JOY CAN RISE

May 8, 2011
Easter 3
Acts 2:14a;36-42
Luke 24:13-35

(prayer)

So, Simon Peter said, “Save yourselves from this corrupt generation”. I wonder how much has changed. Dictionary.com defines the noun corruption as “dishonest or fraudulent conduct by those in power”. The adjective corrupt can describe the actions of those misusing their power but it can also describe the wider impact of those actions. Sometimes corruption’s effects extend beyond those most directly involved.

As many of you know, I am a news junkie. When I watch TV, it is most likely to be on a news channel (or Star Trek or Survivor or Man v Food or a football game). I enjoy the ins and outs of politics and governance. Like many others (I am sure) I enjoyed watching Donald Trump make a fool of himself grabbing headlines by clasping on to the lunatic fringe of the so-called "American birther movement". All of his investigations and predictions turned out to be nothing but hot air. He was a fair target at the comedic national correspondents’ dinner last weekend.

All of that seemed extra trivial when we saw what happened on Sunday night. When the United States' military found and killed Osama bin Laden, I was watching and waiting for The Donald to attach himself to (what is now tongue and cheeky being called) the Deather movement: those who doubt that bin Laden has expired and insist on seeing some proof (photos, video, etc.). Now this movement is smaller than it may appear given the amount of press the issue is getting – most of the people calling for pictures are not really doubters but are simply morbidly curious.

I suspect that we all can think of examples that show, to some people, past experiences of political secrecy and corruption have resulted in an inability to see everything relating to government as corrupt.

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The context of the reading from Acts this morning is the story of the Pentecost festival that immediately followed Jesus’ resurrection. We will celebrate the full events of that day in five more Sundays at the conclusion of the Easter season. According to the Book of Acts, Peter tried to explain what had been happening to the crowd. As we will hear in a few weeks, Peter spoke about an outpouring of God’s spirit. Then as we heard today, he told the crowd about his experience with Jesus and his belief that Jesus is (in fact) the Messiah of God.

Last week here at St. David’s we heard the story of the disciples getting to see the risen Jesus on easter-eve and again one week later. Part of Jesus message for them was that they were to continue to preach (in his name and example) about the forgiveness and reconciliation God offers. This was the same message John the Baptist was sharing before Jesus even began his ministry. It appears as we read Acts that this is also what Peter is telling the Pentecost crowd: be reconciled to God and know the gift of God’s spiritual presence in your life!

Before Jesus, there was John the Baptist. Luke chapter three recounts it this way: 3[John] went into all the region around the Jordan, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.

After Jesus, there was Peter the Baptist, whom the same author (Luke and Acts were written by the same person) recounts Peter saying: 38... ‘Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ so that your sins may be forgiven.

These are the bookends of Jesus’ ministry: calls to Baptisms of repentance and forgiveness. So it makes sense that this was the general focus of Jesus as well. The oldest gospel, Mark, describes the start of Jesus’ ministry this way: 1:14...Jesus came to Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God, 15and saying, ‘The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.’

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Sin is a topic that (especially in more mainline, progressively-minded churches) we often avoid. Perhaps that is because for some rather zealous and boisterous preachers it has been the only topic that the subject of sin is hard to broach without all that TV evangelistic baggage.

I’ll try anyway.

For me, sin is best thought of as that which clouds our ability to know and appreciate the presence of God in our midst. As such, it is fair to say that sin is that which separates us from God – even as God is not separate from us.

I think “sin” can be thought of in two ways. We could say there is a narrow definition and a broad definition. Narrowly, sin is a thing, a specific action, or even thought. Sin is something a person does – it is individual and personal. That is the favourite focus of the fire and brimstone preachers.

Broadly, sin is situational, contextual, attitudinal. Sin, in this way, is corporate and may be easy for an individual to say, well that’s not me, it’s not my fault - I can’t change that.

The prophet Micah summarized the faithful life with three phrases: to seek justice, to love kindness, to walk humbly with our God. I find it helpful to see these (along with Jesus’ instruction to Love God with our whole being and to love our neighbour as ourselves) as the benchmarks of faith-filled living. To do otherwise, I suppose, could be called “sin”

Individually, we can each work on setting up our life to appreciate God in our midst (humility), we can approach others with love and compassion and kindness and fairness. That might be fine for dealing with narrow sinfulness. But I believe that broad sin is the bigger problem in our world.

We tacitly accept systems of society and relationship and economics and governance that are not rooted in fairness and justice, that are devoid of compassion (kindness is irrelevant) and that see greed and selfishness as signs of strength and achievement; humility on the other hand is seen as weak, even silly in this dog-eat-dog world and something to be shamed.

This tacit acceptance could be called “sin” as well – community/societal sin. This kind of sin, which is enlivened by fear and greed can make spirit hard to grasp. It’s as if the whole environment has been corrupted.

“Save yourself from this corrupt generation!”

The root meaning of repentance is to change direction. Broad repentance is a desire to buck the trends of this life that encourage and reward: injustice, hardness of hearts, selfishness.

I believe that (as the first chapter of Genesis says) that we are created in goodness and that our basic nature is to be loving and fair and humble. We are drawn to that original goal – we want that kind of life and world to live in. Maybe that is why in the few days that followed Peter’s Pentecost speech that some three thousand people welcomed his message, we baptised and became the first of a new generation of followers of Jesus’ way.

