The Rev. Demery Bader-Saye
Missioner for Youth, the Diocese of Bethlehem
April 23, 2006
Acts 4:32-35; Psalm 133; 1 John 1:1-2:2; John 20:19-31
Alleluia! The Lord is Risen! The Lord is risen indeed - Alleluia! Happy Easter, my sisters and brothers in Christ! What a joy it is to be with you today. I bring you greetings from your bishop and the whole diocesan staff.
It is Easter from now until Pentecost Sunday. We are in the midst of an Easter celebration, reveling in the news that our Lord is risen, healed and whole, gentle and victorious, humble and glorious. As it is written in the Song of Solomon, “for now the winter is past, the rain is over and gone. The flowers appear on the earth; the time of singing has come, and the voice of the turtledove is heard in our land.”
The prophecy of Gandalf from J.R.R. Tolkein’s allegory to the Christian faith, The Fellowship of the Ring has been fulfilled in the rising of Jesus from the tomb:
All that is gold does not glitter,
Not all those who wander are lost;
The old that is strong does not wither,
Deep roots are not reached by the frost.
From the ashes a fire [has been] woken,
A light from the shadows [does] spring;
Renewed [is the] blade that was broken,
The crownless again [is the] king!
And in the proclamation of our story of our faith, we hear that the word of the resurrection is moving full throttle through Jerusalem. The band of brothers, the followers of Christ in the fellowship of the cross are – depsite threats and opposition from their enemy -- preaching the radically good news of Jesus Christ with power and zeal throughout the region of Jerusalem. They are sheperding a congregation of hundreds, even thousands of believers which is in and of itself, a miracle – and the whole body of believers, Luke writes in this fourth chapter of Acts, are of “one heart and soul.” In the power of the Holy Spirit, everything is coming together for this new community in Christ. No one in the congregation of the early church is bent out of shape (yet), or complaining, or vying for power. Everyone is pulling his or her weight. No one is hungry or thirsty or homeless, for they hold everything in common – they share all of their possessions and from that collective wealth, not one financial need goes unfulfilled. They are living out the covenant that they made on the miraculous day of their baptism, the ancient covenant that Christians to this very day make each and every time we baptize someone new into the life of Christ – a covenant to care for one another tenderly as family and to work as partners with God to bring about the kingdom of God on the earth God loves with such passion. The Acts community of believers here understand that in the fellowship of Christ everyone bears with joy, with willingness, the responsibility to care for the needs, to share the hopes, to encourage the dreams of everyone else and the responsibility to reach out to those in need.
Sometimes life in Christ is like that. Miracles happen left and right. People are fed. Faith flourishes. Enemies are kept at bay. Sometimes it all comes together. And sometimes it doesn’t, even if all the ingredients seem to be there.
Take for instance, the bean and lentil soup fiasco that happened to me and some friends of mine just a few weeks ago. We’re in an emerging church community called Peacemeal (www.peacemealcommunity.blogspot.com) which meets on Friday nights in my living room in Clarks Summit. Feeling pretty fired up during lent, we decided that we wanted to perform an act of love - to follow Jesus in the way of the cross. We were going to feed the homeless and working poor of Scranton. We called a local soup kitchen, which serves a lunch meal every day at noon for some advice. They estimated that they serve as many as 225 hungry people each day in Scranton. So we shopped, and we chopped and we made -- just to be safe – 300 servings of bean and lentil soup. And we bought 250 apples and 5 big sheets of brownies and vanilla pound cake. All week long it felt like Christmas! What kind of gifts would the day bring? Who would see the love of Christ in our eyes? In whose weary eyes would we see the love of Christ? The dinner was to start at 5:00. We’d imagined that it would take us a full hour and a half to move everyone through the line. But by 5:30 we had served everyone who was to eat that night. Did you ever notice the McDonald’s sign down the road – what is it now, over 200 billion served or something like that? Well, if Peacemeal were to have a sign it would be a little more humbling. It would read “over 20 served.”
