Sunday, May 20th,
2012
Seventh Sunday of
Eastertide
Scripture: Acts 1:15-17, 21-26
Sermon: “Chosen-ness”
A Sermon preached for the congregation at Community
Presbyterian Church on the occasion of graduation Sunday.
|
The Road Not Taken
|
|
|
|
Two
roads diverged in a yellow wood,
|
|
|
And sorry I could not travel
both
|
|
|
And be one traveler, long I
stood
|
|
|
And looked down one as far as
I could
|
|
|
To where it bent in the
undergrowth;
|
|
|
|
|
|
Then took the other, as just
as fair,
|
|
|
And having perhaps the better
claim
|
|
|
Because it was grassy and
wanted wear;
|
|
|
Though as for that, the
passing there
|
|
|
Had worn them really about the
same,
|
|
|
|
|
|
And both that morning equally
lay
|
|
|
In leaves no step had trodden
black.
|
|
|
Oh, I marked the first for another
day!
|
|
|
Yet knowing how way leads on
to way
|
|
|
I doubted if I should ever
come back.
|
|
|
|
|
|
I shall be telling this with a
sigh
|
|
|
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
|
|
|
Two roads diverged in a wood,
and I,
|
|
|
I took the one less traveled
by,
|
|
|
And that has made all the
difference.
|
This
well known Robert Frost poem describes how one traveler made his decision when
faced with two diverging paths in the road. The journeyer chooses the path that
is less traveled and that, of course, makes all the difference in the world.
How do you make decisions in your life when
you come to a major crossroads? What guides your decision?
It seems to me
that whenever we come to a place where the path appears to split and a decision
needs to be made, we have a variety of options to help us out. Surely we rely
upon the council of our dearest friends and family; surely we use our intellect
and reason to examine the possibilities of both and to weigh and determine the
best choice; surely we offer up prayers God and try to find a transcendent
peace to justify our choices. We might even leave it to chance – flip a coin,
roll the dice, take a chance.
For those of us
who claim God’s providence and interaction in our lives, know that God should
be a part of our decision making process, but how? Because God seldom
communicates as directly to us like God did to Moses with a burning bush (I’m
not saying it can’t happen, but it hasn’t happened to me!) it is very difficult
to know how to listen to God. And so we might come to a big decision, and take
a moment to pray and then make our decision. At best, we might feel that it is
the right thing to do in our hearts or have made peace with our decision. I
don’t want to minimize that experience because I have made tough decisions
based upon the peace through prayer, but don’t we minimize the power of God if
we place God’s ability to affect us into a feeling? Is God somehow minimized
when we pray, feel good, and then decide?
As difficult as
this is for us as individuals, it is even more complex for group and
institutions. How does a church committee include God in decision making? Most
people who come to a committee meeting would say that it would be inefficient
to consult God in prayer for every decision. It’s all we can do to work in an
opening and a closing prayer!! How does the church include God in all of the decisions
she has to make?
Although this time
represents great challenge for our church, it is also a time for our faith to
grow. All we need to remember is our own history to know that in the past
nearly 150 years God has greatly blessed us and God will continue to bless us
in the future. God’s promised blessing requires of us our faith and trust, as
well as our hard work and partnership in working towards God’s kingdom. And it will
be important for us to continue to work on ways to include God in all of our
decisions, both as individuals as well as the collective body of Jesus Christ.
That’s why I love
the story we read from the first chapter of the book of Acts. It’s a story of
administration trivia. The book of Acts begins with the ascension of Jesus.
Jesus has been with the disciples for 40 days. Chapter Two, the story
immediately following our pericope, is all about the gift of the Holy Spirit
which enables the church to spread like wildfire and the people to minister and
serve in powerful and miraculous ways. But nestled between these two stories is
the first official action of the 11 remaining disciples.
Some commentaries
argue that it was absolutely necessary to place this story here to legitimize
the authority of the 12 disciples. When we read this story, we need to remember
the importance of the number 12. There were 12 tribes of Israel throughout the Old
Testament. When the early church begun, the 12 disciples are symbolically
linked to those 12 tribes to further show and demonstrate that Jesus is the
promised Messiah. It was critical, argue some commentaries, that there be 12
disciples as soon as possible and that is why this is done in the book of Acts
before the gift of the Holy Spirit. It is necessary, so the argument goes, that
there be 12 symbolic disciples.
The 11 disciples
gather to determine how they are to replace Judas, the disciple who betrayed
Jesus and then died. The story goes like this (nominating committee take note):
All of the believers – about 120 of them were gathered together. Peter stood
before them and described the need. Judas is dead, he betrayed us to fulfill
the scriptures; it really turned out alright because Jesus is alive and we have
just seen him return into heaven. We need to replace Judas. I think it should
be someone who has been with us from the beginning and has good qualifications;
one who knows the stories of Jesus because those are the stories we will have
to tell. Who do you think should become one of the 12 disciples?
And so Peter asks
the crowd, they nominate two worthy candidates, Peter prays (it’s important to
include God in the process) and then they cast lots to decide. (Did you get that nominating committee?) No
one knows for sure how exactly lots were cast in the first century. Some say
that names were written on parchment and placed into a clay jar and Peter shook
the jar until a name fell out. Other suggest that names were written on stones
and put into a bag. The winner was drawn out of the back. Whatever the actual
mechanism, the 12th disciple was chosen by a matter of chance.
(I’ve often
thought that we could use this method to get more people involved…in fact,
Kellie Becker has been asked to put the congregation into a bag and draw names
for VBS volunteers.)
