A Down to Earth Faith

Revelation 21:9-22:5

Whenever I read this passage from Revelation about the New Jerusalem coming from Heaven to Earth I immediately think of an old Carter family tune called “Fifty Miles of Elbow Room”.  If you will tolerate me, I’ll sing it for you so that you can leave here and say that at church this morning you were not entertained, but rather worship-tained.  So:

Twelve-hundred miles, it's length and breadth that four-square city stands.

It's gem-set walls of jasper shine, not made by human hands.

One-hundred miles, it's gates are wide; abundant entrance there;

With fifty miles of elbow room on either side to spare.

Oh, the gates swing wide on the other side, just beyond the sunset sea.

There'll be room to spare as we enter there; there'll be room for you, room for me.

Oh, the gates are wide on the other side where the fairest flowers bloom;

On the right hand and on the left hand, fifty miles of elbow room.

Sometimes I'm cramped and I'm crowded here and I long for elbow room.

I long to reach for altitude where the fairest flowers bloom.

It won't be long before I pass into that city fair

With fifty miles of elbow room on either side to spare.

Oh, the gates swing wide on the other side, just beyond the sunset sea.

There'll be room to spare as we enter there; there'll be room for you, room for me.

Oh, the gates are wide on the other side where the fairest flowers bloom;

On the right hand and on the left hand, fifty miles of elbow room.

I cherish that song, but like so many in that Gospel genre it emphasizes our going to Heaven when we die to the extent that we have nearly lost any idea of the foundational Biblical belief that the movement of salvation is from Heaven to Earth.  Jesus taught us to pray, “Our Father, who art in Heaven, hallowed be thy name.  Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven.”  He did not teach us to pray, “God get us out of this sin-ridden mess so that our souls can spend eternity in a spiritual place called heaven.” 

The Christian belief about what happens when we die is not the hub of the wheel of Christian faith.  How to go to Heaven when we die rather than to Hell is not the Gospel message we find in the Bible.  What we find with respect to what happens to us is that if we die before Jesus returns, we will be with him in some place called Paradise in a state that is somehow disembodied.  At a time known only to the Father, Jesus will return, Creation will be made new, and we will be bodily resurrected to live in it.  God created his Creation and called it very good.  He has and is saving it in and through Jesus Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit.

John’s vision here of a New Creation, of a new Heaven and a new Earth where Heaven and Earth are open to one another rather than Heaven being veiled to Earth; and of the New Jerusalem coming from Heaven to Earth for me, when I first caught that glimpse, was a game changer about what the Christian faith is ultimately about.  The Christian Faith is a down to Earth faith not a get me out of here escapist faith.  This Creation and what we do in it does and always will matter.

The New Jerusalem in this vision is a symbol.  It means something.  Jerusalem in the Old Testament is the city, the place on Earth where God chose to dwell, to dwell in his Temple.  The Temple in Jerusalem was the one place on Earth where Heaven where the overlapping of Heaven and Earth was most transparent.  Jesus became the Temple, the place on Earth where God lived and this extends to us through the Holy Spirit bonding us to him.  We, the Body and Bride of Christ, are now the place on Earth where God lives and the overlapping of Heaven and Earth is most transparent. 

Therefore, in our passage today what we are to understand the New Jerusalem to be is us, the Christian church as it is in heaven and which is coming to be on earth.  The New Jerusalem is what we are at heart as the church, the Body of Christ, the Bride of Christ.  It is humanity, humans, you and me in community and the Trinity in whom “we live and move and have our being” is in our midst.  
           The New Jerusalem is Holy Spirit-filled human community.  It is human community in which the image of the loving communion of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is growing like fruit on the branches of the Tree of Life.  Because the Holy Spirit is with and in us we are living in the presence of the communion of the Trinity and thriving on it.

In the world of the early church Christians had to gather in secret at night.  They were not safe in the cities in which they lived.  Yet, when they gathered for worship the light of the glory of God was with them and in the New Jerusalem they were safe.  Darkness was no more.  In the early church they had to meet behind closed doors, but in the New Jerusalem the gates are always open.  The Holy Spirit-filled worship behind those closed doors then, as it is today for us, is the New Jerusalem breaking through from heaven coming in to earth.  When we gather for worship the breaking through of the New Jerusalem is what’s going on.  We do not have an escape to Heaven faith.  We have a heaven down to Earth faith. 

