Back in the days before my sister got married, she had some boyfriends who seemed to have no sense of direction. That's not a metaphor. I'm not saying they had no goals for their life. They just had a hard time getting from point A to point B. To be PC - they were GC - geographically challenged. Not that there's anything wrong with that. Most of us are at some point in our lives. I once went on a mission trip to Philadelphia with some college students and the biggest challenge for most of the work teams was getting back to our home base without going through New Jersey. It's a common problem.These boyfriends, though, were exceptional. Once one of them left our home in Orange, in the central Virginia, headed to Maine. We had talked about how he should take Interstate 81 and he left with a lot of confidence. About four hours later we got a phone call from him saying, "I got on 81, but now I just passed a sign saying 'Welcome to Tennessee.' Should I be going to Tennessee?"
On another occasion, we were gathering in Pennsylvania at my aunt and uncle's house for Thanksgiving and this same boyfriend was due to meet us there. He ended up driving around and around within three miles of their house out in the country, never finding us. He was there, but he didn't know it. I hope that boy has got a GPS now.
I sometimes wonder if Jesus didn't know that we do some very similar things in our faith life. One of the most powerful parables he told was one that used a geographic metaphor. In the story of the prodigal son, the son takes his half of the inheritance and where does he head off for? A far country where where he blows the inheritance on loose living. Several months later, as he's out slopping pigs to keep body and soul together, he decides to go back to his father begging, but the father sees him, when? While he's still a long way off and runs to meet him. The story seems to say that there's a great distance to be overcome between God and us and that we've headed in the wrong direction. Like going to Tennessee when you're supposed to be going to Maine.
When I stop and think about it, though, the stories Jesus told and the story we read from Acts today all seem to be more like that boyfriend's second experience than the first. Because the point of Jesus' coming to live and breathe and walk and teach and die among us was to say that, even though we might feel like we're a long way from God, God is right here beside us and we didn't even know it. We're driving around and around and around and the driveway to Thanksgiving dinner is right there!
I've been reading a great new book on the theology of Julian of Norwich, a woman who lived in the 14th century but whose Christian writing is still popular today. It's the kind of book that you only pick up if you once were in a doctoral program in philosophical theology. But, hey, I was, and it's a great book.
Julian has a very interesting notion of sin and the distance between us and God. For her we would make a mistake if we focused on the prodigal son's loose living as the cause of his sin. That's what he believes. He thinks that he has lost any right to his father's love because of what he's done with his father's money. He still has the notion that his father will only love him if he lives up to a certain standard. In the vision of the son, all that love that has surrounded him from birth is hanging by a thread and as soon as he does something to show that he doesn't deserve his father's love, it will all be taken away. So he comes back to beg forgiveness and for a new relationship based not on love but on an economic bargain. I'll work for you, Dad, and you pay me like a servant.
The prodigal son gives himself way too much credit for being able to sever that relationship with the father. In Julian's eyes, the sinful tragedy is in the son's separation from the father. The separation is what causes him to forget who he is and to waste his wealth. The far country to which he goes might not be that far at all. But in the father's eyes, the son is still close to his heart. He only desires that the son turn around. He never stops loving that child. And the reunion at the end of the story - the party with the fatted calf - only shows how wrong the son's vision of his father was. That love didn't dangle from a thread. It was held fast from all eternity by the strongest rope. God's love is not offered to us on a thread.
Of course, the feeling of being far away is no worse whether you are two feet or three thousand miles from where you're supposed to be. Some of you will remember that lonesome old song that was popular some years back: "Lord, I'm one, Lord, I'm two, Lord, I'm three, Lord, I'm four. Lord, I'm five hundred miles away from home." It didn't matter how far it really was, it felt like a long way. Sometimes with God the distance can seem unbridgeable. The task of a good preacher, though, (and I'm not claiming to be one - just pointing out the job to be done), is to help us see that the gap has been bridged. Christ has bridged the gap through the cross and God is, in fact, closer to us than we are to ourselves. Like Dorothy discovering at the end of The Wizard of Oz that she had the power to go home all along and she didn't even know it.
