If I were to describe our texts today in one word I would say they are confrontational. Another word I might use is prophetic. Still, another might be to say that they are encouraging.
That last word is a word I try to hold onto as the purpose of the gospel, and I’ve borrowed it from Robert Johnston, the Pastor of Louisiana Ave. United Methodist Church. Every time I’ve heard him preach or pray he says, “I want somebody to be encouraged today, and I know there’s somebody out there that needs it!”
I want you to be encouraged today. I want you to be encouraged because so much of the world is discouraging. So much of our news is bad news. So much of our political crisis is bent around discouragement and profiting from our despair.
So, I want you to be encouraged today. I want you to know of God’s love and be held by it like a babe in her mother’s arms. I want you to be encouraged like a child whose father is running alongside their bicycle, who suddenly realizes that dad has let go, and they are riding on their own!
I say all of this because we are entertaining some great and wonderful things today, as we consider some of the options before us as a congregation. We’ll get into that after worship today, but first, we need to consider the power of the gospel as we have received it today.
In the interest of brevity, but with no disservice to the gospel, I’m going to follow a trend from 2013 and give you the gospel in seven words: Prophetic vision; Beloved; Jesus is the way.
Ok, maybe that’s too brief. Let’s unpack that just a bit. In her commentary on Acts 7 (working preacher.org) Amy G. Owen talks about the way we traditionally call the stoning of Stephen a violent act by an angry mob, but maybe we have our vision misplaced. Stephen’s vision was not on the mob. His words were not directed against them. His vision was on Christ, and his words were the same as Christ’s, “Forgive them. They do not understand what they are doing.”
So it is with us, when we focus on the proclamation that God is active and present, that we must keep our eyes on the promise of God rather than those that oppose it. That’s not to say that we should not call out wrongdoing or hold one another accountable. It is to say that we belong to a God who is active and present even in times of trial, and when we keep our focus on the promises of God to save we are able to love even those who would destroy us.
That brings me to our next word, Beloved. While all these ideas of looking toward Christ and love and encouragement and proclamation are all very ecclesial – very churchy – they are at the same time about God’s love for you. You are beloved and sacred in the eyes of God, just as a child should be to any parent.
What we find in 1 Peter is not only the expectation that God loves us as beloved imperfect reflections and expressions of God, but that we are created for one another and find perfection in the faith we share! None of us are perfect on our own, but knit together like the bricks of this sanctuary we find perfection in our faith, with Christ as the cornerstone.
Building technology has certainly changed over the years, but one thing is true – walls that do not support one another crumble. In the time of Christ, there would be a principal stone on the corner of a building by which the other stones lined up for structural integrity. Now, you would think that maybe cornerstone would be a better keyword for this passage, and perhaps it is, but beloved describes you. It describes us. It describes the project and intent of God from the beginning when God chose a people through whom to demonstrate God’s love.
We – like so many others – are spiritual descendants of that project, and so we – along with all who follow the way of Jesus – have become the most current expression of that royal priesthood and that holy nation. Let’s not be confused about what that means, though. Let’s not become like those that crucified Jesus because he was not the one to reinstate the Davidic throne as though the Kingdom of God could be fulfilled through a particular nation or nationalistic pursuit. Let us not forget, the role of the priest is to facilitate the interaction between the sacred and the secular; between the common and the divine; between the creation of God and the very God who thought and spoke all that is and was and shall be into being.
Now, to be clear – and I hate having to say this – when I say “thought and spoke things into being,” I’m not referring to a literal 7 days, because what’s in a day for God, right? I’m saying that God is what the philosopher might call the cause behind the cause; the original cause from which all effects are drawn.
Regardless of what you believe about how that happened – given that scientists are discovering new things every day ranging from the complexity of the genome to black holes larger than our galaxy – I find it incredibly encouraging that we have this evidence, this proof, this testimony of scripture that this very same God who bakes quasars and quarks is active and present in the midst of our lives!