The Christian faith is a down to earth faith.  We tend to stress living the faithful life now so that we can go to Heaven when we die.  But that is not the image that John is giving us with the New Jerusalem.  The New Jerusalem follows a “from heaven down to earth” trajectory.  The loving, worship-filled community in Christ created here by the Holy Spirit’s work in and among us is what the New Jerusalem symbolized in John’s vision.  Our efforts to love one another as Jesus has commanded us are the fruit and the leaves on the Tree of Life that is for the healing of the nations.  The New Jerusalem is here.  It is coming.  And it will come to its fruition on the day when all things are made new. 

I feel as if I’m blubbering a bit here in trying to describe this metaphor of the New Jerusalem.  So maybe I should just finish.  The New Jerusalem shows us what the church at heart is and ought to be and what humanity will one day become.  The church is humanity indwelt by God and thus is and ought to be a community that is safe and secure for all peoples, a community whose doors and gates do not exclude people.  A river of life flows forth from the church.  The Tree of Life grows here.  The Trinity has called us, chosen us, and by the blood of Christ redeemed us to be a kingdom of priests set about on the work of healing the nations through prayer and the proclamation of forgiveness, and challenging people to forgive and to risk being wastefully compassionate.  As a church on earth if we are faithful about our task we will be persecuted.  On the other hand, if we compromise with the idolatries inherent in our culture we will only be ineffective in the work we’ve been called to and there will be no light of the glory of God shining on earth.  Amen.

Eating with "Those" People

Acts 11:1-18

Christian authenticity – what distinguishes a Christian from a non-Christian – this is a huge topic.  For me, whose or what table I could or could not eat at was a major faith question back in my university days, back in the ‘80’s.  I grew up mostly in and around the Presbyterian Church with a few diversions here and there among the Baptists.  I grew up believing that being a down-to-earth good person and a faithful member of the church seemed to be what it was all about.  Christian faith was broadly assumed of everybody.  If you were American, you were Christian; just ask Ronald Reagan. 

Back in the early 80’s TV ministries and ministers started gaining importance.  They began to cobble a common definition of Christian authenticity.  They leaned heavily on folks like Jerry Falwell and his political group, the Moral Majority.  They were anti-Secular Humanism, anti-abortion, anti-homosexual, anti-liberal, anti-tobacco and alcohol, anti-pornography, anti-Hollywood, and pro-Christian schools having the right to be racially segregated.  I thought they were a bunch of prudes.  Regardless, that “faith-based” political organization did more than any other to define the behavioural boundaries of something called Evangelical Christianity.  If you did not act according to their list of anti’s and pro’s, you were not a true Bible-believing Christian.  Unfortunately, it's by this list of anti's and pro's that non-Christian media still defines what it is to be a Christian giving us a bit of a PR problem.

When I was 19 (1985) I had some profound life and faith experiences that led me back to church.  I began to feel the presence of the Lord at church, the Holy Spirit.  I began to sense a call to the ministry.  I started going to a Nazarene church and to a Mennonite University because my girlfriend had convinced me that Presbyterians were “spiritually dead.”  Both that Nazarene church and the university fell within the bounds vocalized by Falwell’s group and other Evangelicals like them.  But to their credit, the Mennonites had a much more profound understanding of social justice and cultural differences and toleration.  Regardless, I became one of them Evangelicals.  I bought into their list of anti’s and pro’s and likewise passed judgement on those who didn’t act accordingly.

Well, time went on and I found that the solid Bible education that I was receiving from the Mennonites was making me suspect at the Nazarene church for the simple fact that I was receiving a Biblical education in something called a Liberal Arts university.  I became disillusioned with that church and returned to my Presbyterian roots and then went on to seminary where a good dose of Reformed Theology and an appreciation for an educated faith and for studying the Bible in its original languages has set me down a less judgemental path. 

I have found that what distinguishes a person to be a Christian is not a list of anti’s and pro’s, but what God has down in, through, and as Jesus Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit to save his creation from sin and death and restore his image in humanity.  The boundaries around the people of God are defined by what God through Jesus Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit does in and through his people, not by our accordance with lists of what we believe to be right and wrong in the eyes of God even if we have derived that list from Scripture.

