(Scriptures: Isaiah 6:1-8, Romans 8:1-17 John 3:1-17)
The Celts use the term “thin places” to refer to places where God’s presence seems especially near. The idea behind the phrase is that there’s a sort of invisible veil or curtain that separates the world we experience every day, the world we experience with our five senses, from eternity – and things are taking place in both worlds at the same time. That is to say, in this way of understanding, eternity is not just someplace we go when we die, but rather eternity is going on around us all the time, for the most part unseen and undetected. Except every now and then, in places experienced as “thin places”, it’s as if the veil or curtain between time and eternity is thinner than normal, and eternity almost seems to break through into time. The Bible records a number of such places – for example, in Genesis, after Jacob left his father to escape the wrath of Esau, at a certain place he later named Beth-El, he had the vision of a ladder from earth to heaven with angels ascending and descending the ladder. Jacob said, “Surely the Lord is in this place, and I did not know it! How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven!”
In today’s Old Testament reading, Isaiah experiences the Temple as such a “thin place”. From the imagery, it seems that while Isaiah was in worship at the Temple and the Temple liturgy was going on, he was caught up into a vision of a heavenly liturgy going on at the same time, in which the Lord was sitting on a throne, high and lifted up, being attended and worshipped by angels. We’re told that in this vision, the hem of his robe filled the Temple – perhaps for Isaiah in his vision, the veil in the Temple separating the people from the holy of holies comes to represent the hem of God’s robe.
Having experienced this almost indescribable scene, Isaiah becomes immediately aware of his own sinfulness and unworthiness. “Woe is me! I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips and I live among a people of unclean lips, yet my eyes of seen the King, the Lord of hosts.” Last week at the Bible study we read this in the Good News translation, and the wording stuck with me: “I am doomed because every word that passes my lips is sinful, and I live among a people whose every word is sinful.” No attempt to excuse himself or minimize his sin – just acknowledgement and confession. And then an angel touches a live coal to his lips and pronounces him cleansed from sin. He hears the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send, and who will go?” And Isaiah responds, “Here I am, send me.” If we think about it, this scene forms the pattern for our worship here at church – we assemble, sing a hymn of praise to God, and (except on communion Sundays) we pray a prayer of confession of sin, and hear the words of the assurance of pardon. Having been freed from our sin, we are freed to respond, as Isaiah did, “Here I am, send me” – by singing hymns of thanksgiving, by the giving of our tithes and offerings which can go places we can’t personally, and at the end of worship by being sent out into the world to serve the Lord.
Our reading from Paul’s letter to the Romans is, ultimately, the outcome of another such unexpected encounter with the divine. We know that while on the road to Damascus to hunt down and arrest Christians, he was given a vision of the risen Christ – and that vision caused Paul to turn from persecuting the church on the basis of the law as he understood it, to living in the Spirit and thus becoming the church’s greatest missionary. The cleansing from sin Isaiah experienced in his vision by way of the burning coal touched to his lips by the angel, in Paul’s telling, was given to him and is available to all through Christ. Thus, having written eloquently in Romans 7 about the inner struggle of one who delights in the law of the Lord, but finds himself captive to the sin of the flesh, Paul is then able to write, “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus….For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do: by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and to deal with sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, so that the just requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit…..for all who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God. When we cry “Abba! Father! – even “Daddy!” – it is that very Spirit bearing witness with our Spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ.
Our Gospel reading provides yet another account of an encounter with the divine, as Nicodemus comes to Jesus at night. It is a less dramatic encounter than the others, but transformative just the same. Nicodemus initiates the encounter – he comes to Jesus, not the other way around – and at the outset seems to be firmly in control of the conversation: “Rabbi, we know you are a teacher who has come from God, for no one can do these signs that you do apart from the presence of God.” But then, as Jesus responds with a seeming non-sequitur – “Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above” – in the ensuing conversation about being born of the Spirit – “the wind blows where it will, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes; so it is with those who are born of the Spirit” - Nicodemus is thoroughly spun around, baffled, disoriented. And yet, out of his disorientation and confusion, faith slowly emerges, so that by the end of John’s Gospel Nicodemus is able to come forward publicly with Joseph of Arimithea to claim the body of Christ.
