The Places We Will Go

Acts 2:1-4

Acts 10:34-36    

There is an old folk song called Sonny, and it makes me cry every time I hear it. It tells a story about a man who grew up living on a farm with his mother. His father was a sailor and never at home, so Sonny took care of the farm from a young age. The chorus repeats his mother’s words to him:

Sonny, don’t go away; I’m here all alone.
Your daddy’s a sailor, never comes home.
Nights are so long, silence goes on;
I’m feeling so tired and not all that strong.

Sonny hears these words all his life and he never leaves. Even after his mother dies and Sonny is all alone on the farm, he continues to hear his mother’s words in his dreams. Sonny never leaves, and he becomes the one who is truly alone.

Even if his mother would never have wanted him to live such a lonely life after she was gone, Sonny is paralyzed by the memory of her words.

It makes me cry every time I hear it. Such a tragic story.

Parents and teachers want to give their children guidance to live by, but sometimes it seems like we fail to give them permission to spread their wings. Even when that is truly what we want for them.

And, sometimes, children are paralyzed, like Sonny, out of a fear of disappointing the parents or teachers.

So. Let’s take another look at Peter.

Remember a couple of weeks ago we spent some time with Peter, the disciple. I told you then that Jesus saw some potential in him that was not at all apparent to me. To my eyes, Peter acted like an impulsive kid who needed clear and strong direction – and even then, he would go off and say or do something dumb.

But you may also remember I said that we would see later on, in the book of Acts, that Jesus was right about Peter. And now we are there, now we see it.

Peter is, we now see, The rock. Before The Rock was The Rock. Peter is the rock Jesus needed to build his church.

It began on the day of Pentecost when the Holy Spirit came in like the rush of a violent wind; tongues as of fire rested above the head of each of them, filling them with the Spirit. Each one given the ability to speak in different tongues –

Let me stop right here for a moment and acknowledge how weird this matter is. I mean, I get the point that this ability to speak allowed them to communicate and share the good news with people from all nations. Although it is confusing when the people in the streets below, who are hearing them, exclaim that they must be drunk. That’s confusing. Because I cannot remember a time when I saw drunkenness improve anyone’s powers of communication.

From the people in the streets below you almost get the impression that the apostles who have been lit on fire by the Spirit are, maybe, actually, babbling.

Let’s remember that the gift of tongues, as it is called in the Bible, an ability to speak in a “Spirit” language. Which would be incomprehensible to anyone who wasn’t empowered by the Spirit to understand, but to those who were empowered –

Whatever was said that day, whatever was heard that day, one thing we know is that the Spirit empowered these apostles to share the gospel and other people to hear it. Peter was one of these men who, by the power of the Spirit, found his voice that day.

When the people down in the streets start jabbering indignantly about the drunken fools in the room above, Peter steps out and begins to speak.

Men of Judea and all who live in Jerusalem, let this be known to you, and listen to what I say. 

And he begins to tell the story of how God has been at work through the ages and leading up to the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus the Christ. This Jesus, whom God has lifted up, through whom God has defeated the powers of death, is Lord and Messiah. Men of Judea, Peter says, fellow Israelites, the entire house of Israel. People of Israel, Peter says, Jesus is your Lord and Savior.

These people in the streets who heard his words are stricken to the heart and turn immediately to Peter and the other apostles for guidance. Three thousand, they say, were baptized in Jerusalem that day, the day of Pentecost.

And that is only the beginning. Day by day thereafter the Lord added to their numbers. My goodness – wasn’t that a time!

Read on in the book of Acts – you know how much I love the book of Acts – read on, and you will see what you might already suspect: these heady days of new beginning can’t last for long. Honeymoons all have to come to an end, and this one does too.

Eventually there are disputes among the apostles about the details. Details like, who is the gospel for? Who should receive the Holy Spirit? And what do they have to do?

Details, yes, but not minor. These are actually critical matters and they grow increasingly difficult because the church is on fire. The Spirit is moving and growing faster than these men can keep up with it.

And we reach the point, in Chapter 10, when Peter is confronted with the decision about a man named Cornelius. Cornelius is a Roman centurion, so this is complicated. A centurion was a Roman military officer who was in command of 100 Roman soldiers. And we all know there is every reason for the followers of Jesus to be distrustful of a Roman military office, a soldier of the Empire that crucified their Lord.

But, we are told, Cornelius is well-respected by all the Jews. Cornelius is a God-fearing Gentile, which simply means that he believes in and, in the ways available to him, worships the God of Israel. He gives alms and he prays. Although he is not a Jew and never will be a Jew.