Our passage from Acts this morning reflects the early church’s struggle with this issue.  Circumcision was a focal point.  There were those who believed that a true Christian was one who upheld the Law of Moses to the full extent of males being circumcised as God commanded to Abraham.  Circumcision was required of all Jewish males whether they were born Jewish or converted to the faith.  It distinguished them as true Jews.

Cornelius, the Gentile concerned here, was a “God-fearer”.  This was a Gentile who believed that the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob was the one true God.  He observed the Jewish faith, but wouldn’t get circumcised.  For this, even though lived as a faithful Jew, he was ostracized from Jewish community.  He could not have table-fellowship with Jews even though he observed their ways.  Circumcision would have remedied that.

Our passage begins with stating that the Apostles and brothers in Judea had heard that the Gentiles had received the Word of the Lord meaning they had had the Gospel proclaimed to them and were believing it.  There were those who said circumcision needed to be observed who began to dispute with Peter about the authenticity of this.  They wanted to know in the first place why he was even having table-fellowship with these “God-fearers”.  No matter what these “uncircumcised” men believed about the God of the Jews if they would not get circumcised, they still were not one of God’s people and therefore Peter should not have gone to eat with them in the first place.  So also, if they were not going to get circumcised they really hadn’t received the word of the Lord.  So with that doubt in mind, they challenged Peter, “Why did you go to ‘uncircumcised’ men to eat with them?”

It hasn’t been too long ago in the Southern U.S. that many white Christian ministers were asked a very similar question by their churches and governing bodies as to why they were befriending leaders in the black churches.  Many church leaders today face the same sort of judgement for befriending Gay church leaders and gay friendly churches.

Well, Peter gave his account of how it all happened.  He had a vision in which three times the same thing happened.  A voice from heaven asked him to do something for which he had a “faith-based” repulsion.  He refused to do it, but then the voice said to him “What God has made clean, you must not call profane.”  What God himself has made worthy of being in his presence and serving him we must not judge to be vile and unworthy. 

Immediately after the three visions three men from that wayward port city of Caesarea show up and the Holy Spirit tells Peter to go with them and make no discriminations.  He went and when he arrived he shared the vision and then began to proclaim the Gospel.  While he was preaching the Holy Spirit came upon Cornelius and his household just as he had done on the day of Pentecost with the Apostles.  Peter baptized them. 

Peter, closes his defense with a very humble observation, “If then God gave them the same gift that he gave us faithful ones in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I that I could hinder God?”

Now here comes your Greek lesson for the day.  Making a judgement about another person is a key idea floating around in this passage.  First, the circumcised believers sit in judgement of Peter and his actions.  Second, the Holy Spirit tells Peter not to discriminate, not to pass a judgement on those he was going to meet with. 

The Greek word there isn’t the word that is simply the equivalent for our verb “to judge”.  In the case of the circumcised believers, it wasn’t simply that they were criticizing him.  It was they were contending with him on the basis of doubt.  We translate the same word as doubt when Jesus says “Have faith in God.  Truly I tell you, if you say to this mountain, ‘Be taken up and thrown into the sea,’ and if you do not doubt in your heart, but believe that what you say will come to pass, it will be done for you.  So I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.”  It is looking at the things that God does or makes possible for us to do as being impossible on the basis of a limited interpretation of Scripture.  That is the judgement they are making

These “circumcisers” doubted that this wonderful new thing that God had done for the Gentiles could be truly of God because it didn’t happen according to their understanding of rules of Scripture.  They would have thought that Cornelius and his people should have been circumcised before Peter ever talked with them and they certainly should have gotten circumcised once the received the Spirit.  They doubted that God could do this new thing outside what they believed to be the boundaries of the people of God.  And so, they criticized, contended with, judged Peter for his actions.

Peter, on the other hand, did not doubt this new thing that God was doing and kept an open mind.  Yes, God had told Abraham to circumcise, but he also had spoken through the prophets that the day would come when he would welcome all peoples to be his people not just the children of Abraham.

It is amazing to see what happens in the end here. The judges became silent.  They were not “shut up” because Peter made such a strong case.  They were prayerfully quiet.  They came to see that God had done this and were awed.  So, they praised God for God truly had welcomed the “uncircumcised” into his people.

