Community Church Sermons
Year A
May 22, 2011
Easter 5
More Pleasure in Finding Things Out
1 Peter
2:2-10
Rev. Martin
C. Singley, III
Well here we are on May 22nd, the day after May 21st which a California pastor named Harold Camping and his followers had predicted would usher in the Day of Judgment and true Christian believers would be raptured up to heaven.
Guess you didn’t make it, huh? Either that, or Camping’s prediction – like all the other Second Coming predictions before it – didn’t come true.
Someone asked me a few days ago what, if anything, I was going to do to get ready for the big day if it happened. I told them about the day years ago when I went running into my co-pastoral colleague Ralph Marsden’s office and said, “Ralph, Jesus is outside, knocking on the door. What should I do?”
Ralph looked up from what he was doing and said, “Look busy!”
Now that little schtick that Ralph and I pulled from time to time at Greendale Peoples Church may be amusing. But more importantly, it’s true! What the Bible tells us we should be doing to prepare for Judgment Day is our WORK – faithfully being busy by obeying Jesus’ command to love God and our neighbor.
If you recall our sermon text from last week – Acts 2:42-47 – the first followers of Jesus – who, by the way, believed intently that the Lord would return any moment – did not spend their time creating second-coming charts, writing “Left Behind” books, or walking around with sandwich signs saying, “Repent, the end is near!”
No, Luke writes that they focused their lives on four simple things: they devoted themselves, he writes, to the apostles teaching, and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread, and to prayer.”
They kept busy with the things that matter to God and that bless and inspire others.
Last Sunday, we talked about the teaching of the apostles, proclaiming in a bad news world the good news that God LOVES people and that God’s love for humankind was made clear in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. People heard – perhaps for the first time in their lives – that God saw them as good people, that God treasured them and cared about their lives, and that God called them to accept their identity as the beloved people of God saved by grace, and to join Christ in his ongoing work of saving the world.
They kept busy with that message! And there was great joy as people learned this good news about God and themselves through the gospel of Jesus Christ. To put it in the words of the late Richard Feynman, the people experienced “the pleasure of finding things out” about God, themselves and the world that they hadn’t known before.
And then, as the good, beloved, and cherished children of God they went out and loved the world in Jesus’ name. And they turned the world upside down!
That’s why it’s so exciting watching the people of our church do the same thing today. As we discover that God sees us as good people, that God loves us so much that he sent Jesus to tell us that we matter to God and that our lives can make such a difference in the lives of others, we become inspired to touch others with God’s love. This is why our Sunday School teachers, shepherds, helpers, Vacation Bible School workers and others do what they do – bringing the love of Jesus to the children of our community. When you experience God’s love in your own life, you want to share it with others! You NEED to share it with others because otherwise - like the Dead Sea in Israel – you’ll shrivel up and die.
You probably already know that in the Holy Land there are two main inland bodies of water. There is the Sea of Galilee which is fed by mountain streams and springs. It is a gorgeous lake where Jesus spent a lot of time with his disciples and where families go today to enjoy swimming and boating and fishing. About 120 miles south of the Sea of Galilee is the Dead Sea. It is an inland salt lake whose salinity is so high that virtually nothing can live in it. It is truly DEAD.
What’s interesting about this is that the Dead Sea receives its water from the very much alive Sea of Galilee. The Jordan River flows from the Sea of Galilee, bringing fresh water to the Dead Sea. And here’s the reason the Sea of Galilee is alive and the Dead Sea is dead. The Sea of Galilee has an outlet – it gives its water away. The Dead Sea has no outlet. So the water just sits there, becomes stagnant, and dies.
You have to give God’s love away. Otherwise you’ll dry up and die spiritually.
And that brings me to this week’s discovery about ourselves.
There is a river running through the very center your life. Did you know that? There is a river running through you. The headwaters – the Source of this river - is God, our Creator. The destination of this river is the world around you. And a vital tributary of this river runs right through your soul.
And the river…is prayer.
“They devoted themselves to the apostles teaching, to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread, and to prayer.”
Many people I know find prayer difficult. If you ask people what prayer is, they will most often tell you that “prayer is talking with God.” For some, talking with God is difficult because they don’t know what to say. For others who have no trouble finding the words, the talk is about how great, adorable and lovable God is, as though God needs a fan club to tell him how cool he is. What passes for praise today is a long, long way from the prayers of praise found in the Bible.
