Sermon No. 1

Where Is This Line Going?

On New York's 57th Street is a rather upscale boutique called "Chanel." Occasionally they conduct a special sale for their patrons. Last December, at such an auspicious sale, they admitted only a few customers at a time.

A regular customer stood in the long line outside. Another lady, with a well-worn shopping bag, was behind her. After about a 20-minute wait, the lady behind tapped her on the shoulder and said, "Where is this line going? What are we waiting for?"

Maybe that's how the disciples felt. They had left their jobs, traveled with Jesus, given up everything for him. Now it was over. Jesus was dead. It had been a great adventure, but now it was a past hope, just a memory.

You can just hear them, can't you -- "What are we waiting for? Where is this cause going?"

Then -- flash! There stands Jesus. Jesus! The same Jesus they had traveled with, the same Jesus they had laughed and cried and walked with, the same Jesus they had seen hanging on a cross, then put into a tomb. Yes, it was Jesus!

"Peace be with you." Then he added, "As the Father sent me, so I am sending you." Where was he sending them?

"And with that he breathed on them and said, 'Receive the Holy Spirit.'"

Do you suppose those scared disciples had any idea what was happening? Did they know what Jesus was saying?

Just a few hours ago they had seen the empty tomb. They were bewildered. Then they had huddled in fear, behind locked doors. Asking each other questions for which there simply were no answers: What are we doing here? Where are we going? What does this all mean? Who took his body? Where did they put it?

Now, there stood Jesus. Did that answer their questions? Or simply raise more questions? Try to put yourself in their sandals. How would you feel? A few minutes ago you had no hope, no future, no plans. Suddenly, Jesus is there, telling you he is sending you . . . somewhere! And he says, "Receive the Holy Spirit."

Where is this line going? What are we standing here for? What does all this mean? Where is Jesus sending us? And why? What does he want us to do? Obviously we need the Holy Spirit to accomplish whatever he wants us to do.

Dear saints, the mission of our commission, the work we are to do is to reflect the lifestyle of Jesus in the power of the Holy Spirit. We call ourselves Christians. That should tell us to be Christ-like. Jesus came to seek and save and serve the poor, the sick, the sin-sick.

The lectionary readings this week do not focus on the Resurrection event, but on the result of the Resurrection. In the Epistle, John says believing is seeing. Use your faith and you will understand. In the creation story we are told God "breathed" life into his new creatures. In the Gospel lesson Jesus "breathed" the Holy Spirit into the disciples. It was their preparation for witnessing, for serving, for fulfilling the Great Commission.

The interlude of some 40 days between the Resurrection and Pentecost is a story in itself. Jesus was with them. Lots of things happened. But we don't hear a lot about the Holy Spirit until the Pentecost experience, Acts 2. There we are told about the birth of the Christian church. And what a birth that was!

We were not there. Like Thomas, we are called to believe without the benefit of experience. Thomas couldn't accept that. Can you and I? Can we accept the risen Christ on faith? And what will "blind faith" do for us?

The seeing involved in the Epistle is somewhat ambiguous. Still, we can accept the fact that some way, at some time, we were created. After all, we're here. We exist. So if we accept the Holy Spirit, as the disciples did back then, does it follow that we will "see" Jesus in our midst?

The "seeing" called for is deeper than a physical sensation transmitted to our brains. It is a "seeing" of what lies beyond. It is penetrating sight. We might say it preupposes faith even as it reinforces faith.

Like Thomas, we are invited to believe just on the basis of what we are told. Like Thomas, we are troubled with doubt. But we are invited to believe anyway! Take the leap of faith. That is what faith is all about. It is daring to believe beyond visual perception.

We base our beliefs primarily on Bible evidence. There is little proof, even archaeological evidence, of the Old Testament stories, even the exodus. We believe on faith.

At the same time, God does not ask nor expect us to be simplistic. He gave us brains to use. It is too bad when we rely only on simplistic faith to the exclusion of brain power. And it is also tragic when we rely on our brain power to the exclusion of faith.

