Easter 4C +God’s greatest gift is…You+ 5/12/2019
Alene
Campbell-Langdell
St Columba’s, Camarillo / All Santos, Oxnard
St Columba’s, Camarillo / All Santos, Oxnard
Pastor
Alene shared this sermon with me and allowed me to share it with you today
because I thought it had so much to say about the ways we as Christians are
called to live out our faith, and specifically how we do so here at All Santos.
Alene’s
side of the family has been living their own resurrection story for the past
few weeks. It started on Easter Sunday
when her 8 year old, great-niece was life-flighted with kidney failure to a St
Louis hospital. We prayed and watched
and watched and prayed and 2 weeks ago she was able to get up and walk around
outside for the first time. Then, as we
were rejoicing, the news broke that she had gone into cardiac arrest for 6 long
minutes. Once again we prayed and
watched waiting to hear whether her brain had been damaged. Miraculously, her brain function is
normal. The doctors have even begun
talking about plans to let her go home!
But there’s a catch. In order to
go home, my great-niece will need to have dialysis at home which requires a
$30,000 remodeling job to create a sterile environment to do the dialysis
in. When Alene went to the GoFundMe page
to do my part in this effort, the GoFundMe site asked a question: Why did you donate? She said: All sort of things went through my head: Cause God told me to. Because she’s family. Because my niece and her husband have 4
little kids and another on the way. I
eventually skipped the question on the site, but later I realized that the reason
I donated then, and the reason I do so many other things is simple: because sometimes faith has to go to
work. James talks about that, “Show me
your faith apart from your works and I by my works will show you my faith”
(James 2:18). And again, “Faith, by
itself, if it has no works, is dead” (James 2:17). It would be easy for me to say, “God has
already done so much in Angelia’s life.
God will provide for this need also.
My little amount won’t make any difference anyway.” But that isn’t how faith works. Faith shows up to the impossible. Faith shows up to move a mountain with
prayer…and a shovel.
Our
lesson from John today starts with an interesting statement that at first seems
entirely unnecessary. The writer of John
makes a point of telling us that this story takes place in the winter. Now, the writer has already established that
it was the time of “the festival of the Dedication,” most likely what we now
know as Hanukkah, which is in December, so the comment that “it was winter”
seems a bit superfluous until one remembers that practically everything in the
Gospel of John operates on a symbolic level as well as the literal level. When John describes Nicodemus visiting “at
night,” it isn’t just about the time of day.
John is telling us about Nicodemus’ unbelief. When Jesus and the Samaritan woman meet at
the well in the middle of the day, it’s not just hot and good excuse for asking
for water, the Samaritan woman is ready to hear what Jesus has to say. Her eyes are open. The light is bright.
So,
John when tells us that “It was winter,”
our spiritual ears should perk up and begin to imagine not just a cold,
rainy day, but the winters of our own lives:
a loved one in the hospital, political storm and uncertainty, the loss
of a job, hate and prejudice that sickens our soul. I could go on, but I don’t need to. We know what winter looks like. Come to think of it, so did Tabitha’s
friends. We get a few powerful clues to
the importance of Tabitha to her congregation in this short story from
Acts. We’re told that she was known by
two names: one in Greek and one in
Aramaic. In a church that was often
bitterly divided between Greeks and those of Jewish descent, Tabitha (Dorcas)
navigated both worlds and was loved by both.
We’re told she spent her life doing good works and acts of charity. She was doing the work that we heard Jesus
tell Peter to do last week. She was
taking care of the sheep. In a time
without sewing machines and factories when clothing was so expensive that most
people could only afford one or two garments, Tabitha made clothes and gave
them away. She put her faith to work,
and yet she died.
I wonder who first got the ridiculous idea of
calling Peter? Maybe they were praying
Psalm 23 together as a community much as we do today at a funeral. Could God’s goodness and mercy be present
even in Tabitha’s death? Maybe they just
called Peter because he was nearby and thought he could help in comforting the
grieving community. Maybe they called
him to explain how the death of someone like Tabitha could possibly fit in
God’s plan. The story doesn’t tell us
and Peter didn’t seem real clear on it either.
Can you imagine Peter’s prayer as he puts them all out of the room? “God, what am I doing here?” Or maybe that’s just me! Yet what happens is the perfect illustration
of Jesus’ sheep listening to his voice.
The grieving community calls Peter.
Peter leaves Lydda and goes to Joppa (where he stays until he’s told to
go somewhere else, which results in the entire household of Cornelius coming to
Christ and the church learning that our boundaries are not God’s boundaries,
but that’s another story). Tabitha hears
her name called even in death because that boundary too has been broken
down.
Tabitha’s
friends knew what winter was like, but they also knew how to listen to Jesus’
voice and put their faith to work. Don’t
get thrown off by John’s reference to “the Jews” gathering around Jesus. Everyone in that story was a Jew. We, the readers, are the ones gathered around
Jesus in the winters of our lives asking, “How long will you keep us in
suspense? If you are the Messiah, tell
us plainly” (John 10:24). And Jesus’
response at first glance seems harsh.
“You do not believe because you do not belong to my sheep.” Yet the “because” here could be translated as
“that.” You do not believe that you
do not belong to my sheep. Or is it that they don’t believe that they belong to
the sheep? Have we become so focused on Jesus as Shepherd that we’ve forgotten
what it means to be sheep?
Demetrius Dumm commenting on the 10th
chapter of John writes that those listening to Jesus “are certain that Jesus is
claiming too much for himself when he says that he is one with the Father. In fact, however, he is claiming too much for
them. For he is inviting them to
participate in his divinity…” (Mystical Portrait, p. 152).[1]
“No one will snatch [my sheep] out of my
hand,” Jesus says. What my Father has
given me is greater than all else, and no one can snatch it out of the Father’s
hand” (John 10:29). This should bring
echoes of another passage in John, “Very truly, I tell you, the one who
believes in me will also do the works that I do and, in fact, will do greater
works than these; because I am going to the Father” (John 14:12). This begins to sound less like Jesus the
Shepherd talking and more like Jesus the Bridegroom: you’re the greatest gift God ever gave
me! Can you hear Jesus saying that to
you? Can you believe that you are that
kind of sheep?
We
are invited in Revelation to glimpse the throne room of God. In that room are more people than can
possibly be counted. And yet each one of
them is known by the Lamb at the center.
Each one is called by name. Each
one as followed through green pastures and death’s valley, through winter and
spring, summer and fall. Each has found
God’s mercy and goodness present, and so, each one has brought their shovel to
the mountain. Each one has put their
faith to work because that’s what faith is.
That’s who we are. We are the
ones who make Jesus’ heart dance.
[1]
Demetrius Dumm. A Mystical Portrait of Jesus (The Order of St Benedict,
Inc.: Collegeville, MN), 2001.
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