Sermon by Walter G. Edmonds
Damascus United Methodist Church
Acts 2:42-47; Psalm 23; I Peter 2:19-25; John 10:1-10
Fourth Sunday of Easter – April 13, 2008
The news this week from El Dorado, Texas has been very difficult. Over 400 children, mostly girls, were taken from a polygamist compound. The community, a renegade offshoot known as the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, is accused of forced marriages of under age children to much older men. Provoked by a call from a 16 year old girl who said she had been married to a 50 year old man and allegedly had a baby at 15, the Texas authorities made the largest child-welfare operation seizure in its history. Also, 133 women who “wanted to leave” the compound were also taken. John Llewellyn, a retired Salt Lake County sheriff’s lieutenant and a former polygamist himself, made the appropriate observation, “Something needs to be done; you can’t turn your back on something like this.” (Wendy Koch, USA Today)
Obviously, this kind of community in the name of Jesus Christ is an abomination to the life and spirit of the One we name our Lord and Savior. Just a few minutes of hearing testimony from former wives of this ignominious commune outrages the hearts of those who see Christ’s liberating presence as the center of the faith community. Looking at the subject of today’s reading from Act 2: 42, we need to assess and reassess the kind of “sheepfold” we keep in our own homes and in this congregation in the name of our risen Lord Jesus Christ.
Today’s readings have everything to do with the manner and style of sacred community, and for that matter any community, if they are to be “cradles and nurturing centers” for goodness and love. We begin with the Acts 2 passage and its powerful import on the way we conduct ourselves as the macro or micro “bodies of Jesus Christ:” the congregation and the family. Listen to these words again, “Everyone around was in awe- all those wonders and signs done through the apostles! And all the believers lived in a wonderful harmony, holding everything in common. They sold whatever they owned and pooled their resources so that each person’s need was met. They followed a daily discipline of worship in the Temple followed by meals at home, every meal a celebration; exuberant and joyful, as they praised God. People in general liked what they saw. Every day their number grew as God added those who were saved.” (The Message)
Let’s begin with the tone and behavior of the “sheepfold” of Christ. What Luke the author of Acts as well as his own Gospel is quick to tell us is that, the members of the body were prompted to see signs and wonders of God’s work in their midst. Is that true in this congregation today? Can we speak of the wonders of God’s work in our midst? Is the singing of the choir with all its power and joy a miracle in our hearts as God’s people offer their spiritual feelings to words and melody? Or is it merely an expectation of a pleasant performance? Is the outpouring of many young people, like the confirmands at Easter Vigil Service, the confirmands on early Easter morning, the Seniors on Senior Sunday a powerful witness to the Holy Spirit working in their lives? Or are their words merely a helpful exercise in public speaking? When we hold hands and pray or sing the Lord’s Prayer, is it a weekly embodiment of our love for God and for each other in the fellowship? Or is it merely a neat way to end the service? Is the bread and wine we serve each other a tangible at-one-ment with Jesus’ Holy Spirit in our midst? Or is it merely a routine habit to bring us together to feel good about being with our friends and neighbors in this place? Have we worked at invoking the Good Shepherd’s presence in our midst each time we gather here through our prayers and singing, thinking and responding, holding and embracing the other members of the body? Or have we resigned ourselves to watching the worship action, and deciding if it meets our interest, style or comfort level in the frame of mind we’re in?
Moving out of the sheepfold of this room. Do we see those around us in these pews trying to do their best in other circumstances, to do the loving thing in the Name of Christ? Are we able to see and hear the transforming witnesses of those who have worked in local ministries or gone on mission trips, and are we able to find excitement and desire to join them on some level of mutuality? Are we beginning to be able to stand up with each other for some justice issue and join hands in comradery, even if we have different opinions? Do we believe that as we love each other God will work miracles of reconciliation and remove any of the conflicts we hold over each other? The Acts 2:42 congregation answers affirmative in all these considerations. In fact, Acts 2 implies, these apostolic expectations of ultimate love and forgiveness, sacrifice and service for the common good must be present and prevalent in the body of Christ, or Jesus is not here. The Bible uses the word “awe” to describe the working of the Body of Christ in those present. Phobos is the Greek word for “awe,” and it implies never-to-be-argued with or debated about “reverence” for the working of the spirit of God in the midst of the community. Do we have the security to say that we believe God is working in our community to bring apostolic blessings, that is love, peace, forgiveness, goodwill, salvation and reconciliation? Do we know that we need to be aligned with the disposition for the apostolic blessings to be manifest in us and in our midst.