This same God is the one who beckons us to follow and assures us that Jesus is the way. It is, of course, troubling and problematic to reconcile this claim of God’s love with the claim that “no one comes to the Father except through Jesus,” especially when Jesus also says in Chapter 3 that he came to save the world and not to condemn it.
Here, I believe, it is good to be reminded of what we know about God through our prophetic vision and our experience as a beloved community. We know that Christ offers forgiveness, not only for us but for others through us. We know that our faith is rewarded through acceptance into a community of believers, and we know that God offers us the chance to experience and express God’s active presence in the world.
We know that, in gratitude and faithfulness to God’s invitation, we have life in abundance and more opportunities to demonstrate love and grace, and mercy than we can even imagine. It starts at the font of grace with our baptism and inclusion into the household and family of God, and it continues as our faith is nourished and our redemption confirmed at the table of Christ.
What happens next?
Well, as long as we keep our vision on Christ as we are formed and reformed around the invitation to know God and make God known, we’ll be ok – even if everyone around us has rocks in their hands and hatred in their hearts. It was never about them anyway.
Our Westminster Confession of Faith reminds us that what “it” is about is the opportunity to glorify God and enjoy God’s presence forever, as Walt Whitman said:
That you are here—that life exists and identity,
That the powerful play goes on, and you may contribute a verse.
After worship, we’re going to talk about the next verse we hope to sing as God’s people. As long as we remember that Jesus is the one who reveals the active presence of God, not just you or me but together we are the body of Christ and individual members of it; as long as we cast our gaze upon the one who reveals the active presence of God and empowers us to do the same, we’ll be ok. In fact, we’ll be more than ok!
I’m reminded of the first time my eldest rode a bike (though it was her mother that ran with her). She got off and said, “I can’t believe what I’m doing!” That’s not to say that she never fell off again, but we were there to pick her up and she went on to do more amazing things.
So it is and will be, again and again, and again with you and me as we look to Christ together.
I hope you feel encouraged by all of that. I sure do, and to God be the glory for that – now and always. Amen!
That last word is a word I try to hold onto as the purpose of the gospel, and I’ve borrowed it from Robert Johnston, the Pastor of Louisiana Ave. United Methodist Church. Every time I’ve heard him preach or pray he says, “I want somebody to be encouraged today, and I know there’s somebody out there that needs it!”
I want you to be encouraged today. I want you to be encouraged because so much of the world is discouraging. So much of our news is bad news. So much of our political crisis is bent around discouragement and profiting from our despair.
So, I want you to be encouraged today. I want you to know of God’s love and be held by it like a babe in her mother’s arms. I want you to be encouraged like a child whose father is running alongside their bicycle, who suddenly realizes that dad has let go, and they are riding on their own!
I say all of this because we are entertaining some great and wonderful things today, as we consider some of the options before us as a congregation. We’ll get into that after worship today, but first, we need to consider the power of the gospel as we have received it today.
In the interest of brevity, but with no disservice to the gospel, I’m going to follow a trend from 2013 and give you the gospel in seven words: Prophetic vision; Beloved; Jesus is the way.
Ok, maybe that’s too brief. Let’s unpack that just a bit. In her commentary on Acts 7 (working preacher.org) Amy G. Owen talks about the way we traditionally call the stoning of Stephen a violent act by an angry mob, but maybe we have our vision misplaced. Stephen’s vision was not on the mob. His words were not directed against them. His vision was on Christ, and his words were the same as Christ’s, “Forgive them. They do not understand what they are doing.”
So it is with us, when we focus on the proclamation that God is active and present, that we must keep our eyes on the promise of God rather than those that oppose it. That’s not to say that we should not call out wrongdoing or hold one another accountable. It is to say that we belong to a God who is active and present even in times of trial, and when we keep our focus on the promises of God to save we are able to love even those who would destroy us.
