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Sunday, April 11, 2010
CHRISTIANS UNDER CONSTRUCTION
By Rev. Dr. Harvey C. Martz
Acts 2: 37-47 New Revised Standard Version
37 Now when they heard this, they were cut to the heart and said to Peter and to the other apostles, "Brothers, what should we do?" 38 Peter said to them, "Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ so that your sins may be forgiven; and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. 39 For the promise is for you, for your children, and for all who are far away, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to him." 40 And he testified with many other arguments and exhorted them, saying, "Save yourselves from this corrupt generation." 41 So those who welcomed his message were baptized, and that day about three thousand persons were added. 42 They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. 43 Awe came upon everyone, because many wonders and signs were being done by the apostles. 44 All who believed were together and had all things in common; 45 they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need. 46 Day by day, as they spent much time together in the temple, they broke bread at home and ate their food with glad and generous hearts, 47 praising God and having the goodwill of all the people. And day by day the Lord added to their number those who were being saved.
Dr. Jim Harnish is the senior pastor of Hyde Park United Methodist Church in Tampa, Florida and is a long time friend of Cindy Bates and a more recent friend of mine as well. He tells a story, in a recent journal article, that helps us understand the lasting impact of Easter on those first disciples, and, also, on our own journey as Christ’s followers. I am emphasizing the concept of journey.
He tells about Fred Snodgrass who played center field for the New York Giants in the 1912 World Series game against the Red Sox. “The teams were tied in the tenth inning and a fly ball fell into Snodgrass’s glove and he dropped it!” The Red Sox won the series and that error stuck with Snodgrass for the rest of his life.
Sixty two years later, his New York Times obituary read: “Fred Snodgrass, 86, Dead. Ball Player Muffed 1912 Fly.”
Jim says, except for Easter and what happened afterward, this is also the way that we might have remembered Simon Peter! His obituary could have read: Simon Peter, Fisherman, Denied Even knowing Christ in 33 AD.”
You remember part of the Holy Week story, right after Jesus had been arrested on Thursday night and was taken to a phony trial at the house of Caiphas the High Priest. All the other friends ran away but Peter followed for a little ways behind and gathered around a campfire with some soldiers and servants outside the place where Jesus was. He was accused three times of being with Jesus and of being one of Jesus’ closest friends. But, he vigorously denied that and even used swear words to say that he did not even know the man. Then when the rooster crowed, he went away and wept bitterly because that is just what Christ had predicted he would do!
If his life had ended then and we were reading his obituary, he would have been remembered for that grievous failure. We would have thought of him that way and not the way we think of Peter today as one of the two most important leaders of the Jesus movement.
Peter was the same mixture of successes and failures, strength and weaknesses, that we are. He, like we, was given another chance, because after Easter, after Peter and a couple of other disciples had gone back to fishing, they saw the Risen Christ cooking some fish over a charcoal fire on the beach. When they came to eat together, Peter was forgiven and then commissioned to care for God’s people, all God’s people.
His failures were in the past, he had been given a new beginning because of Easter and the resurrection, and much later his obituary could tell a dramatically different story from one of being Jesus’ best friends who, when his life was at risk, denied even knowing Christ.
We heard some words from the second chapter of Acts that were a response to a sermon Peter had given in Jerusalem. It was the first Christian sermon ever and the response was that 3000 people were baptized and joined this new Jesus movement. They were beginning the same journey Peter and others were on. What is important about the last words we heard is that after they were baptized and were doing what folks have always done in the Jesus movement: praying and worshiping together, studying with the leaders, having fellowship and also eating together, the author of Acts tells us, “They were being saved.” They were in the process of being made whole. He does not say that they had been saved and were finished in their development and had reached perfection, THEY WERE BEING SAVED.
It is a very important distinction and it gives us a more Biblical response to any fundamentalist friends or neighbors who ask us, “Have you been saved?” The Biblical answer, the more accurate answer, according to this part of the Bible, is, “I am being saved.” Or to follow Peter’s personal example from before and after Easter, I am a mixture of strength and weakness, successes and failures, faith and unfaith, trust and doubt, answers and questions, and God is still working with me to form me into a faithful follower of Jesus Christ. What really matters is that I have said yes, and that I am on the way!
A different way to say that is by using the image of what is going on right here on our property. It is not only our new ministry space that is still under construction, but that each of us is still under construction as well. We are being formed by the grace and the activity of God in our lives so that we are becoming faithful followers of the way of Christ.
This notion of still being unfinished, still being formed and transformed is very true to the teachings of Christ and very true to our Methodist Heritage as well.
One of the destructive behaviors that Jesus was trying to change in his time was arrogance and self-righteousness among religious leaders who said, we are God’s chosen people, we have arrived, all those other people are not like us, they are still evil and unclean and impure and WE are pure and perfect.
Jesus blocked and undermined that self-righteousness when he began to welcome outsiders, the lepers, prostitutes, Samaritans, and tax collectors into his group. He said that all these people are children of God. It was a radical threat to the purity crowd and it was one of the main reasons they plotted his death early on in his ministry. He was undermining and subverting their self-righteousness and telling them that other people belonged in the family of God, imperfect people, unfinished people like Peter and like you and me.
Christ was willing to welcome people who were still “under construction,” if you will.
Many times pastors and church members invite others to church. I did that a lot the last two weeks and I know you did also. We hear people say that they don’t feel quite worth enough and that they need to clean up some things in their lives before they can come to a church.
