Sermons

April 21 and 22

Message Delivered at Christ Church

April 21st & 22nd, 2007

TEXT:  Acts 9:1-19a

Delivered by Paul A. Johnson

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It’s been a long week.  It began as usual, but by 10 o’clock Monday morning what happened in Blacksburg made it a week different from all the rest.  We all know the details.  Maybe more details than we want to know.

Each of us has negotiated the emotional labyrinth of this week the best way we can.  There’s been shock; and horror; and fear; and pity; and relief; and confusion; and anger; and sadness; and grief; and thanksgiving; and weariness; and that’s just a start.  The emotions and feelings have all sort of cascaded, and so we’ve all done what we needed to do to walk through it.

Some of us were helped through it by asking questions.  Others were helped by giving answers.

            Personally, at least once or twice I just had to distance myself from the whole thing.  Put the front page down and lose myself in the box scores.  On our own, we all just did what we had to do to put one foot in front of another, whatever that might have been.

            But here as the Church, what we did is what the Church does in circumstances such as these.  We have at least fifteen kids from this congregation who study at Virginia Tech.  One of them was grazed by a bullet; and despite some rumors flying around earlier in the week, she’s okay, and she wants you to know that.  But we were with that family as best we could be over these few days, as were a lot of good neighbors and family, too. 

All of our kids are okay.  We burned up the telephone lines and overwhelmed the cellular towers, either talking to kids who were in Blacksburg or their parents.  A bunch of us—not just clergy--just checking in…making sure everyone was accounted for.  We kept calling throughout the week.  In fact, on Wednesday I awakened from their slumbers four different college students between 9:30 and 10:30 that morning, forgetting that their schedules are different than our schedules; and that in college, what is lunch for us is breakfast for them.  Even though we awakened them, they were glad to be contacted.

And then, we came together as the people of God…twice, actually; about 125 of us on Tuesday evening, and another 75 of us on Friday at noon.  We heard some scriptures; lit some candles and said our prayers however best we could; and then gathered around this table, said our communion prayer, and waited for God to do something…students, and parents, and alums, and just us.  On both days, there were lots of sniffles and tears and hugs.  And on both days, as it always is when we gather to worship, the Lord was present.

We came together because that is what the Church does in times of crisis.  We came together and prayed, and stayed around after worship and talked, and cried, and shook our head in disbelief, and sometimes we even laughed.  We were a bit quiet sometimes, and created some space to go where we needed to go.  We let scripture and our prayers do the talking, rather than the television or newspapers.  We let God start working on us, and begin to make something new.

And here we are again; together; around this table; at the end of a very long week.

Well, I want to remind us that it is now Sunday.  It is now the Sabbath, which means that really, it’s the beginning of a new week.  We’re here to celebrate the day of the Resurrection.  There was the old, and now there’s the new.  In the midst of our sorrow, it is a day of new beginnings and new hope and new life.

May it be this new week we remember that the Lord we worship is a Risen Lord, a Resurrected Lord.  That Jesus is alive and real.  He is the first fruits, as the Apostle Paul writes, and then we follow.  We are the people who knows and remembers that there is more to existence than what meets the eye.  What we can touch, and feel, and see, and smell, and hear is one thing, but there is an entire resurrected, transformed existence beyond the one we experience here. 

This story in Acts is a story of transformation.  Saul, the great persecutor of the Church, enemy number one of God’s people, is confronted by Jesus and his life is transformed and made new.

And this story is told to be a lesson for us that resurrection, and transformation, and new life is a promise God both makes and keeps.  And sometimes, this transformation is made in amazing ways.  There is the old life.  But now there is the new life of faith, and mercy, and love…lived in this world, but not stopping when our earthly lives stop.

You see, we are the people who maintains that always, God’s power is greater than the powers of this world;

·  that love ultimately triumphs over hate;

· that trust trumps fear;

· that light overwhelms darkness;

· that hope is more powerful than despair;

· that God’s final word is never death, but always life. 