There aren't any ruby slippers in the book of Acts, but I hear a few echoes of this same theme in Peter's sermon. You remember Peter. He's got a great back story. Peter's name means 'rock' but he turned out to be pretty unstable as Jesus headed to the cross. He walked on water, literally. Got right out of the boat and walked across the Sea of Galilee towards Jesus. He was doing great, too, until he realized how foolish it was to get out of a perfectly good boat and he took his eyes off Jesus and...splash. Peter was the first disciple to say to Jesus, "You are the Messiah!" and also the first to tell Jesus that he'd gotten it all wrong when Jesus told the disciples about the crucifixion. Peter said, "Lord, even if everyone else should fall away, I will never desert you." But he didn't even make it till the cock crow the next morning before denying Jesus three times. Yeah, THAT Peter.
Well, it seems that Jesus knew more about him than he knew about himself. Following the resurrection, the community recognized Peter as a leader and the sermon we got a piece of this morning was Peter's first. It came to the crowd gathered at Pentecost.
The disciples had all been gathered together in one place. Jerusalem was full of Jews who had gathered there for this important festival. Then all heaven broke loose and there were tongues of fire and speaking in tongues and wagging tongues wondering if the disciples were drunk - all kinds of tongues because the Holy Spirit had come into the place where they were staying. Remember the Holy Spirit? Somebody was doing a series on the Holy Spirit.
Peter is the one who gets up to explain that they are not drunk. "It's too early in the morning for that," he says. "No, let me tell you what this is really about. It's really about Jesus." Here's our first clue about this Holy Spirit. When it comes, it's not a new revelation. It's really about Jesus.
Peter goes on to preach an incredibly powerful sermon. It went something like this:
Do you remember Jesus of Nazareth, friends? (He calls them friends - brothers actually.) Do you remember how he walked among us and did great wonders and signs? Do you remember how powerfully God used him while he was alive? Do you remember how you killed him...how you handed him over to the Romans for crucifixion? Do you remember how he died?
Here's the place where you might expect a little fireworks from the crowd. You might not expect the crowd to react favorably to being told that they had killed the man Peter was calling God's Son - the Messiah. But Peter had called them brothers. He was not pushing them away. He was reminding them that they were still connected. The promise God had made with Israel from the beginning was still holding them and reminding them of who God was. God's love was not gone.
The crowd listening to Peter was stunned. They hadn't known what to make of these crazy Spirit-filled disciples. But now, they call the disciples brothers (and sisters, presumably). Not only do they call them brothers, but they ask them for guidance. "Brothers, what should we do?"
Peter answers, in effect, "Repent. Turn around. Be baptized in Jesus' name. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit." And the Holy Spirit will let them know that this crooked, messed-up world has distorted their minds about who they were and what they desire. The Holy Spirit will point them back to Jesus who has defeated sin and death.
Peter goes on: "And know that this promise is for your, and for your children, and for everybody who is far away from God." For everybody who is far away from God? This is not geography that Peter is talking about here. These were mostly Jesus listening in. They were in Jerusalem. They were at the supreme home base for God's people. The distance they had to travel was not the problem. They were far away because they didn't know who they were or whose they were. And that was the day that three thousand of them found out and they were baptized on the spot.
Ever felt far away from God? Ever felt like there was something you'd done that was going to keep you in the far country forever? Ever felt like you'd never feel like God's child again? Ever wonder what in the world it is that you're supposed to do? Yeah, me too.
Ever been on a long trip and think that you're never going to get there and then realize that you're already there? Now that's the stuff to live for.
The good news of Easter is not that the gap between us and God has gotten smaller because Christ rose from the dead. The good news of Easter is that we suddenly realize that the gap was never really there. We were far away, but God saw us in the distance and ran to meet us. God sees us in the distance, but how are we going to see God unless you repent, a word which means 'turn around,' and unless you believe the promise of your baptism. Repent, people. And believe the good news. Thanks be to God.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment