Imagining Some Things

 Acts 4:32-35

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I‘m sure you are all familiar with John Lennon, the former Beatle, and with his now iconic song “Imagine”.  He released it back in 1971 as the title track of his second solo album called “Imagine”.  The phenomenon of this song is huge.  Let’s not underestimate what a deep chord it hits with people.  In 2004 Rolling Stone ranked it no.3 in its list “The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time”.  Ever since 2005 it’s the song that’s played on New Year’s Eve when the ball drops at Times Square.  “Imagine” is the universal, global go-to song for whenever the sentiments arise that we need to make this world a better place.  Whenever there is a great tragedy involving the death of many people, “Imagine” gets more airplay than any other song.  It seems that whenever the feathers have hit the fan, “Imagine” seems to hit the spot.  

What’s so special about it?  Well, Lennon invites us to imagine all the people living for today to make the world better rather than just shuffling on our way hoping for some sort of better afterlife; to imagine all the people living life in peace rather than killing each other over nations, politics, and religions; and to imagine all the people sharing all the world so that rather than greed counter-balanced by hunger, there is human unity and economic fairness; and, in the end an invitation for all these imaginative people to join together to live as one.  It’s basically a call to imagine people united in peace and sharing what they have and maybe to join together to make it a reality.

Oddly, the song was very divisive.  Just listen to the lyrics:

Imagine there's no heaven

It's easy if you try
No hell below us

Above us only sky
Imagine all the people

Living for today... Aha-ah...

Imagine there's no countries

It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for

And no religion, too
Imagine all the people

Living life in peace... You...

You may say I'm a dreamer

But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us

And the world will be as one

Imagine no possessions

I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger

A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people

Sharing all the world... You...

You may say I'm a dreamer

But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us

And the world will live as one

 

If John Lennon were trying to put out a call to a better world, he certainly made no friends among those who want to be rich and those who seek power in politics and religion.  This song got him into some very hot water particularly with the Christian crowd.  It really does sound like he was going after the Christian faith or at least the institution of the Church, but not Jesus.  I think he, like the Doobie Brothers, would have thought that “Jesus is just alright”.  The Christian response to “Imagine” was pretty brutal especially from the religious right.  I remember back in the ‘80’s hearing on Christian radio more than once how this song was a demon-inspired call to Communism, Anarchy, and Atheism.  There was no embrace by the religious right at all.  

But to be fair, Lennon did say where the inspiration for the song came from – a Christian prayer book given to him by Dick Gregory who was a comedian, singer, and activist and an African-American man of faith.  Lennon also said that what he meant by “no religion” was not atheism, but rather this thing of people saying my religion is bigger than your religion and then fighting over it.  I don’t think he was trying to rule out God and spirituality, but just the institution of religion.  I think he was just trying to say, “Look up to the sky above with a slate cleared of the institutions of religion, politics, and economic domination that have led humanity so wrong and appreciate the possibilities for a world of peace…and of course God, unhindered by the chains of religious institutions, would be a part of that.  It would be presumptuous to say Lennon was an atheist.  He was an Anglican, actually.

Well, I don’t want to make too much of John Lennon; that would be making him bigger than Jesus for the purposes of this sermon.  I would just like to step out on a limb and say this world of peace and unity that Lennon calls on people to imagine actually came about in the first couple of decades of the church in the wake of Jesus’ resurrection.  Let’s take a jump into our reading from Acts and note what arose in those small Christian communities of faith.  

That world of peace and unity that Lennon could only imagine was really present among those Holy Spirit-filled followers of Jesus, the Son of God, who was crucified dead by religious and political authorities for inviting people to come live according to the Reign of God rather than the ways of religions and empire.  Jesus was crucified dead, but God raised him.  In the power of the Holy Spirit God raised him and he was seen by the Apostles and well over 500 people.  Then, in due course God poured the Holy Spirit by whom he raised Jesus from the dead upon Jesus’ disciples and enabled them to live as Luke, the writer of Acts, says, as a people of one heart and soul who shared all things in common.

