“Hope” – Sermon for May 18, 2014
Acts 7: 54-60 When the crowd heard these things, they became enraged and gnashed their teeth at Stephen. But filled with the Holy Spirit, he gazed into heaven and saw the glory of God and Jesus standing at the right hand of God. “Look,” he said, “I see the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God!” But they covered their ears, and with a loud shout all rushed together against him. Then they dragged him out of the city and began to stone him; and the witnesses laid their coats at the feet of a young man named Saul. While they were stoning Stephen, he prayed, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.” Then he knelt down and cried out in a loud voice, “Lord, do not hold this sin against them.” When he had said this, he died.
John 14: 1-14 Jesus said, “Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me. In God’s house there are many dwelling places. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may be also. And you know the way to the place where I am going.”
Thomas said to him, “Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?” Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to God except through me. If you know me, you will know God also. Henceforth you know God and have seen God.”
Philip said to him, “Lord, show us God, and we will be satisfied.” Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you all this time, Philip, and you still do not know me? Whoever has seen me has seen God. How can you say, ‘Show us God? Do you not believe that I am in God and God is in me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own; but God, who dwells in me does works. Believe me that I am in God and God is in me; but if you do not, then believe me because of the works themselves.
Very truly, I tell you, the one who believes in me will also do the works that I do and, in fact, will do greater works than these, because I am going to God. I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that God may be glorified in the Son. If in my name you ask me for anything, I will do it.
“Hope” – Sermon for May 18, 2014
by Reverend Doreen Oughton
Today’s scripture passages tell us about two people who are trying to communicate something about God – how to know God, how to listen for and recognize God. These would be helpful things to know, wouldn’t they? I don’t know about you, but I often turn to God for guidance, for blessing, for healing for myself or another. I have lots of impulses in that regard, but to tell the truth I am not always sure that what I get is from God. And then there are those times when I don’t turn to God very quickly, but like to sort things out for myself. I can easily convince myself that the things I believe are the God-given truth, the things that I do are the right things – the things God would have me do, and the words I say are pearls of wisdom straight from heaven. And I have to wonder, what if I had the key to knowing, recognizing and listening for God, and through that knowing, I learned that I was wrong! Maybe I wouldn’t find such knowledge very helpful at all! Its easy to say I want to serve God as long as I have made God in my own image, but what would happen if I truly opened myself up to God’s way, God’s truth, God’s light and life? Well, if Steven and Jesus are any evidence, I might just get myself killed.
We had our bible study this past week, looking at the texts and trying to find a unifying thread to them. We went further back into the story of Steven. The reading starts “when the crowd heard these things,” and we wanted to know what “things.” Does anyone know who Steven was?
We first meet him in Acts 6. Acts is the story of the early Jesus movement – after Jesus died, returned and ascended, as the disciples are preaching and healing and baptizing. There is tremendous growth in numbers of followers. Scripture says there were Greek speakers and Hebrew speakers – and what happens when lots of people, people from different cultures, people with different ideas ideas, join in on something? There is disagreement, wrangling over how to do things, over what is important. The Greek speakers say there is discrimination in the care for widows, with Hebrew speaking widows getting more. The apostles decide that they have too much teaching and praying to do to be bothering with these food programs. So they appoint seven men to this task, laying hands upon them in a type of ordination.
So Steven starts out as a care-giver, not a teacher /preacher. And he is “full of God’s grace and power, performing miracles and signs.” One days as he was going about his tasks, he was engaged in debate by some Jewish men from out of town, who didn’t like what they heard, and persuaded others to lie about Steven and say he blasphemed. He was arrested and brought before the high Council. Sound familiar? As his face shone with the glory of God, he laid out the history of the Jewish people and their covenant with God, from Abraham to Moses to David and Solomon. He finishes with a scolding, telling these religious authorities, like their ancestors before them, are deaf to the true word of God, resistant to the Holy Spirit. They persecuted their prophets and even killed them, as they did to God’s own son. And for that they became enraged, rushed at him and stoned him to death.
Was he frightened? No, he was joyful, he was ecstatic! His heart overflowed with love as he surrendered himself to God, with his last earthly words given to a plea for mercy for his tormenters. He was being stoned to death, and his heart was filled with compassion for those around him who were so full of fear and hatred.
