Community Church Sermons

The Third Sunday of Easter, Year C – April 29, 2001

"From Mere Belief To Radical Change”

John 21:1-19 and Acts 9:1-6

My first computer system consisted of a trusty little Apple IIC with 128k of memory, one floppy drive, a 13-inch green and white monitor, and a painfully slow and often jammed Smith-Corona dot matrix printer. This computer system brought my first pastorate into the technology age and, as primitive as it was, in a church without a secretary and whose office was run out of my home, it sure made things a lot easier.

And that little Apple IIC – for all its limitations – did have one endearing trait. Back in those days, you could create your own games and programs fairly easily by writing them yourself. And I enjoyed playing around with that. I learned the BASIC programming language, and spent hours at a time writing programs that our kids would enjoy and learn from – a program of simple math flashcards, a game on state capitals, and stuff like that.

And even today, when pressed, I can still come up with some of the old BASIC instructions – like the “If…then” statement. If “this” is one thing, then “that” is what’s supposed to happen. So in something like a math game, you might have the computer present a problem – say 2+2 equals – and then you’d write into the code, “If input (that is, what the game player answers) = 4 then goto line 100.” And line 100 would tell the computer to flash a message that the answer is correct. The basic premise is that if one thing is true, then certain other things happen as a result.

Now, I’m happy to report that the Bible is a very computer literate book. In fact, everyone knows that they had computers all the way back in the garden of Eden because Eve, of course – had an Apple. Not really, but it’s a cute thought!

More importantly, it strikes me that Jesus was pretty familiar with the importance and power of the “If…then” statements of the BASIC programming language. Today’s Gospel reading from John 21 is a great example. His words there may not look like computerese on the surface, but when you see their total effect, you can see it plainly.

“Do you love me?” Jesus asks Simon Peter. “Yes,” answers Peter. “Feed my lambs,” says Jesus.

Do you see the programming language at work? The question is asked, “Do you love me?”. Then the “if” statement is made, “If Peter’s answer = “yes” then goto line 100 where an important message is stored. “Feed my lambs.”

In other words, “IF you love me, THEN feed my lambs.”

I find it interesting that Jesus played this little computer game with Simon Peter three times in succession. “Do you love me?” “Yes.” “Feed my lambs.” Do you love me?” Yes.” “Tend my sheep.” “Do you love me?” “Yes.” “Feed my sheep.”

John tells us that Peter was exasperated by the repetition, almost as if Jesus was questioning his truthfulness in answering “yes” to the question of whether he loved Jesus. I don’t think Jesus was questioning Peter’s integrity, but I do think Jesus was pointing out that many people, in their quest to find God, get hung up on the “if” side of the question, and never get to the “then.”

Take a young man named Saul, for instance. Some time after Jesus was gone, Saul was running about the countryside arresting Christians and having them killed. Saul was partly responsible for the stoning death of Stephen, the first Christian martyr. Saul was the first great enemy of the Christian church, and everyone was scared to death of him.

Now, its not that Saul was a bad person that caused him to do the destructive things he did. On the contrary. It was because he loved God so much! The Bible tells us Saul was a Pharisee among Pharisees. He loved the Lord with all his heart, mind, soul and strength. He kept the commandments, and all the complicated laws of Leviticus. In his society, Saul was sort of like the proverbial bright young man on his way up – President of his class, graduate of Harvard, involved in the church, strong family values, upstanding citizen, morally sound.

And strangely enough, all of this beautiful pedigree is actually what led Saul to do the things he did. He did what he did not because he was a bad person, but because he loved the Lord! You see, the world is full of people who love the Lord so much that they end up destroying the people and the world around them.”

Terrorists who blow up children in the name of God. Husbands or wives who come to the Lord, and neglect their families in order to grow spiritually. Young people who join up with religious cults, and cut off all relationships with friends and parents. And people like us – ordinary church members who give thanks to God for all the blessings of life, but often neglect the needs of the neighbors all around them.

Jesus knows what you and I are like. He knows that we want a relationship with God without any responsibilities for other people. He knows that we want the “if” without the “then”.

And that’s why he puts the question to Peter three times.