People ask how this little group of Jewish Jesus followers grew and spread so quickly and expansively throughout the Roman Empire and beyond to be multi-national, multi-ethnic, interracial, and egalitarian with respect to gender and social status.   Most Christian historians and Bible scholars say it was due to three critical factors; their proclamation of the historical fact that God raised Jesus from the dead, the experienced presence of the Holy Spirit among them, and the historical reality of the quality of community that they shared.   

Scholars will also say that the Holy Spirit-filled community that arose in the wake of Jesus’ very real, bodily resurrection was exactly what people back then imagined to be the perfect form of human community.  Thus, the community the early church shared was a type of community that those who longed for the purest expression of human community were drawn to.  The Romans had Pax Romana with roads and mail and stuff but it came at the cost of oppression by the Roman military.  The early church had fulfilling human community.

In the same way that the ideals that John Lennon wrote about in “Imagine” hits a chord with the vision of ideal human community for people today so did the early church with people back then.  Several of the ancient Greek philosophers, Plato for one, when they reflected on what ideal human community would be like said that people would be “of one heart and soul” and they would “share all things in common”.  The people of Early Christianity were of “one heart and soul” due to the Holy Spirit in their midst making Jesus real to them and creating a devotion to him that overflowed into an unconditional love for others.  This love led them to share all things to the extent that there was no needy person among them.  They eliminated poverty in their midst.

They eliminated poverty in their midst!

How did they do that?  Well, their wealthy adherents discerned that their allegiance to Jesus meant more than the power and status that their wealth provided them in the Roman Empire.  They truly believed God had raised Jesus from the dead and that he would return and a new world was on the verge.  The evidence they based this on was the felt presence of the Holy Spirit among them when they gathered for worship and fellowship and the Holy Spirit’s going before them in mission doing things only God can do.  Imagine that!  Well, that being the case, they sold those extra fields and houses and possessions that they didn’t need and laid it at the disciples’ feet for distribution to the needy.  Imagine that!  And it wasn’t just the wealthy.  Aside from these very generous acts, sharing possessions was simply the way of life for early Christians rather than being obsessed with calling everything “mine” the way we do.  Imagine that!

Luke gives two distinguishing markers of early Christian fellowship.  The first was that the Apostles gave their testimony that they themselves were eyewitnesses to Jesus being raised from the dead.  The Holy Spirit backed it up with what Luke calls “great power”.  The Greek word for power he uses here isn’t the one used for power in the sense of authority.  The Apostles were not lording power over the early Christian communities by saying things like, “We saw Jesus raised” or “we were his closest friends so you have to do what we say.”  The word here is dynamis from which we get words like dynamic and dynamite.  The power by which God raised Jesus from the dead undergirded their testimony and made it effectual in those who heard it.  People were healed and changed.  Divisions and grudges were set aside.  All those things that would keep people from being of one heart and soul were mended.

Luke also says “great grace” was upon them.  When we use the word “grace” around the church we often misuse it or misinterpret it to mean God showing grace by not giving me the punishment that I deserve.  That’s not what grace means.  Think of it this way.  We got some fans of the British Queen among us.  If we were to say that Queen Elizabeth II showed me grace, it would be that she welcomed me into her presence, showed me her favour, and promised to act for my benefit; so it is with God’s grace.  Grace with respect to God is that he brings us into his presence, declares his favour for us, and promises to act for our benefit which he, of course, does.  Think of a gracious host.  A gracious host spares no effort in making you feel like you’re the most important person at the banquet.  God, by the gift of his presence among us, the Holy Spirit, makes us each feel as if we are most special to him, like family to him and with each other.  God considers us his beloved children for no reason other than he loves us.  That’s grace.

This “great grace” was then embodied in the early church by the fact that there was no needy person among them.  As I said they eliminated poverty in their midst.  How did they do that?  Those who had shared what they had with those who had not.  Imagine that!  Imagine if we thought about the grace of God less in terms of God loves me even though I’m sinner and the proof of that is Jesus died for me and more in terms of God loves me and the proof of that is I give everything to everybody just as Jesus gave his life for me.  Imagine that!  They relinquished their attachment to possessions.  Imagine that!