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I wonder if what we need is the courage to see what is possible. Is there enough openness amongst all of the cynicism that is all around us to see the hope and promise that is truly in our midst.

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It was the late afternoon of the first Easter. That morning, the women had found the empty tomb and brought back a story about seeing angels that spoke of resurrection. Cleopas and his partner were from Emmaus, a village a few kilometres from Jerusalem. They counted themselves among those that were with Jesus in Jerusalem. We don’t know anything else about them – how long they had been part of the group, how much time they had spent with Jesus, did they travel with him, or did they simply catch the wave of excitement after the Palm Sunday parade? However it had been for them, they were devastated by his execution. They had hoped Jesus would be ‘The One’ who would redeem Israel. But now there was no reason to stay with the disciples – they were going home! It was over.

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It was over but it wasn’t forgotten. So, when the fellow traveller on the road showed the slightest interest in their lives, they opened right up and told him the whole story. It is a common aspect of resurrection stories across the gospel accounts – often the risen Jesus is not recognized at first: Mary thought he was a gardener until she heard her name spoken; the fishing disciples just saw him as a nosey person on the beach shouting out advice, until that advice yielded a miraculous catch. And here, these two Emmaus disciples were talking about Jesus with Jesus and couldn’t see that it was Jesus. But something about this person was is intriguing that they were hesitant to part company, even when they arrived at their destination. They discouraged the traveller from continuing on: “stay with us”. I know that night was approaching and it would be un-wise for travellers to stay on the road in the dark. That would be a good enough reason to be welcoming to a traveller. But I like to imagine that there was a less tangible reason that these two disciples didn’t want this person to leave them, just yet. Perhaps, they had a sixth sense that they could be irrevocably changed by sticking with this guy. “Stay with us!”

I think that it is fair to assume that these two disciples were with Jesus three evenings earlier sharing supper with him on the night when he arrested: the night that the New Testament quotes Jesus as saying: “take and eat, this is my body broken for you; do this in remembrance of me!” It had to be a moment that was etched in the minds of all who were present – it was the last time they enjoyed Jesus’ company; just a couple of hours later he was in custody. As the story was re-told over the years, the followers of Jesus’ Way would look back on that meal and call it The Last Supper.

Clearly, for Cleopas and the other Emmaus disciple, the events of the Last Supper touched them at a sub-conscious level because when their guest blessed and broke the bread for the evening meal on that Sunday night, the memories came flooding back. This was Jesus, risen and among them. It had been Jesus who walked and talked with them on the road, for some reason they weren’t able to notice. As soon as their eyes were opened to the truth of who they were with, Jesus was gone. But in that momentary recognition they were changed. They immediately grabbed on to the memory of the events they had just experienced. They recalled the scriptural conversation they had along the road – they began to see Jesus as strongly rooted in their tradition and quite possibly The One sent by God to redeem the people.

Any concerns over travelling the roads at night were ignored and they ran back to the city they had escaped that afternoon. They found the others and proclaimed (as the women had done a few hours earlier): Jesus is Risen.

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Out of despair, joy had risen.

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For the Emmaus disciples, the grief and tragedy (they had been part of) had corrupted their ability to hope in what was possible.

Another way to use the word corruption is to speak about something that has been messed up in some way – none of us wants a computer that has a corrupted hard drive. When things are corrupted they are not going to be able to do what they are designed to do.

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I believe strongly in the notion of a ‘good’ creation. I know that this world is good, because of the natural balance I see in the earth at its best. I see the natural goodness with humanity all the time – not as an act of gaining favour or exploiting charitable acts, but as natural goodness shining through. I also see the imbalance. I get worried when people become reigned to that imbalance, even to the point of giving up on the possibility of good.

As we begin to accept that goodness cannot dominate our lives, it can be said that we have been corrupted. I would go further to use the language of sin, when speaking of giving up on the possibility of good.

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I think what has turned so many people off of ‘church’ is that perception that the focus is on sin and guilt: the focus is on the worst of who we are: using a fear of the impact of that way of living as a motivation to repent. “You’d better repent, or else ...!”

And repentance does imply a turning away from ‘sin’ (however we define it). But it can also be a turning toward a well-focused life – where we love God and all that God has made (including ourselves and our neighbours). If all we ever focus on is what we are leaving behind, we are not giving repentance its full due.

I cannot conceive that thousands of people would come to Peter for baptism out of fear – they had to be focused on the good life that was possible in the wake of Jesus’ resurrection.

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We, too, I believe are called ‘to’ something, not ‘away’ from something. There are possibilities for good work and ministry together for us here at St. David’s as part of the wider Body of Christ.

If we are not - in the present - looking forward, then we might very well have some corruption issues to deal with.

Last week, I encouraged myself and you-all to be open to what is out there as possible for us. Today, I hope we can be enlivened by those moments of clarity and encouragement that remind us of the best of our potential. Next week, we will continue to read of the example of the early church and how they developed ways of relating that defined their sense of community and what it means to be a movement becoming a church.

May we know that God walks with us on this journey. Let us pray:

Stay with us God, even when we don’t notice you – especially when we don’t notice you. Be patient and persistent in your love for us until we see our potential to live as Jesus did. Amen.



#182 VU “Stay With Us”