok – maybe you felt pressured by tradition or a spouse, but you exercised your free choice and came to sit in these not always comfortable pews this morning. In the end, the story means something to you – even if it is only a large question mark in your psyche.
So – if the empty tomb is not the point, then what is? Well, unfortunately, most of us get our second go at the story misconstrued as well because we keep trying to squash it into some conventional box, and it just will not fit. We end up thinking that the resurrection has something to do with us – and where we will end up spending eternity.
And so we listen to this story of the empty tomb and manage to catapult ourselves out of the present, out of this world, and into another place where we will someday not be dead – maybe thirty pounds lighter with washboard abs, blond or at least with a full head of hair – but not dead.
And lo and behold, the story of the empty tomb – the resurrection - becomes not about Jesus, but rather about us. And I do not think that is what the Gospel writer of John had in mind. That may have been a theology that developed in the early church, but the plain language of the text is not about our resurrection.
So, if the empty tomb is not the point, and our own twisting of the story to make it about us in the eternal future is not the point, then what is the point?
New Testament scholar and Anglican Bishop of Durham in England puts it this way. “The point is…(that) Easter has burst into our world—the world of space, time, and matter, real history and real people and real life.” If Easter is about us at all, it is about us in the here and now, in this world – not in the next.
Maybe that is why the Gospel writer of John chose to set his story in the garden with a weeping Mary – to remind us that Jesus lives in THIS world, in OUR world which, when you come right down to it, is not all that different from Mary’s world. There is fear. Sometimes there is only emptiness and absence. Everyday people cry a river of tears over one thing or another.
You see, the profound hope of the resurrection is that not only did Jesus die in this world but Jesus lives in this world too. However, that being said (and as Jesus told Mary), we can not cling. We can not hang onto the hem of his robe and hope that he will fly us away to some better place.
Because, you know, the Risen Christ has places to go and people to see – here, in this world. The One who Lives is among the living, loving the living. The question that should stump us at Easter is not: Do you believe in the doctrine of the resurrection?
The question that is really raised in the Gospel narrative is: Have you encountered a Risen Christ? Have you encountered Love – with a capital “L”? You see, because if you have encountered the latter, then you have encountered him.
In the Gospel of John particularly, the writer goes to great lengths to tell stories of Jesus appearing to his disciples – in an upper room in a house in Jerusalem, on the beach, over breakfast cooked on an open fire – and each time, as Barbara Brown Taylor notes, his friends “became stronger, wiser, kinder, more daring. Every time he came to them, they became more like him.”
And, that is the only proof of the resurrection that we can offer. When we live as Jesus challenged as to live, when we live in loving community, when we forgive, when we become reconciled with those who have pushed us away, when we practice compassion, when we are advocates for justice, something happens to us. The sum of the parts seems to be greater than the whole.
And (and this is the secret, the mystery, the miracle of Easter) the sum of the parts is greater than the whole – because He is present. He is present in the love, in the forgiveness, in the reconciliation, in the moments we fought for justice. Maybe we do not see him (chances are we will not), but by golly, if we allow ourselves to indulge in something beyond the rational, we will feel his presence – because he lives. Because there were no grave robbers. Because he was in that garden. Because He is risen. He is risen indeed.
Rev. Nancy Foran is pastor of the Raymond Village Community Church, Raymond, Maine
http://www.rvccme.org/
First of all, Mary thinks Jesus’ body has been stolen, carried off by grave robbers, so she ends up with swollen eyes, crying a river of tears because the body of her Lord and Teacher is gone, vanished.
When Peter arrives on the scene, he has the hutzpa to actually venture into the tomb, but he sees only emptiness and absence and the linen wrappings set in a crumpled pile with the cloth which had covered Jesus’ face folded neatly at the back of the cave. All Peter can muster up is a shake of the head and a thoughtful pull of the beard. He does not have a clue what is going on and so just turns around and goes back home to bed.
Peter’s unnamed buddy only sticks his head into the cave, maybe because he was overwhelmed by that creepy feeling you often get when you enter a cemetery in the dark. Yet, for some reason he believed (though John never tells us exactly what he believed). However, he sees no reason to stick around either, so he also goes back to bed - or maybe just ventures out to get his morning coffee.
So Mary ends up – again - in the garden alone while the dew is still on the roses. Well, not exactly alone because there is someone else there. It is Jesus – we know that – but she thinks he is the gardener. Then when she figures out who the stranger is, she throws herself at him, bent on an enormous bear hug, and he puts out his arm to fend her off, telling her she can not touch, she can not cling.
When you come right down to it, the whole empty tomb story is a pretty inauspicious and fragile way to begin a religion that has ended up lasting over 2000 years. I mean, the four canonical gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John) can not even agree on what happened that morning. I mean, if you lined up all the versions side by side, you would see a whole bunch of conflicting details.
And yet, each Easter, we insist upon focusing our energy on that pile of rocks in the garden. As Episcopal priest and religion professor, Barbara Brown Taylor writes, our concern is “on that tomb, on that morning, on what did or did not happen there and how to explain it to anyone who does not happen to believe it too.
The resurrection is the one and only event in Jesus’ life that was entirely between him and God. There were no witnesses whatsoever. No one on earth can say what happened inside that tomb, because no one was there. They all arrived after the fact. Two of them saw clothes. One of them saw angels. Most of them saw nothing at all because they were still in bed that morning, but as it turned out that did not matter because the empty tomb was not the point.”
It is a waste of our energy to try to rationally figure out this resurrection business. So if you came here wondering if (or maybe even hoping that) I would have some new insight into constructing a logical synthesis of that first Easter morning, then you will be deeply disappointed. For myself, I fall back on the whole faith thing – though I know for at least some of you, that does not cut the mustard.
But you are here. You chose to be here. You could have stayed at home and enjoyed another pot of tea and a second hot cross bun. Ok – maybe you felt pressured by tradition or a spouse, but you exercised your free choice and came to sit in these not always comfortable pews this morning. In the end, the story means something to you – even if it is only a large question mark in your psyche.
So – if the empty tomb is not the point, then what is? Well, unfortunately, most of us get our second go at the story misconstrued as well because we keep trying to squash it into some conventional box, and it just will not fit. We end up thinking that the resurrection has something to do with us – and where we will end up spending eternity.
And so we listen to this story of the empty tomb and manage to catapult ourselves out of the present, out of this world, and into another place where we will someday not be dead – maybe thirty pounds lighter with washboard abs, blond or at least with a full head of hair – but not dead.
And lo and behold, the story of the empty tomb – the resurrection - becomes not about Jesus, but rather about us. And I do not think that is what the Gospel writer of John had in mind. That may have been a theology that developed in the early church, but the plain language of the text is not about our resurrection.
So, if the empty tomb is not the point, and our own twisting of the story to make it about us in the eternal future is not the point, then what is the point?
New Testament scholar and Anglican Bishop of Durham in England puts it this way. “The point is…(that) Easter has burst into our world—the world of space, time, and matter, real history and real people and real life.” If Easter is about us at all, it is about us in the here and now, in this world – not in the next.
Maybe that is why the Gospel writer of John chose to set his story in the garden with a weeping Mary – to remind us that Jesus lives in THIS world, in OUR world which, when you come right down to it, is not all that different from Mary’s world. There is fear. Sometimes there is only emptiness and absence. Everyday people cry a river of tears over one thing or another.
You see, the profound hope of the resurrection is that not only did Jesus die in this world but Jesus lives in this world too. However, that being said (and as Jesus told Mary), we can not cling. We can not hang onto the hem of his robe and hope that he will fly us away to some better place.
Because, you know, the Risen Christ has places to go and people to see – here, in this world. The One who Lives is among the living, loving the living. The question that should stump us at Easter is not: Do you believe in the doctrine of the resurrection?
The question that is really raised in the Gospel narrative is: Have you encountered a Risen Christ? Have you encountered Love – with a capital “L”? You see, because if you have encountered the latter, then you have encountered him.
In the Gospel of John particularly, the writer goes to great lengths to tell stories of Jesus appearing to his disciples – in an upper room in a house in Jerusalem, on the beach, over breakfast cooked on an open fire – and each time, as Barbara Brown Taylor notes, his friends “became stronger, wiser, kinder, more daring. Every time he came to them, they became more like him.”