Matthias is chosen
and he replaces Judas as the 12th disciple. This is the last time
that he is mentioned in the rest of scripture. We truly don’t know what
happened to this 12th disciple, chosen by chance and joining the 12
on the dawning of the gift of the holy spirit.
Although we don’t
know the details of the life of Mattias once he is a disciple, it is the story
about being chosen for service. Peter prayed: “O God, show us which one you
have chosen.”
Robert Browning
(18th century Victorian) was asked why he chose to be a poet. He
said, “I didn’t! I was born with poetry in me. Everyone is born with poetry in
him. I just did what I was born to be. The question isn’t why I became a poet,
but why did so many others quit?”
The truth of the
matter is this: we are chosen by God to be a part of God’s family. If you have
been baptized then you have been marked as a member of God’s covenant
community. To use to words of Robert Browning, don’t quit on your baptism by
giving up on the promises of God.
At times it might
seem the consequences of our actions, keep us from living up to our baptismal
relationship. We feel like the choices that we have made in the past keep us
from serving God or loving God or living for God. We believe that our past is a
barrier that prevents us from serving. We deceive ourselves by saying things
like, I could never do that because of what I have done. The good news for us,
my dear people of God, is that our past has been redeemed in Jesus Christ. No matter
how bad you believe you have been, God has forgiven it and God wants to use you
for mission and ministry. In your baptism (even before your baptism) God chose
you to serve in discipleship, to be in community with one another, and to
spread the message of God’s love.
You might have
heard this story:
“A bricklayer wrote from his hospital
bed to his employer. “You remember that building where you sent me to work. The
old chimney was coming apart and I was supposed to re-lay the bricks and mortar
on the top courses of the chimney.
I did it the way we always do it. I put
a strong beam on the roof, extending it out over the edge a few feet. I put a
pulley on the extended end of the beam. I put a rope in the pulley and let it
hang to the ground, on both sides of the pulley. I tied a barrel to one end of
the rope and filled it with new bricks. Then, I stood on the ground and pulled
the other end of the rope, pulling the barrel of new bricks to the top edge of
the roof.
The trouble was, the barrel of bricks
was heavier than I was. When the barrel got near the top the weight of it won
over and it started falling down. I clung to the rope, hoping to hold it. But
it pulled me up. Unfortunately, halfway up I met the barrel. It broke my collar
bone.
Then, the barrel went all the way to
the ground, pulling me all the way to the beam. Unfortunately, my head hit the
beam, something terrible, and my fingers got jammed into the pulley, breaking
four of them.
When the barrel hit the ground the
bottom of it broke out and all the bricks fell out. I was now heavier than that
barrel. I now fell—faster than I had gone up. Unfortunately, halfway down I met
the barrel. It skinned my shins something terrible.
I kept falling. I landed on the pile of
bricks and bruised my bottom something terrible. Unfortunately I grabbed my
bruised bottom, which caused me to let go of the rope. The barrel was heavier
than the rope, so it fell down really fast. It hit me and knocked me out. I
landed in the hospital.
The question, I have is this: do we
have insurance that covers an accident like that?”
Our choices – like
holding on to the rope or letting go of it – have consequences, but nothing we
can do will ever cause God to un-choose us. We belong to God, plain and simple.
God has chosen us
to be partners in ministry. You can’t live for very long in this world to
realize that we live in a broken and hurting world. All of us, I am sure, know
someone who is struggling with money or with communicating with their spouse,
or their children, or their in-laws. There is so much need in the world. Who if
not you and me is going to offer a word of hope and encouragement. God chooses
you to make a difference in the world we live in.
I had a friend
named Ernie in seminary who founded a group called “PB+J ministries. Austin
Seminary is located pretty close to downtown Austin with the capital building a short walk
away. Because of the moderate climate of Austin ,
there is a pretty substantial homeless population. I’m sure the recent economic
downturn has only made that worse. Ernie’s PB+J Ministry was simple. Using his
modest stipend earned from working in the bookstore, Ernie brought as much
bread as he could and a couple of jars of peanut butter and jelly. On Friday
night, he would invite any seminary students and faculty to join him in the
dining hall to make as many sandwiches as we could. And then we would walk the
street of Austin
giving the food away. We always ran out of sandwiches before we ran out of
people to serve. The one thing that made Ernie’s efforts unique was this: Ernie
adamantly required that as you gave the food to this stranger, that you looked
them in the eye and you said to them: “My friend, I give you this bread in the
name of Jesus Christ.” It was Ernie’s way of showing others the chosen-ness of
such work.
What are you
chosen for? Because we live in a world with great need, this shouldn’t be a
difficult choice for you. What are you chosen for; where can you serve?
I began by talking
about the decisions that we make in life and it is important to make good
choices. But because God has already chosen us, God will be with us regardless
of our choices. When I think of the big choices we make in life – where to
live, who to marry, what to do with my life, my money, my time, my gifts – I
think that God is already with us because we are chosen.
With all due
respect to the poetry of Robert Frost, the traveler in the woods thinks long
and hard about the choice of pathway, and ultimately chooses the road less
travelled. For us, God presence would have been on both roads. God will meet us
whatever road we take because God owns all of the paths on the map and because
God has chosen us.
Another way to say
this is that God doesn’t care so much if you are a butcher, a baker, or a
candlestick maker, but God does care that you belong and the you are chosen and
that you glorify God whatever you do.
In other words, it
doesn’t matter how we include God in our decision making process or even if we
leave it up to chance, because God is already with us. God has chosen us to be
his disciples and to serve. The choice for us is this: how are we going to
serve? How are we going to use our “chosen-ness” to be a blessing to God and to
others?
Amen and amen.
