Encountering (Others’) Faith

We know that Canada is filled with many cultures. Manitoba was already a multicultural province long before the present surge of migrants entered. Consider the presence of reserves – not just First Nations and Metis reserves, but an East Reserve for Mennonites (where I live in Steinbach), and a French Reserve for towns like St. Pierre and Ste. Anne, and a Ukrainian Reserve for towns like Tolstoi and Sarto.

It is no accident that one of Winnipeg’s most beloved festivals is Folkorama, celebrating the multiplicity of cultures in our city and province. From Filipinos to Scottish immigrants, from the Indians playing cricket in Assiniboine Park to what one authority called “the most secular Jewish community in Canada”, diversity is in our lifeblood.

Ironically, the first time I ever visited Winnipeg was in 1990 for Mennonite World Conference. Southern Manitoba has a well-deserved reputation as a Mennonite enclave; but Steinbach and Winkler have their own mosques now, and Winnipeg has more gurdwaras than it does Hindu Temples – many Sikhs as part of the Indian diaspora in this part of the world. We may still be the bible belt in Canada, but we also have a remarkable array of cultures and faiths.

In this context, how do we relate to our neighbours, often people of no specific religion or of a religion quite different from our own Christian faith? That is the question I want to consider for the next few minutes.

Ethnocentrism

The natural response to people of other cultures and religions is one of suspicion. We are naturally ethnocentric, just as babies begin life as naturally egocentric. We know our group, and we assume that the way we do things is natural and right. Others, therefore, are unnatural and wrong.

You see this ethnocentrism all over the place. For example, China calls itself “the middle kingdom”, meaning that China is the centre of the earth. And Toronto thinks that it is the centre of the earth! Or look at a world map. If you look at a map made in Australia or Japan, you will not find North and South America at the centre; Australia and Asia are in the middle.

North Americans are of course as ethnocentric as anyone else. Consider our neighbours to the south. I heard a lecture broadcast on NPR some 15 years ago in which the speaker considered the meaning of the American Declaration of Independence: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal …”

He observed that the first question Americans faced when they became a country was, “Does all men include Black men?” They ended up fighting a civil war before they agreed that it does. Then they asked, “Does all men include women?” After much debating and protesting, they finally agreed that women are people too in 1919. (We beat them in Canada, but only by a year!) The speaker then went on to the current question, “Does all men mean all men everywhere, or does it mean only all Americans are created equal?” That question our American neighbours have not yet settled. Events at their border with Mexico this past week reinforce the sense that some Americans see themselves as better than the rest of humankind.

If you think that ethnocentrism is an American problem, try calling a Canadian an American. His/her response will leave you in no doubt that we also are focused on our identity as Canadians. Ethnocentrism is the natural human response to people of other faiths and other religions!

In this context, then, we turn to the Scriptures that we read this morning.

John 14

We referred last Sunday to Jesus’ teaching his disciples after the last supper. He assured them that they – and all who place their trust in him – will enter God’s presence both here and in eternity. Jesus said that he is the way, truth, and life, not just for his disciples but for all people.

In the verses we read this morning, Jesus promised his disciples the presence and help of his Holy Spirit. He knew that they would embark on a long and difficult journey from their ethnocentric identity as God’s Chosen People, the Jews, to God’s People drawn from every nation under heaven. They would need his presence and power to transition from an exclusive group who kept outsiders at bay to an inclusive church who welcomed everyone.

Acts 17

The account of Paul speaking to the philosophers in Athens is just one example of this shift. Consider Paul’s own experience. He began his life as a Pharisee, one set apart to defend the Mosaic Law, Torah, from all attacks and especially from outsiders. When the new sect of Christ-followers came on the scene, he was vigorous in his attacks on them. Then he met Jesus, the crucified and risen Jesus, on the road to Damascus. As he pursued Jesus’ disciples to kill or imprison them, Jesus met him in a blinding encounter and transformed his life.

Paul still called himself a Pharisee. The name means one who is set apart by God for a purpose, but the purpose had changed. He retained deep appreciation for Torah and God’s grace in giving Torah to the Jews, but his core commitment had shifted to the gospel of Jesus Christ. He summarizes the gospel in a remarkable passage in 1 Corinthians 15:

³ For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, ⁴ that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, ⁵ and that he appeared to Cephas, and then to the Twelve. ⁶ After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers and sisters at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep. ⁷ Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles, ⁸ and last of all he appeared to me also, as to one abnormally born. 