Today is Trinity Sunday, when we lift up the doctrine of the Trinity, one God in three persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The word “Trinity” is nowhere found in Scripture – the naming of the persons of the Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, appears in just one place in Scripture, in Jesus’ Great Commission at the end of Matthew’s Gospel – “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.” The doctrine of the Trinity was not dropped down from heaven on a tablet of stone, but hammered out in the early church over centuries and finally adopted as orthodoxy at the Council of Nicaea in 325 AD. This doctrine is a human attempt to make sense of encounters with the divine such as those experienced by Isaiah, Paul, and Nicodemus, human attempts to describe the indescribable. Some speak of the Trinity in terms of function – God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit are described respectively as Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer – the Father creates; the Son redeems, and the Spirit sustains. Others emphasize that the Trinity does not simply mean one God with three functions, but one God in three persons – that within the one God, within the Godhead, are three persons in an eternal dance of intimate love and mutual self-giving. We see some of this dance of self-giving in Jesus’ words from John’s Gospel - “As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me….I in them and you in me, that they may become completely one.” So in effect it is Jesus who invites each of us to “come join the dance”.
I began by describing thin places, encounters with the divine, and ended with a description of the three persons of the Trinity in a mutual dance of self-giving - dynamic images, images of motion and mystery. Often when humans, especially church folk, try to describe the indescribable, they turn that which is living and in motion into something static, a fixed orthodoxy from which no one is to deviate – and then use that fixed orthodoxy as a club or brickbat with which to beat over the head those who disagree. And those creedal clubs and brickbats have drawn much blood over many centuries. (As St. Paul writes, the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.) And so, on this Trinity Sunday, I would invite us to focus, not so much on static creedal statements, however venerable, but on those moving, mysterious, unpredictable encounters as described in Scripture between humans and the divine. As is sometimes expressed in the United Church of Christ, we see the ancient creeds as testimonies of faith, not tests of faith – as descriptions of how our ancestors in the faith experienced the divine, not as prescriptions limiting how we today are to experience the divine. For we worship a God always in motion, a God who is still speaking, still acting, still creating and recreating. Remember that God’s name, which is usually translated “I am what I am” can also be translated “I will be what I will be.”
We had quite a discussion last week at the Bible study around the question, “Why do most of us not have visions today such as Isaiah had?” One thought was that it’s not given to everyone to experience visions. Some told of visions they’ve had. We also discussed that visions come in many forms – sometimes dreams, sometimes an inner voice or an intuition that we should follow this path rather than that path. One factor may be whether we are receptive to visions, to encounters with the Divine. We here in America live in a society where we believe that what we can see and hear and touch and taste and smell – what we can experience with our five senses, what we can explain by means of science and logic - is all there is. Other cultures are more open to the possibility that “there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamed of in our philosophy.” If we think we have everything all figured out – and if in our religious dogmatism we even think we have God all figured out - we may be blind and deaf to the leading of the Spirit. So I would encourage us, on this Trinity Sunday, to step off our society’s perpetual motion machine and spend time in prayer and meditation, to at least give God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, a chance to get a word in edgewise. Who knows what may happen! We may be granted to see visions and dream dreams; or it may be given to us to experience God’s leading as a still small voice which we must strain to hear.
As we prepare for communion, there’s a vision I’d invite us to consider – that our communion table is part of the Lord’s table, a table of fellowship that is not just here in this sanctuary, but a table that extends around the world, a table that extends, not just through space, but through time. At this table we in our small gathering are brought together with believers of many languages in many lands, that we gather here as your mothers and fathers and grandmothers and grandfathers did for many generations since 1861, remembering the words of Jesus, “This do in remembrance of me.” Having confessed our sins and received assurance of pardon, having joined with believers around the world at the table, may we hear God’s call, “Who will go for us”, and may we at Emanuel Church respond, “Here we are! Send us!” Amen.
Monday, June 4, 2012
Preaching to Dry Bones
(Scriptures: Ezekiel 37:1-14 Acts 2:1-21, Romans 8:18-27 John 15:26-27; John 16:1-15)
It was not a pretty sight. Ezekiel was led by the Spirit of the Lord, we’re told, to a valley full of dry bones. Perhaps this valley had been the site of some long-ago battle, and these bones represented some sort of mass grave. We’re told not only that there were lots and lots of bones, but that they were very, very dry. These bones were the last remains of people who had been dead for a long time; the flesh had long been picked by the vultures, and whatever flesh the vultures had missed had long ago rotten away. Even the marrow in the center of the bones had dried up. These bones were dead, dead, dead.