People will say that this ideal image of the early church that Luke presents us with here was simply contrived, that Luke took the example set by a few individuals and made it seem as if everybody was doing likewise.  To be honest, Luke was writing in hindsight and as they say “Everything looks better in hindsight”.  He wrote his Gospel 20-25 years after the events he portrays of the life in the first decade of the church there in Jerusalem.  But most scholars will say that one of the reasons the church spread so explosively was that they really did redistribute their wealth and share their possessions in the way that Luke says they did.  Early Christians were so convinced that they were living in the inbreaking of the Kingdom of God that they lived accordingly.  Imagine that! 

Jesus taught things like: “Lend expecting nothing in return.” (Lk. 6:35) Sell your possessions and give alms”…(“and you will have treasure in heaven”)…”For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” (Lk.12:33-34; 18:22)  “None of you can become my disciple if you do not give up all your possessions.” (Lk. 14:33)  These first Christians really took Jesus’ teachings on wealth and possessions seriously.  Imagine that!  Wealth and possessions are odd animals to have on the farm.  They’re like cats.  We think we own them, but in reality they own us.  If we died alone in our houses with our dog around, the dog would loyally sit by our side or go find help whereas our beloved little tabby would soon start to nibble on us.  (Just trying to lighten the moment).

The first Christians took Jesus’ teachings on redistribution of wealth and sharing possessions so seriously as to actually do it because they were convinced God had raised him from the dead and, resultantly, the Kingdom of God was indeed at hand.  Imagine what the world today would be like if we the followers of Jesus shared their conviction!  Imagine that!…or maybe we should do more than just imagine.  Amen.

 

Extreme Makeover

John 20:19-31, Acts 4:32-35
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I tend to prefer to preach from the Common Lectionary, which is a three-year schedule of suggested Scripture readings for each Sunday developed by the World Council of Churches a couple of decades ago.  The readings for the Sunday after Easter fascinate me.  This particular Sunday we read John 20:19-31 where we find the Disciples cowering behind closed doors fearing for their lives.  It also has us read from the early chapters of the Book of Acts where we have those same Disciples fearlessly preaching and teaching Jesus raised from the dead and the church growing from household to household throughout Jerusalem by the thousands.  And, all this happens in a matter of six months.

One of the questions I ask is how did they do that.  The obvious answer is that they really didn’t do anything but keep together in seclusion and pray.  Then, for roughly forty days after Easter morning Jesus just kept appearing to the Disciples.  Easter evening he breathed the Holy Spirit upon them giving them the one heart and soul that was the root of their unity, their one heart and soul in him.  From then up until his Ascension he just continues to teach them about the Kingdom of God.  Then on the Day of Pentecost while they were praying the Holy Spirit came upon them in power and they started turning the world upside down with the Good News that Lord Jesus is risen victorious of Sin and Death and his Kingdom is at hand.  Come and live in him.

Instead of hiding in houses the Apostles started teaching openly at the Temple in a place called Solomon’s Porch.  Solomon’s porch was on the eastside of the Temple complex and it is where Jesus sat and taught whenever he was in Jerusalem. There was also a gate there through which the prophet Ezekiel had prophesied centuries before that the Messiah would enter Jerusalem.  The earliest Christians gathered there to preach, teach, worship, and pray because they expected Jesus return at any moment. 

They also did a few miracles in Jesus’ Name that got them in trouble.  One in particular was a man in his forties who was born lame whom everybody knew because he always sat outside the main gate to the temple begging.  He couldn’t go into the temple because of his disability.  Peter healed him in Jesus’ Name and he leapt and jumped into the courtyards of the Temple causing quite a celebrative commotion.  The High Priest tells the Apostles to stop doing Jesus’ things and Peter responds: “Whether it is right in God’s sight to listen to you rather than to God, you must judge; for we cannot keep from speaking about what we have seen and heard” (Acts 3:20).  That takes guts.

They also had a very rich fellowship.  They met together in their homes regularly for meals, to worship, to study, and to pray.  One of the most notable things the Book of Acts has to say about the early church was that they also held all things in common.  They virtually eliminated poverty in their midst.