If you want a summary of the gospel, there it is! Jesus Christ crucified and risen. That is what Paul now lived for.

A critical element of this gospel is that Jesus lived and died and rose for all people. There are no outsiders. God’s grace is freely available to all people of every class, ethnicity, and gender. In place of the ethnocentrism that flows so easily from the human heart, Jesus calls everyone to eternal life, life with God. As Paul puts it elsewhere, “There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3:28). Sometimes we think of Paul as one who introduced all kinds of rules and guilt into Jesus’ wonderful gospel of freedom. In fact, Jesus is the one who said, “Small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it” (Matthew 7: 14). Paul was (in the words of scholar F.F. Bruce) “the apostle of the heart set free.”

Accordingly, wherever he went, Paul preached the gospel to Jews and to Gentiles. Normally, he entered the synagogue and preached the gospel and then went out into the streets and kept on preaching the gospel. When he got to Athens, he was waiting for the rest of his team to join him. He became aware of the cultural and religious life of Athens, which was a centre of philosophy. If you wanted to know what was on the cutting edge of religious and philosophical thinking, you went to Athens and listened to the latest and best minds of that day debating what was true.

This impression of Athens is behind the way that Paul preached there – reasoning with both Jews and Gentiles and anyone else who happened to be there. They were only too happy to have a leader from this new sect of Judaism tell them what this new way was all about. Paul went about his task with relish, quoting from their own best poets and philosophers to talk about the religious practices in which they were engaged. One has the impression that people listened with interest as long as he moved in familiar territory, but then he used their ideas as a foundation to talk about Jesus. He pivoted to the story of Jesus and told how he had been killed and raised from the dead. Talk about the resurrection divided his hearers. Some scoffed, and some wanted to hear more.

What Does This Tell Us?

I assume that we agree we should share our faith with people around us. Paul’s example can help us in our own context. Athens was also highly multi-cultural and multi-religious. The philosophers of Athens would have said that they were well qualified to tell people which of these competing faiths was worth taking seriously. Paul and his companions could well have felt intimidated, but they went into the marketplace and shared what they believed. What can we learn from them?

1) Note that Paul began by making connections. He quoted authorities within the philosophers’ schools of study. He paid attention to the public monuments and rituals that he saw all around him. He did not start by saying condemning them. He started by looking for points of connections and building relationships. Donald Smith (in Creating Understanding) notes that communication always begins with building relationships.

We have a skewed idea in our culture that we are faced with only two ways to relate to people of other faiths. Either we think we must set out to convert them, or we think that we should be careful to say nothing about Jesus. I know what both options feel like. I remember the first world religions class I took to a mosque. It was in Fort Wayne, Indiana, and the Muslim preacher of the morning made it his goal to convert my class. He preached at us as hard as he could, inviting us us to leave the confusion of Christianity behind and become Muslims. My class was insulted! They wondered what he thought he was doing! I said to them, “Some of you want to become missionaries. It’s good for you to know what it feels like!”

Or another example: Last week a woman and her daughter were going door to door in our neighbourhood, witnessing to whoever would answer the door. I am sympathetic to their message, but I didn’t know them! I kept the conversation as short as I reasonably could.

Paul shows us how to build relationships. He preaches the gospel clearly, but first he gets to know his audience. Given how many people like to hide their beliefs in our context, it makes sense that we begin by building relationships. We get to know people around us. We don’t act like we think we know what is best for them or try to explain their experience. Rather, we listen and discover. As we get to know each other, we find opportunities to share our lives, including our faith.

2) An important part of Paul’s practice of making connections was the way that he could quote poets and philosophers that his audience knew. He had studied them. He had learned from them. We can do the same.

Consider the indigenous population of Canada. We regularly hear land acknowledgements, and we admit that we live together on treaty land. Such statements are important. They help us to frame our relationships, recognizing the importance of the other. But we must go further. Listen to First Nations people you know. Learn their stories and their view of reality. Learn to think and speak within their categories. As we do so, we discover ways that God’s revelation is already present within indigenous cultures.

As we get to know our neighbours, we discover what their lives are about and what they believe about reality. Like Paul, we keep listening for ways that God was in India or the Philippines or China or Nigeria before the Christian Church showed up. One missions thinker calls this acting like a treasure-seeker. We search for the truth of the gospel already present in every culture and every faith, before Christians arrive.

3) We could say much more, but we come to a close. Finally, Paul was unapologetic when it came to speaking the gospel. We want to be sensitive and relevant. We want to be understanding and avoid insulting people. As a result, sometimes we are so careful that we say nothing about the reality of Jesus in our lives. Paul was not so quiet!

