Sunday, April 22, 2012

In Case You Didn't Get It the First Time


I John 3:1-3; Acts 3:12-19

        There is an old joke about a minister preaching his first sermon to a new congregation.  He worked on the sermon until he had it just right.  Then he laid out his persuasive words to the eager ears.  After the service everyone came up and proclaimed it was the best sermon they had heard in years.  The next week the congregation enthusiastically anticipated a repeat of the previous effort.  And that is exactly what they got.  The new minister delivered the same message, word for word.  This happened the next three weeks.  Finally a group of elders marched into the minister’s study and asked for an explanation.  The minister looked up from his desk and said, “When you respond to the first sermon I will move on to another.”
        Our text this morning is Peter preaching his Pentecost sermon ….. again.   On Pentecost, Peter had stood in the middle of Solomon’s Portico and addressed the same folks who had murdered Jesus.  A day later he preached practically an exact replica just to make sure the folks listening really got the message.  This is an amazing transformation of faith. The same Peter that denied Jesus, the same Peter that had failed to show up at the crucifixion, the same Peter that had hid out hoping to find safe passage back to Galilee, now, completely filled with the Holy Spirit, described his conversion, not once but twice.  Peter was bold in his pronouncement.  He accused the crowd of “rejecting the Holy and Righteous One, of killing the author of Life.”  I am sure  when Peter finished speaking he expected the crowd to haul him off to a field and stone him.  But they didn’t.  We are told over 3,000 folks begged to be baptized.  So the next day, Peter preached the exact sermon with similar results. 
        Amazing!!!  What was it that Peter said that captivated this crowd not once, but twice?  He began with a not so simple question, “Who was Jesus?”  Peter was speaking to people who woke up every morning praying for the Messiah to come.  Of course they probably felt like the chances of him showing up were less than the Cubs going to the World Series.  The desired it, they longed for it, but it was pretty much thought it was a pipe dream.  Then Peter stood before them declared, “The Messiah was here and you not only ignored him, you killed him.  But that’s OK.  He conquered death and he can conquer your suspicious hearts if you but give him a chance.”  Can you imagine the buzz that was going through that crowd?
        You folks at Rockfish are a pretty sophisticated bunch.  If I were to stop right now and break you into small groups and ask, “Who was Jesus”, imagine how many different answers would be articulated?  Some, perhaps the majority, would state Jesus was the Son of God, sacrificed for the sins of the world.  Another group, a smaller but vocal contingency, would focus on the humanness rather than the divinity of Jesus, using him as the primary example of what we might become.  Some would try to unravel the mystery of incarnation, others would honestly say, “I’m really not sure.”  Once lines and divisions were formed, I would ask a second question.  Regardless of your understanding of Jesus, how does that understanding impact your life?
        The writer of the first Epistle of John wrote, “See what love God has given us, that we should be called the children of God.  The reason the world does not know us is that it does not know him.”  Who is Jesus?  Who are we?  How does our understanding of Jesus define our understanding of our own identity?
        The past couple of months I have spending some time with our young people.  We have had some interesting and revealing conversations and I have had a great time getting to know them.  In our initial conversation, I asked them to draw a self portrait.  When finished, we hung them on the wall.  Then I asked them to draw a picture of God.  It was amazing how similar their pictures of God resembled the pictures of themselves.  I was not surprised by this.  It is amazing how many folks see themselves as gods.  I had them open their Bibles to the Old Testament and introduced them to a formula for God which is used over and over again in the Psalms.  God is gracious, merciful, slow to anger and steadfast in love.  They looked at me strangely but since I was the teacher they gave me the benefit of the doubt. 
        The next week we talked about who they thought Jesus was.  They came up with some great answers but when they finished I asked them, “If Jesus is a child of God, how might God in Jesus best be understood.”  After a few moments someone said, “Jesus would be gracious, merciful, slow to anger, steadfast in love.”
        The following week we begin to talk about the concept of sin.  Admittedly, this is a tough conversation even for adults.  Once again your kids began to scratch under the surface and engaged in a very mature conversation.  At first stealing, lying, and gossip seemed to be the three wrongdoings that concerned them the most.  Then, with a little help, they defined sin as that which is contrary to what God desires us to do and be.  Finally one youth said, “God wants us to be gracious, merciful, slow to anger, and steadfast in love.  We need to act like God acts.” 
        Bingo!  Proceed directly to GO and collect your 200 dollars.   Our kids nailed the concept of being created in the image of God.  What they also revealed was the extreme complexities that evolve from this revelation.  Ronald Cole-Turner writes, “Jesus was misunderstood by nearly everyone around him and Christians must learn to expect the same.”    In other words, if Jesus is gracious, merciful, slow to anger and steadfast in love, and if we as a community of faith believe we are called to be gracious, merciful, slow to anger and steadfast in love, how will the world perceive us?
        Did you check out the headlines or watch CNN this morning?  They might serve to remind you we live in an age that seeks security through violence and greed rather than solidarity and forgiveness. We live in a society which finds personal identity through social networking rather than spiritual transformation.  But perhaps most challenging is we live in a world that trusts failed experiences over the promise that grace, mercy and love might show us a more profound truth.
        I love history.  What better place to live if one is a history buff.  When I was in the 4th grade most students learned the story of Paul Revere.  As a Virginian I was much more interested in Jack Jouett’s horseback ride from Richmond to Charlottesville to warn Jefferson and other members of the Virginia legislature that Cornwallis had dispatched Col. Tarleton to capture the revolutionaries.  Thanks to Jouett, the legislature escaped, and thanks to stories such as this I have always been interested in examining the ebb and flow of various civilizations.  Challenging a premise by George Santayana, I believe no matter how much we study history we continue to repeat the same mistakes.   Experience counters everything else even if it was a bad experience.  What is so radical about Peter preaching in streets of Jerusalem was that we was offering a new direction, a new answer, a new solution to life’s age old problems.  He had the nerve to suggest despite all the accepted evidence God’s promise trumps our experience.
        You folks know this. Despite all the varying hypothesis concerning who Jesus was and who Jesus continues to be, the very heart throb of this congregation is founded on the Godly principal of being gracious, merciful, slow to anger, and steadfast in love.  
        One of the wonderful things about my job is I get to go out in the afternoon and visit with you folks.  This week I was sitting with one of you who said, “Louie, in your experience, are all churches like this one?  What makes us so different?”  Before I could speak he answered his own question by saying.  “Gracious, look at the time.  Please excuse me but I’m a CASA volunteer and I need to pick-up my student from school.”
        During another visit the same day a very complicated conversation found closure when the person I was sitting with said, “I think life comes down to one truth.  The ability to forgive defines the very essence of who we are.”
        Recently another couple said to me, “We go as far away as Waynesboro to Square Dance because it allows us to meet folks different than us.”  Another one of you said, “Hop in the car and I’ll show you another side of Nelson County.”  My favorite response might be,, “We can find plenty of pine.  But we only give away hard wood.  It doesn’t clog their chimney.”
        What makes this church unique is that you truly love each other and the community that surrounds us. You understand that each day, through your acts of mercy, graciousness and steadfast love, you are ignoring what the world has taught and are clinging to an ancient promise that there is a better way to live our lives.
        Marilynne Robinson in her new book, When I was a Child I Read Books, writes, “The great narrative to which we Christians are called to be faithful is a story of a man whose purpose was to render holiness and reveal the way of God to humankind.  This is too great a narrative to be reduced to serving any self interest or be overwritten by any lesser human tale.  Our Reverence should forbid it being subordinated to tribalism, resentment, or fear.”
        Again, you folks understand this.  When I walk into this sanctuary on Sunday morning I am reminded of that wonderful song by Doris Akers.  “There’s a sweet, sweet Spirit in this place, and I know that it’s the Spirit of the Lord.”  This is a place that understands, above all else, the Spirit has called us to be gracious, merciful, slow to anger and steadfast in love.  This is who God is.  This is who we strive to be. This is who the children of God desire to be.  
        Gracious, merciful, slow to anger, steadfast in love.
                                Say it with me.
        Gracious, merciful, slow to anger, steadfast in love.
                                One more time.
        Gracious, merciful, slow to anger, steadfast in love.
                        This is a sweet, sweet, place.       
Amen.

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