You see, Cornelius is not a man of Judea, a fellow Israelite, he is not one of those whom Peter addressed from the upper room in Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost. He loves the Lord, but he is not a son of Israel.

And yet he, oddly enough, receives a vision from the Lord. Your prayers and alms have been received, Cornelius hears, and now this is what you should do. He is instructed to send some men to Peter. He does and they go.

And at the same time, the ever-industrious Spirit of the Lord sets to work on Peter. Peter receives a vision that he cannot understand, but it seems to be suggesting to him that some of the things he has always understood to be true and good, will not necessarily be the way forward.

Cornelius’s men arrive at his door, Peter greets them, and he begins to see the light. They all go back to Cornelius where this Roman centurion and his whole household is baptized.

And for the young church, the ground has shifted beneath their feet.

Standing in the house of Cornelius, Peter began to speak: “I truly understand that God shows no partiality, but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him. You know the message he sent to the people of Israel, preaching peace by Jesus Christ—he is Lord of all.”

It’s a beautiful moment. And once again I say to you, it could have been so different.

Jesus taught the disciples that God was stirring up a new thing, but no one imagined that it would include anyone other than Jews. The apostles followed in Jesus’ path, by going out to all the villages and towns and speaking in the synagogues, telling the good news. Even when they went out to all the nations, they would find the Jews who lived there and speak to them.

But that Holy Spirit, quick as lightning, just kept getting out ahead of them. The Holy Spirit kept showing them that God’s plans were greater than they ever imagined.

Greater even than Jesus had told them.

When Jesus sent out his disciples to do his ministry he said to them, “Go nowhere among the Gentiles and enter no town of the Samaritans.”

Jesus, himself, when he was approached by a Syrophoenician woman begging for healing, declined to help. His response to her was, “I’m here for the Jews. You are not a Jew.”

If the apostles of Jesus had been unwilling to move beyond the strict understanding of what had been taught to them by Jesus, they would have dug in their heels and refused to follow the Spirit.

Like Sonny, paralyzed and unable to move on, to listen to where the Spirit was leading them. Stagnant.

It seems like it could so easily have stayed that way…the apostles adhering to the narrow path, denying the cries of the rest of the world, justifying their actions with the words of Jesus and leaving it at that.

And if it had gone that way, you and I would not be here now.

These wonderful, beautiful apostles had to grapple with the evidence that God was, still is, and always will be, doing a new thing. They had to acknowledge that they would go beyond their teacher, their Lord, in their actions on behalf of his church. They had to realize that Jesus wasn’t giving them a set of new rules so much as he was giving them a vision in which God is always at work in the world shining more light, spreading more love.

And, like those first apostles, we are called upon to recognize this too. As God spoke through the prophet Isaiah, “Look; I am about to do a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.”

As the church of Jesus Christ, it is incumbent on us to ask every day: How is God intending to expand God’s love today? Who is God inviting in to God’s household today? And how is the Spirit of God empowering us to do it?

Hear me, Church: the places we will go are not limited by what has been said and done in the past. The places we will go are yet to be revealed by the Holy Spirit of God. 

Photo by Shiebi AL on Unsplash

Claiming New Possibilities

Matthew 16:13-20      

On the day of our wedding, I remember standing in the church with Kim and both our parents gathered around us in a tight little happy circle. I very clearly remember Kim’s mother saying to my mother how hopeful she was that I would get Kim’s life more organized. And I remember the doubtful expression on my mother’s face. “I wouldn’t count on that,” she said. Neither of our mothers had a high opinion of our organizational abilities. I guess, for both of them, prior experiences kept their expectations quite low.

Looking back, I have to assume they prayed for us. a lot.

But I also have to wonder if they were pleasantly surprised later, when we both managed to be pretty normal grownups, who do all kinds of stuff. Successful adults, you might even say. It turned out we both had the ability to respond to the challenges of life and do okay.

Even though neither of our mothers could see it at the time. Sometimes, I guess, the way it is gets in the way of our ability to see how it might be.

In reading the gospels, I often look at the disciples of Jesus and think: what a bunch of numbskulls they are. Hopeless. They can’t seem to learn from experience. Jesus tells them something again and again and they still don’t get it. They watch him feed thousands of people with a few loaves and a couple of fish. Then, the next time they are faced with a hungry crowd they shrug and say, “What? How can anything be done? There’s no way!”

I know, I should be more understanding of them. How were they to know any of these things? All their experiences with Jesus were unlike anything they had experienced before. All the things he taught them were unlike anything they had been taught before. They had no framework for any of this. But still, I think, couldn’t they do better? They were with him all the time. They saw what he was doing. Why would they deny what they saw with their own eyes?

