“Sharing in the Power of Jesus Christ”

“Sharing in the Power of Jesus Christ”

May 15, 2011 4^th Sunday of Easter Stewardship Sunday

Reed Baer West Parish of Barnstable

Introduction to Scripture

            Our reading for today comes from the book of the Bible called The Acts of the Apostles, a book which recounts the earliest days of what came to be known as the church.

            The context for today’s reading is much the same as our context, here a few weeks after our glorious celebration of Easter, a day on which this meeting house was filled to capacity with smiling faces, with folk happy to be back home in our spiritual sanctuary.

            In Acts chapter 2, just before the events of today’s reading, the infant church had been gathered together for fellowship, teaching, the breaking of bread together, and prayer. All things are held in common, so that no one lacks for anything. It is a cozy scene, and one suspects that a Roman-era counterpart of Currier and Ives could have done a lot with it. But then Peter and John leave those cozy confines, and nothing is ever the same again….

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            Friends, I am afraid that I am going to be in hot water this morning with some folk here in the congregation, and I am hoping that the rest of you will have my back if things come to a head. You see, today is the one day in the year which the Stewardship Committee designates as Stewardship Sunday, a sort of kick-off to the annual campaign to ask you to make a pledge of financial support to the church for the coming fiscal year, a year which begins July 1. And what they are looking for (with apologies in advance to Jesus, who had a very different sermon by a similar name)  is “The Sermon on the Amount.”

            But you know, I am a preacher of very limited talent and ability, and it seems to me that it would be well nigh impossible for me to make a convincing stewardship sermon out of a passage which contains these words – words not from just anybody, but words from the apostle Peter, “the rock” on which Jesus said he would build his church, no less – and words not to just anybody, but words to a poor crippled fellow who is just asking for a few spare coins to buy him his next meal – these words being: “I have no silver or gold….”

            It is at times like these that I wish that I had some of the skills of the great preachers. Benjamin Franklin, in his autobiography, tells of when he went to hear the famous evangelist George Whitefield preach in Philadelphia, who was soliciting funds for an orphanage in Georgia. Franklin, a man of no small intellect and courage, was determined to resist. He writes,

“I happened soon after to attend one of his sermons, in the course of which I perceived he intended to finish with a collection, and I silently resolved he should get nothing from me. I had in my pocket a handful of copper money, three or four silver dollars, and five pistoles in gold. As he proceeded I began to soften and concluded to give the coppers. Another stroke of his oratory made me ashamed of that and determined to give the silver; and he finished so admirably that emptied my pocket wholly into the collector’s dish, gold and all.”

In any event, reconciled to the sad truth that I do not have the homiletic skills of a George Whitefield, and therefore choosing to be freed from worries about pleasing the Stewardship Committee or trying to soften your hearts and lighten your pocketbooks, I can now turn to take a look at what we might learn from the account of Peter and John and the unnamed beggar at the Beautiful Gate.

            John and Peter have just come from the gathering of the early church, and, good Jews that they are, are headed to the temple for more prayer there. But for them – and, Luke, the author of Acts, is telling us, for us as well – being church is not a detour from the misery of the world, not an escape that allows us to cut ourselves off from the needy outside our doors. And so they immediately run into a man who had been lame from birth, who each day is carried by his friends to one of the temple’s entrances, the Beautiful Gate, there to ask for alms from those entering the temple.

            He asks for very little – just a few coins so that he might have his daily bread.

            But Peter and John do not even have that small amount to give him. All their funds are back in that little house church, being held for use in common by all the church members, so that none should be in need.

            But they have something else to give him – the power of the name of Jesus, the power of God, a power which can heal, a power which can save.

            Jesus had that power. When told that John the Baptist had asked if he was the one John had been waiting for, Jesus tells the messenger, “Go and tell John what you have seen and heard: the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, the poor have good news brought to them.” (Luke 7:22) 

            That power has been passed on to the church, to those who share Jesus’ name – the name we all received at our baptism, the name we claim as Christians. This power to heal and to save has been passed onto Peter and John and to us, to offer to a world groaning in need. 

            Now friends, we know that healing takes many forms and comes in many guises. Sometimes healing can take physical form. At least as often, it takes other forms as well. Look at our beggar at the Beautiful Gate. He is healed physically, yes, but did you notice that an equally powerful healing comes earlier? Here he sits, day after day, as people come and go to the temple. He thinks he knows who he is: he is a sinner, he is estranged from the God who created him -- according to the popular thinking of the day, he suffered either because of something he did, or because of something his parents did, and this was his punishment. He knows in his heart that he is socially inferior to those who go into the temple, and therefore he has no right to look them in the eyes. And he knows that no one wants to look at him, because he is an inferior, because he has no right, in their eyes, to make demands on them. So there he sits in the dust, eyes downcast, speaking towards the ground as folk walk by.