And of course that runs so much against the attitude of Christ, who says by his words and actions, “Please come as you are, come to God just the way you are, and after you are here and have said yes to the grace and forgiveness of God, then we can work together on how God can help you make any changes you want and need to make.
This is not only Christ’s attitude, but it was part of the brilliance of the Methodist movement in 18th century England under the leadership of John Wesley. Wesley saw this arrogance in the church of his time and dealt with it with these terms. When we say yes to Christ’s invitation to follow him and to follow his ways that is when we are justified. THEN, we begin a pilgrimage, a journey of growing in God’s grace and letting God form and construct us and make us more whole. Wesley called that process “sanctification.”
These are holy sounding words that we don’t use much now, but they tell us that we are in a growth process, and that instead of saying that we have been saved and are finished and perfected, we say instead that we are being saved, we are ON the way, or that we are still under construction as disciples and followers of Christ. We will come back to that construction image in a moment.
There is one more image in the Bible for what we are doing in this faith community. A couple of our Disciple Bible study classes have been looking at one of the warmest and most influential letters of St. Paul, his letter to the congregation he founded in the Greek city of Philippi.
If you have done any study at all or if you have been part of a faith community for any time, there are some words in that letter that have already become part of you.
- Have this mind within you that was in Christ, the Christ who chose to be a humble servant.
- One thing I do is to press toward the goal because I am not finished yet and have not yet reached the goal, so I forget what lies behind and press forward toward what lies ahead.
- Rejoice in the Lord always. Let your gentleness be known to everyone.
- The peace of God which passes all understanding will guard your hearts and minds in Christ.
- Whatever is true and honorable and pleasing and commendable-think on these things.
- I have learned to be content with what I have; I know what it is to have little and to have plenty, and I have learned to be content in all circumstances.
- I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.
I hope you recognize at least one of those sentences from Paul’s very important letters to the Philippians. There is one more that speaks to our theme today of Christians under construction.
Paul says this in chapter 2: CONTINUE TO WORK OUT YOUR OWN SALVATION WITH FEAR AND TREMBLING FOR IT IS GOD WHO IS AT WORK IN YOU.
You are not whole and perfected yet, so keep with it, stay on the path, and let God keep forming you and constructing you and building you into who God needs you to be and who God is still calling you to be!
In our marketing team’s recent meetings, we have been discussing how we can interpret who we are in this active and unique congregation named after Andrew. We have invited and reached many, many people over our past fifty years and now we have the chance to offer new life to many, many others as we are making space and enlarging our family.
The motif that we are using during the next few months is the title of today’s sermon. In this faith community people have not arrived at perfection yet. We are unfinished and incomplete and still searching and working out our wholeness. In St. Paul’s words, we are still pressing toward the mark, but we are not there yet. If you want to be part of that sort of community, we are making room for you, come and join us. The words on the front of your bulletin try to capture this very Biblical and very Methodist feeling.
OUR NEW BUILDING IS NOT FINISHED YET AND NEITHER ARE WE.
IF YOU ARE LOOKING FOR A PLACE WHERE IT IS OK TO BRING YOUR QUESTIONS AND DOUBTS, WE HAVE ROOM FOR YOU.
WELCOME TO THE CONSTRUCTION SITE!
We have raised this question before. What are some of the words that we need to have on the walls of our new space? A group of about a dozen of us chose the quotes that are written or are framed and hung on these walls and in our classrooms. What words should be written next? The words from St. Paul, Keep on working to complete your salvation or the words from the book of Acts, And every day the Lord added to their number those who were being saved?
What do you think?
Finally, if you see yourself as still on a journey and still unfinished and under construction, what is the next step for you?
During the past week we have witnessed some dramatic next steps in our sanctuary building. We have seen the precast buttresses being set into place. Over the following weeks, we will see some even more dramatic next steps. The steel for the forty foot walls will be put into place! We will see some very visible transformation of, what has been for a long time, some large mounds of dirt!
Those are our next steps in our building. What are the next steps for you in your discipleship construction process? Is there a new mission opportunity for you? Is it time to be in a study group again for your spiritual formation and theological formation?
Or is God even calling you to a role of leadership as an ordained minister in the community of faith? If so, we have some opportunities to explore that specific call, as our pastors have begun to meet with people who are listening to and examining God’s nudges and callings into full time service in the life of the church. In our first meeting of this group two months ago, we met with ten people from this congregation! This is highly unusual to have that many people in that place. We gave them some reading and are continuing to meet.
And that group does not include the seven other people who have come before our Staff Parish Relations Committee and have now been affirmed by that group in their call to move toward ordination as a clergyperson in the United Methodist Church. Frankly that is an astounding number of people in any congregation and it speaks to how the spirit of God is at work among us in forming us and constructing us into the likeness of Jesus Christ.
If you read this week’s Email you saw that next week Judy and I are beginning a period of study and renewal leave which will include some time in England looking over the Methodist Heritage sites where John and Charles Wesley began this renewal movement called Methodism. I look forward to that time of regrounding and centering and plan to come back June 2 refreshed and invigorated for our next chapter together in this exciting congregation.
During that time I will be praying a prayer that has been very important to me and one that is very Wesleyan and very consistent with the passage from the book of Acts.
“Gracious God, please keep forming me into the person and into the leader that you need me to be.”
I believe God wants each of us to continue to be under construction and to continue to be formed and fashioned into the likeness of Jesus Christ. I will pray for that for each of us and I ask that you continue to pray for that for each other and for all your leaders and pastors as well. Amen.