The moral of this story is that we need to be careful whom we judge and for what.  We have to be careful that our judging isn’t really simply our doubting that God can, will, and does act in the lives of people today, here and now.  The tendency of the “circumcisers” is to mire down the new life-giving, resurrection power of God being with us in the Holy Spirit in a murky bog of religious rules.  Jesus fulfilled the requirements of the Law for us, for all people, and yet he left us with one commandment, that we love one another as he has loved us.  Jesus touched and healed the unclean.  Peter did the same and found himself eating with “those” people and “those” people were included by God himself into “God’s” people.  Indeed, the Holy Spirit fell on them before they could even profess faith in Jesus.  Awesome.  Amen.

Small Town Talk

Acts 9:32-43

The town that I lived in West Virginia, Marlinton, was a small town.  Its population was about 900; 3,500 if you drew a three-mile radius and took in the people up on top the ridges.  The communication network there was something that you could never disregard.  Everybody knew everybody else’s business or a modified version there of.  The local paper, the Pocahontas Times, did and still does a fantastic job keeping the facts straight – local news, who died, who got arrested, and other endearing nostalgic tidbits.  But regardless of the facts, there was always the story behind the story.  I often joked that Marlinton didn’t need its one town cop because gossip did his job for him.  If you did something wrong sooner or later everybody would know about it.  Small town talk, it’s powerful.

I suspect it’s like that here around Chatsworth.   This is a small town and this small town has its talk, does it not?  It doesn’t take long for “word” to get around, am I right?  Imagine what would happen in this community if word got around that our very own Mother Teresa of the Martha Circle took sick and soon thereafter died but then got raised from the dead by some follower of Jesus that come here from Desboro.  What do you think the result of that talk would be?  Would this church be full next Sunday morning?  That’s what happened in Joppa when Tabitha died and was raised.  Word got out.  Many believed.

Let me play Pocahontas Times here and give you some facts about Tabitha.  She is the only person in the Bible to be called a “methetria” – a woman disciple.  This is an intentional female version of the word disciple, which is “methetes”.  The NIV ignores this fact by simply translating it as “disciple”.  Tabitha was special a special woman in the church, like a nun but not, and was an example for women in the early church.  She was not married.  As her house had an “upstairs room” in which the widows laid her after they washed her, she was likely a woman with wealth.  But, Tabitha did not spend her days like other wealthy women, attending functions of pomp and circumstance or shopping or visiting and contributing to the small town talk.  Rather, she worked with her hands making clothing to support the town widows.  You see, back then widows if they had no family particularly sons, they had to support themselves usually by begging.  Apparently, Tabitha took in many Christian widows in Joppa as her own family and supported them by making and selling clothing.  It is also quite possible she employed these widows in a clothing factory in her home.  Tabitha devoted her life to good works and helping the poor.  She was a “methetria” – a devoted “woman disciple” not just a disciple.

Tabitha was her Jewish name and it means gazelle.  She was also known by her Greek name, Dorcas, which also means gazelle.  That she went by both a Jewish and a Greek name is significant.  One of the earliest disputes in the church, particularly in the Jerusalem church, concerned fair distribution of support for the widows.  Jewish or Jerusalem-based Christian widows were being given preference over Greek-speaking widows though they too were Jewish Christians just not Judean Jewish.  They were from a far.  Tabitha, Dorcas, was likely known for either helping specifically the Greek-speaking widows in Joppa (for they called her Dorcas when speaking to Peter) or for just not discriminating and helping them all.  Regardless, not only was Dorcas, Tabitha, a model of good works and helping the poor she was a model of unity in the church.  In and through Dorcas the Kingdom of God and the Lordship of our risen Lord Jesus Christ was evident.

Well, Tabitha takes ill and dies and this creates a couple of problems.  One, what’s going to happen to the widows she supported.  When Peter arrives in Joppa to pay his respects to Tabitha, the widows are quite adamant about showing Peter the clothing she made as if to say what do we do now for support?  What would happen to them?