He knew that talking about the resurrection was going to split the crowd, but the resurrection of Jesus was his reason for living! We also can speak naturally about Jesus’ place in our lives. Not like the Muslim imam from Fort Wayne whom I described; not like some Christians I have known who just can’t wait to ask if you know for sure that you’re going to heaven; not in a pushy or violent way – we can share who Jesus is in our lives. Can you tell your story? Do so! Wait until you’ve earned the right to speak. Show a real and genuine interest in the other person. And when the time is right, you can tell how you have met Jesus in your own life.

I started with ethnocentrism. If you act like you and people like you are the centre of the world, don’t be surprised if others don’t listen to you. But if you really do accept everyone around you as another person also made in God’s image, if you are really open to the people around you, I  believe you will find they are also open to you.

In the whole process, remember that it is God’s Spirit who draws us and all people to God. We rest in the work of the Holy Spirit, “for in him we live, and move, and have our being.”

Texts

Acts 17: 22-31

²² Paul then stood up in the meeting of the Areopagus and said: ‘People of Athens! I see that in every way you are very religious. ²³ For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: to an unknown god. So you are ignorant of the very thing you worship – and this is what I am going to proclaim to you.

²⁴ ‘The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by human hands. ²⁵ And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything. Rather, he himself gives everyone life and breath and everything else. ²⁶ From one man he made all the nations, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands. ²⁷ God did this so that they would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from any one of us. ²⁸ “For in him we live and move and have our being.” As some of your own poets have said, “We are his offspring.”

²⁹ ‘Therefore since we are God’s offspring, we should not think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone – an image made by human design and skill. ³⁰ In the past God overlooked such ignorance, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent. ³¹ For he has set a day when he will judge the world with justice by the man he has appointed. He has given proof of this to everyone by raising him from the dead.’

John 14: 15-21

Jesus promises the Holy Spirit

¹⁵ ‘If you love me, keep my commands. ¹⁶ And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate to help you and be with you for ever – ¹⁷ the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you. ¹⁸ I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. ¹⁹ Before long, the world will not see me any more, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live. ²⁰ On that day you will realise that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you. ²¹ Whoever has my commands and keeps them is the one who loves me. The one who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love them and show myself to them.’

Grace Bible Church

14 May 2023

Ready to Die

Introduction 

Sermons are contextual. The situations I experience inevitably colour the way that I hear a passage of Scripture, and my context at this point in time is one of loss and death. We held two funerals during Holy Week – one for our congregation’s chairperson and another for a woman I had visited many times as one of our pastors. Over the past three months, we have lost many people we love, and this morning’s sermon deals with the texts in this context of loss.

 

Acts 7 

Stephen is known as the first follower of Jesus to follow him to death. He was a Greek-speaking leader in the first Jerusalem Church, and the religious establishment saw him as a threat to their own existence. Stephen defended himself before the Sanhedrin, the highest religious court in Israel, by reinterpreting Jewish history as an arc leading through the Law and the Temple to person of Jesus Messiah.

 

The religious leaders recognized a challenge to their authority within the Jewish people, and they accused Stephen of blasphemy, for which the punishment was death by stoning. Stephen died with a vision of God in his heart and eyes and with words of forgiveness for his attackers on his lips.

 

John 14 

Jesus’ words in John 14 come just after the last supper in John 13 and before the act of betrayal that led to his own death. He knew what was coming and spoke out of that knowledge to his disciples. He was preparing them for his death, but he was also letting them know how to live their own lives.

 

I remember the first verses of this passage from listening to my mother give farewell talks to churches in Zimbabwe, when we left Africa to move to Pennsylvania in 1965. She tied them to the final verses of John 16, promising peace to Jesus’ disciples. These three chapters also form a unit, an extended response to the question that Peter asked at the end of chapter 13, and which Thomas and Philip repeated in chapter 14: Where are you going? They could not see what lay ahead. They knew only that Jesus was leaving them, and they wanted to know where he was going and how they could follow him there.

 

Where was Jesus going? He was going to the Father. He was coming up to the end of his life here in earth and preparing to enjoy full communion with his Father. He had said, “I and my Father are one”, and he was preparing to resume that full unity that gives the whole doctrine of the incarnation so much mystery and power.