 

When disaster strikes, we are the people who remind everybody else that there is still a new thing before us, and that what appears to be our end is never our end.  That means for the thirty-three at Virginia Tech this Monday; and Bud, who we buried on Wednesday; and all the rest from this community and beyond who have been gathered into God’s nearer presence.  Because God is great, we are the people of life, not of death.  We are the people of hope and promise.

Take a look at this story from Acts.  The forgotten part of this story of Paul’s conversion and calling is this guy Ananias.  This is the only place he appears in scripture.  We don’t know anything about him.  We don’t know about his family, or how he became a disciple, or where he came from.  He is pleasingly human in that he would really prefer not to visit this man who is doing so much evil to the Lord’s saints.

But he’s obedient.  And he lays hands on Saul.  The scales fall from his eyes, and Paul’s new life begins.  And then Ananias is gone from the story.  We never hear of him again.  He pops in, and pops out.  But he sure does a lot with just a touch.

You see, the Lord brings transformation.  But even those blinded by the light on the road to Damascus need an Ananias to bring this transformation to completion.

We are the people of God, we are the Body of Christ.   We are Jesus’ hands and feet…using the gifts we’re given, the best we can, where we are.  That’s what we do, and this week, that’s what we’ve done.  And it’s really important.

We’re all still on edge a bit; we all still don’t know what to do or how to feel; we’re entering a new stage, where we’ll be hearing and reading about the memorial services for all who have died.  We will relive this, and we are not done with heart-breaking news.  We’re going to need to be gentle with one another…not just here with church people, but everywhere.  And my point here simply is this:  It’s good to remember Ananias, and the power of a healing touch or a life-giving word.

So today, at the beginning of a new week, may we, the Church, proclaim the transforming power of the Resurrection; and listen to God’s invitation that maybe we can be Ananias’ to one another, and beyond. 

You see, I remain convinced that at times like these—when the pain is so great--what the world needs is for us to remember, and proclaim, and do these things; that it needs the Church to be the Church.  Are we together on that?  In Matthew Jesus says, “Let your light so shine before others that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.”  We’re going to let the light shine through us?

Well, that means one more thing, and this is something tougher.  It’s something for us to do, and I recognize that it’s something some of us may not be able to do today.  But as Christians, we have to put this out there for ourselves…

The world will not find it at all difficult to have mercy towards the thirty-two people who were murdered on Monday.  But because of Jesus, as the Church, we are charged with having mercy towards all thirty-three who died.  The world will not find it at all difficult to pity the children and parents of the thirty-two whose lives were taken by another.  But we may be the only ones who will also remember that the person who did this has a mother and a father who have to deal not only with a grief few of us can comprehend, but a shame and a guilt none of us can imagine.  They are the ones begging forgiveness from the entire world.  Whether this person was in his right mind or not when he did this is something I don’t know.  What I do know is that if the Church is to be the salt of the earth Jesus tells us we are, that we are the place where hatred stops and mercy begins.  Always.

And please do not misunderstand me…this is not to minimize what happened; this is not to skip through the pain we feel; and this is not to make excuses for someone’s behavior; and I do not maintain that what I am suggesting is easy.  I’m just saying that the most lost soul on that campus on Monday was the soul of the guy who fired the shots; that Jesus loved him, and died and was raised for him, too; and that our vital, world-changing witness may be that we are the only ones who can remind everybody else that the Lord’s love is so big that God’s heart was broken on Monday not thirty-two times, but thirty-three.  That that’s how big our God is—big for us, big for all; that that’s what Jesus means when he says that oft-quoted passage from John, “God so loved the world”…the entire world.

So it has been a long week, but this is a new one.  The Lord is Risen; and even now, the world is being transformed.

We are the Church, and we will stand.

We will declare God’s power to make new.

We will declare God’s power to make right.

We will declare God’s power to transform life and raise the dead.

We will declare the greatness of God’s mercy and grace.

We will respond with love and forgiveness rather than react with hate and vengeance.

And in our lives we will demonstrate that God did not stop making and calling Ananias’s in ancient Damascus.  But that the Lord still does so today.  Right now.  And right here.