In place of Old Testament lessons, we have readings in Acts for a few weeks. There are two summary texts which describe the common life shared by the early Christians. One is Acts 2, where Luke describes their daily life together, distributing possessions as any had need, worshipping every Sabbath in the Temple, celebrating a communal meal and the Lord's Supper.

The second text is our scripture today, Acts 4, where Luke describes their renunciation of private ownership. Christians sold their lands and homes and shared everything in common.

Perhaps there is no text which has been interpreted more variously than this, unless it is the Sermon on the Mount dictums. Seldom do we say it like it was. It was communism pure and simple. Not the totalitarianism of the 20th century which masqueraded as communism, but a sharing of all things because they loved each other and dwelt in complete unity.

Unfortunately, it didn't work for long, and it will never work on this earth. We human beings are simply too selfish, too individualistic. A first-century reader of Luke's account would have been more surprised by the spiritual unity in the Jerusalem church than by the fact that they shared possessions.

In this fast-paced, high-tech busy society, in which "free enterprise" is almost a religion, our reading from Acts 4 is about as far from reality as anything we can imagine. It sounds as quaint as Abraham Lincoln splitting logs or an Amish home lit by gaslight.

What are we to make of this drastic renunciation of worldly goods? Is it at all reasonable in the 21st century? O yes, we know about Francis of Assisi, Ghandi, and a few weird cults. And, of course, Catholic nuns and monks who take a vow of poverty. And Hutterites who live somewhere in the wilds of Canada.

But ordinary people like us, with our cell phones, e-mail, SUVs, TVs and video recorders. We aren't to take all that talk literally . . . are we?

Most theologians play down the economic aspects of the story and emphasize the ideal of spiritual unity. To be sure, the most significant lesson to learn is that of unity, brotherhood, unqualified love. If we really learn that lesson, maybe we don't need to worry about literalness or un-literalness of Acts.

Another facet of the story is that it was a different society. Life was very different 2000 years ago. Capitalism has replaced societies which depended on slaves and serfs. The gap between rich and poor could not be bridged so easily as it is today.

Another very significent fact is that the early Christians did not perceive much of a future on this earth. They were sure they would live to see Jesus come in the clouds. Why worry about possessions when you know the Second Coming is about to happen?

This morning I urge you to learn the lessons God has for us in these stories. I suggest the most crucial lesson is that we are to live in the Spirit, in unity and fellowship. It was, after all, the Spirit Jesus breathed and bequeathed that Easter evening in the upper room. It was the Spirit who was to empower the followers of Jesus to go into all the world with his message of love.

And I suggest that until we are free from concern about money and possessions, we are not qualified to interpret the Word of God, the Bible.

Yesterday I was given a fascinating story by my friend Floyd Morris. It seems a man took his son to visit a very poor family in the country. His goal was to show the boy how very poor some people are. Then he would appreciate his status in life and society.

When they got back home, the man asked his son for his reaction. "You can see how poor some people are, right?"

"Yes, Dad, I surely can."

"So what did you learn?"

"We have only a dog and a cat; they have cows and horses and chickens and several dogs and cats. We have only patio lights; they have the stars. We have only a yard; they have the wide open spaces. We have a pool; they have a creek that has no end.

"Yes, I can see now how poor we really are. It is hard not to envy them, but it gives me something to work for."

Our wealth is not in material things, but in the fellowship of the Holy Spirit. Our wealth is in serving, in giving, in using our resources for the good of everyone.

Let us pray . . .

________________________________________________________

Eddie Ogan tells us of her childhood:

I'll never forget Easter, 1946. I was 14, my little sister Ocy was 12, and my older sister Darlene 16. We lived at home with our mother, and the four of us knew what it was to do without many things. My dad had died five years before, leaving Mom with no money and seven school kids to raise.