“Do you love me?” Then “feed my lambs.” “Do you love me?” Then “tend my sheep.” “Do you love me?” Then “feed my sheep.”

If you love Jesus, then you must feed his lambs, and tend and feed his sheep.

I was at a meeting in Nashville this week. It was the annual meeting of the US Conference of the World Council of Churches – the first time I’d ever attended such an event. The theme was the World Council’s decade-long emphasis on confronting violence in society. I wasn’t sure what to expect, but I soon found myself in the midst of some of the most deeply committed Christian people I’ve ever met. Many of them shared powerful testimonies about how they and others are trying to tend God’s sheep by being peacemakers in their own highly conflicted areas of the world. One of them, a man who lives in the Netherlands and comes out of the Eastern Orthodox Church made a statement that really struck me. You know that the Orthodox church builds its theological foundations upon the Nicene Creed. The Creed is the benchmark of true belief for the Orthodox.

“And yet,” this quiet, gentle Christian man said, “the Bible has no passage in it where on Judgment Day God quizzes us on the Nicene Creed to determine whether we can enter the Kingdom of God. In fact, in the only passage where Jesus describes Judgment Day in graphic detail, the question is not about what you believed about God, but about who you fed, who you gave a drink to, how you welcomed strangers, and treated prisoners, who you clothed, how you treated the sick.”

Jesus said, “IF you love me, THEN feed my sheep.”

And that’s the test. That’s the test of what we really believe about God.

Going to church is important. But it is not the measure of a person’s faith. Being personally good, and morally right is essential. But these are not the test either. Loving God, and being with God in prayer and worship, and praising God with all your heart is very crucial. But neither are these the ultimate evidence of faith. Reading the Bible and being doctrinally sound are certainly good things. But they are not the real-life manifestations of true faith.

True love of God expresses itself by feeding and tending others..

One of the young women at the meeting in Nashville had just returned from several years living in Hebron, a Palestinian city on the west bank in Israel. As a Christian, she and a small group went to live among the very poor Palestinian residents of the city where there has been tremendous violence of late. The average Palestinian family, as well as the average Israeli family, she says, are both victims of the conflict there.

After a series of terrorist attacks near Jerusalem, the Israeli authorities decided to retaliate by bulldozing homes in Hebron. Seven homes were selected, and warnings given that the bulldozers would arrive in an hour. The Palestinian homeowners – who had no connection to the violence except for the fact that they are Palestinians – were distraught. Their neighbors were outraged. Young people took up stones to attack the soldiers when they arrived.

Hearing about this explosive situation, this young woman – maybe in her mid-twenties – gathered a small group of Christian friends, and went to the first house that was to be demolished. They listened to the family express their hurt and rage and confusion. They wept with them as the first Israeli army units arrived. And then they did a most remarkable thing. These Christian women climbed up onto the roof of that first house.

The army commander ordered them to come down so the demolition could begin. “No, we won’t come down!” they answered. “Why are you doing this to these people? They have done nothing wrong.” The soldiers did not know how to respond. They were only following orders, they said. The young women continued to explain to the soldiers why the destruction of the home was wrong, and that they could not stand by and simply let it happen. “With all due respect,” they said, “we cannot come down.”

The army was stymied, and as long as they were, the large crowd of angry Palestinians remained calm. The army commander radioed his headquarters for instructions. Up on the roof, one of the women used her cell phone to call her Israeli friends who share in the work of trying to be peacemakers in this troubled land. These Israeli friends, in turn, called government leaders who had not been told about the decision to destroy the homes of innocents. All hell broke loose at the Knesset. The order was rescinded. But by the time word got out to Hebron, it was too late. The soldiers went up onto the roof and physically carried the women down. Then the bulldozers went to work while the family and their neighbors wailed in grief.

As this young woman told the story, she reflected on the surprising good that came out of it. Because they delayed the soldiers for so long, none of the other houses were destroyed. Because they called attention to what was happening, the government rescinded the order and reexamined its policy of destroying the homes of innocent civilians. And most important of all, because they had stuck up for this victimized Palestinian family, they were able to influence the neighbors to not respond with violence.