And the Lord asks Ezekiel what seems to be a very silly question: “Can these bones live?” If I were in Ezekiel’s place and heard the Lord’s question, it wouldn’t take me long to answer: “Are you nuts? Don’t you see how dead and dry and bare of flesh these bones are? Heck no, these bones can’t live.”
Fortunately, the Lord asked the question, not to me, but to Ezekiel. And Ezekiel came up with exactly the right answer: “O Lord, you know.” Ezekiel wasn’t going to go so far as to say they definitely would live, but he wouldn’t rule out the possibility – at least, not when the Lord of life and death is in the house.
Having asked Ezekiel what seems to be a silly question, he then asks Ezekiel to do what seems like a very silly thing: “Prophesy to the bones, and say to them, “O dry bones, hear the word of the Lord. Thus says the Lord God to these bones, I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live. I’d like you to picture yourself in that valley, talking to the bones, preaching to them, telling them that God still had plans for them, still saw the possibility of life where all there was to be seen in any direction was death. I know how silly I’d feel if I stepped out into our cemetery and started preaching to the headstones. But, again, fortunately it was Ezekiel, and not I, in the valley of dry bones.
Having preached as instructed, Ezekiel now had bodies in front of him – but with no breath in them, no spirit. So God tells Ezekiel to preach to the breath or spirit to go back into these bodies. And they come to life, a vast army. Ezekiel is told that the bones represent the people of Israel, who have lost all hope, and whom God proposes to call up out of their grave of despair, figuratively speaking.
The story of Ezekiel preaching to the dry bones seems like one of those impossible Bible stories that is so disconnected from our experience that it has nothing to do with our lives. And yet, this morning I’m here to say that God calls us in the church, calls us, who are Christ’s hands and feet in the world, to preach life into dead bones – all the time. We who claim as our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, who was killed by men and raised by God, we who follow in the way of Jesus who raised Lazarus from the dead, worship a God who still brings hope to the hopeless, the joy of the Lord to those who despair, the peace of God that passes all understanding to those who are paralyzed with fear – in a word, who speaks the life of Christ into persons and situations that are seemingly as far beyond hope as that valley of dry bones. Every one of us carries burdens of anxiety over our own health and circumstances, and worries about those we love. But, as Christians, we worship a God who is greater than our problems. As I’ve heard it said, “don’t tell God how great your problems are; instead, tell your problems how great God is.” If you’re tempted to think of yourself and your life and your circumstances as hopeless – like a pile of dead, dry bones – Ezekiel’s got a sermon to preach to you. As we say in the United Church of Christ, never place a period where God has placed a comma. As Christians, neither life nor death nor height nor depth nor things present nor things to come nor anything else in all creation can separate us from the love of God. We worship a God who is still very much in the healing business, a God who still saves, a God who is powerful to still the wind and waves of trouble that buffet our lives. Even a valley of dead bones is not beyond God’s reach. God will put his renewing spirit within us, and we will know that the Lord has spoken and will act. Even if we feel so dried up and desolate of hope that we cannot find the words to pray, Paul assures us that “the Spirit helps us in our weakness, interceding with sighs to deep for words. And God, who searches the heart, knows what is in the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.”
And, with God’s spirit within us, it’s our call to preach to those around us who have given up hope, whose hopes have dried up like piles of dead bones. It’s my call as pastor of Emanuel Church, and it’s your call as members of Emanuel Church, when God leads us to a valley of dry bones, to speak and act in ways that are life-giving. It’s not easy to speak life in places and situations where others see only death, not easy to speak and act in ways that are life-giving when even many churches all too often speak and act in ways that are death-dealing – but that is our call. (As Paul once wrote, the letter of the law kills, but the Spirit gives life.)
Our reading from the 2nd chapter of the Acts of the Apostles shows us what it looks like when the Spirit of God moves in the lives of God’s people, and God’s people are inspired to speak and act in new ways. Remember, Luke tells us that after Jesus’ ascension, the disciples were instructed to stay in Jerusalem and await the coming of the Spirit. And while they were waiting, not a lot happened. They did some organizational housekeeping, electing Matthias to fill the vacancy in the apostles left by Judas – though we basically never hear of Matthias again. But when the Spirit came with power on Pentecost, and all those on whom the spirit fell spoke in tongues and testified about God’s deeds of power – when some were frightened and others scoffed, it was Peter who received the power of the Spirit to preach the words of life, to speak God’s truth and love to those who were gathered. Indeed, God’s spirit not only empowers us, but instructs us, for as Jesus told his disciples, ‘When the Advocate comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, he will testify on my behalf. You also are to testify because you have been with me from the beginning…..I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all truth, for he will not speak on his own, but will speak whatever he hears, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. He will glorify me, because he will take what is mine and declare it to you. All that the Father has is mine. For this reason I said that he will take what is mind and declare it to you.” It is an awesome thing to consider that the Spirit that in the Old Testament was poured out on special men and women of God, like Ezekiel, has now been poured out on us in the church.