 

He told the disciples that they could follow him there. Indeed, by following him as disciples, they were already on their way to God, because Jesus said that he himself was that way. Then, with a wealth of imagery, he promised them a future beyond this world in which they – and we – will experience the presence of God in full. Paul describers the same reality in 1 Corinthians 13: “Now we see dimly in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now we know in part; then we shall know even as we are known.”

 

The Promise 

When we start talking about going to be with God, going to Heaven, sometimes people accuse us of making our faith an otherworldly irrelevant thing – “pie in the sky by-and-by. In fact, it is precisely this promise of union with God that leads to peace and joy in this world. Jesus’ promise of room for us with God in eternity is not a fanciful theoretical promise. It is a down-to-earth practical promise that enables us to live in this world the way God wants us to. Here. Now. I want to spend the rest of our time working out how practical this promise is.

 

Carver Model of Governance 

I suspect that several of you have had experience on boards of governors and the like. You know that some boards are working boards. I am on the board for Steinbach Community Outreach, and, although we don’t try to do the work of SCO, we are involved in fundraising and relating to the community.

 

Some boards, on the other hand, are governance boards. They don’t help with any of the work of the organization, but they provide oversight and accountability for all the organization. I spent 20 years on the board of Operation Mobilization (Canada). We were a governance board using the Carver Model.

 

A web resource provides the following definition:

In the Carver model, the board focuses on determining the overarching policies of the organization, the “ends.” At the same time, responsibility is delegated to the CEO and other members to establish the “means” or the implementation of the policies. (https://www.amcnposolutions.com/comparing-3-models-traditional-carver-and-complementary/)

 

An end has at least two basic meanings. One is time related, such as comes at the end of life. Our end is the moment when we die. The other is teleological: The goal or purpose of the organization. That is the meaning in the Carver Model. The board asks a basic question of the organization’s leadership: Have you achieved your ends in the past year?

 

Our Life’s End

This question is one we could usefully ask in our own lives. But first you must discover what your “end” is. What is your purpose in life? What is the goal towards which you are living? One common goal is expressed in the saying, “He who dies with the most toys wins.” If that is your end, your goal, then you will naturally make choices in daily life that move towards that end. You will accumulate goods that help you have fun. When someone in need approaches you, you may help them. Your life goal certainly does not forbid it. But on the whole, you will not have as much disposable income to direct towards helping the needy, because your goal is to accumulate goods for yourself.

Suppose you have a different purpose for living. Suppose that your end, your goal in life, is to reduce the inequities of life that lead to poverty. Someone in need approaches you, and you respond to them out of your life’s goal to reduce life’s inequities. You may indeed choose not to help them, but you make your choice in the context of your purpose for living. You may also choose to buy something just for fun, but on the whole, you will likely have more disposable income to income to direct towards helping the needy – because your goal is not to accumulate goods for yourself.

 

Notice that any individual action of two different people may look much alike. In the example I have given, one is a fun-loving pleasure-seeker and the other is dedicated to making a more just society. Both of them may help the person in need. Often, the person who seeks “the most toys” is also a pleasant person to be around. Such people will often give a helping hand. The difference shows up over the long term. One seeks to help the person in trouble whenever possible; the other helps when it’s convenient. They have different goals in life, and those goals shape the kind of person they are in daily life.

 

What’s your goal in life? What is your life’s “end”? What are you living for? Jesus tells his disciples what to live for. “There’s room in God’s house for you. I am going to God, to perfect unity with God, and you can too. I have done God’s will here on earth, and I want you to do God’s will on my behalf. I am the way to God, the way to life. I want you to walk in ‘the way’, to walk ‘in me’ as my representative until you die.”

 

Our end – in the sense of the end of our lives – will show what our real purpose, the goal of our lives, has been. Our family and friends remember us, and they can see what we lived for. Jesus says, “Live for me.”

 

What Would This Look Like? 

Think of my example again: Someone in need approaches you for help. It might be a friend who needs someone to support them through a difficult time. It might be a stranger who lives on the street. It might be almost anyone; we all need help from time to time. How do you respond to the request? Most of us try to help. We’re caring people and we feel compassion for those who are struggling, whether they need emotional support or financial help or whatever it is. Do you stop to ask yourself how you can walk in the way of Jesus in that moment? Jesus is life and truth. Do you consciously draw on his Spirit living in you for your response?

 

I had such an experience last Monday. A very ordinary experience. I was leaving Superstore with my groceries, and as I reached the car, a woman approached me. She was dressed as a Muslim woman and carrying a cardboard sign. The sign suggested she was asking for money to buy food and diapers for her children. She may have been part of the Syrian diaspora in Canada. Who knows? I know nothing else of her.