Jesus said, “If you love me, tend my sheep.” And the Bible tells us that Jesus has sheep of other folds – not necessarily just Jews, or just Christians. Even Palestinians are God’s sheep.

In a world where so many Christians seem often to embrace a love for God that goes nowhere beyond the perimeter of their own lives, and does nothing of note for anyone else, I find myself refreshed by this story. It illustrates the fact that, wherever we live, there are many occasions when we can move our faith from mere belief to radical change – from me and Jesus to Jesus and US!

It is probably true that most of us will not have the opportunity to insert ourselves into the caring for God’s sheep in faraway places like the Holy Land, but opportunities abound nearby. Right here in our own community, for example – especially Tellico Village and Rarity Bay - it is important for us to remember that almost everyone is from somewhere else. We have all pulled up roots, and left behind families and support systems to begin new lives here. Many of us, when we arrive, experience a profound loneliness and a sharp kind of anxiety about whether we made the right decision. We worry about what will happen if we get sick or run into rough times. I think it is important for Christian people to always be thinking about those who are just arriving here. There is a need for a welcome, for inclusion, for going out of our way to provide support and friendship. There is a need to feed Jesus’ flock.

And to tend God’s sheep as we get older. I was out on the golf course a while ago and noticed a whole flock of turkey vultures circling in the skies of our community. “I wonder what THEY’RE interested in?” I asked aloud. One of my golfing partners glibly replied, “US! We’re not getting any younger, you know.” And we laughed about that. But it’s true. Those who first moved to the Village in the mid-eighties are now creeping into their eighties. And along with our advancing years come a whole series of lifestyle changes, and new challenges. Why, I’ll bet we’ve got more artificial joints in this church than we have real ones! How can we remain faithful to people as we and they become more frail, and face the challenges that come from aging? We Christians have to insert ourselves there. Jesus said, “Tend my sheep.”

And younger families. I think it must be very difficult to be a young family living in a place like Tellico Village. On the one hand, the community is a quiet and safe environment in which to raise children, but it is a long way from everywhere. And when you’re working, the distance and the time to cover it presents lots of problems. Not only that, but most of our neighborhoods are not your typical suburban areas loaded with kids and younger parents. Young families are the distinct minority in our neighborhoods. So what can we Christians do to support the younger families here? Can we work hard at including them? Can we look for ways to get to know them? Can we offer to watch the kids? Or organize a hike for the kids and their friends? Can some of us become surrogate grandparents? Jesus said, “Feed my lambs.”

And not only here in the Village and at Rarity Bay, but in our larger counties, too. I am personally troubled by the fact that during the exceptional cold of this past winter, many poor families – most of them young with children – were unable to keep up with the soaring costs of electricity. Some had their service discontinued by the local utility boards, and were left to sleep in cold trailers. How can we allow our municipalities to turn off electricity to people in the middle of winter? More importantly, what do we need to do to ensure that this doesn’t happen again? Do we need a special emergency fund to cover these needs? Do we as a church need to help? Can some of us as Christian individuals sit down with government officials, and figure out a way to keep this from happening again? Jesus said, “Tend my sheep.”

This is not always easy to do. But it is the core of the Christian faith. If we love God, then our love will be manifested in specific acts of caring for God’s sheep.

In the story of Saul, the moment came when his love for God moved from mere belief to radical change. He was on the Damascus Road one day when he was overcome by a bright light and a voice that said, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?”

Never in his life had Saul done anything bad to God. But that day in that experience, Saul learned that whatever he did to the least of God’s sheep, he did it to God Himself! And Saul’s life changed! And he became Paul – St. Paul - who spent the rest of his life feeding and tending God’s sheep of every shape and color. And because of Paul’s journey from mere belief to radical change, you and I are Christians today!

How might the world be different if each of us connects our love for God to specific acts of caring for others? I believe that by moving from mere belief to radical neighbor-love, the world can be transformed into a place where God is known, and glorified.

Today, Jesus stands before us and says, “Do you love me? Feed my lambs.” “Do you love me? Tend my sheep.” Do you love me? Feed my sheep.”

Friends, the Master calls.