I love this story, and I love its juxtaposition in the lectionary with the passage from John’s gospel. It is strange in some way to have a story about the last supper in the season of Easter, but, when matched with Steven’s story, it tells us something about the new life promised through the resurrection. Again the context is important. The passage begins, “do not let your hearts be troubled.” Troubled about what? Well because just before this he told them he would be betrayed by Judas, that he would be leaving them and that Peter would deny him. Jesus knew he would be killed, and that it would be ugly to on-lookers. His words to them are words of comfort and promise, but I think they are also meant to be instructions on how to recognize God in all of this, as he does. He tell them he is going, but he is going in order to bring them to live in God, as he, Jesus, has lived in God and God in him.
In our bible study, we recognized the theme of God being present in times of trouble, receiving us after our death into God’s house, the house with many dwelling places. And I thought I would be writing a sermon on the hope that comes with death. There’s a lot of interest in what happens after death, no? There’s the new movie out “Heaven is for Real,” the book Proof of Heaven or 90 Minutes in Heaven. I’ve only read Proof of Heaven, but have read reviews of the others, and they all have something to say about what heaven looks like, who is there, how they experience God. I’m a huge fan of the TV show Long Island Medium, and that show keeps its focus on relationships – relationships between people still here and those who have died, and between people who have died – a deceased mother who holds the stillborn baby of her daughter; a deceased father there to greet the mother when she died. I can’t get enough of that stuff.
I love to let my imagination go off about the afterlife. Does anyone else? What do you imagine? …. What has influenced your ideas? I imagine all my questions will be answered, and that I will be validated in my beliefs and in the way I’ve lived my life. I’m hoping the reality of God and death won’t burst my bubble. That might be disappointing. Does anyone worry about death being disappointing?
Anyway, what I came around to was that I did not want to focus on the hope of a life after death, but on what I believe is the true promise of resurrection, an eternal life of glory at any time – while in this world or in the next. The place that Jesus prepares for us in God is the place in us that God resides. It is the place that recognizes God’s thoughts and words and deeds, and takes them on as our very own. This is what Jesus is trying to tell his followers. They are not his own words, but God’s words. They have not been his works, but God’s works in him. This is what Steven lived more than preached. His works were God’s works, the service he performed for Hebrew and Greek-speaking widows. The words he spoke when engaged in debate were God’s words. And the ecstasy he felt upon being true to God’s works and words was God’s ecstasy. We might see the destruction and the hatred and wonder how God could have let that happen. But Steven experienced nothing but love within himself – in that place that God dwells. Just as Jesus experienced in the midst of his trial and death. Both spoke to their tormentors in a way that seemed to them to be against them, but Jesus and Steven were for them, wanted to teach them, to help them see. It didn’t matter the cost, because on some profound level it cost them nothing. If they lived in God and God in them, nothing could change that. And that is the only thing that mattered. Their efforts to help others come to know this was their highest vision and their greatest deed. How could it bring them anything but ecstasy?
One of my favorite books of spiritual guidance, “Conversations With God” had this to say about knowing God: God says, “I communicate constantly to everyone. I communicate through feelings; I communicate through thoughts; I communicate through experience, and when those three fail, I communicate through words. These are the tools with which I communicate, yet not all feelings, thoughts, experiences and words are from Me. The challenge is one of discernment, and such is a simple matter with the application of a basic rule: Mine is always your highest thought, your clearest word, your grandest feeling. Anything less is from another sources. The highest thought is always that thought which contains joy. The clearest words are those which contain truth, the grandest feeling is that of love.”
Can’t you see this at play for Jesus and Steven? Their words were words of truth, meant to help people live lives that better reflect the glory of God. They spoke them with hearts full of love. The scripture is clear about Steven’s joy, but I think sometimes we miss the joy of Jesus that I believe is there. It can be a pastoral challenge to meet people where they are, to validate and affirm them, to lead them gently to a different understanding. We all know how awful it is to say to a mourner that their loved one is in a better place, right? Jesus had more time that Steven. Jesus planted seeds that would blossom so that Steven could reap the joy – Steven and Peter and Paul and all those who died glorifying God. The message is not that we need to be martyrs, only that the joy of living in God and God in you is available in any circumstance. Truly. Just reach for that highest thought, clearest word, grandest feeling. Let those be your guide. That is our hope, that is God’s promise.