A second problem was that in the first decades of the church, the followers of Jesus were expecting Jesus to return at any moment and there was a common belief that no disciples of his would die before he returned.  If someone died, it must have been that she was a martyr like the deacon/evangelist Stephen who was stoned to death by the Jewish authorities in Jerusalem while Paul held their cloaks.  Or, he was crooked like the benefactors Annas and Sapphira who in chapter 5 of Acts dropped dead “at the Apostles’ feet” because they lied to the Holy Spirit by holding back some of the proceeds from the sale of a field when they promised to give it all to the church for the help of the poor.  Tabitha wasn’t a martyr, so…what’s the story behind the story? 

So, we can see that a real needs issue with widows had arisen and maybe even some unfavourable small town talk about Tabitha had started.  Not knowing what to do, the “disciples” there in Joppa knowing that Peter was in the next town over sent for him.  Certainly Peter, a former leader in the Jerusalem church and one of the original twelve disciples, would know what to do about providing for these widows. 

It seems quite evident here that they are not calling for Peter to come and do a miracle and raise her from the dead.  It seems more likely that there is an urgent problem dealing with justice here: how could God just abandon these widows like this?  How could God just seem to disregard all the good that Tabitha was doing for the poor in Joppa?  If the Lordship of the risen Lord Jesus Christ was so apparent in and through the work of Tabitha, why would he end it so senselessly at the consequence of these widows?

When he got there I think Peter was as much at a loss as to what do as the disciples in Joppa were and so he prays.  He sends the wailing widows away and kneels to pray.  We don’t know why he does what he does next.  Maybe the Holy Spirit directed him, compelled him, or maybe he just decided to make a “pot shot prayer” and see what happens…or, in frustration, he turned to Tabitha and said, “Tabitha, get up.”  In the Greek, the word for “get up” (anastethi) sounds very much like the word for resurrection (anastasia).  “Tabitha, resurrect.”

There are some precedents for that sort of thing from Jesus’ ministry as well.  In Luke’s Gospel Jesus did this very same thing to a young man who had died leaving his mother a widow.  Jesus told him to “get up” from his bier.  In Mark’s Gospel Jesus said to a little twelve year old girl who had died, “Talitha cum” which means “Little girl, get up.”  Would it work for Peter?  “Tabitha, get up,” he says and she did.  She sat right up and looked at him and he took her hand and helped her the rest of the way up.  Problem solved.  And then, the small town talk network kicked in a good way and many came to believe that Jesus is Lord.

So, what do we do with this story of Tabitha resurrecting?  Do we claim it as our own and start hanging out at the funeral home telling the dead to rise?  That would get the town talking, but not in a good way.  I see two ways we can take this story of Tabitha to heart.

First, there’s the question of “legacy”.  Tabitha’s death left a huge hole in the lives of many people because she had devoted herself, indeed all of her livelihood, to good works and helping the poor.  If we ever want to test ourselves to see if we are on the right path, a good question to ask would be – If I die today, who would miss me and for what reasons?  Would I have made a real Kingdom of God difference in the lives others…or have I just been in it for me and my own? 

And what about this church?  If this congregation shut down tomorrow, are there “widows” in this community who would miss us for very necessary reasons?  That’s a huge question.  It gets at what a local congregation is about.  A theologian named Emil Brunner once said, “The Church exists by mission, just as fire exists by burning.  Where there is no mission there is no Church…”.  Do we have a local mission here for which we would be dearly missed if we closed tomorrow? 

A second thing to take from this story with is the question, “What’s the small town talk about this church?”  What are people saying about us?  Anything?  Jesus through Peter by the power of the Holy Spirit raised Tabitha from the dead and word spread.  What’s going on here of that magnitude that people would talk about and come to believe that Jesus is Lord?

I can give you one answer to that.  Jesus has caused each of us to “get up.”  He has given each of us new life in himself in the power of the Holy Spirit.  We are alive in him and share in his relationship with God the Father.  We have been raised to a new life and adopted into the “family of God”.  Jesus has made us to get up for a reason – that he might live through us and manifest his kingdom and his Lordship through us.

Every morning we get up and we go about our day, but when we get up do we realize that it is to the command from Jesus to “get up”; to live in his resurrected humanity and devote ourselves to his good works and helping those in need just as Tabitha did.  It would be nice to know that the folks of this town could say they know Jesus lives and is Lord because those Presbyterians don’t just have private beliefs about him but are obviously living for him.  So, may we “Get up” and generate some small town gossip that’s inspiring.  Amen.