A month before Easter the pastor announced a special Easter offering to be taken for a poor family. He asked everyone to save and give sacrificially. When we got home, we talked about what we could do. We bought potatoes and lived on them for a month. This would allow us to save $20 of our grocery money. We kept our electric lights turned out as much as possible to save money on the electric bill. Darlene got house and yard cleaning jobs, and both of us babysat. For 15 cents we could buy enough cotton loops to make three pot holders to sell for $1. We made $20 on pot holders. That month was one of the best of our lives. Every day we counted the money to see how much we had saved. At night we'd sit in the dark and talk about how the poor family was going to enjoy having the money the church would give them. We had about 80 people in church, so figured that whatever amount of money we had to give, the offering would surely be 20 times that much. After all, every Sunday the pastor reminded everyone of the special offering.

The day before Easter, Ocy and I walked to the grocery store and got the manager to give us three crisp $20 bills and one $10 bill for all our change. We ran all the way home to show Mom and Darlene. We had never had so much money before. That night we were so excited we could hardly sleep. We didn't care that we wouldn't have new clothes for Easter; we had $70 for the offering! We could hardly wait to get to church! On Sunday morning, rain was pouring. We didn't own an umbrella, and the church was over a mile from our home, but it didn't seem to matter how wet we got. Darlene had cardboard in her shoes. The cardboard came apart, and her feet got wet. But we sat in church proudly. I heard some teenagers talking about the Smith girls having on their old dresses. I looked at them in their new clothes, but I felt rich.

When the offering was taken, we were sitting in the second row from the front. Mom put in the $10 bill, and each of us kids put in a $20. As we walked home, we sang all the way. At lunch Mom had a surprise. She had bought a dozen eggs, and we had boiled Easter eggs with our fried potatoes! Late that afternoon the minister drove up. Mom went to the door, talked with him for a moment, and then came back with an envelope in her hand. We asked what it was, but she didn't say a word. She opened the envelope and out fell a bunch of money. There were three crisp $20 bills, one $10 and seventeen $1 bills. Mom put the money back in the envelope. We didn't talk, just sat and stared at the floor. We had gone from feeling like millionaires to feeling like poor white trash. We had such a happy life that we felt sorry for anyone who didn't have a Mom like ours and a house full of brothers and sisters. We thought it was fun to share silverware and see whether we got the spoon or the fork that night. We had two knifes that we passed around to whoever needed them.

I knew we didn't have a lot of things that other people had, but I'd never thought we were poor. That Easter day I found out we were. The minister had brought us the money for the poor family, so we must be poor. I didn't like being poor. I looked at my dress and worn-out shoes and felt so ashamed. I didn't want to go back to church. Everyone there probably already knew we were poor! I thought about school. I was in the ninth grade and at the top of my class of over 100 students. I wondered if the kids at school knew that we were poor. I decided that I could quit school since I had finished the eighth grade. That was all the law required. We sat in silence for a long time. Then it got dark, and we went to bed. All that week, we girls went to school and came home, and no one talked much. Finally on Saturday, Mom asked us what we wanted to do with the money. What did poor people do with money? We didn't know. We'd never known we were poor. We didn't want to go to church on Sunday, but Mom said we had to. Although it was a sunny day, we didn't talk on the way. Mom started to sing, but no one joined in and she only sang one verse.

We had a missionary speaker. He talked churches in Africa made out of sun-dried bricks, but they needed money to buy roofs. He said $100 would put a roof on a church. The minister said, "Can't we all sacrifice to help these poor people?" We looked at each other and smiled for the first time in a week. Mom reached into her purse and pulled out the envelope. She passed it to Darlene. Darlene gave it to me, and I handed it to Ocy. Ocy put it in the offering. When the offering was counted, the minister announced that it was a little over $100. The missionary was excited. He hadn't expected such a large offering from our small church. He said, "You must have some rich people in this church." Suddenly it struck us! We had given $87 of that "little over $100."

We were the rich family in the church! Hadn't the missionary said so? From that day on I've never been poor again. I've always remembered how rich I am!



		Where Is This Line Going?
		On New York's 57th Street is a rather upscale boutique called "Chanel." Occasionally they conduct a special sale for their patrons. Last December, at such an auspicious sale, they admitted only a few customers at a time. A regular customer stood in the long line outside. Another lady, with a well-worn shopping bag, was behind her. After about a 20-minute wait, the lady behind tapped her on the shoulder and said, "Where is this line going? What are we waiting for?" Maybe that's how the disciples felt. They had left their jobs, traveled with Jesus, given up everything for him. Now it was over. Jesus was dead. It had been a great adventure, but now it was a past hope, just a memory. You can just hear them, can't you -- "What are we waiting for? Where is this cause going?" Then -- flash! There stands Jesus. Jesus! The same Jesus they had traveled with, the same Jesus they had laughed and cried and walked with, the same Jesus they had seen hanging on a cross, then put into a tomb. Yes, it was Jesus! "Peace be with you." Then he added, "As the Father sent me, so I am sending you." Where was he sending them? "And with that he breathed on them and said, 'Receive the Holy Spirit.'" Do you suppose those scared disciples had any idea what was happening? Did they know what Jesus was saying? Just a few hours ago they had seen the empty tomb. They were bewildered. Then they had huddled in fear, behind locked doors. Asking each other questions for which there simply were no answers: What are we doing here? Where are we going? What does this all mean? Who took his body? Where did they put it? Now, there stood Jesus. Did that answer their questions? Or simply raise more questions? Try to put yourself in their sandals. How would you feel? A few minutes ago you had no hope, no future, no plans. Suddenly, Jesus is there, telling you he is sending you . . . somewhere! And he says, "Receive the Holy Spirit." Where is this line going? What are we standing here for? What does all this mean? Where is Jesus sending us? And why? What does he want us to do? Obviously we need the Holy Spirit to accomplish whatever he wants us to do. Dear saints, the mission of our commission, the work we are to do is to reflect the lifestyle of Jesus in the power of the Holy Spirit. We call ourselves Christians. That should tell us to be Christ-like. Jesus came to seek and save and serve the poor, the sick, the sin-sick. The lectionary readings this week do not focus on the Resurrection event, but on the result of the Resurrection. In the Epistle, John says believing is seeing. Use your faith and you will understand. In the creation story we are told God "breathed" life into his new creatures. In the Gospel lesson Jesus "breathed" the Holy Spirit into the disciples. It was their preparation for witnessing, for serving, for fulfilling the Great Commission. The interlude of some 40 days between the Resurrection and Pentecost is a story in itself. Jesus was with them. Lots of things happened. But we don't hear a lot about the Holy Spirit until the Pentecost experience, Acts 2. There we are told about the birth of the Christian church. And what a birth that was! We were not there. Like Thomas, we are called to believe without the benefit of experience. Thomas couldn't accept that. Can you and I? Can we accept the risen Christ on faith? And what will "blind faith" do for us? The seeing involved in the Epistle is somewhat ambiguous. Still, we can accept the fact that some way, at some time, we were created. After all, we're here. We exist. So if we accept the Holy Spirit, as the disciples did back then, does it follow that we will "see" Jesus in our midst? The "seeing" called for is deeper than a physical sensation transmitted to our brains. It is a "seeing" of what lies beyond. It is penetrating sight. We might say it preupposes faith even as it reinforces faith. Like Thomas, we are invited to believe just on the basis of what we are told. Like Thomas, we are troubled with doubt. But we are invited to believe anyway! Take the leap of faith. That is what faith is all about. It is daring to believe beyond visual perception. We base our beliefs primarily on Bible evidence. There is little proof, even archaeological evidence, of the Old Testament stories, even the exodus. We believe on faith. At the same time, God does not ask nor expect us to be simplistic. He gave us brains to use. It is too bad when we rely only on simplistic faith to the exclusion of brain power. And it is also tragic when we rely on our brain power to the exclusion of faith. In place of Old Testament