Yet, every once in a while, one of them would blurt out something amazing. Like Peter in this passage: You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God. This is astounding knowledge, an amazing breakthrough.

But in the very next moment, in typical Peter fashion, he says something dumb. Jesus is trying to warn his disciples about the things that will happen to him. But Peter cuts him off and says, “Ah, go on. Are you kidding? That’ll never happen.”

To which Jesus tells Peter, “Get behind me Satan, for you are a stumbling block to me.” So much for the star pupil; so much for this budding leader of the pack. He still doesn’t get it.

The rock upon which Jesus will build his church…he’s not quite there – yet.

Peter is the kind of guy we all probably know. He is sort of impulsive. He says what he is thinking when he is thinking it. No censorship going on in his head, it’s “open mouth, insert foot.” Peter is the guy who jumps right out of the boat when Jesus invites him to walk on water with him, but then goes into a panic when he realizes he is walking on water. Peter is the guy who scoffs at the suggestion that he would ever in a million years deny Jesus. Then within hours, three times, he denies Jesus.

Is he really bedrock material? Has Peter got the stuff that foundations are made of? I’d be more than a little worried. I might be looking at him the way my mother looked at me when I was trying to learn how to burp my firstborn baby: This might not work.

But, in spite of all Peter’s frailties and shortcomings, Jesus sees something in him. Jesus sees potential in this guy called Simon, and he renames him: Peter, the rock. To me, the only rock Peter resembled at that point was the scree at the bottom of the mountain. To Jesus, however, he was the firm foundation. He was the keeper of the keys of the kingdom. In Peter, Jesus saw his church.

It takes some kind of vision to be able to see that. But, of course, he was right. In the book of Acts, we see Peter blossom fully. Peter grows into his full potential.

And it could have been so different. What if Jesus could only see Peter as the guy who makes bad decisions? The guy who says dumb things? The guy who betrays him?

But in spite of all that, Jesus sees that Peter has inside of him all that he will need to be a great apostle. He sees beyond what is and sees what could be. Jesus sees the possible.

This is important for us to realize because it is still just as important for us to practice this kind of vision: to see beyond what is, to see what could be – the possible.

It is important in our own lives. We all go through times when we really don’t know what’s next for us. We find ourselves at a crossroads trying to figure out which way to go. Or worse, we might feel we are at the edge of a cliff, with no way to go. In these moments it is helpful to be able to see the possibilities. To be able to step into the unknown and forge a new and previously unimagined trail for ourselves. To see the possible.

It is also important in our relationships. Perhaps there is someone in your life who feels stuck, unable to move forward. But perhaps you can see some possibility that they cannot yet see for themselves. Perhaps you can help someone begin to envision a future. To see the possible.

But even more, I want to suggest that this is very important for us as the church.

The church has gone through some tough times over the past decades. We have watched numbers of church members, numbers of people who call themselves believers, dwindle. We have watched the aging of our congregations, along with the shrinking. And we have watched the reputation of the church get dragged through the mud – not unjustly. There have been a lot of bad actions by church leaders and a failure to atone for them. It is not a mystery why people have drifted away from the church.

These things cause us to become discouraged. We begin to think like those first disciples when they said, “What? How can anything be done? There’s no way. It’s impossible.”

We believe we can do nothing. We will say we are too small, too old, too tired. When we can no longer do the things we used to do we feel we may as well give up. But what if we, instead of seeing only what is, opened our eyes to what is possible? To see what is not yet but could be?

Think of the butterfly. If we didn’t know anything about the life cycle, no one would ever look at a caterpillar wiggling on the ground and think, “that’s going to be a beautiful butterfly someday.” In fact, no one would even look at a wet, wrinkled newborn butterfly hanging from the remains of the chrysalis and say, “That’s going to open its beautiful wings and fly.” But, miraculously, the potential for all that is within the fuzzy, caterpillar we see wiggling on the dirt.

Don’t we believe that there is just as much miraculous potential in us?

Even back in the day of Isaiah, God was saying, “Look; I am about to do a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.”

Do you not perceive it? Do you not believe it?

It’s all in what we believe. The possibility will be realized when we expect it, prepare for it, claim it.

To see beyond what is and see the possibility of what could be is to live into the future God desires for us.

The church is at a crossroads – in many ways, big and small. On some days it kind of looks like it is at the edge of a cliff, with no way to go but down. But there might be another way. If we are willing, we might be able to spread our wings and fly.

Of course, we’ve never done it that way before, have we? And yet…

Do you believe in the possible? Can you imagine things you have not yet seen? 