Enlightened

Acts 9:1-20

Paul’s encounter of Jesus on the Damascus Road is probably my favourite story in the Bible.  I could ramble on this for hours and not exhaust it, but I won’t do that to you.  But, needless to say, it is loaded with imagery – life-changing personal encounter with Jesus, being raised to new life, spiritual blindness, disillusionment because Jesus has turned your world upside-down.  This story just has everything and it puts me in the mood to sing some Hank.

Paul’s experience here is paradigmatic of what some would call a Christian conversion experience.  Though I think it is more appropriate to think of this moment in terms of Paul’s calling rather than his conversion.  Just like the prophets of the Old Testament and the disciples in the New, Jesus is calling Saul to follow him and that just like the prophets there will be things that he will be irresistibly compelled to do and say for God.  “Rise up,” Jesus says (that an image of resurrection) “and enter the city” (that’s a New Jerusalem image meaning the church) “and you will be told what you must do.”  This is a life-changing personal experience of Jesus.  It’s an experience of resurrection. 

Paul would tell you that prior to this experience he was dead, and after it Christ Jesus was living through him.  Paul goes from being a zealous for God Jew who was doing what he thought a faithful Jew should do.  He was faithfully trying to stop those whom he believed to be spreading the false teaching that Jesus is the Son of God and the Messiah.  Prior to this encounter Paul simply did not believe that Jesus had been raised from the dead.  But after meeting Jesus risen from the dead Paul too begins to confess, teach, and boldly proclaim that Jesus is the Son of God and the Messiah.  He goes from being the most vehement persecutor of the Body of Christ to being its most zealous proponent to both the Jews and the Gentiles.  That’s resurrection.

I think Luke’s choice of words here for describing Pal before he met Jesus is powerful.  He says Paul was “breathing threats and murder onto the disciples”.  The image is that he is literally breathing hate…breathing hate in the name of his God and believing this hate to be the right and true thing to do.  Breathing hate in the name of God.  That’s hating someone because you believe God hates them.

This happens today.  Christians do this.  Just to give an example, I know a Christian mother who not long ago was compelled to have a talk with the school principle and her child’s Kindergarten teacher because the teacher was telling her students that when we die we become butterflies.  The mother’s point was that if Christian teachers in the public system cannot teach children that we will be raised from the dead as Jesus was, then no teacher should be teaching an obvious lie that people become butterflies when they die.  Some people would call this a mild case of persecution of the church that happens now that Christianity does not get preferential treatment in the public forum.

We might and should applaud this mother’s courage.  Yet, this same Christian mother recently, just after the Belgium terrorist attack posted to her Facebook page a little long-winded blurb set under a big Canadian flag about how if Muslims don’t like being Canadian they can get the H-E-L-L out of Canada, only she used the F-bomb.  That sort of ignorance turns quickly to breathing hate.  When a Christian says and does something like this it makes it very hard to believe that they have seen the Light in Jesus Christ.

The Triune God of grace, the loving communion of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit does not hate Muslims.  I used the word ignorance here because ignorance is a state of not knowing.  In the case above, it is not knowing what Islam is and not knowing Muslims as persons and not knowing Muslim community and culture.  Yes, there are a lot of evil things being done in the world by people who claim to be Muslim.  Evil people can twist religion and use it to breed ignorance and incite hatred.  Church history is full of this just ask any Jew.  What this Christian mother posted on Facebook was the same thing as anti-Semitism.

As members of the Presbyterian Church in Canada we try not to be ignorant of other faiths.  Rather, we confess: 

Some whom we encounter belong to other religions and already have a faith. Their lives often give evidence of devotion
and reverence for life.  We recognize that truth and goodness in them are the work of God's Spirit, the author of all truth.  We should not address others in a spirit of arrogance implying that we are better than they.  But rather, in the spirit of humility, as beggars telling others where food is to be found, we point to life in Christ.  (Living Faith 9.2.1)

Coming Back to Paul, this sort of breathing hate and mistaking it for being faithful was where he was at.  If Paul had a Facebook page, I am sure he would have filled it with long rants against the followers of Jesus.  And indeed, Jesus confronts him for his hate-breathing and it leads Paul to ask that most powerful of all questions, “Who are you, Lord?” 

There is only one person a zealously faithful Jew would address as Lord.  That is Yahweh, the Lord God of Israel.  So, seeing the light Paul knows he is in the presence of God. 