I was at a clergy meeting earlier this week, and we did an extended study on these words from God to Ezekiel: “A new heart I give you, and a new spirit I will put within you. I will remove from your body the heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.” And some of the clergy discussed – as we here have often discussed during the Bible study – why the churches struggle so, why so many, inside and outside of the church, seemingly have hearts of stone. You see, clergy get discouraged too. One of the pastors said, “What if we are living in a time like that of Isaiah…what if God has decreed that no matter what we do, the people will “keep listening but not comprehend, keep looking but not understand, that the peoples’ minds will be dull, their ears stopped, their eyes shut, so that may not look with their eyes and listen with their ears and comprehend with their minds and turn and be healed.” It’s a daunting prospect – God’s people through the ages after Isaiah departed this earth have drawn great inspiration from Isaiah’s writings, but consider how discouraging it must have been for Isaiah to be commissioned in a vision from God to preach, yet knowing from the outset that no matter how faithful he was, hardly anyone around him would respond. And yet, just as God called Isaiah to be faithful in his time, in the same way God calls us to be faithful in ours. So we must preach the word, in season and out of season. We must preach the word – even if all that’s in front of us to listen is a pile of dry bones.
“Can these bones live?” the Lord asked Ezekiel, and the Lord asks us. No matter how desolate, may we honor God by responding, “Oh Lord, you know”, and giving God’s spirit space and place to act. Whether the Spirit comes as the rush of a mighty wind and tongues of fire, or whether the Spirit speaks to us in a still small voice, may we hear, and when we hear, where the Spirit leads, may we at Emanuel Church follow. Amen.
It was not a pretty sight. Ezekiel was led by the Spirit of the Lord, we’re told, to a valley full of dry bones. Perhaps this valley had been the site of some long-ago battle, and these bones represented some sort of mass grave. We’re told not only that there were lots and lots of bones, but that they were very, very dry. These bones were the last remains of people who had been dead for a long time; the flesh had long been picked by the vultures, and whatever flesh the vultures had missed had long ago rotten away. Even the marrow in the center of the bones had dried up. These bones were dead, dead, dead.
And the Lord asks Ezekiel what seems to be a very silly question: “Can these bones live?” If I were in Ezekiel’s place and heard the Lord’s question, it wouldn’t take me long to answer: “Are you nuts? Don’t you see how dead and dry and bare of flesh these bones are? Heck no, these bones can’t live.”
Fortunately, the Lord asked the question, not to me, but to Ezekiel. And Ezekiel came up with exactly the right answer: “O Lord, you know.” Ezekiel wasn’t going to go so far as to say they definitely would live, but he wouldn’t rule out the possibility – at least, not when the Lord of life and death is in the house.
Having asked Ezekiel what seems to be a silly question, he then asks Ezekiel to do what seems like a very silly thing: “Prophesy to the bones, and say to them, “O dry bones, hear the word of the Lord. Thus says the Lord God to these bones, I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live. I’d like you to picture yourself in that valley, talking to the bones, preaching to them, telling them that God still had plans for them, still saw the possibility of life where all there was to be seen in any direction was death. I know how silly I’d feel if I stepped out into our cemetery and started preaching to the headstones. But, again, fortunately it was Ezekiel, and not I, in the valley of dry bones.
Having preached as instructed, Ezekiel now had bodies in front of him – but with no breath in them, no spirit. So God tells Ezekiel to preach to the breath or spirit to go back into these bodies. And they come to life, a vast army. Ezekiel is told that the bones represent the people of Israel, who have lost all hope, and whom God proposes to call up out of their grave of despair, figuratively speaking.