 

I gave her $10. If her need was real, my $10 made almost no difference. If she was faking her need, it went into the bag with other donations she received that day. I have no way of knowing if I should give or not. I gave reflexively, because that’s what we do. As I turned away, I said, “Asalaam aleikum” – “Peace be to you”. She replied “Amin”, the Arabic way of saying, “Amen”, confirming my guess that she was Muslim.

 

But I really do want to be God’s representative here until I die. I really do want to walk in Jesus’ way when I meet a random woman in need. When I got home, I called Steinbach Community Outreach, an organization in Steinbach that specializes in helping people on the margins find housing as well as financial and emotional and social and spiritual support. I asked a friend there if they know of this woman, because they really do know most of the people walking around town with no real home of their own.

 

As we walked my friend went through the possibilities of who this woman was. One likely possibility is that she is someone who is told to stand in the parking lot and solicit donations, then she takes them back to someone else who controls her life. It may be a combination of a scam and a tragedy. My friend said that she appears most summers, not in the winters, and that they (at SCO) would look out for her. If they can sit down and talk with her, they may be able to provide greater help than a ten-dollar bill in the parking lot.

 

I still hadn’t really helped this woman I saw, but I knew that I had done what I could. What more Jesus wants me to do remains to be seen.

 

Generalizing the Case

One problem with this case is that it plays into many of our stereotypes. We are quick to decide that she is exploited, or that she was scamming the people at Superstore, or that society is at fault – or whatever your own particular bias is. Jesus wants us to walk in him, with his life and truth, and to keep walking in him until we get to our final home with God. We don’t have to solve all the problems; we just keep walking with Jesus and learning what we need for the next step.

 

We do that by asking what our life’s purpose is. What is your End? My purpose is to represent Jesus as I walk in his way. I fail often enough, but that’s okay. There is more than enough grace in the death and resurrection of Jesus to take care of my failures.

 

If I generalize from my experience with the woman in the parking lot, one way that I represent Jesus is to treat people I meet as real people. Treat them with respect, whoever they are. SCO has been a good teacher for me. Lois and I were talking recently with SCO’s director, and she told us of a man who walks around our neighbourhood. We have seen him often enough that I found his story interesting. We’ll call him John (not his real name).

 

I won't tell John's story in print, but he has lost his job and family due to mental illness and walks the streets of Steinbach looking for them.He does not read English but can speak some English. He reads and speaks German and Russian. SCO has helped him find lodging, but he has been evicted from the apartment they found. He is not a bad man or a violent man, but he cannot live with people around him. So, he walks the streets. Many of us in Steinbach know him, although we don’t know his name or his story.

 

SCO continues to help as they can, but I wondered what I would do when I next saw him on the street. I could be sure that I would see him because I also walk our streets, and indeed I saw him only a few days later. I was walking into town, and he was headed for Abe’s Hill. As we drew level, I said, “Hello, John.” He didn’t respond, but I thought there was one thing I could always do. I could treat him with the respect we give to other people. I don’t need to treat him as though I am going to fix what’s wrong with him – that can be a kind of arrogance we sometimes show to others around us. I just need to treat him as a person worth my respect and consideration.

 

We’ll see if that turns into anything else, just as we’ll see if I ever meet the woman in the parking lot again. In a way, it doesn’t matter. What does matter is that I am seeking to fulfill my end, to live according to the purpose that God has given me.

 

Conclusion 

We started with the story of Stephen. Stephen was someone who faced the end of his life with courage and love because he was clear about the purpose for his life – to incarnate God’s love as a follower of Jesus. Some of us are old enough to have seen many funerals. We know the grief that comes with separation from loved ones. But death only has a real sting in it if we’re not living for God’s purpose in our lives.

 

Jesus assures us of room enough for everyone with him in Heaven – if we are living with Jesus as our end, our purpose and goal in life. As we walk in the way, truth, and life that is Jesus, we are ready for whatever end may come to our lives. We can live well now each day, knowing what we are living for in eternity.

 

Texts:

ACTS 7:55-60 (NIV)

55 But Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit, looked up to heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God. 56 ‘Look,’ he said, ‘I see heaven open and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.’ 57 At this they covered their ears and, yelling at the top of their voices, they all rushed at him, 58 dragged him out of the city and began to stone him. Meanwhile, the witnesses laid their coats at the feet of a young man named Saul. 59 While they were stoning him, Stephen prayed, ‘Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.’ 60 Then he fell on his knees and cried out, ‘Lord, do not hold this sin against them.’ When he had said this, he fell asleep.