Who are you, Lord?  That’s a personal question.  It’s a relationship question.  There has to be communication to get your answer.  The answer Paul gets is Jesus is God/God is Jesus and he is persecuting God himself by pursuing the followers of Jesus.

This experience not only literally blinds Paul.  He is likewise spiritually disillusioned.  Everything he thought he knew and believed about God was shattered by this personal encounter with Jesus.  Paul believed God should have been a very wrathful God towards him for the evil that Paul was breathing onto the church.  Paul believed he deserved to die.  But Jesus amazingly tells him like he had told several other people who were dead.  Jesus said to him, “Get up.”  Jesus gave Paul a new life.

New life happens when we encounter God in Jesus and come to know that God is really like Jesus.  God is life giving, life restoring.  He is not some punitive judge out to send sinners to Hell if they won’t repent.  God does judge, but his judging is in accordance with  the love he has shown us in, through, and as Jesus, God the Son become a man who died for us and our sins.  God’s judgement puts things to right.  Paul here is a prime example.  Jesus should have struck Paul dead, but that’s not the kind of God God is.  Jesus raised Paul to new life.

To close, we have to be really careful that we don’t let ourselves fall into the folly of breathing hate in God’s name.  This June the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in Canada is being asked to make a decision of full inclusion of homosexuals in the life of our denomination this means recognizing marriage and ordination of practising homosexuals.  Sadly, this matter is going to be prime opportunity for hate-breathing from those on both sides of the issue.  Let us pray that our commissioners will be wise enough to approach this very sensitive matter from the perspective of asking “who are you, Lord?” and will be able to come up with an “enlightened” decision that reflects who Jesus is as the life giving God.  Amen.

The Gift of Obedience

Acts 5:27-35

“We must obey God rather than man.”  That verse contains some cringe-worthy words.  If you’re the preacher whenever “must”, “obey”, and “God” show up in a verse, you know there’s going to be trouble.  Most people these days don’t think in such medieval terms as “God, obey, must”.  No, today it’s “All you need is love” and “Jesus completes me.”  Seriously, have you noticed that the words to “Jesus Loves Me, This I Know” have changed?  Well, they needed to be changed.  The hymn was written back in the mid-1800’s before vaccines and such and childhood death was a real possibility.  Back then the hymn was meant to help children deal with that possibility but today, they’re a little scary.  The most notable change occurs in the last verse and it reflects a shift to a rather narcissistic attitude.  Originally we sang “Jesus loves me he will stay, close beside me all the way”.  But now we sing “Jesus loves me still today, walking with me on my way.”  It’s like Frank Sinatra got his hands on the song.  “Jesus did it my way.”  The change in lyrics here captures the shift to the prevalent thought today that I don’t trust and obey Jesus, rather he’s just there to make my life more meaningful.  If you try to throw the “archaic” idea of “God, obey, must” into a sermon these days, it’s a major downer, a downright preacher faux pas.

So, the stand up routine is done.  I was just trying to say that we have a problem with the word “obey” and especially when it’s used in proximity to the word “God” and intensified by the word “must”. So that said, what do we do with this verse, “We must obey God rather than man”?  Well, I’m going to put my Bible scholar hat on and say a good place to start would be taking a closer look at what the Apostles meant by the word and see what gets lost in translation. 

First, what do we think when we hear the word obey?  When I hear it I immediately think of not doing that list of things I’m not supposed to do and in turn doing the things that I am supposed to do.  That’s the “obey my commandments” approach. 

I also think of Dana’s dog Cedar, my step-dog.  Cedar just loves doing obedience training.  Obedience training teaches a dog commands and expected responses and that makes everybody very happy.  It facilitates communication between dog and dog person.  Through hopefully positive rather negative rewards dogs learn what we want from them and they love it. 

This is largely the way we teach our children obedience as well.  But children are different.  They can choose to be disobedient.  But for me the adult, I ain’t no dog and I ain’t no child and the “obey my commandments” approach really doesn’t leave me feeling respected as a rational and free person.

Well, this idea of being free to make the rational choice to obey the commandments of God rather than any other authority isn’t what’s going on here with the Apostles.  The word in Greek there isn’t the typical one for “obey”.  It’s the word for following a strong inner compulsion to act on what you are convinced to be the truth.  It’s that word with the word for “ruler” stuck on the end of it.  It is a compulsion to obey a higher authority that you know is truth. 

