Wednesday, April 29, 2009

Third Sunday of Easter Year B 2009

03 Easter B 09
April 26, 2009

Acts 3:12-19
12 When Peter saw it, he addressed the people, "You Israelites, why do you wonder at this, or why do you stare at us, as though by our own power or piety we had made him walk? 13 The God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, the God of our ancestors has glorified his servant Jesus, whom you handed over and rejected in the presence of Pilate, though he had decided to release him. 14 But you rejected the Holy and Righteous One and asked to have a murderer given to you, 15 and you killed the Author of life, whom God raised from the dead. To this we are witnesses. 16 And by faith in his name, his name itself has made this man strong, whom you see and know; and the faith that is through Jesus has given him this perfect health in the presence of all of you.

17 "And now, friends, I know that you acted in ignorance, as did also your rulers. 18 In this way God fulfilled what he had foretold through all the prophets, that his Messiah would suffer. 19 Repent therefore, and turn to God so that your sins may be wiped out…

Psalm 4
1 Answer me when I call, O God of my right!
You gave me room when I was in distress.
Be gracious to me, and hear my prayer.
2 How long, you people, shall my honor suffer shame?
How long will you love vain words, and seek after lies? Selah
3 But know that the LORD has set apart the faithful for himself;
the LORD hears when I call to him.
4 When you are disturbed, do not sin;
ponder it on your beds, and be silent. Selah
5 Offer right sacrifices,
and put your trust in the LORD.
6 There are many who say, "O that we might see some good!
Let the light of your face shine on us, O LORD!"
7 You have put gladness in my heart
more than when their grain and wine abound.
8 I will both lie down and sleep in peace;
for you alone, O LORD, make me lie down in safety.

1 John 3:1-7
1 See what love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God; and that is what we are. The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him. 2 Beloved, we are God's children now; what we will be has not yet been revealed. What we do know is this: when he is revealed, we will be like him, for we will see him as he is. 3 And all who have this hope in him purify themselves, just as he is pure.

4 Everyone who commits sin is guilty of lawlessness; sin is lawlessness. 5 You know that he was revealed to take away sins, and in him there is no sin. 6 No one who abides in him sins; no one who sins has either seen him or known him. 7 Little children, let no one deceive you. Everyone who does what is right is righteous, just as he is righteous.

Luke 24:36b-48
Jesus himself stood among them and said to them, "Peace be with you." 37 They were startled and terrified, and thought that they were seeing a ghost. 38 He said to them, "Why are you frightened, and why do doubts arise in your hearts? 39 Look at my hands and my feet; see that it is I myself. Touch me and see; for a ghost does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have." 40 And when he had said this, he showed them his hands and his feet. 41 While in their joy they were disbelieving and still wondering, he said to them, "Have you anything here to eat?" 42 They gave him a piece of broiled fish, 43 and he took it and ate in their presence.

44 Then he said to them, "These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you--that everything written about me in the law of Moses, the prophets, and the psalms must be fulfilled." 45 Then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures, 46 and he said to them, "Thus it is written, that the Messiah is to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day, 47 and that repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. 48 You are witnesses of these things.

No Change

Every other month at our board meeting the chairperson for the Philippi Memorial Gardens Committee gives us a report. It’s usually just two words: “No change.”

Cemeteries are lovely places for the kind of person that doesn’t like change. They’re always the same. If you want to find someone’s resting place there, the chances are you will always find it in the same place. The stones we use for markers are valued according to their imperviousness to the elements. The better the stone, the more likely you’ll still be able to read it hundreds of years from now. Shirley will tell you that there is a Philippi Memorial Garden’s fund, and the principal on that fund never changes, unless of course someone buys a plot. That’s the only real change that ever comes to Philippi Memorial Gardens. People buy plots and of course people die and their bodies are buried there.

Even spiritually, nothing ever changes there. Things unsaid remain unsaid. Mistakes made remain mistakes. Regrets remain regrettable.

Of course, there’s work involved in making sure Philippi Memorial Gardens never changes. The fund’s interest is used to pay Wayne Kennard to go there and cut the grass. And then someone has to pay the people who dig the resting places and fill them back in and make sure they’re level.

The grass grows whether we like it or not. The wind blows and the rain falls and the sun beats down despite our best efforts. The less expensive stones will wear down and eventually become indecipherable unless someone goes there and restores them. And of course, people keep passing away, so that’s another change we can’t really do anything about. To paraphrase the book of Acts, day by day, death adds to their number those who will never change.

Life on the other hand is all about change. Things are happening all the time. New people are being born every day. Things freeze and melt. The wind blows here and then there. The world itself is constantly moving. You think you’re sitting still but you’re actually hurtling through space at an incredible speed. The sun burns at a furious rate. Your cels are dividing as we speak, blood is being pumped through your veins sixty to ninety times a minute, thousands of chemical reactions are going on inside you every second.

