Sermon Acts 3:17-27
So Monday night I saw Wonder Woman- if you know anything about me this is kind of a big deal because not only have I not seen most movies but the least likely movies for me to watch would be in the genres of Star Wars and super heroes… do they have their own genre, are they separate genres? I honestly don’t know… In fact, I often get made fun of for not picking up on obvious cultural references because of my lack of movie knowledge. Sadly, but maybe not surprisingly the few movies I do watch can be found in the drama and rom com genre’s.
So, I saw Wonder Woman and if you’ve seen it, you know it has some great theological depth. I realized I can’t watch or read anything without drawing some connection to theology- which in most cases is really quite annoying but as I was watching and noticing some of the redemptive scenes, I naturally started thinking how I could use this in my sermon. First, because it’s good stuff but secondly and maybe more importantly because then I would certainly gain some cool points with the more cultured members of our congregation (which would be all of you) but then I realized there was no way I could possibly pull that off because I know nothing about super heroes and my plan of looking cool would most definitely backfire… so instead you are left with a less exciting analogy for this sermon but a more accurate portrayal of my life.
Last week I moved. My roommate and I packed up our whole apartment in 6 days and got a bunch of our friends to help us move last Friday evening. It was very sudden and abrupt but when I make up my mind about something, I’m sold, I’m all in and I want to make that thing happen as fast as humanly possible, so that’s what we did. You have probably heard Jeff talk about the Enneagram and I signed up for what is called an Enneathought- where everyday you get an e-mail telling you something about your personality. Well this past week one of the e-mails said, “I have an addiction to intensity in interactions with the environment and others”. They could not have been more accurate and this move was a great example of that. We are going to come back to this story later but just try and remember my intense and stubborn desire for instant gratification.
The past couple weeks, we have been reading through the book of Acts. We read about the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost and about how the early church of believers was in fellowship with another, sharing all things together in community. Where we pick up todays is a portion of Peter’s second sermon- In the verses leading up to where I began, Peter, who is one of the apostles, heals a lame man. The crowd is confused at how Peter is able to do this and he quickly tries to correct their misunderstanding that it is not by his doing that he is able to heal the man but that it is by faith in the name of Jesus that this man was healed. This he says is what the prophets spoke of. This is what the fulfillment of the covenant that was made to Abraham and Isaac and Jacob looks like. God promised that all the families that come from their offspring shall be blessed. And this– this is what it means to be blessed– to experience healing– physically, emotionally and spiritually. It says that by faith in His name, the name of Jesus this man who was weak is now made strong.
Peter goes on to say in the verses we read this morning that in order to experience these blessings, these promises of God- we must “repent therefore and turn back that your sins may be blotted out, that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord, and that he may send the Christ appointed for you, Jesus, whom heaven must receive until the time of restoring all the things about which God spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets long ago.” My abridged version would read as: Ask for forgiveness so that you can live into the rest God has given you which will enable us to continually see the ways that God is fulfilling His promises. I think the phrase, “That times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord” is worth us reflecting on because it allows us to see the new kingdom at work in the world- and who couldn’t use a little of that?
I looked up this word “refreshing” and it can be translated as “a recovery of breath” or “breathing again”. A recovery of breath- it sounds relaxing just saying it. It’s like when someone says “I finally had a minute to catch my breath.” It is the time after chaos or intensity or exhaustion when we can breathe deep and steady knowing the hard part is over. This word also means rest.
The only place we see this exact word is found is in Isaiah 28:12-13 and it is rendered as “rest”. This is what it says: “This is rest; give rest to the weary; and this is repose; yet they would not hear. And the word of the Lord will be to them precept upon precept, precept upon precept, line upon line, line upon line, here a little, there a little, that they may go and fall backward and be broken and snared and taken.”
The Lord tries to offer these people rest but knows that they will not hear what He is offering them. Again and again God tries to offer His people rest and we do not accept.
I recently read an article that says half of Americans don’t use their paid time off. There is a median number of 7 vacation days that people do not use. I, for the record am definitely not one of these people. I request off probably too much in the off chance that my manager will say yes. The thought of lying on a beach trumps most of my work ethic. These people claimed to be too busy but many are encouraged to take time off to avoid burnout. My sister for example works for an advertising agency and when she was hired they told her that she technically has an unlimited number of days off but in reality they keep her so busy that she cant take advantage of that. But unlike overworked Americans, I think God offers us rest that he is genuinely hoping we take, purely as a gift.
This rest or time of refreshing isn’t a fix of everything that is wrong in our lives but it is a time when we can remember that God is present in our lives and for us to remember we are not alone. That is the greatest promise God fulfilled in his covenant. Sometimes this rest is hard to live into and it doesn’t look like we imagined it and I think this is because we find rest not in ourselves but in community– which is why Church is so important. It might not be the Liturgy or music or the sermon that is refreshing to you on a Sunday morning, in fact it’s more likely to be the conversations you have with your friends before the service or watching the kids run around after the service or the interactions you have in participating in one of our ministries. These communal experiences are where we find rest when we can’t find it on our own.
While I may not experience many of life’s hardships, I am in relationship with people who have experienced unthinkable tragedy after unthinkable tragedy… This time of refreshing that Peter speaks of is an invitation to experience God amidst the all too often cruelties of life. Acts is all about the church learning how to be the church. And church to them was not a group of individuals who gathered once a week to learn about Jesus but rather a community experiencing this new way of life with one another. If as the church we want to get back to the way church was intended to be then we should focus on being a part of one another’s lives, experiencing each others struggles and joys and helping one another see God in our lives just by being present.
This idea of blessing through community is made even more apparent when Peter references the prophets of the Old Testament. Earlier in this sermon that Peter gives he refers to God as the God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, the God of our fathers. He does this to emphasize God’s faithfulness to Israel but also to help the church in Acts to remember where as a people they have been and how God has brought them out of hard times again and again. I think Peter points back to the Old Testament to show that God works in the life of the community not just the lives of individuals and he carries out his purposes through whole people groups. In the Old Testament, Israel is held in bondage by the Egyptians and God hears their cry and he appoints Moses and his brother Aaron to bring them out of Egypt into a new land. Just as Moses led the Israelites into freedom so does Jesus lead all people into freedom. Verse 25 says “You are the sons of the prophets and of the covenant that God made with your fathers, saying to Abraham, And in your offspring shall all the families of the earth be blessed.” The blessings once offered to Israel are now in the name of Jesus offered to ALL. We are all apart of this community that are participants in God’s covenant.
As I was writing this sermon I kept thinking about why, if this rest is offered to us- this “recovery of breath” why so many of us are exhausted and out of breath. What makes experiencing this communion with God so difficult that we forgo it, unintentionally or not? Why is it so difficult to participate in the blessings God continually bestows upon us? I think because while it is a gift and it is free, it is still hard to live into. Like the overworked American who gets too much of their self worth from the success of their job, it is too hard to let go of control and dwell in what God has already done rather than in what we have left to do. It is hard to be a part of a community and to lean on others and make the effort it takes to make those relationships sustainable. In many ways at least to me, it seems easier just to do life alone- and maybe in some ways it is easier but it’s not nearly as life-giving. It’s true, it takes time to learn to do life together, but I think it is worth it. Cultivating genuine community is probably the most important aspect of what it means to be the church and yet as a whole it is what the church has failed at the most.
So back to my move and my intense desire for my move to be instantly gratifying. Technically we did move and quickly but what I learned is that what takes longer than just the physical moving of boxes and furniture is the taking a part one home and putting together another. To truly create a home not just a house takes time. And I hate that. I find myself impatient and frustrated and antsy… I want it to all just happen at once and it be done for good. Why is it so unreasonable to think that I can recreate the home display section of Target in my house for little to no cost in just one day?
I’m being dramatic but this is how many of us are with community- we want it and we want the benefits but we don’t want to put in the time or effort that it takes to create. Creating a home takes time. It takes time to unpack and figure out where everything goes. It takes time to find furniture that is fitting for your house or to find the exact decorations that you want. And then it takes time to do all the practical things like changing your address on everything, ever– your bank accounts, credit cards, insurance companies, drivers license, voters registration—although maybe you can “forget” to tell your alma maters so that they will stop asking you for money you simply don’t have… and finally there is the setting up the electric and gas and most importantly the Wi-Fi. Do you know what happens when you go without Wi-Fi for a whole week? Something very strange… your productivity sky rockets. I don’t know what’s going on in the world or who won the US Open (something I would normally know) but I read books and pondered life on my porch and called all my family members- multiple times.
I was complaining about all this to a girl I work with and she said “true- it can be frustrating but it’s also the fun part. It’s the exciting part- watching it all come together. Getting to look back at what you created and how far it has come.” And she’s right- there is beauty in the effort, even in the setbacks. There is beauty knowing the effort put in cultivating something is something you can enjoy and rest in. Community takes effort but it is effort that is leading somewhere and according to our faith it is the most life-giving and God filled experience.
So enjoy the beauty of transformation and be patient because things worthwhile take a long while. Sometimes a long, long while. This rest we receive is just a foreshadowing of the rest we will one day receive but let us not wait to experience it one day when we can get a taste of it now. We may not be able to experience the fullness of God but we can experience the fullness of one another and the fullness of this church through God working in us. This is the last point that Peter makes in verse 19. Until the restoration of all things, you are given rest, so rest in communion with another for that is the gift of God.
So a couple questions for all of us are- Are we willing to put in the effort to rest in community with one another? Are we willing to put the hard work into forming and keeping relationships? Are we willing to forgive people when they wrong us or choose to be united when we don’t agree?
If Jesus accomplished what we say he accomplished, then most of this is already done for us and we simply have to live into it.
Amen.
Floundering With A Purpose 