 

JOHN 14:1-14 (NIV)

14 ‘Do not let your hearts be troubled. You believe in God; believe also in me. 2 My Father’s house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you? 3 And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am. 4 You know the way to the place where I am going.’ Jesus the way to the Father 5 Thomas said to him, ‘Lord, we don’t know where you are going, so how can we know the way?’ 6 Jesus answered, ‘I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. 7 If you really know me, you will know my Father as well. From now on, you do know him and have seen him.’ 8 Philip said, ‘Lord, show us the Father and that will be enough for us.’ 9 Jesus answered: ‘Don’t you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, “Show us the Father”? 10 Don’t you believe that I am in the Father, and that the Father is in me? The words I say to you I do not speak on my own authority. Rather, it is the Father, living in me, who is doing his work. 11 Believe me when I say that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; or at least believe on the evidence of the works themselves. 12 Very truly I tell you, whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father. 13 And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. 14 You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it.

 

Grace Bible Church

7 May 2023

 

Being Church

We are in the Easter Season of the church, perhaps the most joyful time of all. Spring is here. The snow is melting (even if it keeps returning). The sun is shining. “Now is the month of maying, when merry lads are playing, fa la la la la la la la la.” Well, that’s tomorrow, but you know what I mean.

 

Best of all, we know that Jesus has defeated death. God raised Jesus to life, and today we remember the time between his resurrection and his ascension. For forty days, Jesus lived and walked with his disciples again. It must have seemed like a dream, but he was preparing them to be the church after he ascended into Heaven.

 

John 10

Our text from John's gospel gives a picture of the church Jesus was forming. During his ministry, he had compared himself to the Good Shepherd. In contrast with thieves and robbers who seek only to steal, kill, and destroy, Jesus came to give his followers life, real overflowing life. The kind of life that he showed them in his time with them after the resurrection. Jesus compared his followers to sheep – not in a bad sense as we might, but in the sense that they follow him. They go where he takes them. They do what he asks. They live a full and good life under the shepherd’s care.

 

We are sheep in this sense, then. Not that we are mindless, unable to think for ourselves, but that we are mindful of Jesus. We listen to his voice. We receive his Spirit. We follow Jesus and are formed into the flock in his care, that is the church.

 

Acts 2 

Acts 2 describes what the first church looked like, called into being by Jesus’ resurrection and formed by God’s Spirit. “⁴² They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. ⁴³ Awe came upon everyone because many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles. ⁴⁴ All who believed were together and had all things in common; ⁴⁵ they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need. ⁴⁶ Day by day, as they spent much time together in the temple, they broke bread at home and ate their food with glad and generous hearts, ⁴⁷ praising God and having the goodwill of all the people. And day by day the Lord added to their number those who were being saved.”

 

Luke wrote his history of the first church using sources that went back to the events he describes. Although the final form of Acts was written down 40 or so years later, they tell us faithfully what the first disciples did as the Holy Spirit filled them to carry on the ministry of Jesus. Note the list that Luke gives and what that list might look like for us.

·         They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching: We read the Scripture, centering the whole teaching of the Bible on the person and work of Jesus Christ.

·         They devoted themselves to fellowship: We gather for worship and for community, in the church building and in our homes.

·         They devoted themselves to the breaking of bread: We remember Jesus’ death and resurrection, especially – but not only – in the communion service.

·         They devoted themselves to prayer: We spend regular time in prayer, personally and corporately.

·         They performed many “signs and wonders”: We are uncomfortable with this idea, but we do at least care for each other in various physical and material ways.

·         They shared their belongings so that no one was left needy: We fall short of their radical simplicity, but we have created an agency to help the needy of our community and we use our deacons’ fund to meet needs within our congregation.

·         They spent time each day worshipping in the Temple and “breaking bread” in their homes: We are not as dedicated to public and private worship as they were, but we do believe in the value of public and private worship.

·         They “ate their food with glad and generous hearts”: We also give thanks for God’s good gifts and share what we have with others.

 

Putting all of this together, Luke closes by noting that God added new people to the church regularly. Sometimes, we think that this numerical growth is the point of the whole passage. I don’t think so. Rather, Luke suggests that the point is to embody Christ’s ministry and message by being the visible Body of Christ. Numerical growth is a result of faithful Christian living. Faithful living is the goal – worship and prayer and meeting needs and embodying Christ. Numerical growth is a fruit of meeting the goal.