And people all over the world are making plans you don’t know anything about. Billions of dollars worth of business is being done that you have nothing to do with. Whole species are dying out. New species are getting their start.

So people who want to keep everything the same have a lot of work to do. I can’t imagine they’re very happy. Their chances of success in keeping everything unchanged are slim. I suspect they’ll spend most of their lives frustrated, angry or disappointed. Still there are a lot of such people. Most of them, in fact. They ally themselves with each other and they’re able to get a lot done, it’s true.

But I don’t think God is on their side.

Because God is changing everything, whether we like it or not. If we don’t like it, we’re likely to be pretty unhappy most of the time. But we can learn to like it and if we do, we can certainly have a better experience. And if we learn to want it, well, it can be a joy.

God is changing everything, and he will work with us or he will work in spite of us. His kingdom is coming into the world and nothing we can do can stop it. The mighty will be brought low and the lowly will be lifted up whether we want it to happen or we don’t. The self-righteous will be judged and the sinner will be forgiven and there’s nothing to be done about it. The last will be first and the first will be last and as unfair as that may seem, it can’t be helped.

God has even changed some of the people who are buried in Philippi Memorial Gardens. You can look for them there, and maybe you can even find the markers with their names on it, but they are not there. In fact, they are here, alive and worshipping with us. There’s nothing we can do about that either.

Here’s the thing: God loves you whether you like change or you don’t. He’s crazy about you and he wants you to come along for the ride. He will forgive your desire to keep everything the same, he will welcome you into the process, and he’d really love it if you’d help him. His offer is open, but it may not be open long.

Of course you may disagree with me about God’s wanting to change everything. You may look around at things like Philippi Memorial Gardens and wonder whether anything is really changing at all. You might be so hurt by the loss of someone, or you might be so confused by other bad things that are happening in the world that you just find it ridiculous to hope for anything like the kingdom of God.

But I believe in these changes because I have seen them. And I believe in these changes because other people have seen them. God wants us to see him, he wants us to see what he is doing. I believe God is changing the world because a man named Peter touched a lame man who only wanted a little breakfast and through him God gave that man the ability to walk. I believe God is changing the world because a man named Jesus taught a bumbling and cowardly fisherman and through Jesus God made Peter into one of the most powerful and courageous preachers of all time. I believe God is changing the world because the world killed God’s Son by nailing him to a cross but God raised him from the dead three days later.

I know this because I used to live in a grave of my own making, on a mat I couldn’t get up from, in a house I hid in because I was afraid. I’ve told some of you about it, I’ve shown some of you my old wounds. Not pretty I know, but God wants you to see him. He wants you to see how he has changed me, so that you can believe in the change he is bringing to the world.

We spoke on Easter morning about the recent report that fewer and fewer people believe in Jesus Christ. The same report tells us that people who don’t believe in Jesus or in any other religion nevertheless describe themselves as “spiritual.” What this tells me is that people are looking for a God that will change the world, but that they are not finding him in the churches. They want to see, they want someone to show them, they want to believe, but when they come to the churches, all they find are cemeteries, where everyone is working very hard to keep everything the same.

Peter reminds the people who were staring at him after he healed the lame man that they all knew that man before. They all knew that he was lame. They’d seen it. Peter reminds the people that everyone had seen Jesus crucified and dead, but that he and the other apostles had seen him since, alive. They’d seen the wounds of his crucifixion, and they’d seen him eat and drink.

God wants to change you, and God wants everyone to see the change. God wants everyone to see who you were, and God wants everyone to see who you are becoming. That’s how we become a part of the change he is bringing, that’s how we help it to come. You have a story, a story of who you used to be, a story of what God has done to change you. And if you don’t, you can, and it can start today.

The churches in North America are declining and dying not because of the world, but because of the churches. The world still hungers to see the power of God, it still cries out for hope. The harvest is still plentiful. But the churches seem to have gotten stuck. They seem to be filled with people who don’t change, don’t want to change, and don’t want anyone else to change. A church where nothing is changing is a cemetery and not a church.

Of course, God loves you even if you really, really don’t want anything to change. He will even give you what you desire. I don’t know exactly what it looks like. Jesus talked about it in various ways. Sometimes he spoke of something like a brush pile. Sometimes he spoke of a place of eternal darkness. Ashes don’t change. Darkness doesn’t change.

But God is going to change the world, that is certain, because he raised Jesus from the dead. He is going to change the world whether we fight him or we help him. Today is the day we can give up trying to stop God, and if we do, if we give ourselves to helping him, everything will become new, as new as a bold and powerful preacher who used to be a coward, as new as a running and leaping man who used to have withered and useless legs, as new as an eternal king who used to be a dead criminal.

And someone might see it, and believe.

Amen.

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