And, that is the only proof of the resurrection that we can offer. When we live as Jesus challenged as to live, when we live in loving community, when we forgive, when we become reconciled with those who have pushed us away, when we practice compassion, when we are advocates for justice, something happens to us. The sum of the parts seems to be greater than the whole.
And (and this is the secret, the mystery, the miracle of Easter) the sum of the parts is greater than the whole – because He is present. He is present in the love, in the forgiveness, in the reconciliation, in the moments we fought for justice. Maybe we do not see him (chances are we will not), but by golly, if we allow ourselves to indulge in something beyond the rational, we will feel his presence – because he lives. Because there were no grave robbers. Because he was in that garden. Because He is risen. He is risen indeed.
Rev. Nancy Foran is pastor of the Raymond Village Community Church, Raymond, Maine
http://www.rvccme.org/
Friday, March 19, 2010
Isaiah 55:1-9 "Taste and See"
The first thing we need to understand about the ancient Biblical prophets is that they were not like Edgar Cayce, Jean Dixon – or even Sybill Trelawney in the Harry Potter series. Above all, they were not predictors of events far into the future.
As far as we can tell, though they used some divination tools like astrology, they did not spend the vast majority of their time staring into crystal balls or reading death threats on the palms of your hands in a darkened classroom like one might find at Hogwarts.
The role of prophets, both the major ones like Jeremiah and Isaiah (whom we read this morning), and the so-called minor ones like Amos and Hosea was far more nuanced and multi-faceted.
Among other responsibilities arising out of their call from God, Biblical prophets provided political and even military advice to kings and rulers. Should they go to war? Should they negotiate a treaty? Such advice was sometimes straightforward and other times was presented in wonderfully vivid imagery such as Jeremiah described in going down to the potter’s house to watch him work at his wheel.
Ancient prophets also provided warnings when Israel strayed from their God, Yahweh, (which became a familiar circumstance), and so a prophet might articulate a reversal in expectations, weaving together poetic and fiery words and vivid images of the destruction of Zion should behaviors not change.
Biblical prophets also provided tremendous comfort to the Jewish people in times of enormous upheaval and distress. They planted seeds of hope as they spoke of lions bedding down with lambs, rough places becoming smooth, and water gushing from the deserts and flowers blooming in the sand and heat.
Above all, in one way or another, Biblical prophets reminded primarily Jewish leaders time and time again of the ancient and abiding covenant God had long ago established with them. This covenant, of course, describes God’s relationship with Israel and the terms by which Israel fulfills its responsibility to be a holy people. “I will be your God, and you will be my people.”
The task of keeping up their side of the covenant was never an easy one for the Israelites. They were constantly falling short – from the first time they danced around with that golden calf at the foot of Mount Sinai while Moses was in the clouds and thunder picking up the Ten Commandments to all the ways they doubted the goodness and abiding love of God and all the times they figured it would be a lot easier to go it alone and do it their way. Yet, though a mystery as to why, God never gave up on them. God always keeps God’s side of the bargain. And that surely is the foundation of a theology of grace, amazing grace.
Our passage this morning is a part of an ancient document emerging from a time nearly 600 years before Christ. Scholars date it about the time of the Edict of Cyrus, approximately 539 B.C.E.
Now here is your history lesson for the morning – and it is important for understanding the meaning of our Scripture. The ancient Middle East was a world characterized by warring tribes and nations, and often the Israelites ended up as pawns.
For example, Nebuchadnezzar conquered the Kingdom of Judah and used a common tactic to ensure submission. He deported or exiled the Israelites to backwater Babylon. However, when the Persian Empire overran Babylon some 70 years later, Cyrus, the Persian emperor, granted the Israelites the right to return to their homeland.
This Babylonian Exile was the second significant exile in Jewish history, the first one being the years spent in slavery in Egypt. This time around they were deported in two waves, first the rulers, priests, and elites followed later by the common masses.
In short, they were forced from their homeland, and, more importantly, their temple where God resided was in ruins. Consequently, their concept of worship was in shambles, and their way of life was destroyed.
In a cosmic sense, they had ended up in the Babylonian backwaters in the first place because God just got fed up with their endless shenanigans over keeping up their end of the covenant. But now, as they are about to go back home, Isaiah speaks and reminds them that this all-important covenant with God has been salvaged once again by God’s grace.