lessons, we have readings in Acts for a few weeks. There are two summary texts which describe the common life shared by the early Christians. One is Acts 2, where Luke describes their daily life together, distributing possessions as any had need, worshipping every Sabbath in the Temple, celebrating a communal meal and the Lord's Supper. The second text is our scripture today, Acts 4, where Luke describes their renunciation of private ownership. Christians sold their lands and homes and shared everything in common. Perhaps there is no text which has been interpreted more variously than this, unless it is the Sermon on the Mount dictums. Seldom do we say it like it was. It was communism pure and simple. Not the totalitarianism of the 20th century which masqueraded as communism, but a sharing of all things because they loved each other and dwelt in complete unity. Unfortunately, it didn't work for long, and it will never work on this earth. We human beings are simply too selfish, too individualistic. A first-century reader of Luke's account would have been more surprised by the spiritual unity in the Jerusalem church than by the fact that they shared possessions. In this fast-paced, high-tech busy society, in which "free enterprise" is almost a religion, our reading from Acts 4 is about as far from reality as anything we can imagine. It sounds as quaint as Abraham Lincoln splitting logs or an Amish home lit by gaslight. What are we to make of this drastic renunciation of worldly goods? Is it at all reasonable in the 21st century? O yes, we know about Francis of Assisi, Ghandi, and a few weird cults. And, of course, Catholic nuns and monks who take a vow of poverty. And Hutterites who live somewhere in the wilds of Canada. But ordinary people like us, with our cell phones, e-mail, SUVs, TVs and video recorders. We aren't to take all that talk literally . . . are we? Most theologians play down the economic aspects of the story and emphasize the ideal of spiritual unity. To be sure, the most significant lesson to learn is that of unity, brotherhood, unqualified love. If we really learn that lesson, maybe we don't need to worry about literalness or un-literalness of Acts. Another facet of the story is that it was a different society. Life was very different 2000 years ago. Capitalism has replaced societies which depended on slaves and serfs. The gap between rich and poor could not be bridged so easily as it is today. Another very significent fact is that the early Christians did not perceive much of a future on this earth. They were sure they would live to see Jesus come in the clouds. Why worry about possessions when you know the Second Coming is about to happen? This morning I urge you to learn the lessons God has for us in these stories. I suggest the most crucial lesson is that we are to live in the Spirit, in unity and fellowship. It was, after all, the Spirit Jesus breathed and bequeathed that Easter evening in the upper room. It was the Spirit who was to empower the followers of Jesus to go into all the world with his message of love. And I suggest that until we are free from concern about money and possessions, we are not qualified to interpret the Word of God, the Bible. Yesterday I was given a fascinating story by my friend Floyd Morris. It seems a man took his son to visit a very poor family in the country. His goal was to show the boy how very poor some people are. Then he would appreciate his status in life and society. When they got back home, the man asked his son for his reaction. "You can see how poor some people are, right?" "Yes, Dad, I surely can." "So what did you learn?" "We have only a dog and a cat; they have cows and horses and chickens and several dogs and cats. We have only patio lights; they have the stars. We have only a yard; they have the wide open spaces. We have a pool; they have a creek that has no end. "Yes, I can see now how poor we really are. It is hard not to envy them, but it gives me something to work for." Our wealth is not in material things, but in the fellowship of the Holy Spirit. Our wealth is in serving, in giving, in using our resources for the good of everyone. Let us pray . . . ________________________________________________________ Eddie Ogan tells us of her childhood: I'll never forget Easter, 1946. I was 14, my little sister Ocy was 12, and my older sister Darlene 16. We lived at home with our mother, and the four of us knew what it was to do without many things. My dad had died five years before, leaving Mom with no money and seven school kids to raise. A month before Easter the pastor announced a special Easter offering to be taken for a poor family. He asked everyone to save and give sacrificially. When we got home, we talked about what we could do. We bought potatoes and lived on them for a month. This would allow us to save $20 of our grocery money. We kept our electric lights turned out as much as possible to save money on the electric bill. Darlene got house and yard cleaning jobs, and both of us babysat. For 15 cents we could buy enough cotton loops to make three pot holders to sell for $1. We made $20 on pot holders. That month was one of the best of our lives. Every day we counted the money to see how much we had saved. At night we'd sit in the dark and talk about how the poor family was going to enjoy having the money the church would give them. We had about 80 people in church, so figured that whatever amount of money we had to give, the offering would surely be 20 times that much. After all, every Sunday the pastor reminded everyone of the special offering. The day before Easter, Ocy and I walked to the grocery store and got the manager to give us three crisp $20 bills and one $10 bill for all our change. We ran all the way home to show Mom and Darlene. We had never had so much money before. That night we were so excited we could hardly sleep. We didn't care that we wouldn't have new clothes for Easter; we had $70 for the offering! We could hardly wait to get to church! On Sunday morning, rain was pouring. We didn't own an umbrella, and the church was over a mile from our home, but it didn't seem to matter how wet we got. Darlene had cardboard in her shoes. The cardboard came apart, and her feet got wet. But we sat in church proudly. I heard some teenagers talking about the Smith girls having on their old dresses. I looked at them in their new clothes, but I felt rich. When the offering was taken, we were sitting in the second row from the front. Mom put in the $10 bill, and each of us kids put in a $20. As we walked home, we sang all the way. At lunch Mom had a surprise. She had bought a dozen eggs, and we had boiled Easter eggs with our fried potatoes! Late that afternoon the minister drove up. Mom went to the door, talked with him for a moment, and then came back with an envelope in her hand. We asked what it was, but she didn't say a word. She opened the envelope and out fell a bunch of money. There were three crisp $20 bills, one $10 and seventeen $1 bills. Mom put the money back in the envelope. We didn't talk, just sat and stared at the floor. We had gone from feeling like millionaires to feeling like poor white trash. We had such a happy life that we felt sorry for anyone who didn't have a Mom like ours and a house full of brothers and sisters. We thought it was fun to share silverware and see whether we got the spoon or the fork that night. We had two knifes that we passed around to whoever needed them. I knew we didn't have a lot of things that other people had, but I'd never thought we were poor. That Easter day I found out we were. The minister had brought us the money for the poor family, so we must be poor. I didn't like being poor. I looked at my dress and worn-out shoes and felt so ashamed. I didn't want to go back to church. Everyone there probably already knew we were poor! I thought about school. I was in the ninth grade and at the top of my class of over 100 students. I wondered if the kids at school knew that we were poor. I decided that I could quit school since I had finished the eighth grade. That was all the law required. We sat in silence for a long time. Then it got dark, and we went to bed. All that week, we girls went to school and came home, and no one talked much. Finally on Saturday, Mom asked us what we wanted to do with the money. What did poor people do with money? We didn't know. We'd never known we were poor. We didn't want to go to church on Sunday, but Mom said we had to. Although it was a sunny day, we didn't talk on the way. Mom started to sing, but no one joined in and she only sang one verse. We had a missionary speaker. He talked churches in Africa made out of sun-dried bricks, but they needed money to buy roofs. He said $100 would put a roof on a church. The minister said, "Can't we all sacrifice to help these poor people?" We looked at each other and smiled for the first time in a week. Mom reached into her purse and pulled out the envelope. She passed it to Darlene. Darlene gave it to me, and I handed it to Ocy. Ocy put it in the offering. When the offering was counted, the minister announced that it was a little over $100. The missionary was excited. He hadn't expected such a large offering from our small church. He said, "You must have some rich people in this church." Suddenly it struck us! We had given $87 of that "little over $100." We were the rich family in the church! Hadn't the missionary said so? From that day on I've never been poor again. I've always remembered how rich I am!