May 3 ~ I am the way, the truth and the life

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Acts 7:55-60

Psalm 31:1-5, 15-16

1 Peter 2:2-10

John 14:1-14

Sermon by Bishop Halmarson

In the second lesson we hear an invitation: “Come to him, to that living stone, rejected by people but in God’s sight chosen and precious; and like living stones be yourselves built into a spiritual house…”

Our Easter celebration continues today with another baptism today at St Peter’s. Today Henry joins Kevin and Clara and George, and all of us, joins us in the household of God through baptism. And a proper thing, it is, for baptisms to happen during the Easter season, because it’s a season of new life. The baptismal font is readied to wash a new little brother, a new youngest member, not just of the St Peter’s congregation, but of all the congregations, all the churches, the whole church of Christ on earth. Because baptism is our initiation into the community of Christ, joining us to Christ and to one another as the people of God. So, we celebrate with Henry and his family, as we all affirm our belonging in Christ and Christ belonging to us in this spiritual house we know to be the church.

Where I grew up in New England there are long walls between farms built of stone. The New England poet Robert Frost wrote a poem called “Mending Wall” with images just like the ones in the reading from First Peter today. In the poem two neighbors walk on either side of the stone wall dividing their property. They do this every spring replacing the stones that have fallen or been removed during the past year. Listen to a section of the poem:

I let my neighbor know beyond the hill;

And on a day we meet to walk the line

And set the wall between us once again.

We keep the wall between us as we go.

To each the boulders that have fallen to each.

And some are loaves and some so nearly balls

We have to use a spell to make them balance:

‘Stay where you are until our backs are turned!’

We wear our fingers rough with handling them…

Down in New England, stone walls are made of materials at hand, not hewn rocks held together by mortar and finished to a neat, straight property marker. Instead they are made of field rock piled on top of each other, just high enough to keep the cows in the pasture, just sturdy enough to stay in place for a season or more. Then the neighbors repair the wall once again.

The church is built in a similar way, taking the materials at hand, living stones, people like you and me, and bringing us together so that a body for worship and service is created.

But, of course there’s a difference between a stone wall and the church. We are not the builders of the church, God is. The stones are not field rock but ‘living stones’, the purpose is not for division but for witnessing to the wonderful deeds of God, and the thing that holds the church together, the cornerstone, is Christ our Lord.

In the time since the first Easter, God has been building the church. God first gathers those rag-tag, misfit disciples and shapes them into a believing and witnessing community, fits them for the task of telling the world about Jesus and the new life they receive in following him. God acts through the Holy Spirit to send out apostles like Paul and Silas and Timothy who risk their safety and freedom so that the good news of the gospel can be heard. Over time God uses other witnesses to draw more people into the community of faith, to bring people into the marvelous light of God’s way and truth and life.

And as the church grows God continues to take the materials at hand, ordinary people in need of love and belonging, and shapes a church out of us, a church to proclaim the wonderful deeds God has done, not only for us, but for all of creation.

It’s a fact, the materials that make up the church are not finely hewn or polished or neatly matched. God doesn’t take only the straightest two-by-fours or the most uniform rocks. The materials that make up the church are living stones, people taken as we are, and brought together in such a way that a community in faith is formed. God doesn’t pick over and reject stones that don’t fit a pre-determined pattern, doesn’t pass by the people who don’t measure up to what some might think of as ‘church material’.

Instead, God chooses exactly those rejected ones, the ones who don’t measure up, who don’t fit the image, who would be passed over by any other builder who was more concerned with aesthetics and less concerned with including any and all.

The materials that make up the church are living stones, people like you and me who are rough around the edges, who don’t fit the requirements of perfect and pleasing proportions, who often enough fail to live in ways that are pleasing to God. The good news of the gospel is that God accepts all, and includes all, and wants all people to know they are welcome just as they are. Each one of us brought into the community of believers is a chosen and loved child of God no matter how rough our edges may be. As living stones built together by God into the church, we can appreciate the unique contribution that each member makes toward the community called out of darkness into God’s marvelous light.

God is the builder. We are the living stones, chosen to be a community God builds for the purpose of proclaiming the wonderful deeds God has done for all people.

