Sermon 24 April 2016 Acts 11:1-18/Revelation 21:1-6 Easter V Year C

“Who was I that I could hinder God?”[1] Peter asks this question in the Book of Acts this morning. His question is addressed not only to himself, but also to those to whom he speaks.

Who was I that I could hinder God? Who are we that we could hinder God? Most of us can’t imagine that we ever would. Surely we would willingly go along with whatever God had in mind. If only we knew what that was, of course. Or, if only what God had in mind included a road map we could sneak a peek at now and then. Just to make sure we were even going in the right direction, let alone are on the right road.

         Peter, it seems, is for whom the prayer, “Guide me, O lord, in the right direction,” must have been specifically written. And particularly in this morning’s reading at the story’s beginning, Peter is determined to take the familiar road, the road of tradition, the road of custom, the road he believes leads to upholding the faith.

         But something is not quite right after all. The believers in Judea heard that the Gentiles had also accepted the word of God. How did this happen? It was shocking The right way, God’s way, what everyone knew was the revelation of God came only to the Jews, to the believers, and to those who had been with Jesus during his life. Now a bunch of upstart Gentiles, non-Jews, unclean, uncouth, and uncircumcised, were claiming they too had accepted the newly revealed word of God. Peter, because he listens to his God-inspired dream, finds himself in the position of defending his actions. He broke with tradition by associating with Gentiles and has to justify what he did.

         Peter finds himself in a position we often do, frankly without recognizing it much of the time. God’s desires often have very little to do with our cherished traditions and ways of doing things.

         In the church and in our lives, we work to preserve our traditions out of a need for safety, for comfort, for respect for those who have gone before us, and to re-establish our common identity. But what if, just what if, God is doing something different, something new, something never done before? What if God wants to break through our cherished notions and our self-imposed human limitations and boundaries?

         Most of us resist even the concept of change. In our innermost places we metaphorically fold our arms and say, “Hell no, we won’t go!” Yet even as we do this, God us moving to change us, remold us, to make us different, and to be more like who God created us to be with every breath and every move we take.

         When we work so hard to preserve and protect our traditions and our identity, we could, just possibly, be working against the very thing God is doing in the church and in our lives.

         Peter was given a vision of inclusiveness and love. His vision had nothing to do with food and everything to do with maintaining a tradition that excluded rather than included. Peter, like most of us in the same situation, was convinced of his rightness. He had conveniently forgotten what Jesus taught. “Listen to me, all of you, and understand: there is nothing outside a person that by going in can defile, but the things that come out are what defile.”[2]

         Peter, convinced of his own rightness, and of his ability to understand what God wanted, was defending the old rather than embracing the new. His vision was God’s way of speaking to him and showing him what God had in mind that was different, new, never done before. Peter was being asked to live out what Jesus said to Peter and the other disciples on the night before he died, “I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another.”[3] Not just one another in the enclosed circle of believers but in the world.

         What Peter saw, and then defended to the other believers was change. Change: that thing that God does constantly that we all resist. Who really wants to change? Who really wants to step beyond our safe and confortable traditions and our same identity and do a new thing?

         Yet if we refuse to change, we will fly in the face of all that scripture tells us God does with us. We are creatures designed for change. We have within cells that renew, time after time, year after year; this is what keeps us alive. This is how God implanted in us the way of change, the way of something new, and the desire to become more and more who God wants us to be, as individuals, as a society, and as the church.

         If there were ever a time in which the Gospel promise seems null and void, this might be it. Yet above the exploding of bombs and chemicals, the rumbling and shaking of the tortured earth, and the shuddering of buildings, and the screams of the injured and dying, there is a louder voice. It is the voice of change, the voice of God, the voice of God’s vision that proclaims these things to us. God proclaimed to Peter and proclaims to us, “I saw a new heaven and a new earth. See, the throne of God is among mortals. God will dwell with them as their God; they will be God’s peoples, and God's self will be with them; God will wipe away every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more, for the first things have passed away. See, I am making all things new.”[4]

         “Love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”[5]

         “Who are we that we could hinder God?”[6] AMEN.