Sometimes even when people try to live with the same power and zeal as the early church, it just doesn’t come together. A friend of ours from North Carolina tells of a time in his life when he, his wife and a group of enthusiastic believers decided to purchase a big house and live together there in community, praying together, eating together, holding all things in common. It went gloriously well for a time, but in the end, inevitably, tensions mounted and the community disintegrated over something so small as how many ounces of orange juice each person was allowed to drink each morning, or whose turn it was to take out the garbage. Living the life of the fellowship of Christ is not easy.
Even the disciples and all of those new believers did not live out the perfection of the few verses we read today for very long... In the verses that immediately follow Ananias and his wife Saphira decide to hold just a little money back for themselves. They lie to the disciples and fall over dead when confronted with their deception. There were arguments between and among the disciples about how to spread the message, about who needed to hear the story of Christ. The horrible persecution of those who followed Jesus grew heavier. More and more often the hand of the “predator” reached into the community and plucked up a believer, who was stoned or crucified and eventually even thrown to the lions. The persecution became so strong that the believers couldn’t live together or even be seen together because it was too dangerous. Many fell away and be came apostates, denying that they believed in the risen Christ. It was just too risky.
But a faithful remnant remained who wouldn’t give up. And because of them we sit here today. Because of them the radically good news of the risen Christ has reached into most every corner of the earth. And there are, in a good many places, at least outposts of peace and generosity and love which serve as places of renewal for the followers of Christ who continue to try. Who try to go out into the world to do the work God has given them to do, to love and serve God with gladness and singleness of heart. In another word of encouragement from Tolkein’s Fellowship of the Ring, we read:
The road must be trod, but it will be very hard. And neither strength nor wisdom will carry us far upon it. This quest may be attempted by the weak with as much hope as the strong. Yet such is oft the course of deeds that move the wheels of the world: small hands do them because they must, while the eyes of the great are elsewhere.
The wheels of the world are turning. The kingdom of God is here - it is coming. Miraculous Acts 4 kind of moments don’t always come together. But we keep on sharing with those in need. We are faithful just one more day, to whomever our community may be – to our spouse, to our family, to our friends, to our church, and we try not to argue over orange juice. And then a day turns into a year, which turns into a week, which turns into a month, which turns into a lifetime of faithfulness. We continue to live out that baptismal covenant asking our parish where we are needed -- how we can live out the promise we make at each one’s baptism to encourage that one’s growth in faith. We keep on feeding hungry people until 20 turns to 200 and 200 turns to 2 million and 2 million turns into 200 billion, until 200 turns into “Everyone has been served!” And over time like a pebble covered with snow rolling down a big hill, momentum increases, power multiplies, people gather, the Holy Spirit stirs up hearts and minds and you find yourself in the midst of a revolution, part of the misseo dei - the mission of God – the magnificent kingdom of God which even now burgeons not only “up there” in heaven, or in some dimension just beyond the veil of our understanding -- but here and now in this big broken, hurting world that God loves so much – sometimes it all comes together!
Until the day when it all comes together for good, we enjoy those delightful “Acts community moments” when we get a glimpse of that powerful kingdom – like the moments that happen sometimes at youth events. As someone who works with youth a lot, I am blessed to see many such moments, like when the teen rector of Happening kneels down to wash the feet of his or her friends. Like the joy that I hope will come next week at Christophany as youth discover more about the risen Jesus.
Not long ago on a mission trip with my youth group from Church of Epiphany we had an extended Acts community moment – for ten days in Central America we held all things in common, we served the poor, and we worshiped and ate together and sang together and played together. It happens for the Cathedral, too. Last summer Elizabeth Yale, one of your youth parishioners sat beside me on the way to the Episcopal Youth Event, and she told me about her J2A pilgrimage, the wondrous trip her class took to Northern California - of trips through the Redwood Forest, innovative worship experiences, long conversations and funny incidents on the road. It all comes together sometimes.
I commend you for all that you do as a congregation on the journey to the kingdom - for your generosity to those in need, for the programs you cultivate for children, youth and adults, for the beauty and power of your worship! Let us all continue forward in that way, and all the more – in the way of the cross, seeking daily to live out the covenant of our baptism – to live in the love, reconciliation, and fellowship of the cross. Thanks be to God! Amen.