Come home, God says. All who are thirsty for me, come and drink clear and cool water even in a land that has no water. All who hunger for me, come and eat, even if you have nothing to give in return.
God is making a lasting covenant commitment to you, Isaiah says, the same one that God made with David: sure, solid, enduring love…Come back to God, who is merciful, come back to our God, who is lavish with forgiveness. (from “The Message).
As United Church of Christ pastor, Kate Huey, writes, “We know that a prophet speaks sternly to the people when they need it, but also knows how to speak tenderly, to convey God's great love and mercy… And this prophet knows that the people are hungry for a message of hope, a message that promises an end to their captivity and a different way of life, back home, where they can be who they are called to be, and faithful to the God who has made an everlasting covenant with them.”
When the prophet asks the community, “Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread?” he is really asking, “Why are you wasting your industry, your wealth and your life’s work in a place which will never be your home?”
If you are thirsty, if you are hungry, all you have to do is return to the place God has set aside for you and there…God will sustain you…Trust in God and in God’s plan for your lives, instead of pinning your hopes on your own designs.
The covenant has been restored, O people of Israel. The covenant has been restored by the grace of God alone. So, come home, now. Come home.
Such beautiful words – but the loveliest part of hearing Isaiah speak them today is that these words of welcome were not whispered once in a moment of ancient time – said and forgotten. The words are meant for us as well.
As Church of the Brethren pastor, Peter Haynes reminds us "Originally addressed to those who have been torn from their homeland and forced to live in exile in Babylon, this "word" (of Isaiah) is still alive and active for any exile who longs for home, for those who hunger and thirst for righteousness..." And I would say that includes each one of us.
Come home. The ancient covenant has been restored by the grace of God alone – and as Christians, we believe that through Jesus, God has extended that covenant – that special relationship - to us Gentiles. We have a new relationship with God – a new covenant - because of the death and resurrection of Jesus.
INVITATION TO COMMUNION
Come back to God and to the source of what will really satisfy your souls. Come all you who have settled so comfortably into a routine and worldview that keeps you so busy and distracted that you have lost touch with your deepest selves, made in the image of God. Come share in the feast because your spirits are thirsty, starving, and homesick, even if you can not name those feelings on your own. (Kate Huey)
Come all of you who may not be immediately aware of how you have wandered away from God – how life has lost its meaning in pursuit of a promotion or raise, how you have gotten buried under the demands of economic and social status. (Daniel Debevoise)
No one goes hungry at the table of life. Taste, oh taste and see. Take nourishment in the covenant and in the promises of a God whose love will not fail us.
Rev. Nancy Foran is pastor of the Raymond Village Community Church, Raymond, Maine
http://www.rvccme.org/
As far as we can tell, though they used some divination tools like astrology, they did not spend the vast majority of their time staring into crystal balls or reading death threats on the palms of your hands in a darkened classroom like one might find at Hogwarts.
The role of prophets, both the major ones like Jeremiah and Isaiah (whom we read this morning), and the so-called minor ones like Amos and Hosea was far more nuanced and multi-faceted.
Among other responsibilities arising out of their call from God, Biblical prophets provided political and even military advice to kings and rulers. Should they go to war? Should they negotiate a treaty? Such advice was sometimes straightforward and other times was presented in wonderfully vivid imagery such as Jeremiah described in going down to the potter’s house to watch him work at his wheel.
Ancient prophets also provided warnings when Israel strayed from their God, Yahweh, (which became a familiar circumstance), and so a prophet might articulate a reversal in expectations, weaving together poetic and fiery words and vivid images of the destruction of Zion should behaviors not change.
Biblical prophets also provided tremendous comfort to the Jewish people in times of enormous upheaval and distress. They planted seeds of hope as they spoke of lions bedding down with lambs, rough places becoming smooth, and water gushing from the deserts and flowers blooming in the sand and heat.
Above all, in one way or another, Biblical prophets reminded primarily Jewish leaders time and time again of the ancient and abiding covenant God had long ago established with them. This covenant, of course, describes God’s relationship with Israel and the terms by which Israel fulfills its responsibility to be a holy people. “I will be your God, and you will be my people.”