For others, prayer is about petition – asking God for stuff. We ask for healings, and solutions to problems, and for success in our endeavors, and for things we want. I love the story about the little boy who wanted a new shiny bike and prayed to God for it, but to no avail. Over and over again, he asked God for that bike. No bike. Finally, he went into the living room and took down a small statue of the Virgin Mary. He brought it back to his bedroom, wrapped it carefully in a towel, put it in a shoebox, slid that under his bed, then knelt at his bedside and said, “God, if you ever want to see your mother again…”
What is prayer to you?
At its heart, prayer is not about doing or saying anything. Prayer is a state of BEING, of being attentive to that river that flows from God, through us, to the outside world.
Notice that I said this river flows through US.
“They devoted themselves to the apostles teaching, to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread, and to prayer.”
Christian prayer has as its center the community – the church. Do you remember the words Jesus used to describe the Temple in Jerusalem?
“A house of prayer for all people.”
Our number one job in this church is to be a house of prayer.
More important than hearing a great sermon, more crucial than singing hymns we know, more vital than fantastic music, much more important than the level of the sound, the temperature of the room, or the intensity of the lights…
…is the experience of prayer.
If you go home without having experienced prayer in this time together, you’ll have missed the very reason God calls us together:
To see, hear and get splashed by the living waters of the river that runs from God, through this community of Christians, and out into the world beyond.
And the beginning place of prayer is silence, not words. That’s why every person in this Sanctuary today can practice prayer. No one is unable to pray. Because before we ever dare open our mouths and speak, we must shut our mouths and become silent. Brian McLaren, in his book “Naked Spirituality” says that we have to stop thinking that we have to ask God to come into our lives and be present with us. God is already here! God is already within you! God is already filling this place. God is present EVERYWHERE! So McLaren says that prayer is not God becoming present to US, but OUR becoming present to God’s presence around us and in us. You might say that prayer is like opening the spillways of our soul to the river of God already flowing through us. I like to picture it this way: stepping underneath a waterfall whose refreshing waters spill over you and through you as they find their way to the river flowing into the world.
That’s prayer.
Before you ever utter a word in prayer, come to the river of God.
George Swanson discovered the power of silent prayer during his wife’s sixteen month battle with cancer. George no longer had words he could throw out to God. You know it that is – when the realities of life gang up on you and leave you utterly speechless. During that time of his wife’s illness, a hospice nurse suggested to George that he try to sleep when his wife was sleeping. That way, when she was awake and needing him, he’d be somewhat refreshed. So whenever Katrina fell asleep, George lay down beside her and tried to sleep too. But often he couldn’t. That’s when he discovered silent prayer.
George describes it as going into that “silent place” within and just becoming present to God. He used breathing as a way to finding that place, exhaling his own breath and imagining inhaling God’s breath - like the story in Genesis 2. He says distractions came there in the silence – a concern about a bill to pay or a thought about what would happen next in his life. In those times, he would simply whisper the word “Jesus”, and that would return him to the silence within.
And this is what George found: creative inspirations about ways to take care of Katrina, and how to love others. He says his sense of compassion for others, for creation, for enemies, and even for himself began to increase in remarkable ways.
In prayer, God’s power transforms us. Sometimes words become necessary in prayer, but prayer always begins with silence. As the Psalm says, “For God alone my soul waits in silence.”
Today we are inviting all of you to become part of our prayer ministry. First of all, we’re asking you to discipline yourself when you enter the sanctuary to become present to the presence of God. It’s okay to meet and greet your friends, but once you’re settled in, become aware of God’s presence around you and within.
Second, we invite you to join our prayer chain. During the week many people let us know about some need for prayer, and so Jan Elliot sends out an email to those on the prayer chain and we all join in prayer for that need. Now there are some rules about confidentiality and things like that, but I’m sure Jan will fill you in on those.
Third, think about someone who is going through a time when they might be comforted by receiving a prayer shawl. We have a remarkable group of knitters who create these shawls and each stitch is made with a prayer offered for the one who will receive it. Be sure to check out the prayer shawls in the narthex today.
And finally, pray each day for the ministry of our church. Let God inspire your heart to imagine new and creative ways we can bring God’s love to those all around us.
“They devoted themselves to the apostles teaching, to the fellowship, to breaking bread, and to prayer.”
And they found great joy!