            He asks for alms, and something new and unexpected happens. Peter and John don’t look away – Luke tells us they “looked intently at him.”  In other words, he not only enters their field of vision, they see him, they really see him, they see who he really is. And what they see is not a social inferior, not someone who has no right to look them in the eye, not someone who has been cursed by God and therefore is to be shunned. They see a child of God, they see one for whom Jesus died, they see a brother in need.

And so they say to him, “Look at us.” And while the text does not tell us in so many words, you can picture the scene, you can see the slow dawning of recognition in the beggar’s eyes, the new and enlivening insight that he is not cursed by God but loved, that he is not alone in this world but is an honored member of a family that will not just throw a few coins his way if he grovels appropriately, but will share their blessings so that no one will have to beg ever again.

And so when the beggar rises to new life – as he finds that his feet and ankles are strengthened – the physical healing simply parallels the healing of the soul that has already taken place. And now that he is healed, what else is there to do but go into the temple not alone, but with his new brothers, leaping and praising God?

Peter and John are gifted with the power to heal in the name of Jesus, but it is only really power if it is used, if it is given, if it is shared.

It is just as true for us as well. I think many of us know this from our own experience. Life has a way of running us down; all the obligations and responsibilities of daily living can take their toll on us; holding down our jobs, caring for our families, dealing with the various illnesses and disabilities that are part and parcel of our fragile human existence, for far too many, the burden of dealing with prejudice and discrimination. Not for nothing are Dunkin’ Donuts and Starbucks and Red Bull and all the other purveyors of caffeinated drinks doing so well!

And yet, there is a power available to each and every one of us that is just waiting to be tapped into. It is as if we have these huge battery packs strapped to us, just waiting for the wires to be attached. It is not our power, but the power of God, the power of the Jesus Christ, the power of the Holy Spirit. A power which can heal, a power which can save. But a power which is only unleashed when we give it away, when we let it flow through us to a world in need.

You know this power. It is what you grandparents experience when you go to take care of your grandchildren – somehow the usual aches and tiredness just melts away when you have that little one in your lap as you read a book together, or as you get down on the carpet with them to re-arrange the dollhouse or play with the train set. It is what those New Orleans mission trip folk experienced every time they met a homeowner they were helping out – somehow they found that they had more energy for the sanding, the mudding, the laying of the new floor, whereas before they were ready to call it a day. I believe this was a power known by the Freedom Riders, those folk from the north who put their lives at risk during the Civil Rights era by going south and riding the buses in defiance of segregation, and who steadfastly clung to non-violent resistance even as they were clubbed and beaten. And I believe this is a power you have known, right here in this church, as you have responded to the call to share of your financial resources for the ministry of this church here and in the wider community.

We’d all like to do more, but we know the limits of our own power. It was like when we were considering doing the capital campaign some years ago, and a long-time member of the church, upon hearing that the consultants had opined that we could raise $300,000, stood up and said that he knew this congregation and its record of low giving, and that in his opinion we could not raise even $100,000. Lots of folk nodded in agreement, but less wise heads prevailed, and we went ahead with the campaign, even though we knew we did not have the power to make it work.

It turned out that our power was indeed lacking – but the power of the Holy Spirit stepped in to help us out. We didn’t raise $300,000 – we raised over $700,000. And that wise elder who said we couldn’t raise even $100, 000 – his gift alone topped that.

Thanks be to God, we have at our fingertips more power than we could ever have imagined. And it is a power that can heal, that can save. A power which can touch people, help people, heal people, and yes, even save people. A power that can bring a smile to a grandchild’s face, a power that can put a disaster victim back in her own home, a power that can help eliminate racial prejudice in our time, a power that can build and maintain a community of moral formation and teaching and love on a hill here in West Barnstable.

You know the limits of your own power. That is why, when our Stewardship Committee asks you to “Step up in Faith” in the coming weeks, when they ask you to prayerfully consider doing even more than you have been doing to support our ministries here, you might want to think back upon the account of John and Peter and the beggar at the Beautiful Gate. Think back, remember the power of the Holy Spirit which has been given to you, and use that power to step up in faith. If you do, like those who witnessed the formerly lame beggar dancing into the temple with John and Peter, you too will be filled with wonder and amazement.

And let the people say, Amen.