From cowering to boldly going where only Jesus would have you go…it’s like they got an extreme makeover.  You folks remember those makeover shows that started about fifteen years ago; people getting makeovers and becoming completely different people and contractors taking run down houses and making them really cool.  There was even one called “Pimp My Ride” where some young guy’s loser mobile would disappear for a while and come back a dream rod. 

Well, I’m not a fan of the message those shows convey.  They make it seem that real worth, self-worth, is integrally tied to externals.  Churches get into this mode as well.  We think that if we don’t have the fancy, gimmicky programs that the popular churches have, then we aren’t a real church.  If we don’t have worship with sound effects and pyrotechnics, then we’re a less-than-church and people won’t like us.  The result, we suffer corporate low self-esteem and so we try to gussy ourselves up – new paint, new signs, new programs – only to find it doesn’t work.

Why? Well, in the church, the externals flow from the internals.  Basically, this means that we have to draw near and listen to Jesus who is in our midst by the presence and power of the Holy Spirit.  As we do that the Holy Spirit begins to work in us, transforming us, and when the time is right things start to happen.  If we do not tend to Jesus in our midst, the internal, then the externals we come up with are nothing more than a glossy travel brochure inviting people to an all-inclusive at the city dump.

Well, back to that question of “How did they do that?”  What did they do back in the early church to go from cowering to boldly proclaiming Christ and multiplying in numbers.  As I said, it isn’t that they really did anything, but rather that Jesus did it in them by the presence and power of the Holy Spirit.  But, if there is anything that we can do to make that happen, it is to create an expectant environment.  By that I mean gathering together in small groups to eat together, pray together, and worship and study together with the expectation of encountering Jesus in the presence and power of the Holy Spirit.  It is too often the case that we let what we think a church is supposed to be and do stand in the way of Jesus’ desire and plan for his church.  When we do that it obviously quenches the Spirit and church becomes simply navigating the same old ruts.

One remarkable discovery that I have made in my just over 20 years of ministry, ministry focused in Congregational Redevelopment, is how strangely difficult it is to get the people of a congregation to cease doing some of the same old stuff that they have always done in the same old way year after year and in turn get the them to begin to take the time to gather together in smaller gatherings to eat together, pray together, and study and worship together…and this is important…do it with the expectation of encountering Jesus in their midst in the presence and power of the Holy Spirit.  If we would just do that, you know what, Jesus will show up or maybe it’s better to say we will start noticing that he has been here all along, but we’ve been too distracted to see him and feel his presence. 

People don’t come to church because they are looking for one more stress-causing thing to do in their lives.  They come because they have a very real reason for wanting to know that God is real. 

We are those who know Jesus is risen.  Jesus lives and the proof of that is the change he has wrought in us.  You’ve heard that song, “Because he lives, I can face tomorrow…Life is worth the living just because He lives.”  Well, yeah. Today. Tomorrow. The next day.  There are people whom Jesus will bring to church.  The people Jesus brings to church are people looking for hope and need to find at church a people who love them like Jesus does.  Jesus brings people to church because he wants them to meet people who have hope because we know he lives.  That faith, that hope, manifests in a very love to share.  The only life worth living is his, the life he has to give to us.  He has put us here to be the proof of that.  So friends, give time to him, time expecting him to show up.  He will.  Amen.

The Testimony to the Resurrection of the Lord Jesus

Text: Acts 4:32-35; John 20:19-23
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“With great power the apostles gave their testimony to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and great grace was upon them all” (Acts 4:33).  What a marked difference from the picture that we have of the apostles in our reading from John’s Gospel.  What happened that powerfully transformed them from cowering in fear behind locked doors to being a well respected community of people who not only boldly proclaimed the message of Jesus’ resurrection but they also embodied it to the extent of sharing all things in common and effectively eliminating poverty in their midst.  Something huge happened.