As a church it’s possible to lose that central purpose for our existence. We can get caught up and make other things more important by the amount of time or energy or money we put into them. As a church we can get too closely focused on our own community of faith and forget that we are part of a larger purpose. Sometimes congregations become preoccupied with enshrining the church as we know it, forgetting that God is the builder, that it is living stones that make up the church, and that the purpose of the church is to tell and show all people about God’s great goodness.

God forgives our preoccupations, our well-intentioned but ungrounded activities, our narrow view of the church. We know this through the cross. God forgives and accepts us, and also guides and directs us because we are living stones, able to grow and change, able to work together as a unity because of the one in whom we have our life and salvation.

The unity that keeps this church of living, breathing, moving, changing stones together is the one called the ‘head of the corner’, the cornerstone, Jesus the Christ. He shows us how God receives all and welcomes all people into the community of believers.

Jesus is the living stone that was rejected by humankind, but was chosen by God to be the salvation of the world. Through Jesus, God offers life to all who would receive it. By his humanity Jesus joins with us in our birth, our life, our joy and our suffering. In his death Jesus joins us in our dying and by his rising Jesus draws us all into life with God. In him we are gathered into one church, one body, one faith, one God who chooses and claims us for a holy people. Without him we are lifeless as field rocks, purposeless as a wall that won’t stand, hopeless as the neighbor who tries to balance one round rock on another. But with him we are made living stones and built into the holy dwelling of God.

God built this church with the faith instilled in the founders who established it over 125/ 40 years ago. God gave the early church leaders the desire to meet in worship and gave them the generosity and commitment to build a congregation.

As God’s church we are called to imitate the way God takes all the stones, all the living stones, every curious character and misfit individual, and makes a place for us in God’s beloved community in faith. As people of faith we have the assurance that we are accepted by God just as we are, and we can witness with confidence that God’s love is big enough to encompass everyone. As living stones ourselves we are given the ability to change and adapt to new circumstances so that the church continues to be a vibrant witness in the communities where we live and serve. As agents of God’s love we can take the good news of grace and mercy into our daily lives so that others will see by our actions and hear in our words that they too have value in God’s eyes.

So, today we celebrate our unity in Christ in worship, in singing, in prayer and in the communion meal. When we leave this place today, we leave renewed in our faith that we belong in God’s love, belong to one another and belong to God. As you go into this week, take with you the good news of God’s love, the joy and comfort of living in God’s marvelous light, and in your words and actions, let your friends and neighbors and co-workers know that there is light and life for them in the love of God in Christ Jesus.

Amen

April 26 ~ Amidst the Noise... Is There Still Room in Us for the Voice of the Shepherd

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Acts 2:42-47

Psalm 23

1 Peter 2:19-25

John 10:1-10

Sermon by Joel Crouse

We live in a world of noise and distraction 0—a world science shows us is shrinking our attention spans. In 2004, the average North American attention span on screen was 2.5 minutes. Not that long when you think about it. By 2012, according to research by Gloria Mark, an American informatics professor, that number had dropped to 47 seconds. Today, with Tik Tok, I imagine that is even shorter.

Our lives are full of interruptions: chirps from our phones, people making demands, the latest global news, the next thing we are told we absolutely must care about right now. More research by Dr. Mark found that it takes us an average of 23 minutes and 15 seconds to get back to a task once we are interrupted. Our culture had adapted – movies move faster, books are shorter.

Earlier this year, Matt Damon and Ben Affleck pointed out that Netflix is encouraging creators to repeat important plot points in character dialogue because they assume viewers are only half-watching while looking at their phones. That says something about the world we are living in. We are present, but only partly. We are always connected, but often barely attentive.

Despite all the ways that business and media try to capture our attention, who gets our attention is still, in the end, a choice. We choose to pay attention to our phones more than to the people around us. We choose to complain about what is wrong with the world rather than look for ways to make it right. We choose whether we are shepherds, or sheep who follow the attention bandits of consumerism, voyeurism, and polarization.

The gospel today reminds us that God is paying attention. It reminds us to invest our attention in what matters. Jesus, in telling this gospel, is putting a question to us: who gets our attention? Who do we follow?

In the gospel, Jesus uses the metaphor of the shepherd and the sheep, and not for the first time. Why is this metaphor so effective? We don’t see a lot of shepherds these days, but we can still understand the shepherd’s responsibility. Shepherds stay alert to the needs of their sheep. They protect the sheep from being stolen or injured. They hold the sheep safe in community. And they do this not only when it is a nice day to be outside. They do it through rain and snow. The shepherd, as Jesus describes himself, is a diligent, selfless guardian of the sheep.

And the sheep, Jesus says, hear the voice of the shepherd and pay attention.

That may be the hardest part for us to hear. Because attention is not just noticing something for a moment. Attention is an act of trust over time.  So, it’s not blind trust: the sheep know the shepherd’s voice because they have lived with it. They know its tone and character.  It is the voice that does not use fear to scatter them or shame to control them. It is the voice that gathers, restores, and leads. It is the voice that tells the truth about the world as it is, but refuses to let cruelty have the final word.

And because they know that voice, the sheep also know the difference between the shepherd and the thieves and bandits -- those who do not enter by the gate but climb in some other way. They are the voices that tell us we are what we own. The voices that tell us some people matter more than others. The voices that profit from our fear, our resentment, our exhaustion, and our distraction. The voices that do not love the sheep at all, but only want to use them.

“I am the gate,” Jesus says. “Whoever enters by me will be saved and will come in and go out and find pasture.”

There are many layers to unpack here. First, we are told that God enters through the gate, not sneaking into our midst. God is up front with us. The gospel is an open document.  Its truth is clear, even if living it is hard: love your neighbour, tell the truth, care for the vulnerable, forgive, share, show mercy, resist the powers that dehumanize. If we hear a whisper in our ear promising a too-good-to-be-true solution, we know that’s not God whispering. If we hear a voice urging us away from compassion, justice, and responsibility for one another, we know that is not the voice of Christ. God does not flatter our lesser selves. God calls us beyond them.

But Jesus also says: I am the gate. So now he is not just the shepherd entering among the flock; he is the gate itself, the one through whom we find safety, freedom, and life. And based on what we know about the rest of the gospel, we are not meant to imagine a narrow-hearted gatekeeper, eager to shut people out. No, this is the same Jesus who eats with outsiders, who speaks with the rejected, who heals on the wrong day, who breaks the rules of respectable religion whenever those rules get in the way of mercy. The gate is not there to keep frightened people away from God. The gate is there so that the sheep may know where life truly is.

And notice what Jesus says about that life. He says the sheep will come in and go out and find pasture. There is safety, yes, but there is also movement. There is shelter, but there is also mission. Faith is not hiding from the world. Faith is being grounded enough in the love of God that we can enter the world without being possessed by its noise. We come in to be gathered, healed, forgiven, and fed. We go out to serve, to love, to repair, to stand with those who are poor, forgotten, and lost.

What is true for us as individuals is true for us as a church.  We are not called to be a frightened pen, huddled together and suspicious of the world outside. The church is called to listen for the voice of Jesus and then to follow him into the world. Into the places of hurt. Into the work of justice. Into the mending of broken lives and broken communities. Into solidarity with the poor, the excluded, the newcomer, the one whose dignity is denied. If Jesus is the gate, then He is the way into a larger life, not a smaller one.

Finally, the gospel reinforces our covenant with God. Live a gospel-led life, we are told, and we will find the pasture we seek. Not a life free from conflict or pain, but a life rooted deeply enough in grace that we are not ruled by fear. A life where we remember that we belong to God, and therefore to one another.

And to do that, we must choose to pay attention.

That doesn’t mean we never get to watch the cute puppy video, or vent about the latest presidential post, or play video games.  Jesus is not calling us out of life, but more fully into it. He is asking whether beneath all the noise there is still room in us for the voice of the shepherd. Room for prayer, compassion, courage. Room for our neighbour. Room for the quiet, steady call of grace.

Our attention spans may be short on social media. But may they be long and faithful when it comes to the things of God. May we learn again to hear the shepherd’s voice above all the others. And hearing it, may we follow — not only into comfort, but into love, justice, mercy, and abundant life.