The Rev Nicolette Papanek

©2016

---

[1] Acts 11:17b (NRSV)

[2] Mark 7:14b-15 (NRSV)

[3] John 13:34 (NRSV) Italics mine.

[4] Revelation 21:1-3b-5a (NRSV) Paraphrase.

[5] John 13:34-35 (NRSV)

[6] Acts 11:17b (NRSV) Paraphrase.

Sermon 17 April 2016 John 10:22-30 Easter IV Year C

         In my family we invent words when words fail us. Some of the words and phrases we’ve invented have become legendary, at least within our family. And some of them aren’t fit for polite company, depending on how or why they were invented. Not only that, inventing words used to get us in trouble when we played Scrabble, which my father played with great ferocity. One of us would use a word we’d invented and isomeone would cry “foul.” Out would come the Oxford Unabridged Dictionary as the ultimate authority.

         My younger sister was – and still is – particularly good at inventing creative language. When she was a child, she used to do it through lack of understanding. For example, once when I was visiting, she came home from school extremely excited about an art project. She was explaining to us how her project looked, and she had painted part of it completely white. Having heard the expression “pitch black,” and not knowing “pitch” was a substance, she used the phrase “pitch white.” She assumed the word “pitch,” meant “all” or “completely.” We all laughed, and the expression has become part of our insider language. It’s what we say when we want to describe something as being “all” or “completely.” It not only raises a laugh, it gets the point across. It’s the way our family communicates. If the Papanek family owned a paint factory, we’d probably name one of our paint chips “pitch white.” But no one else would get it.

         So, in the tradition of my family, as I studied John’s gospel, I decided to make up a word to describe who we are. According to Jesus we are “the unsnatchables.” Unfortunately, it’s not a real word, and it sounds like something you have for lunch. But I’m going to use it anyway because I think you know what I mean. I think you know being one of “the unsnatchables” means no one can snatch us away from Jesus, which is precisely what Jesus is getting at in today’s gospel.

The small piece of John’s gospel we heard today is a “family story.” It even starts out with the kind of intimate details we all use when we relate a family story. We use the time, the place, and what we were doing.

John begins this part of his gospel story by saying, “It was the festival of the Dedication at Jerusalem. It was winter, and Jesus was walking in the temple, in the portico of Solomon.”[1] You hear the time, the place, and what Jesus and his intimates were doing. Just like the little story I told you about my sister.

The next thing you hear in John’s gospel is who is a member of Jesus’ inner circle and who isn’t. Now when I told you my story about my sister, you know who you are, and you know you aren’t members of my immediate family. But by telling you the story, I have invited you in to my intimate circle. You know a part of my family language. You became at least a part-time Papanek by my invitation to intimacy.

In John’s gospel, John uses the phrase “the Jews” throughout his gospel to indicate who is an intimate of Jesus and who is not. John might as well call it thosewho believe in Jesus and those who don’t. it’s an alert to the listening audience as to who are the followers of Jesus and who are not. So John is telling us that some of the people walking with Jesus were members of Jesus’ intimate circle, that is, they were believers, and some were not believers. And the people who are not part of the intimate circle question Jesus about his status. Specifically, those not part of the inner circle ask for an explanation. They want to know if Jesus is the Messiah. They don’t understand his language. They want explanations. They are asking for certainty.

         In his answer, Jesus tells his listeners what it means to be a family member of the Messiah. Jesus says to them,

“My sheep hear my voice. I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish. No one will snatch them out of my hand. What my Father has given me is greater than all else, and no one can snatch it out of the Father’s hand. The Father and I are one.”[2]

It’s Jesus’ way of saying, “If you are a member of my inner circle, you know my voice. You know the language I use. You know the insider terms, the intimate expressions we use with one another. And if you know these things, then you wouldn’t ask this question.”

It’s as if you and I were having a conversation about the color I just painted my house. And to explain what I’d done, I said, “I painted it ‘pitch white’.” If you were a member of my family, or a listener in the congregation today, you’d know I painted the whole thing white. But if you were an outsider, someone who hasn’t heard the story, you wouldn’t understand.

If you were listening on the day John describes, and you were a follower of Jesus, you knew what Jesus meant. Because you knew his voice, his terms, his intimate language. You knew that Jesus and God were one. If you were a follower of Jesus, a member of his inner circle, then you were one of “the unsnatchables.” No one could snatch you from his hand. If you weren’t a follower, none of it would make much sense. The comforting thing for you and for me is that we really are “the unsnatchables.” Even when we think we probably could be snatched away. Because most of us have some misconceptions those who sit round us in church. Or even other people we talk to about our faith. We tend to assume, unless we have a really deep discussion, that we are the only one who has doubts. We think we are the only one who ever wakes up in the morning and has to wait for belief. We are the only one for whom sometimes belief doesn’t come that day, or the next day, or even the day after that. We think we are the only ones for whom belief isn’t there and we hope, wait, and try to believe that someday we’ll believe again. But a little or a lot, belief every day or belief once a day, or belief only on alternate days, we are still held in God’s hands. We are “the unsnatchables” in the hands of God. God’s love never ends.[3]

If we are followers of Jesus, no one can snatch us out of God’s hand. You and I are members of the intimate circle of Jesus. We are members of The Jesus Movement. We are gathered together by God; members of the intimate circle of Jesus, and marked by the Holy Spirit as Christ’s own for ever. We are “the unsnatchables.” AMEN

The Rev Nicolette Papanek

©2016

---

[1] John 10:22-23 (NRSV)

[2] John 10:27-30 (NRSV) Italics mine.

[3] Paraphrase: 1Corinthians13:8

Sermon 10 April 2016 John 21:1-19 Easter III Year C

Picnic on the Beach with Jesus. Would you like to go to a picnic on the beach with Jesus? I’m not sure I would. It seemed to me when I first read this scripture a long time ago, that I would not want to have picnic where Jesus treated me the way he did Peter. I would not want to be scolded for denying Jesus. And, I thought Peter was being scolded. I also thought Jesus was being unnecessarily repetitive with Peter by basically telling him the same thing three times when all he really wants is for Peter to follow him again.

I’ve come to realize though, that the questions Jesus asks Peter are something quite different from a repetitive scolding for denying him. There are three things going on here. The first is Jesus grants Peter forgiveness for denying him three times. The second is Jesus invites Peter back into relationship with him. The third is Jesus teaches Peter how to follow him in the future. 

When you look at this story though, the story itself seems like such little things. The story shows the disciples finally catching fish. They eat breakfast on the beach with Jesus. Peter is forgiven three times in the act of Jesus asking him if he loves him. Peter says yes three times, feeling hurt that Jesus keeps asking. Peter does not understand Jesus is inviting him into a different future. He is inviting Peter to change his perspective. And then Jesus teaches Peter how to follow him and that is what bring about Peter’s change of perspective.

The way I generally learn something is by having my perspective changed too. I may have struggled with something for ages, only to have someone say, “Have you thought about it this way?” Suddenly I have a new perspective.

Like most of us, the disciples needed a change of perspective. In our Gospel today, Simon Peter says to the disciples, “I am going fishing.”  And predictably enough, “They said to him, ‘We will go with you.’”  They were returning to the familiar. Peter decides to do what he’s trained to do. He decides to do what he’s done most of his life. He goes fishing. Not quite knowing what else to do, the other disciples go along. Better to do something than nothing.

Now Simon Peter was a competent fisherman. But you and I know that competence doesn’t always count. Fishing, like farming, is a sometime thing. Some times you get the rain; some times you don’t. Some times you catch the fish; some times you don’t. And this time, Peter and his buddies don’t catch anything. They were out all night for nothing. And then, as they’re putting in to shore, probably hungry for breakfast and a little sleepy, someone on the shore decides to do a good deed. He hollers, “Cast the net to the right side of the boat.”

 

The kind of fishing Peter and the disciples did was in fairly shallow water. They used a large net, with small weights all round it. The idea was to cast the net into the sea so that it flung itself as wide as possible, at the same time keeping itself outspread with all those little weights. It takes real skill to do that. If one side of the net is cast sooner than the other; that side of the net sinks. It’s more difficult to pull to gather in the fish. If one side sinks faster, sometimes fish escape, too. So the idea is to hear one satisfying little “plunk” when all the weights hit the water at the same time. Rather than a bunch of little plunk, plunk, plunk plunks as each part of the net hits at a different time.

 

Still, no matter how skillful you are at throwing the net, the reality is, if the net doesn’t land where the fish are, you don’t catch anything. And the reality also is, when you’re in the boat, right on top of the net, you often can’t see into the water. Glare, shadows from the boat, the angle you’re standing, all these make up a perspective that may not allow you to see the fish. This is why you’ll often see – even today on the Sea of Galilee – where net fishing is done, a “spotter” walking the shore. The job of the spotter is to tell the person in the boat where to fling the net. The person on the shore has a different perspective. They can see things differently from where they stand.

This is the purpose of Jesus’ repeated questions and teachings: to change Peter’s perspective. Each time Jesus spoke, Peter’s perspective changed a little bit. By the time Jesus repeated himself for the third time, Peter had a new perspective. Finally, Peter understood how to do the kind of fishing Jesus was calling him to do.

How does Jesus change our perspective? How do we deepen our commitment to him? How do we finally find ourselves unable to go back to our fishing and begin to fish for Jesus?

It’s possible the disciples went out in the boat together because they were clinging to one another still. They hadn’t quite absorbed the good news of the resurrection and didn’t know what to do. Or perhaps they had, and they clung to one another out of sheer terror. They knew what was in store for them if they followed Jesus.

Are you like me? Sometimes I haven’t quite absorbed the good news of the resurrection. And sometimes I cling to the familiar in sheer terror because I know what’s in store for me if I follow Jesus. Either way, I need a new perspective.

 Which are you? Have you not quite absorbed the news of the resurrection? Are you clinging to the familiar not knowing quite what to do? Listen to Jesus on the shore. May the resurrected Christ give you a new perspective.

Or are you clinging to the familiar in sheer terror because God is calling you to do something new? Listen to Jesus on the shore. May the resurrected Christ give you a new perspective. AMEN.

The Rev Nicolette Papanek

©2016

Sermon 3 April 2016 John 3:19-31 Easter II Year C

         The second Sunday of Easter has traditionally been known as “low Sunday,” presumably a Sunday on which we have low attendance because churchgoers are worn out by attending Holy Week and Easter services. Of course if it that were the real reason, then neither Deacon Beth or I would show up because we’ve participated in as many services as all of you. Actually, I think the real reason for “low Sunday” is because what can you do after the resurrection? Anything else is about as low as you can get after the high of Easter. No wonder people stay away. What drama can you offer after the gorgeous music, the beautiful flowers, the joyful people, the crowded church and the resurrection?

         And what does the scripture in the lectionary offer us on the second Sunday in Easter? We get a bunch of scared guys clubbed up together in an upper room and then entrance of the disciple Thomas complete with his “show me” attitude.

         So for those of us here on this second Sunday in Easter, you might think there’s not much on offer. It’s the same old story about the same old bunch of scared guys huddled up to escape the authorities, the same old “show me” Thomas, and the same old appearance of Jesus. But you know, having preached about this particular scripture from the Gospel of John, year after year I’ve come to believe there might actually be a reason we hear this same Gospel on this second Sunday of Easter every single year.

         It might just be the Gospel itself is so fully packed with meaning and promise that we need to hear it every year lest we forget who we are and what the story calls us to do.

         Our friend Thomas is all about doubt and faith being partners in belief. And most likely if we had been the apostles we’d have hidden out somewhere too, teetering back and forth between faith and belief. And we might even have been just as astonished by Jesus’ appearance as they were.

         But, among the many things in this little piece of our resurrection story that we sometimes fail to notice, is the business about who the church is and what Jesus calls us to do. Somehow we miss the hard little gem about forgiveness that Jesus commands in the midst of his greeting of Shalom, or peace be with you.

         Right after Jesus greets the disciples with “Peace be with you,” he shows them his hands and his side. Sounds gruesome, but it’s a reminder of what can happen when you willingly give God all of yourself. No sugar coating here, just the simple truth: this is what can happen to the good guys and gals. And right after that, Jesus reminds them again, “Peace be with you.” But that peace comes with an order: “As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” When he had said this, he breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit.”

         So first the disciples are reminded of the peace that passes all understanding, the peace of God that will carry them through whatever happens to them. And then Jesus tells them who they are and what they are called to do. Here’s the order: “If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.”

That’s pretty strong stuff about forgiveness. There’s no room to negotiate. We are called to forgive because if we don’t, those sins will be retained. Our particular translation isn’t terribly helpful about those “retained sins” though. I’d like to offer you something else to think about forgiveness and sin.

In The Message, a paraphrased translation of the Bible, Eugene Peterson translates it this way, "If you forgive someone's sins, they're gone for good. If you don't forgive sins, what are you going to do with them?" The writer Madeline L’Engle once asked Eugene Peterson why that was his translation rather than the more accepted version. Gene’s answer was, “In the Greek it can go either way. I chose that way.”[1]

It’s instructive for us to remember it this way. If we don’t forgive sins – including our own – what will we do with them? If you’re puzzling over this, I can tell you what we do with them. Those sins we have not forgiven will eat into us. Those sins will destroy us from the inside out. Bitterness, resentment, and the desire for revenge will become partners with anger and hate. Is this what we are called to do? Is this how Jesus wants us to live as his disciples?

You’ve heard this quote before, “Resentment is like drinking poison and then hoping it will kill your enemies.”[2] So how long and who have we been trying to poison? Ourselves? Someone else? And what would we, what would you, need to forgive? What would have to happen for us, for you, to let go of whatever resentment, whatever anger, whatever hate we have embedded in ourselves by refusing to forgive?

Try this. Just for a moment, think about whatever it is you have been unable to forgive. (Pause.) Now that you’ve got that, I’m sure you will remember who and what it is. So here’s a suggestion about what you can do with it.

The wife of my ordaining bishop told this story about herself at a retreat she led. Carole said she realized often when she came forward for communion she had anger or resentment or grief, or something else she was holding on to. She just couldn’t let it go. So as she got up to come to the communion rail, she would imagine clenching her hands around whatever that thing was. And she would walk forward that way, with her fists clenched.

And then, as she stood or knelt for communion, she would open her hands to receive the bread. And she said that, remarkably, whatever resentment, whatever anger, whatever hate, whatever grief, was embedded in her was washed away by when she opened her hands to receive the bread. And if any were still left, when the wine came along it would wash the rest away as she received the wine.

Daily we are made new to live the resurrected life. And Sunday after Sunday the means to live that life is offered to us here. Forgive. Love. Live in the joy of the resurrection. "If you forgive someone's sins, they're gone for good. If you don't forgive sins, what are you going to do with them?" AMEN. 

The Rev Nicolette Papanek

©2016

---

[1] I read this years ago in one of Madeleine L’Engle’s books but have been unable to find the book or page number.

[2] Attributed in various sources to either St Augustine of Hippo or Nelson Mandela.