The task of keeping up their side of the covenant was never an easy one for the Israelites. They were constantly falling short – from the first time they danced around with that golden calf at the foot of Mount Sinai while Moses was in the clouds and thunder picking up the Ten Commandments to all the ways they doubted the goodness and abiding love of God and all the times they figured it would be a lot easier to go it alone and do it their way. Yet, though a mystery as to why, God never gave up on them. God always keeps God’s side of the bargain. And that surely is the foundation of a theology of grace, amazing grace.
Our passage this morning is a part of an ancient document emerging from a time nearly 600 years before Christ. Scholars date it about the time of the Edict of Cyrus, approximately 539 B.C.E.
Now here is your history lesson for the morning – and it is important for understanding the meaning of our Scripture. The ancient Middle East was a world characterized by warring tribes and nations, and often the Israelites ended up as pawns.
For example, Nebuchadnezzar conquered the Kingdom of Judah and used a common tactic to ensure submission. He deported or exiled the Israelites to backwater Babylon. However, when the Persian Empire overran Babylon some 70 years later, Cyrus, the Persian emperor, granted the Israelites the right to return to their homeland.
This Babylonian Exile was the second significant exile in Jewish history, the first one being the years spent in slavery in Egypt. This time around they were deported in two waves, first the rulers, priests, and elites followed later by the common masses.
In short, they were forced from their homeland, and, more importantly, their temple where God resided was in ruins. Consequently, their concept of worship was in shambles, and their way of life was destroyed.
In a cosmic sense, they had ended up in the Babylonian backwaters in the first place because God just got fed up with their endless shenanigans over keeping up their end of the covenant. But now, as they are about to go back home, Isaiah speaks and reminds them that this all-important covenant with God has been salvaged once again by God’s grace.
Come home, God says. All who are thirsty for me, come and drink clear and cool water even in a land that has no water. All who hunger for me, come and eat, even if you have nothing to give in return.
God is making a lasting covenant commitment to you, Isaiah says, the same one that God made with David: sure, solid, enduring love…Come back to God, who is merciful, come back to our God, who is lavish with forgiveness. (from “The Message).
As United Church of Christ pastor, Kate Huey, writes, “We know that a prophet speaks sternly to the people when they need it, but also knows how to speak tenderly, to convey God's great love and mercy… And this prophet knows that the people are hungry for a message of hope, a message that promises an end to their captivity and a different way of life, back home, where they can be who they are called to be, and faithful to the God who has made an everlasting covenant with them.”
When the prophet asks the community, “Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread?” he is really asking, “Why are you wasting your industry, your wealth and your life’s work in a place which will never be your home?”
If you are thirsty, if you are hungry, all you have to do is return to the place God has set aside for you and there…God will sustain you…Trust in God and in God’s plan for your lives, instead of pinning your hopes on your own designs.
The covenant has been restored, O people of Israel. The covenant has been restored by the grace of God alone. So, come home, now. Come home.
Such beautiful words – but the loveliest part of hearing Isaiah speak them today is that these words of welcome were not whispered once in a moment of ancient time – said and forgotten. The words are meant for us as well.
As Church of the Brethren pastor, Peter Haynes reminds us "Originally addressed to those who have been torn from their homeland and forced to live in exile in Babylon, this "word" (of Isaiah) is still alive and active for any exile who longs for home, for those who hunger and thirst for righteousness..." And I would say that includes each one of us.
Come home. The ancient covenant has been restored by the grace of God alone – and as Christians, we believe that through Jesus, God has extended that covenant – that special relationship - to us Gentiles. We have a new relationship with God – a new covenant - because of the death and resurrection of Jesus.
INVITATION TO COMMUNION
Come back to God and to the source of what will really satisfy your souls. Come all you who have settled so comfortably into a routine and worldview that keeps you so busy and distracted that you have lost touch with your deepest selves, made in the image of God. Come share in the feast because your spirits are thirsty, starving, and homesick, even if you can not name those feelings on your own. (Kate Huey)
Come all of you who may not be immediately aware of how you have wandered away from God – how life has lost its meaning in pursuit of a promotion or raise, how you have gotten buried under the demands of economic and social status. (Daniel Debevoise)
No one goes hungry at the table of life. Taste, oh taste and see. Take nourishment in the covenant and in the promises of a God whose love will not fail us.
Rev. Nancy Foran is pastor of the Raymond Village Community Church, Raymond, Maine
http://www.rvccme.org/
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