Amen

April 19 ~ 40 years of Resurrection Witness in Orleans

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Acts 2:14a, 36-41

Psalm 116:1-4, 12-19

1 Peter 1:17-23

Luke 24:13-35

Sermon by Joel Crouse

A few weeks ago, my Facebook feed turned up a video; it was about a clip another person had posted: he was venting about the fact that when he was hiking up a mountain; he would pass a woman on her own and she wouldn’t make eye contact or say hello. “I am not dangerous,” he said. “Would a hello hurt you?” Some of you in the pews probably have some thoughts about that: first, who was this guy to dictate how someone else should respond to his hello? Could he really not understand why a woman walking alone might not speak to a stranger? And why was he so upset about it, anyway?

It’s fair to say that, for all kinds of reasons, we have become a society where saying hello to strangers is a declining trend. For our mothers, sister, wives, and daughters, listening to the rhetoric of the time, it is reasonable to be questioning; as a large man, I can’t relate to the constant surveillance that my wife, Erin, for instance, naturally does at night while walking alone.

Yet, we are an urban nation, people who live among strangers. So, what, then, is our responsibility to the stranger we encounter? Certainly, at the basic level, it is to respect another’s space and right to privacy; to not police their reaction to our hello, to not make them feel threatened or cornered, to be polite. If most of us did that – if most of us made clear that we would step in on a stranger’s behalf – the sense of unease among those most vulnerable would decrease. The consideration we show to strangers, even more than the kindness we show to friends, sets the tone for society; how we view strangers is one of the most significant factors when it comes to shaping societal trust and well-being.

The small moments of connection are a recognition of our common humanity, our shared journey through the world. Instead, we put on our headphones and look at our phones and pretend not to see one another.

Were the disciples also so blind, walking with their heads down, focused on their own problems, that they failed to recognize Jesus? They meet this man on the road and they are shocked to hear that he has not heard the news from Jerusalem. They debate the news, but still fail to see the man before them. They almost miss Jesus entirely, the very best person to assist them – just as we so often miss the presence of the gospel in our own lives by not seeing the person right in front of us. That opening scene on the road to Emmaus reminds us of an important lesson: don’t dwell so deeply on your own problems and thoughts that you miss the solution right in front of you.

But then, the disciples recover. Because where they do not fail is in their hospitality. As they walk with this stranger, the day grows late, the road falls into shadow. A lot can happen at night alone on a road. They invite the stranger to join them, to stay with them. Let’s have dinner together, they say. And their act of kindness leads to revelation: Jesus reveals himself and they finally realize whom they have been walking with.

What if they had just let the man carry on into the night? What if they had not invited him to dinner when they had dinner to share? They would never have broken bread with Jesus. They would have missed out entirely.

So much of Easter is a challenge for us to see the world as it is, to be open to what is precious and wondrous all around us. Once the tomb is open, the encounters Jesus has with the disciples are fairly low-key. Shocking to them, to be sure, but accompanied by fireworks and choreography. He talks to them, he walks with them, he eats with them. He comes to them in ordinary ways, as if to say to them, and to us – it is, here, in the ordinary passing of the day, that the gospel can be found.

We know this, of course – how contentment and joy can be experienced by watching grandchildren play, by reading a storybook to our children, sharing a warm coffee with a good friend, cuddling with our partner in front of the TV. Just like a helpful stranger, do we see those moments for the gifts they are? Do we reflect on what made those moments special and seek to have more of them? And if we did, would we not feel more at peace, and closer to the gospel?

On the road the Emmaus, the disciples invited a stranger to walk with them. They debated the events of the day, and, for all we can see, respected one another’s points of view – certainly enough that they were happy to keep talking. They offered, but did not demand, the safety of company. And they were rewarded, just as we so often are, by learning something new about the humanity around us. That man on the hike had it all wrong; never say hello to a stranger with expectation – say hello because it is right to do so. Respect what happens next. Give them space. Allow them a voice. On the road to Emmaus, the disciples did this very thing. And if they had been able to post to Tik Tok, their version of the results would not have been resentful or bitter, but joyful. They would have created an opportunity for the gospel to come into their lives with openness and generosity. May we do the same.

Amen