The story of Ezekiel preaching to the dry bones seems like one of those impossible Bible stories that is so disconnected from our experience that it has nothing to do with our lives. And yet, this morning I’m here to say that God calls us in the church, calls us, who are Christ’s hands and feet in the world, to preach life into dead bones – all the time. We who claim as our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, who was killed by men and raised by God, we who follow in the way of Jesus who raised Lazarus from the dead, worship a God who still brings hope to the hopeless, the joy of the Lord to those who despair, the peace of God that passes all understanding to those who are paralyzed with fear – in a word, who speaks the life of Christ into persons and situations that are seemingly as far beyond hope as that valley of dry bones. Every one of us carries burdens of anxiety over our own health and circumstances, and worries about those we love. But, as Christians, we worship a God who is greater than our problems. As I’ve heard it said, “don’t tell God how great your problems are; instead, tell your problems how great God is.” If you’re tempted to think of yourself and your life and your circumstances as hopeless – like a pile of dead, dry bones – Ezekiel’s got a sermon to preach to you. As we say in the United Church of Christ, never place a period where God has placed a comma. As Christians, neither life nor death nor height nor depth nor things present nor things to come nor anything else in all creation can separate us from the love of God. We worship a God who is still very much in the healing business, a God who still saves, a God who is powerful to still the wind and waves of trouble that buffet our lives. Even a valley of dead bones is not beyond God’s reach. God will put his renewing spirit within us, and we will know that the Lord has spoken and will act. Even if we feel so dried up and desolate of hope that we cannot find the words to pray, Paul assures us that “the Spirit helps us in our weakness, interceding with sighs to deep for words. And God, who searches the heart, knows what is in the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.”
And, with God’s spirit within us, it’s our call to preach to those around us who have given up hope, whose hopes have dried up like piles of dead bones. It’s my call as pastor of Emanuel Church, and it’s your call as members of Emanuel Church, when God leads us to a valley of dry bones, to speak and act in ways that are life-giving. It’s not easy to speak life in places and situations where others see only death, not easy to speak and act in ways that are life-giving when even many churches all too often speak and act in ways that are death-dealing – but that is our call. (As Paul once wrote, the letter of the law kills, but the Spirit gives life.)
Our reading from the 2nd chapter of the Acts of the Apostles shows us what it looks like when the Spirit of God moves in the lives of God’s people, and God’s people are inspired to speak and act in new ways. Remember, Luke tells us that after Jesus’ ascension, the disciples were instructed to stay in Jerusalem and await the coming of the Spirit. And while they were waiting, not a lot happened. They did some organizational housekeeping, electing Matthias to fill the vacancy in the apostles left by Judas – though we basically never hear of Matthias again. But when the Spirit came with power on Pentecost, and all those on whom the spirit fell spoke in tongues and testified about God’s deeds of power – when some were frightened and others scoffed, it was Peter who received the power of the Spirit to preach the words of life, to speak God’s truth and love to those who were gathered. Indeed, God’s spirit not only empowers us, but instructs us, for as Jesus told his disciples, ‘When the Advocate comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, he will testify on my behalf. You also are to testify because you have been with me from the beginning…..I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all truth, for he will not speak on his own, but will speak whatever he hears, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. He will glorify me, because he will take what is mine and declare it to you. All that the Father has is mine. For this reason I said that he will take what is mind and declare it to you.” It is an awesome thing to consider that the Spirit that in the Old Testament was poured out on special men and women of God, like Ezekiel, has now been poured out on us in the church.
I was at a clergy meeting earlier this week, and we did an extended study on these words from God to Ezekiel: “A new heart I give you, and a new spirit I will put within you. I will remove from your body the heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.” And some of the clergy discussed – as we here have often discussed during the Bible study – why the churches struggle so, why so many, inside and outside of the church, seemingly have hearts of stone. You see, clergy get discouraged too. One of the pastors said, “What if we are living in a time like that of Isaiah…what if God has decreed that no matter what we do, the people will “keep listening but not comprehend, keep looking but not understand, that the peoples’ minds will be dull, their ears stopped, their eyes shut, so that may not look with their eyes and listen with their ears and comprehend with their minds and turn and be healed.” It’s a daunting prospect – God’s people through the ages after Isaiah departed this earth have drawn great inspiration from Isaiah’s writings, but consider how discouraging it must have been for Isaiah to be commissioned in a vision from God to preach, yet knowing from the outset that no matter how faithful he was, hardly anyone around him would respond. And yet, just as God called Isaiah to be faithful in his time, in the same way God calls us to be faithful in ours. So we must preach the word, in season and out of season. We must preach the word – even if all that’s in front of us to listen is a pile of dry bones.