 

Who, Then, Are We Today? 

What do you go to church for? Some may be looking for an incredible musical experience. Put a professional music team at the front of the church and fill the sanctuary with sound. That’s a good thing! I have felt God’s presence many times when the music has carried my soul almost, it seems, out of my body. But pure professionalism in music makes for a great concert, not necessarily for a worship experience.

 

Some may be looking for a spellbinding preacher. Put a charismatic preacher walking back and forth on the stage. Again, that’s good! I have been challenged and inspired by powerful preachers. I have enjoyed great events like the Urbana Missions Conferences and Missionfest Manitoba for just this reason. But too many big-name preachers have stumbled and fallen in their personal lives for us to base our church experience on the preacher.

 

So, why do we come together? I suggest that Luke’s description gives us an answer. We come together to read the Bible, to praise God in song and prayer, to fellowship with each other, to care for each other. We could do a series on these points. I want to pick up just one of them and reflect on it further: I want to talk more about prayer.

 

Prayer 

Prayer stands at the centre of the action in the book of Acts. One commentator has said that nothing important happens in Luke and Acts without the presence of the Holy Spirit and the presence of prayer. The Holy Spirit and prayer are central to Luke’s description of the early church. We may think that certain people in the church are real prayer warriors and that we can leave the praying to them, but I suggest that prayer is God’s gift for all of us. We gather together to pray.

 

What does Luke mean when he says, “they devoted themselves to prayer”? What did that look like? What did it sound like? We can take a guess, but we don’t really know. It may have involved kneeling or even prostrating yourself on your face before God. Judaism today has three set times for prayer (morning, afternoon, and evening), while Islam has five set times for prayers. Some more liturgical traditions in Christianity use what they call “the divine hours”, set times of prayer (either three or five times a day). For example, a monastery may have set prayer times at 6 am, 9 am, noon, 3 pm, and 6 pm.

 

I have been in prayer meetings where we sit together and pray in silence – a ten-minute silence. I have been in gatherings where everyone prays together at the top of their voices – a Niagara of sound pouring over the congregation. I have prayed with congregations and alone, kneeling by my bed or standing in the middle of the room. Sometimes prayer is spontaneous, just talking to God. Sometimes we use set prayers that express our desire for constant connection with God.

 

At its root, prayer is simpler than all that. We simply place ourselves before God, offer God ourselves, and listen for God’s Spirit within us. Sometimes we use the acronym ACTS – Adoration, Confession, Thanksgiving, and Supplication. Whatever forms we use, the purpose is that we are relationship with God. God is present, and we become fully present with God.

 

It’s all quite mysterious, and perhaps we sometimes have our doubts about it all. I remember praying with our son when he was three years old. It was part of our bedtime routine. I sat on the edge of his bed, we closed our eyes, and I prayed. One night he would not keep quiet while I prayed and finally I stopped and asked, “Do you know who we’re talking to?” He replied brightly, “No one!” Sometimes it does indeed feel like that.

 

George Herbert

And yet, prayer is so much more than that. Prayer is real. Prayer is the lifeblood of the Christian. Without prayer, without communion with God, we fall apart and die. Four hundred or so years ago, George Herbert was a member of parliament in England who gave up his political career to serve as a country pastor. He died of tuberculosis at the age of 39, but before he died he wrote a remarkable poem on prayer.

Prayer the church’s banquet, angel’s age,

God’s breath in man returning to his birth,

The soul in paraphrase, heart in pilgrimage,

The Christian plummet sounding heav’n and earth

Engine against th’ Almighty, sinner’s tow’r,

Reversèd thunder, Christ-side-piercing spear,

The six-days world transposing in an hour,

A kind of tune, which all things hear and fear;

Softness, and peace, and joy, and love, and bliss,

Exalted manna, gladness of the best,

Heaven in ordinary, man well drest,

The milky way, the bird of Paradise,

Church-bells beyond the stars heard, the soul’s blood,

The land of spices; something understood.

 

Herbert gives 26 images of prayer (I think). It would take a full hour’s lecture to cover them all, and I want to note just a few of them. Some of them are obscure, and some are simply delightful. 

1) He starts with this image: Prayer is the church’s banquet. Better than Fifth Sunday Faspa, better than our summer potluck lunches, better than our Thanksgiving or Christmas dinner at the church, prayer is a reminder of the great banquet feast that we enjoy at the end of time, the wedding feast of the Lamb. Prayer anticipates eternity. Prayer gives us a foretaste of Heaven in the present.