Photo by Bankim Desai on Unsplash

Into the Light

 

Luke 24:28-49   

W.H. Auden wrote a poem that became very famous when it was included in the film Four Weddings and a Funeral. It begins,

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone.

It is a poem about the loss of a loved one, someone so near and dear to the heart that it just feels like the world has ended. It goes on,

Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
scribbling on the sky the message He Is Dead.

There is the sense of the earth shifting beneath us and nothing will ever be the same. It is cosmic in its scope:

The stars are not wanted now: put out every one;
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun;
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood;
For nothing now can ever come to any good.

I don’t know any other words that speak so well about grief.

I have read the Emmaus Road story so many times, but it never fully dawned on me just how raw the grief and shock are for these two disciples. Two days ago, their lord died on the cross. Only this very morning they learned that his body has disappeared from his grave. They are not buzzing about the news like it’s the latest gossip. They are numb and confused as they walk on the road to Emmaus.

I don’t know what’s in Emmaus. Maybe the disciples don’t know either. Maybe they are walking there just to be moving; maybe they are trying to shake off the grief, walking because they don’t know what else to do but they have to be doing something.

And for as long as they have been walking, they have been talking, talking about all the things that have happened. Not in a purposeful, logical manner – their talk was compulsive, repetitive, driven by shock and grief.

The man who approached them on the road didn’t seem to be up to speed on the events of the past three days, and this fact shocked them into silence. Stop the clocks, cut off the telephone. How is it that you don’t know these things, friend? They stopped walking for a moment, they were so stunned.

They began talking again, going over everything that happened once more, walking and lamenting, now sharing their lament with someone new. But this new person adds a new voice to the conversation. And he begins to shed some light on their experiences – going back through what they have known already from the scriptures and opening up to them new ways of understanding, which they had not seen before. Perhaps because of this they are able to begin processing their grief.

They feel a connection with this man and they don’t want to lose it, so when they reach Emmaus, they ask him to stay the night with them – they strongly urge him to stay. And if you’d asked them why they needed him to stay, they probably would not have been able to tell you. But they knew they did.

Because all along this journey they have been engaged in, struggling with, the reality of change. The earth has been shaken beneath their feet and they are walking and talking and trying to adjust to the change. What happens now? What does any of it mean? How do we go forward and live?

And now this stranger is a part of their journey, the change they are going through. And so he stays. They go into the inn together. They sit down at the table together to eat. The stranger picks up the bread…he blesses it and he breaks it…

And they see Jesus in their midst. Their eyes are opened now.

It is only a fleeting moment, but once again the ground has shifted. Jesus is not dead. He lives and he is with them.

And they know they must return to Jerusalem. Unconcerned now about the fact that night is falling, they get up and go, they make the seven-mile trek back again to Jerusalem. But it is not the same journey –

Because they are not the same men that they were. They are full of new spirit, new vision. Their world is no longer closing in on them, getting smaller and smaller. They are no longer circling over the same events that traumatized them, again and again. Because the presence of Jesus has opened their eyes and shattered the past and they are ready for the new thing God is doing in their midst.

There are more sightings of Jesus. People are terrified, they are confused. In some cases they don’t recognize him, just as these two disciples did not recognize him.

Just as so many of us, over the past 2,000 years, have failed to recognize him.

The church likes to say that God is unchanging. But more important than that, God is constantly trying to change us, to draw us closer and closer to Godself. We might miss it, we might resist seeing it, because change means loss. The loss of the way things used to be.

And we miss the way things used to be. We grieve and in the darkness of our grief we cannot see. We move around aimlessly, soothing ourselves with the knowledge that we are doing something…

like the disciples on the road to Emmaus…walking…talking…stuck.

When the butterfly becomes a chrysalis it dwells in utter darkness. But a fascinating thing happens when it draws near the time to break out. The outside becomes transparent. Suddenly, you can see the colorful wings of the butterfly inside. Suddenly, there is light breaking through. Perhaps this is designed to begin preparing the butterfly to emerge. Perhaps the light is a signal to the butterfly that it is time for a change, new life.

When God is urging us to emerge into new life, it is like God is inviting us to see the light.

When the stranger, who turned out to be Jesus, approached the two disciples on the road, he brought new light to them, making them ready to see him for who he was. When Jesus appeared to the other disciples at the garden, in the upper room, at the lakeshore, together they could see the light. Together, they could navigate this change, walk this journey.

And that is how we do it. We grieve our losses. But even in our grief we can begin asking ourselves: What is God doing in this new thing? Where is God leading us now?

We never go back to the place we were before. But we must know that whenever the ground shifts, God’s arms are always extended toward us. Jesus is always with us. Together, we walk into the light.

Photo by Gerrit Vermeulen on Unsplash