“Can these bones live?” the Lord asked Ezekiel, and the Lord asks us. No matter how desolate, may we honor God by responding, “Oh Lord, you know”, and giving God’s spirit space and place to act. Whether the Spirit comes as the rush of a mighty wind and tongues of fire, or whether the Spirit speaks to us in a still small voice, may we hear, and when we hear, where the Spirit leads, may we at Emanuel Church follow. Amen.
Chosen Witnesses
(Scriptures: Acts 1:1-11, Ephesians 1:15-23 John 17:1-25)
When I looked at this morning’s texts, the first thing that came to my mind was, of all things, a car commercial. You’ve likely seen it – a little girl, maybe Penny’s age, is sitting in the car’s driver’s seat, and daddy is telling her about adjusting the mirrors, instructs her to wear her seat belt, cautions her against driving on the freeway, and on and on. At the end of the commercial, we see that the driver is a young lady in her late teens or early 20’s, and the voiceover says, “You knew this day would come……” Daddy’s little girl is all grown up and ready for her turn in the driver’s seat.
Our reading from the first chapter of Acts this morning shows Jesus and the disciples in a moment that perhaps is not so different. Jesus is about to ascend to the Father, and while he will be present spiritually, he will no longer be in the flesh walking beside them. The training wheels are coming off. While Jesus will be present to guide them, the disciples, in a sense, are going to be in the driver’s seat. I’m hoping that it isn’t pushing the metaphor too far to say that henceforth, Jesus will be like their GPS system, showing them the way forward, cautioning them – like a GPS saying “recalculating” – when they’re going off course. But GPS systems can be ignored and shut off, and history bears sad testimony that sometimes the church has ignored the guidance of the Spirit as well.
Even in today’s reading in Acts, it’s clear the disciples don’t yet know where they’re headed. They ask Jesus, “Lord, is this the time when you will restore the kingdom to Israel?” After all they’ve been through together, they will don’t quite get it. But, like the father in the commercial, Jesus gives them cautions and instructions: He ordered them not to leave Jerusalem – sort of like daddy in the commercial cautioning “don’t drive on the freeway yet” - until they have received the power of the Holy Spirit. And Jesus told them, “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” To the ends of the earth! – wow – better fasten your seatbelts, this is going to be quite a ride.
The car commercial I mentioned has no particular religious overtones, but from the concerned or worried tone of the father’s voice, you might think he’s sending up some silent prayers for his daughter’s safety. In our reading from John’s Gospel – sometimes referred to as Jesus’ high priestly prayer for his disciples - which takes place while the disciples are gathered at the Last Supper, just before Jesus departs for the garden where he will be betrayed, Jesus knows that he will not be with them much longer, and he prays aloud to his heavenly father to keep the disciples safe when Jesus is no longer with them in the flesh. Jesus prays that even though he will no longer be physically with them, that Jesus will in some mystical sense be in them, and they in him, just as he is in the Father and the Father is in him. You who are parents know what it is, when your children have come of age, to cut loose the apron strings and send them out into the world. You hope that of all you taught them, at least some of it has stuck; you’ll be there to step in if they get into serious trouble, but they will no longer be under your watchful eye every minute of every day. And this is how for Jesus and his disciples when Jesus makes this prayer - He prays that as they go forth, Jesus will be in them so that where they go, Jesus goes, and he prays to God to keep the disciples together – that they may all be one – when they are sent out into the world.