Just to recount the story, several days prior to our reading in John’s Gospel the “Jesus Movement” was huge.  Jesus rode triumphantly into Jerusalem like a king to the accolades of a massive crowd only to have the same crowd nearly overnight shouting, “Crucify him.”  The Romans did indeed do that.  They beat him to the point that he was unrecognizable and then crucified him. And so we find the Disciples, a very small group, the Twelve and the women, cowering behind locked doors for fear that the same would happen to them.  In fact, they really didn’t know what had in the end happened to Jesus.  His body was gone from the tomb.  Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome had gone there that Sunday morning and found the tomb empty as did Peter and John.  Some mysterious angel-like men told them that Jesus had been raised.  Mary Magdalene said she had spoken to Jesus, but at first she thought he was the gardener.  Then there were two of them who met Jesus on the road to Emmaus.  Luke reports that after seeing him they hurried back to Jerusalem and it is while they were telling the others what had happened that Jesus shows up there in the midst of them behind the locked doors and says ‘Peace, be with you” and showed them the scars and eats some fish. 

Then over the next forty days Jesus appeared to the Disciples several more times and Paul attests that at one point over 500 people saw Jesus.  He does many things to prove he was really alive and all the while he continued to instruct them on the Kingdom of God just as he had done prior to his death.  The last time they saw him, Jesus told them to go back to Jerusalem and wait until the Holy Spirit would come upon them with power and he disappeared into some clouds.  Two men in white said he would return one day in like fashion.  The Disciples then went back to Jerusalem and spent a lot of time praying… a lot of time praying.  There were 120 of them.

Jesus’ ascension was forty days after his resurrection.  Nine days later came Pentecost and the power came.  Pentecost was the day the Jews celebrated the giving of the Law at Mount Sinai and so there was again a great crowd in Jerusalem.  The 120 followers of Jesus were gathered together in one place and the Holy Spirit fell upon them like tongues of flame.  They began to speak in the languages of the Jews who had pilgrimaged to Jerusalem to worship on Pentecost and so they went out into the streets and began telling what God had powerfully done there in Jerusalem forty-nine days earlier, that God raised Jesus who had been crucified from the dead. 

Peter then stood up and answered the accusation that they were drunk by saying that what was happening there was what the prophet Joel had prophesied about; that the Holy Spirit would be poured upon God’s people.  He testified about Jesus, how he was the Messiah, how the Jewish authorities had had him crucified, how he had truly been dead, and that God had raised him from the dead and he had ascended to the right hand of God.  The Jesus whom they had crucified, God had made both Lord and Messiah.  (Lord was what the Romans called Caesar and yes, Peter is beginning to take on the Roman Empire here.)  3,000 people that day welcomed his message and were baptised.  They began to share their possessions in common, selling stuff and sharing with those among them who had need.  Day by day they went together to the temple to pray.  They met in each other’s homes for meals and to study the Scriptures.  The fellowship must have been incredible and the Lord continued to add to their number daily.

One day on the way to the temple Peter and John healed a man born lame and they did it in Jesus’ name.  The man leapt around praising God and Peter again testified that Jesus whom they had crucified God had raised from the dead and it was by Jesus name that this man was healed.  Then the Temple authorities had Peter and John arrested and brought before the High Priest, the chief priests, and the elders.  Peter testified again to Jesus’ resurrection, the one whom they had crucified, and that this man had been healed in Jesus’ name.  All that these “powerful” men could do to them was order them not to speak in the name of Jesus again.  And so Peter answered them saying: “Whether it is right in God’s sight to listen to you rather than to God, you must judge; for we cannot keep from speaking about what we have seen and heard.”  Keep in mind, Peter and John some fifty days earlier had been cowering behind a locked door in fear of these very same men whom they were now standing before boldly testifying to the resurrection of Jesus whom they had crucified.

“We cannot keep from speaking about what we have seen and heard”! which is the testimony of the resurrection of our Lord Jesus.  Whenever I read these first chapters of the Book of Acts, which I just summed up for you, I stand back with my jaw to the ground in wonder and then I scratch my head in bewilderment as to how the church as I know it today compares.  The early church went from cowering in fear behind locked doors to being unable to keep from boldly proclaiming the resurrection of Jesus the crucified one and his Lordship and reign; a reign which they embodied in their communities to the extent that they virtually eliminated poverty among themselves.  The fellowship was so deep and rich in their communities that they daily got together in each others homes to pray and eat and study the Scriptures.  In comparison, yes, they had seen, touched, and talked to Jesus risen.  Yes, Pentecost was a very real and powerful experience for them.  But for us, we’re the ones about whom Jesus said, “Blessed are they who have not seen and yet are faithful.”  Blessed?  We look more like the Disciples when they were fearful and behind closed than when they were emboldened and unable to keep from boldly testifying to the fact that Jesus had been raised from the dead.  