So, what did this compulsion led to in the early church?  The Apostles and the Jerusalem church had become quite a scene.  People were getting healed.  They were effectively eliminating poverty among themselves by sharing everything in common…and all this in the name of Jesus whom everyone knew had been crucified wrongly for treason against the Romans, but the Apostles and up to 500 others had seen him after his resurrection.  A few weeks after the Resurrection during the Festival of Pentecost which celebrated the giving of the Law at Mt. Sinai, the Holy Spirit was poured out upon the church and they began to tell about Jesus in many different languages.  In a very rousing sermon that day Peter publicly explained that they were not drunk for it was only nine o’clock in the morning.  No, what was going on there was the fulfillment of the prophecies of the prophet Joel about the end times when God would pour his Spirit upon his people.  Jesus was the Messiah.  He was indeed bodily raised from the dead.  The Holy Spirit was definitely upon them as promised.  A new day of salvation had dawned.  This was God’s truth and the Apostles were compelled by the Holy Spirit to proclaim it.

They got in trouble.  The Sanhedrin, the religious authorities, their power threatened, they got jealous.  They tried to compel the Apostles with threats to stop teaching in the name of Jesus and implicating the Sanhedrin in his wrongful death.  Finally, after one healing too many they had the Apostles jailed only to find them the next day again publicly preaching in the name of Jesus and claiming an angel had set them free.  Just as the Sanhedrin thought that fear of their power would compel the followers of Jesus not to speak in his name, so the Holy Spirit was compelling them to preach that Jesus, whom the Sanhedrin had crucified, was raised.  Just as the Apostles and many others were filled with the Holy Spirit on Pentecost, so we find the Sanhedrin saying that the Apostles had filled all Jerusalem with their teaching in the name of Jesus.

As we can see obedience here isn’t about doing the right moral thing as opposed to the wrong for fear God will get you.  Christian obedience is acting because of the compulsion of the Holy Spirit to be in and under the authority of Jesus, the Ruler, to act on his behalf.  The result of this compulsion to obey God by proclaiming the truth of Jesus is that the surrounding community begins to get transformed to look more and more like God is among his people.  

This Holy Spirit compulsion to obedience to proclaim the truth about Jesus is a gift which reflects itself in what the Apostles called repentance and forgiveness of sins; two other cringe-worthy topics in churches these days.  Repentance doesn’t mean simply stop doing the bad things we do.  In Greek it literally means to be “with-minded”, with-minded with Jesus expressed through participating in his mission to bring in the Kingdom of God.  Repentance is being a disciple of Jesus not just trying to be a good person and generally good citizen and going to church is part of that.  Being a disciple is gathering together with other folks who are “with-minded” with Jesus to break out the Bible and study together, eat together, pray together, and outreach together.  Actually, when you find yourself compelled to do these things it is a sign that the Holy Spirit is at work in you.  Go with it.

Forgiveness of sins is also a gift.  Forgiveness of sins is not a legal decision made by a judge on the throne.  Forgiveness of sins is Jesus in the presence of the Holy Spirit with us picking us up in the midst of our sinfulness and carrying us towards being free of them.  Forgiveness of sins also means having a group of people “with-minded” in Christ who do the same, who pick us up and bear us in all our brokenness towards freedom from our sins.  This kind of repentance and forgiveness is the heart of Christian community.

How does a church let itself be compelled by the Holy Spirit to act according to the Truth of Jesus and his resurrection and find the gifts of repentance and forgiveness of sins?  Well, just gather together and see what happens.  Get together and start talking about Jesus.  Prior to Pentecost the Apostles hid for fear of the Jews just like we do with our ideas of faith being a private matter.   But on Pentecost just out of the blue while they were gathered together the Holy Spirit fell upon them.  Just gather together for whatever reason you can find and start talking about Jesus.  Only, I think the gathering together needs to be more frequent than just on Sunday morning.  I’ve a firm belief that the more we Christians get together, the more we will realize that Jesus is in our midst and convinced of that we will begin to feel the Holy Spirit compelling us to go with this gift of obedience and be a community of repentance and forgiveness of sins.  Amen.