Last week during the Bible study, we looked at this reading from John’s Gospel, Jesus’ prayer for his disciples. And there was a question: “Do you really believe that we’re chosen by God?” And I answered “yes” – after all, earlier that morning we’d read Jesus’ words, “You did not choose me, but I chose you. And I appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last, so that the Father will give you whatever you ask him in my name.” But that question has been tugging at me since then all week – “Do you really believe we’re chosen by God?” And I thought about Emanuel Church, our presence here in Bridesburg these 150 years. And I do believe we, each of us here, has been chosen by God. It’s only because we were first chosen by God that we in turn can respond to God’s choice by choosing to be here. We did not choose Christ, but Christ first chose us. I remember the opening words of Emanuel’s 100th anniversary history, which were retained in the 150th anniversary booklet: “This is the history of your church from a humble beginning – the need of which God made known to a few in 1857 – to the present day.” So from the earliest days of your church history, there was a sense that those who founded this church were chosen by God to meet a distinctive need, to carry a distinctive message, to carry out a distinctive purpose. Remember also that in the earliest years of this church’s history, the congregation was served by Lutheran and Methodist pastors. While the members were grateful for the efforts of these pastors, they felt that in their Reformed tradition there was a distinctive voice, a distinctive Word of Good News, which would be silenced if the congregation followed these early pastors into the Lutheran or Methodist tradition. And I believe that to this day, even though Bridesburg has no shortage of churches, I believe that we as a congregation of the United Church of Christ have a distinctive word of welcome and good news to proclaim. So, yes, I believe we as individuals were chosen, and I believe our congregation was chosen by God to witness to the Gospel here in Bridesburg. It’s not because of any particular merit on our part – if we start feeling puffed up at being chosen by God, perhaps we can reflect that Balaam’s donkey was chosen by God to speak to Balaam. And certainly the disciples, as we read about them in the Gospels, were very ordinary people. And yet God chose them – as God has chosen us – has called them and us out of the world, to be sent back into the world bearing the Good News of Christ.
Jesus said, “I appointed you to go to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last.” Jesus has chosen and appointed us, not to pat ourselves on the back, but to bear fruit. Our reading from Acts gives us more specific information on what it means to bear fruit: “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” In your bulletin, I printed an expanded image of our UCC logo – partly because I had available space – but mostly because this logo is drawn directly from today’s readings from John and Acts. The words “that they may all be one” are drawn directly from Jesus’ high priestly prayer in John’s Gospel.that we read today. The image in the center is drawn from Acts: The crown, cross and globe represent the Lordship of Christ over the whole world, and the division of the globe into three parts represents the words, “you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem” – that’s one of the smaller parts – “in all Judea and Samaria” – that’s the other smaller part – and to the ends of the earth” – that represents the bottom portion of the globe. These verses – that we may all be one and that we may be witnesses to Jerusalem, to Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth – were the vision that guided those who brought together the Congregational Christian and Evangelical and Reformed Churches to form the United Church of Christ. And it provides a vision for us here in Bridesburg. We are to be united in Christ, and we are to be Christ’s witnesses – to those immediately around us, to those a little further distant, and around the world. Emanuel Church’s version of Jesus’ commission might sound like this: “you will be my witnesses in Bridesburg, in Port Richmond and Philadelphia, and to the ends of the earth.” This is the work for which God has chosen us and appointed us here at Emanuel Church. May we at Emanuel Church never balk at carrying out the great work for which we have been chosen. Amen.
When I looked at this morning’s texts, the first thing that came to my mind was, of all things, a car commercial. You’ve likely seen it – a little girl, maybe Penny’s age, is sitting in the car’s driver’s seat, and daddy is telling her about adjusting the mirrors, instructs her to wear her seat belt, cautions her against driving on the freeway, and on and on. At the end of the commercial, we see that the driver is a young lady in her late teens or early 20’s, and the voiceover says, “You knew this day would come……” Daddy’s little girl is all grown up and ready for her turn in the driver’s seat.
Our reading from the first chapter of Acts this morning shows Jesus and the disciples in a moment that perhaps is not so different. Jesus is about to ascend to the Father, and while he will be present spiritually, he will no longer be in the flesh walking beside them. The training wheels are coming off. While Jesus will be present to guide them, the disciples, in a sense, are going to be in the driver’s seat. I’m hoping that it isn’t pushing the metaphor too far to say that henceforth, Jesus will be like their GPS system, showing them the way forward, cautioning them – like a GPS saying “recalculating” – when they’re going off course. But GPS systems can be ignored and shut off, and history bears sad testimony that sometimes the church has ignored the guidance of the Spirit as well.
Even in today’s reading in Acts, it’s clear the disciples don’t yet know where they’re headed. They ask Jesus, “Lord, is this the time when you will restore the kingdom to Israel?” After all they’ve been through together, they will don’t quite get it. But, like the father in the commercial, Jesus gives them cautions and instructions: He ordered them not to leave Jerusalem – sort of like daddy in the commercial cautioning “don’t drive on the freeway yet” - until they have received the power of the Holy Spirit. And Jesus told them, “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” To the ends of the earth! – wow – better fasten your seatbelts, this is going to be quite a ride.