 

2) Here is another one: Prayer is God’s breath in man returning to his birth. Think about it. You and I are alive because God has breathed life into us. Remember Genesis 2: 7? “The Lord God formed the human being from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the human creature became a living being.” Every time you take a breath, God is breathing life into you, and every time you let your breath out, you are giving your life back to God. Prayer is that breath, drawing in and breathing out. We focus on God, receive God’s Spirit (being “born again”), give ourselves back to God, and then do it all again.

3) Prayer is “the Christian plummet sounding heaven and earth”. The image doesn’t mean much to us, but Herbert’s congregation would have understood. The plummet was a line dropped from a ship as it comes into harbour, showing how deep the water was and helping the pilot bring the ship in. Herbert makes this an image of our life’s journey to Heaven. We are sailing through the dark of night, and our pilot out on the prow of the ship drops a plummet into the water so that we can take one more step, live one more day.

 

“Lead kindly light amid the encircling gloom. Lead Thou me on. The night is dark and I am far from home. Lead Thou me on. Keep Thou my feet; I do not ask to see The distant scene; one step enough for me.” You see Herbert’s idea. Prayer shows us the next step to take in our lives. We can’t see the road ahead, but God shows us the step ahead.

 

4) Now for a surprising and difficult one. Prayer is our “Engine against th’ Almighty, sinner’s tower”. An engine here is an instrument of warfare, when an army attacks a city under siege. Prayer is the instrument with which we complain to God when life overwhelms us and we feel as though God has abandoned us. And, in the great paradox and power of God’s grace and mercy, prayer becomes the sinner’s tower where we go for safety. We cry out against God, and God brings us into a place of safety where we can heal and find new hope and life.

 

Concluding Thought

There are 20 more of these images in this amazing poem, but this gives you a taste. I want to make one more point in closing. we often think of prayer as a private venture; I am impressed how often the prayers in the New Testament are corporate prayers. Everyone was praying together. It seems to me that prayer – communion with God – is best when it is part of our own private practice (like breathing in and breathing out) and when it is fundamental to our life as a congregation. We pray in our worship service and in our committee meetings.

 

Herbert says that prayer is our soul’s blood. Without God we are nothing and have nothing. In prayer, we give ourselves to God and receive ourselves again. I encourage you to find the ways to pray that work for you and to receive from God the abundant life he has promised us.

 

 

Texts:

Acts 2: 42-47

Life among the Believers

⁴² They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. ⁴³ Awe came upon everyone because many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles. ⁴⁴ All who believed were together and had all things in common; ⁴⁵ they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need. ⁴⁶ Day by day, as they spent much time together in the temple, they broke bread at home and ate their food with glad and generous hearts, ⁴⁷ praising God and having the goodwill of all the people. And day by day the Lord added to their number those who were being saved.

 

 John 10: 1-10

Jesus the Good Shepherd

10 “Very truly, I tell you, anyone who does not enter the sheepfold by the gate but climbs in by another way is a thief and a bandit. ² The one who enters by the gate is the shepherd of the sheep. ³ The gatekeeper opens the gate for him, and the sheep hear his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. ⁴ When he has brought out all his own, he goes ahead of them, and the sheep follow him because they know his voice. ⁵ They will not follow a stranger, but they will run from him because they do not know the voice of strangers.” ⁶ Jesus used this figure of speech with them, but they did not understand what he was saying to them.

⁷ So again Jesus said to them, “Very truly, I tell you, I am the gate for the sheep. ⁸ All who came before me are thieves and bandits, but the sheep did not listen to them. ⁹ I am the gate. Whoever enters by me will be saved and will come in and go out and find pasture. ¹⁰ The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.

Looking Ahead Question: When Easter is over and done, what do we who live as God's people do with it?

 

Theme: Being the people who follow the Good Shepherd (we really are sheep!) forms us into a community who worship God and love each other.

 

Going Deeper Questions:

1. The sermon focused on prayer this morning. Do you think that prayer really is the centre of our communal life? If it isn’t, should it be? Or should something else be the basic reason we gather together? If so, what is that something else?

 

2. How do you pray? Do you prefer spontaneous or set prayers? What way of sitting or standing or kneeling makes it easier for you to pray?

 

3. How has prayer helped you to function as a Christian? As a person in general?

 

4. Is public prayer or private prayer more important in your life? Why? Which do you think should be more important?

 

Steinbach Mennonite Church

30 April 2023