Let me say something about this but first let me make it clear that the last thing I want to do is blame the people in the pew for the state of the church today.  For truly, in this day and time if you are in church on a Sunday morning you are one of what could be called the faithful remnant.  It is not for your/our lack of faith that the churches struggle as they do these days.  So, just shy of 70 percent of all Christian fellowships in North America particularly those in the Mainline traditions have less that 60 people at their worship services and they are all worried about their institutional survival because they are encumbered with the buildings and salary packages of a church that in its hay day in the 1950’s and 60’s really was what we could compare to a market bubble.  Active participation in Mainline churches today statistically resembles what it was pre-World War II.  We have undergone a market correction so to speak.  There have been times over the last 300 years that the church has bubbled but it has always returned to smaller fellowships.

Our particular challenge today is that we are very heavy on the Senior Citizen side of the spectrum in comparison to the young family side of the spectrum.  The faith needs to be passed on and this is problematic when, and I hope I’m not out of line on this, when most to all of us oddly grow mute when it comes to speaking about our resurrected Lord whom we know lives and has indeed been personally faithful to us each in a steadfastly loving way.  Again, I do not want to blame us for this muteness for indeed it was God the Father in the power of the Holy Spirit who raised Jesus the Son from the dead whom the Disciples saw and it was the God the Father and Jesus the Son who poured out the Holy Spirit on the Disciples and empowered them to speak.  If we have mute tongues, weak hands, and lame knees when it comes to proclaiming Jesus risen and reigning, then we must not blame ourselves rather we must look to the Triune God of grace for the words, the strength, and the joyful leaping in praise to be able to give our testimony to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus.

Fearful and behind closed doors, believe it or not, is a good place to be for it is here that we realize the church is not in our hands.  It belongs to Jesus Christ.  We must turn it over to his will and care.  Yet, there is something we should be doing here behind these doors – prayer-filled, Bible study-filled, sharing our burdens-filled, sharing a meal-filled, loving one another-filled fellowship around the tables back there, around your tables at home, and even with our folks at the nursing homes is what we need to be doing.  It is in this kind of fellowship that Jesus, alive and in the power of the Holy Spirit, becomes evident, just like the Higher Power works powerfully among the folks in the AA fellowship that meets here Wednesday evenings delivering them from the compulsion to drink and healing their broken lives.  It is in this prayer-filled, Bible study-filled, sharing our burdens-filled, sharing a meal-filled, loving one another-filled fellowship that the Holy Spirit begins to overflow.  When we get together and share our lives and pray for one another and we begin to see those prayers answered, the more this happens the more we will find ourselves unable to keep from giving our testimony to the fact that Jesus is risen and reigns.

One last thing to say, this prayer-filled, Bible study-filled, sharing our burdens-filled, sharing a meal-filled, loving one another-filled fellowship needs to happen and your ministers cannot do it for you.  I would be tickled pink and I believe Timothy would be as well, if it just started to happen that you folks just started getting together regularly just to share your burdens and to pray for one another, or just to open the Bible and read a paragraph or two and start talking about it (simple as that), and share a pot of soup and some homemade bread or just a cup of coffee (food always helps).  This needs to happen.  It does and you know what?  It works.  Amen.

Turning the World Upside-down

Text: Acts 17:1-9 (2 Corinthians 5:14-21; Acts 2:42-47; 4:32-35)

“These men who have turned the world upside-down have come here also....” I hear these words, albeit the words of an angry mob, and ask how can they apply to us the church here in North America. How can we be those who turn this world, this culture upside-down when for the most part it owes its existence to Christianity. Seriously, literature majors in university are still recommended if not required to read the Bible in the King James Version because it is needed for making sense of so much of Western literature. Economics, we would not live in a capitalist economy without Calvinism's stress on delayed gratification. You know, deny yourself now for the heavenly reward later. That's called investing. Democracy, democratic forms of government are the result of John Calvin having declared in Book Five of his Institutes of the Christian Religion that the people of a land have a divine right to overthrow a tyrannical king. If you did not know, elections are basically a bloodless means of overturning a government. The justice system, it may sound a bit controversial but the church's misunderstanding of the nature of God's justice, mercy, and wrath has led to our having a justice system that is retributive rather than restorative. The environment, science and technology, the mindset that has brought on the destruction of the environment is rooted in Western Christianity's misunderstanding of what it means for humans to be in the image of God and have dominion over creation. We think we are little gods who have power to dominate the creation rather than power to caretake it. Sir Francis Bacon, who defined the scientific method, said it best when he said that humans are nature's masters and it must be made to obey us for our benefit. Cultural imperialism, Christian missionaries in the 19th and 20th Centuries took Western ways of medicine, lifestyle, education, economics, and progress into the Two-thirds World along with our version of the Gospel and made their worlds look just like our own to the detriment of indigenous culture! I'll stop there but I think it is obvious that we Christians made the world we live in particularly so in North America.

Yet, something has happened. Gabe Lyons, a Christian sociologist of sorts and author of unChristian: What a New Generation Really Thinks about Christianity...and Why It Matters notes: “Not too long ago, belief in the Christian God was almost assumed. Judeo-Christian principles governed the public square and anyone who challenged them was marginalized. Christian leaders were considered forces with which to be reckoned, and politicians coveted the Christian vote. That is no longer true. The world today is increasingly pluralistic and post-Christian. Christianity is no longer the dominant religion governing the public square. Many faiths have a seat at the table. The world is also increasingly post-modern. Christian truth claims are questioned by a generation that is skeptical of statements of certainty. And,...negative perceptions about Christianity abound even as the faith's influence is slipping away and churches face declining attendance.”

I don't think that I am being too overly generalistic to say that in Western Culture particularly the North American variety the church has not and is not turning the world upside-down, but rather it's the other way around. The world is turning the church upside-down. Indeed, in Mainline denominations no matter the survey the divorce rate is just as high as it is out there; extra-marital sex even among senior citizens – just as high; substance abuse, domestic violence – just as high; our views on money, consumerism, materialism – pretty much the same. When it comes to morals, we for the most part don't look so much like the image of our God. Rather, we look just like the culture around us. And, a recent Barna study tells us that people outside the church, particularly those younger than forty think that Christians are simply anti-homosexual (91%), judgemental (87%), hypocritical (85%), old-fashioned (78%), too political (75%), out of touch with reality (72%), insensitive to others (70%), and boring (68%). Apparently and in all sincerity, to the world around us we really don't look like Jesus.

To the world around us we do not look like those who are that new form of humanity Paul calls “in Christ”. Paul said there in 2 Corinthians 5:17 (and I'll give you a very literal translation), “if anyone is in Christ, NEW CREATION.” He means the people in Christ (that's us by the way) are the return of Jesus, all things made new, Kingdom of God kind of humans reconciled to the God who made us right down to the deepest part of who or what we are by the incarnation of God the Son as Jesus of Nazareth applied to us by the indwelling the Holy Spirit. We don't look like new creation “in Christ” people who proclaim and minister the divine edict of unconditional reconciliation to God rendered in and by Jesus that is evident in communities of people who are indwelt by the Holy Spirit and love one another so unconditionally and so sacrificially that we virtually eliminate poverty among ourselves as attested of the early church by the book of Acts.

Friends, there is another king. His name is Jesus, the Messiah of the Jews and the Lord and Saviour of the universe. In life and in death we belong to him. True? He has given us one commandment, only one. What is it? That we love one another as he has loved us. Why? So that the world around us will know that we are his disciples. One commandment, yes? Love one another, yes? So, why do we look so much like the world around us? Why are we looked upon so negatively when all we are supposed to be doing is loving one another with zealous authenticity as Jesus has loved us each laying his life down for us? It's time we got back to turning the world upside-down.

Well, turning back to the Book of Acts and taking a look at what Paul was doing that turned the world upside-down and well basically, it began with him going to his people and Jesus' people too, the Jewish people, to their Sabbath teaching sessions and there Luke says he “reasoned with them from the Scriptures, explaining and proving that it was necessary for the Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead, and saying, 'This Jesus, whom I proclaim to you, is the Messiah'." Some of the ethnic Jews were persuaded and joined with them as well as many of the law-abiding Gentiles or God-fearers and many leading women. And then, even the altercation that followed spread the word even further. Please note that the early church missionary efforts of Paul were primarily an in-house Jewish thing. The first culture to be turned upside-down by the Gospel of Jesus Christ was Paul's own Jewish culture.

Well, applying this to our situation in North American, the first thing that needs to be turned upside-down is us, the Christian church. Turning the world upside-down must start in-house. We, the Jesus people, the people of faith must gather quite humbly and prayerfully around the Scriptures and let the Lord Jesus in the power of the Holy Spirit teach us who he is, why he had to suffer, why his way of life is the way of the cross. We have to come back to him gathering humbly around the Scriptures so that we can take to heart his life and way of life and know him in not only his death, but also in his resurrection. As Paul said in Philippians: I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith - that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead. Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own.” We belong to Jesus. His way of the cross and his new life in resurrection is our way and our life. We are not to be the religious institution that undergirds Western civilization. That's colluding with Caesar. We are the new creation ones "in Christ" called to the ministry of reconciliation and restoration.

I'm one of those freakazoid ministers who still translate the Biblical passages from which I preach. For me, that first-hand handling of the Bible in its original languages is when and where I really get "it", where I feast on the word. Let me share some of that wealth from here in Acts. Luke says Paul reasoned with his people from the Scriptures. The Greek word for reasoned there is more or less our word dialogue and it literally means to mingle thought with thought. The imagery there to me is quite simply beautiful. It's not arguing or banging your head against the wall reasoning. It's a gentle mingling. We Christians really just simply need to sit down together as much as we can and mingle our thoughts on Scripture passages not so much around the question of “what is the passage telling us to do” but rather “what is the passage telling us of who Jesus is.” Mingling our thoughts, together, around a table is a much richer way to experience the transforming power of Christ Jesus in Scripture than a private pondering of the Our Daily Bread that so many of us enshrine in our bathrooms of all places.

Another word Luke uses which we translate as “explaining” literally means opening completely. Luke uses it in his Gospel to describe how those two disciples on the Emmaus road had their eyes opened to see Jesus when he broke bread with them. He also uses it to say how Lydia, Paul's first convert in Macedonia, how the Lord opened her heart to accept Paul's message of Jesus. When we gather around the Scriptures to mingle thought with thought the Lord will indeed open our eyes to see him and our hearts to receive him.

Another word Luke uses which we translate as “proving” quite literally means to set before as in to set food before another. Jesus gave his disciples the miracle meal of loaves and fish to set before the multitudes. In our mingling of thought with thought around scriptures Jesus through the working of the Holy Spirit will open us up to see and accept him and will set before us the miracle feeding of his very life to enliven us.

Another word, the one we translate as persuaded. In Greek, it is a passive word, meaning something that is done to us rather than something we do ourselves. So, it is not "you've presented me with all this evidence that demands a verdict and now my decision is....". It's more like "suddenly my life makes no sense apart from what you just told me about this Jesus."

Winding down, what's usually the first thing people do when they come to church and sit in a pew? I've noticed that they thumb through the stuff in the pew racks as if searching for something. This is indeed proof that people do come to church searching for something and it is Jesus, our king Jesus, that they/we are searching for and he can indeed be found in our midst. So, let's gather around the Scriptures to mingle thought with thought particularly around the question of who is Jesus. Paul's quintessential question which he asked Jesus when he met him on the road to Damascus was "Who are you, Lord?" That's the question we must gather together around. Turning the world upside-down begins with the answer to that question. When we prayerfully gather around the Scriptures mingling thought with thought Jesus will come and open us up for the feast and he will turn the world upside-down yet again. The people who are most authentic in sharing Christ are those who are presently having enlivening and transforming encounters with the Lord that they feel not ashamed but empowered to share with others. Let me leave you with a thought to ponder: what would happen here if this congregation put aside everything it is doing and just hunkered down in prayer and Bible Study until it happened? Amen.