The car commercial I mentioned has no particular religious overtones, but from the concerned or worried tone of the father’s voice, you might think he’s sending up some silent prayers for his daughter’s safety. In our reading from John’s Gospel – sometimes referred to as Jesus’ high priestly prayer for his disciples - which takes place while the disciples are gathered at the Last Supper, just before Jesus departs for the garden where he will be betrayed, Jesus knows that he will not be with them much longer, and he prays aloud to his heavenly father to keep the disciples safe when Jesus is no longer with them in the flesh. Jesus prays that even though he will no longer be physically with them, that Jesus will in some mystical sense be in them, and they in him, just as he is in the Father and the Father is in him. You who are parents know what it is, when your children have come of age, to cut loose the apron strings and send them out into the world. You hope that of all you taught them, at least some of it has stuck; you’ll be there to step in if they get into serious trouble, but they will no longer be under your watchful eye every minute of every day. And this is how for Jesus and his disciples when Jesus makes this prayer - He prays that as they go forth, Jesus will be in them so that where they go, Jesus goes, and he prays to God to keep the disciples together – that they may all be one – when they are sent out into the world.
Last week during the Bible study, we looked at this reading from John’s Gospel, Jesus’ prayer for his disciples. And there was a question: “Do you really believe that we’re chosen by God?” And I answered “yes” – after all, earlier that morning we’d read Jesus’ words, “You did not choose me, but I chose you. And I appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last, so that the Father will give you whatever you ask him in my name.” But that question has been tugging at me since then all week – “Do you really believe we’re chosen by God?” And I thought about Emanuel Church, our presence here in Bridesburg these 150 years. And I do believe we, each of us here, has been chosen by God. It’s only because we were first chosen by God that we in turn can respond to God’s choice by choosing to be here. We did not choose Christ, but Christ first chose us. I remember the opening words of Emanuel’s 100th anniversary history, which were retained in the 150th anniversary booklet: “This is the history of your church from a humble beginning – the need of which God made known to a few in 1857 – to the present day.” So from the earliest days of your church history, there was a sense that those who founded this church were chosen by God to meet a distinctive need, to carry a distinctive message, to carry out a distinctive purpose. Remember also that in the earliest years of this church’s history, the congregation was served by Lutheran and Methodist pastors. While the members were grateful for the efforts of these pastors, they felt that in their Reformed tradition there was a distinctive voice, a distinctive Word of Good News, which would be silenced if the congregation followed these early pastors into the Lutheran or Methodist tradition. And I believe that to this day, even though Bridesburg has no shortage of churches, I believe that we as a congregation of the United Church of Christ have a distinctive word of welcome and good news to proclaim. So, yes, I believe we as individuals were chosen, and I believe our congregation was chosen by God to witness to the Gospel here in Bridesburg. It’s not because of any particular merit on our part – if we start feeling puffed up at being chosen by God, perhaps we can reflect that Balaam’s donkey was chosen by God to speak to Balaam. And certainly the disciples, as we read about them in the Gospels, were very ordinary people. And yet God chose them – as God has chosen us – has called them and us out of the world, to be sent back into the world bearing the Good News of Christ.
Jesus said, “I appointed you to go to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last.” Jesus has chosen and appointed us, not to pat ourselves on the back, but to bear fruit. Our reading from Acts gives us more specific information on what it means to bear fruit: “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” In your bulletin, I printed an expanded image of our UCC logo – partly because I had available space – but mostly because this logo is drawn directly from today’s readings from John and Acts. The words “that they may all be one” are drawn directly from Jesus’ high priestly prayer in John’s Gospel.that we read today. The image in the center is drawn from Acts: The crown, cross and globe represent the Lordship of Christ over the whole world, and the division of the globe into three parts represents the words, “you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem” – that’s one of the smaller parts – “in all Judea and Samaria” – that’s the other smaller part – and to the ends of the earth” – that represents the bottom portion of the globe. These verses – that we may all be one and that we may be witnesses to Jerusalem, to Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth – were the vision that guided those who brought together the Congregational Christian and Evangelical and Reformed Churches to form the United Church of Christ. And it provides a vision for us here in Bridesburg. We are to be united in Christ, and we are to be Christ’s witnesses – to those immediately around us, to those a little further distant, and around the world. Emanuel Church’s version of Jesus’ commission might sound like this: “you will be my witnesses in Bridesburg, in Port Richmond and Philadelphia, and to the ends of the earth.” This is the work for which God has chosen us and appointed us here at Emanuel Church. May we at Emanuel Church never balk at carrying out the great work for which we have been chosen. Amen.
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