That brings me to our next word, Beloved. While all these ideas of looking toward Christ and love and encouragement and proclamation are all very ecclesial – very churchy – they are at the same time about God’s love for you. You are beloved and sacred in the eyes of God, just as a child should be to any parent.
What we find in 1 Peter is not only the expectation that God loves us as beloved imperfect reflections and expressions of God, but that we are created for one another and find perfection in the faith we share! None of us are perfect on our own, but knit together like the bricks of this sanctuary we find perfection in our faith, with Christ as the cornerstone.
Building technology has certainly changed over the years, but one thing is true – walls that do not support one another crumble. In the time of Christ, there would be a principal stone on the corner of a building by which the other stones lined up for structural integrity. Now, you would think that maybe cornerstone would be a better keyword for this passage, and perhaps it is, but beloved describes you. It describes us. It describes the project and intent of God from the beginning when God chose a people through whom to demonstrate God’s love.
We – like so many others – are spiritual descendants of that project, and so we – along with all who follow the way of Jesus – have become the most current expression of that royal priesthood and that holy nation. Let’s not be confused about what that means, though. Let’s not become like those that crucified Jesus because he was not the one to reinstate the Davidic throne as though the Kingdom of God could be fulfilled through a particular nation or nationalistic pursuit. Let us not forget, the role of the priest is to facilitate the interaction between the sacred and the secular; between the common and the divine; between the creation of God and the very God who thought and spoke all that is and was and shall be into being.
Now, to be clear – and I hate having to say this – when I say “thought and spoke things into being,” I’m not referring to a literal 7 days, because what’s in a day for God, right? I’m saying that God is what the philosopher might call the cause behind the cause; the original cause from which all effects are drawn.
Regardless of what you believe about how that happened – given that scientists are discovering new things every day ranging from the complexity of the genome to black holes larger than our galaxy – I find it incredibly encouraging that we have this evidence, this proof, this testimony of scripture that this very same God who bakes quasars and quarks is active and present in the midst of our lives!
This same God is the one who beckons us to follow and assures us that Jesus is the way. It is, of course, troubling and problematic to reconcile this claim of God’s love with the claim that “no one comes to the Father except through Jesus,” especially when Jesus also says in Chapter 3 that he came to save the world and not to condemn it.
Here, I believe, it is good to be reminded of what we know about God through our prophetic vision and our experience as a beloved community. We know that Christ offers forgiveness, not only for us but for others through us. We know that our faith is rewarded through acceptance into a community of believers, and we know that God offers us the chance to experience and express God’s active presence in the world.
We know that, in gratitude and faithfulness to God’s invitation, we have life in abundance and more opportunities to demonstrate love and grace, and mercy than we can even imagine. It starts at the font of grace with our baptism and inclusion into the household and family of God, and it continues as our faith is nourished and our redemption confirmed at the table of Christ.
What happens next?
Well, as long as we keep our vision on Christ as we are formed and reformed around the invitation to know God and make God known, we’ll be ok – even if everyone around us has rocks in their hands and hatred in their hearts. It was never about them anyway.
Our Westminster Confession of Faith reminds us that what “it” is about is the opportunity to glorify God and enjoy God’s presence forever, as Walt Whitman said:
That you are here—that life exists and identity,
That the powerful play goes on, and you may contribute a verse.
After worship, we’re going to talk about the next verse we hope to sing as God’s people. As long as we remember that Jesus is the one who reveals the active presence of God, not just you or me but together we are the body of Christ and individual members of it; as long as we cast our gaze upon the one who reveals the active presence of God and empowers us to do the same, we’ll be ok. In fact, we’ll be more than ok!
I’m reminded of the first time my eldest rode a bike (though it was her mother that ran with her). She got off and said, “I can’t believe what I’m doing!” That’s not to say that she never fell off again, but we were there to pick her up and she went on to do more amazing things.
So it is and will be, again and again, and again with you and me as we look to Christ together.
I hope you feel encouraged by all of that. I sure do, and to God be the glory for that – now and always. Amen!
Comments