That thought, segues into the opening verses of our Gospel lection from St. John 10, where the Gospeler begins: “If a person climbs over or through the fence of a sheep pen instead of going through the gate, you know he or she is up to no good – a sheep rustler.” (The Message). What that can be easily translated into in the church setting is: those who enter the fellowship with other than apostolic intentions- love, peace and goodwill- and seek to drive wedges, exercise their power unflinchingly, or are simply willing to fracture the delicate ecology of Christ’s koinonia fellowship, are thieves to the call of shepherding. As the scripture clearly indicates, the loving shepherd does not go in any other psychological or manipulative entrance, but chooses the front gate where his sheep will always sense protection, love and carefully drawn guidance. The Good Shepherd’s voice is heard and known by all the sheep because it is not erratic, indulgent, bitter, sarcastic or phony. The gatekeeper also opens the gate to the shepherd with veneration, for the gatekeeper knows the shepherd’s abiding love for himself and the sheep given to his care. The Good Shepherd knows and says the name of every sheep with affection and profound understanding of the needs of each sheep. The Good Shepherd does not judge them or place them in performance categories, but simply leads with his or her unrelentingly encouraging voice, the voice that captures the essence of heart and spirit.
So is the tone of the shepherd’s sheepfold and the behavior of the sheep within its walls. That is the ethos of the macro “Body of Christ,” the congregation. But what about the micro “Body of Christ,” the family? Again Act 2: 42 and following suggests the healthy nature of the micro Church. Speaking of the nuclear worshipping families, Luke writes: “They followed a daily discipline of worship in the Temple followed by meals at home, every meal a celebration, exuberant and joyful, as they praised God.” (The Message) Obviously this passage implies a style of life much greater than going to church and coming home and eating meals together around a table, with someone saying a blessing; (although in this day and age, that is not a bad start). We must lift up some operative words in these scriptural sentences to address the tone and behavior of the family in Christ. “Daily discipline of worship in the temple” is the first operative phrase. What that means is that each member of the family needs to see herself/himself as integral members of the Christ’s Church, in this case, Christ’s Damascus Church. Baptism, foundational to the Christian experience, means that we learn we are attached at the spiritual umbilical cord to each other for life. Just as we celebrate in a marriage or family that we must love and serve each other, whether we always like each other’s behavior or not, so we must learn that our sisters and brothers in Christ are people we must pray with, pray for, bind with, talk to, study and work with, share meals and Eucharist with, accompany in joy and sorrow, pain and suffering, and treasure for all their days, and treasure for all our days. In the family we do this by keeping the path between Damascus Church and our home well worn.
The second set of operative words must be “every meal a celebration, exuberant and joyful.” We must be in Sabbath worship as family, praying and singing with each other in the process. But then we must keep it all alive by going home and picking up on the themes and reflections in table talk and even table play, inviting ourselves to connect or serve others in the fellowship who are in need of companionship, taking a risk to reach out, to forgive, to do something we never believed we could do with a certain other person. We must be gathering around our family tables with positive thoughts for each other’s spiritual growth and witness to Jesus in our life. Parents must draw out from their own children spirituality by their own praying and singing, and other physical and emotional expressions of Christ’s love. Children need to do the same, and be given the encouragement to open their parents to greater spirituality. Breakfast, lunch and dinner tables must become springboards for spiritual nurture and celebration, (not just on birthdays). The spirit must be generated confirming that the risen Christ’s presence is here to work miracles in our homes. Yes, we can ask each other to pray out loud for something on our minds. Yes, we can trust that reading verses from the Bible every day, and talking about them, and then praying over them, can make a difference in our individual and corporate family behaviors. Yes, we can know that if we sing “Lord of the Dance” in the car a couple of times together we can figure out the words and joyfully lift our hearts. We must know and believe that our micro church of the family is an apostolic womb for each one of us to know Jesus our Savior.
The one passage I Peter 2: 19 – 25 in today’s lectionary which we have not yet addressed, holds a most important clue for keeping the apostolic atmosphere in our congregation and in our families. It is made most apparent in these rather difficult instructions. “If you endure when you are beaten for doing wrong what credit is that? But if you endure when you do right and suffer for it, you have God’s approval. For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you should follow in his steps. ‘He committed no sin, and no deceit was found in his mouth.’ When he was abused, he did not return abuse; when he suffered, he did not threaten; but he entrusted himself to the one who judges justly. He himself bore our sins in his body on the cross, so that, free from sins, we might live for righteousness.” (NRSV) The Good Shepherd has given us the perfecting instruction and example for keeping “Project 2:42 in vital action and power. Endure the attacks and wrongs of both the family and the congregation with the same kind of love for the greater good demonstrated in Jesus himself. Don’t depart from the apostolic truth of maintaining love, peace, and goodwill in the macro or micro “bodies of Christ.” Let God administer the justice, which God will do in God’s time. Keep the radical love of the forgiving cross at the center of all you say and do, and make the necessary sacrifices in order to keep the sheep “safe and secure from all alarms.” (Quote borrowed from Elisha Hoffman’s hymn text, Leaning on the Everlasting Arms.)
Our texts today have outlined for us the way in which the sacred sheepfolds, congregations and families, are called to keep the apostolic teaching and fellowship of our Lord and Savior alive and well. We are called to remain attentively faithful, even sacrificially faithful, to these teachings, knowing and believing the Good Shepherd promises his unfailing presence in our midst.
Thanks be to God!
