We Survive through Unity
August 5, 2007
Acts 5:12-16
We often talk about the Good News. The Good News of Scripture. In discussing the theory and method of preaching we must always keep in mind the Good News. Whatever text you’re preaching on must bring a word of Good News. The writer of Luke is a big believer in this. He is constantly calling us to not just hear the Good News, but touch it, taste it feel it. In other words…when you hear this story, when you follow this logic, when you share this experience what makes it Good? What makes it worth knowing? What makes it better your relationship with God? The Good News.
Today’s story is another Good News story. Luke wants everyone to know. When you spend time with the teachers of this faith, the apostles. When you spend time with these folks, weird and wild things are going to happen to you in your life. And the things that have been making you feel miserable? The things that have been making you sick. The things that have been holding you down or back or keeping you away from others…They are transformed. When you hang out with these teachers…even stepping into their shadows, it will change your life. You will witness many signs and wonders…it is awesome. It is Good News.
The Administrative Council met this week and we spent time discerning where we felt the Presence of God and where we felt the absence or a lack of the Presence of God since the last time we met. We thought about those questions in regards to worship, to our wider communal life together, and beyond our community life. We spent some time talking about our Easter worship. And someone on the council said, “Easter was a turning point this year. It seemed we had all finally decided, ‘We believe in God’” I’ve been thinking about that statement ever since. I think it was the Good News of our communal Easter together. We believe, at long last, in God. And, as a community we are ready to celebrate our love and belief in God. It made us of one mind in Spirit, it united our focus and energy, and the memory of that still fills our hearts and souls.
UCC clergy and author Tony Robinson reminds us that Transformation/Conversion may begin with signs and wonders however, sustaining a conversion experience, giving it enduring meaning, and building the kind of community that is light to the world and salt of the earth REQUIRES the formation of a people. I can not stand outside the empty tomb and proclaim, I believe in God and experience that living God if I stay stationary in that one moment. I also can not stand there alone, in the Easter story and experience the true awesomeness of God solely alone. God isn’t just calling me, God is calling to us…I believe in God, but my belief requires my spiritual formation. And my spiritual formation, my learning and understanding of how to live and be a disciple and then apostle a student and then a teacher of this faith requires I commit myself to a spiritual community. It matters who we are as a community of faith. Communities of faith are all about change…about changed and changing lives…about sustaining those changes…about inviting others to share changed life. That’s why living in community has fallen out of popularity, in the same proportion to the death spiral of the protestant churches. We don’t feel comfortable with this concept of change and we definitely don’t want to apply it to our own personal lives or the work of our sanctuary club known as the church. Our core purpose as community of faith is to be a community that sustains continuous change and transformation as we grow in the likeness of Christ, in the image of God. I like to call it the journey from Easter people to Pentecost people.
We have moved as a community of faith from studying the gospels of our faith…the message to working on the book of Acts. It is another reflective moment. We have made a shift as a community. We are not working on determining, do we believe? But, instead on shifting to what does that mean for my personal and communal life. How do I live as a disciple of faith?
First, we must fight off the Spirit of Inadequacy. I have been told often, worship was horrible the last time you were gone. I have been told, we had new visitors today and the music was horrible. I have been told, these visitors are not going to come back because of the digital worship glitches. I have been told, we don’t have enough resources to grow. These are all counter thoughts and pushes to the Good News. Several leaders in our community of faith have begun to hear this negative, anti-Spirit voice as the Spirit of Inadequacy. That voice that creates fear and shuts us down to the possibility that God is at work, even here even now. Surely, if we can have people who come into this room, and feel welcomed and warm and intrigued just from being in this room, our small moments of humanity can not be enough to cast God out. Believe it or not, when I prepare a sermon I write out every word. I create a manuscript. However, those of you who check out what I write on line recognize, I often don’t preach exactly what is written in the manuscript. Often, I skip a section, forget a section, or just plain “screw a section up”. The Spirit of Inadequacy could drive me back behind the pulpit with notes. Or the spirit of a still speaking God could be saying, even here in the midst of preaching, I might take you down a different path. Not once has any one in this room said, really the sermon should have been longer and covered these points. No, because, when we open ourselves to the gift of the Spirit, to hearing the Good News from the preached word, God will move us, transform us change us. And that has nothing to do whether I, Rev. Briget Nicholson, am here or not. We can not continue with this concept of I’m not enough and I can’t do anything in this community of faith because I don’t have it all figured out. That is the spirit of inadequacy. The Good News is, you are enough and even being in the shadow…in the darkness of a person of faith, it is enough to heal us, transform us, inspire us to belong, join in, change our hearts and souls to be unified, reflecting the image of God and the likeness of Christ. We are not just the Easter people but we are the Pentecost community.
But, this Spirit of Inadequacy also comes from being a community that is committed to making this change from easter people to Pentecost people. When we make a decision to transform our living focusing our lives as a whole on the common good, celebrating the fruits of the Spirit: Kindness, gentleness, joy, faith instead of getting ahead of the Joneses. We are make a wave in the energy of the universe. When we push, another force pushes back, I think this is the Spirit of inadequacy. This is counter cultural to want to be in relationship with everyone, to bring everyone along, to learn and become this concept of unconditional love. When we strive to do these things, there must be a counter balance, a push from the outside that says, hey, that’s not the way things are done. The Spirit of Inadequacy. I also don’t find it surprising this is happening each time I go away, incidences of the community falling apart. The balance is already different than the usual. It’s a fertile ground for fear and inadequacy. So, when I am gone, we must as a community be prepared for that extra push by each being committed to this journey of faith and taking responsibility for our own spiritual work.
WE can not flex our communal muscle if you are putting all your chips in the pastor. This isn’t about me. I am not your channel or your plug. God is the one. I can stand here week after week because God calls me to, inspires me to, challenges me to, sustains me for doing this work. It is God and the presence of the Spirit you feel when we gather together. But, many have this gift, we all have this gift, if we are open to it. In order to flex our communal muscle as a community, we need to be able to sustain transformational change. We need to go release the spirit of inadequacy that says this is misery to the healing shadow of this was possible, God was here today, and God moved people with the Spirit. It is not my work to do that for you. It is not the visiting preacher’s work to do that for you. It is not your service on a team or in a class that compels us to do this for you. It is the power and presence and grace of God that does this for us if we’d just be willing to be open to the shadow of God.
WE have left the Easter tomb and begun to begin the journey of being the disciples. And, this work changes our relationships to one another. This journey changes our relationships with the world. This journey changes our relationships with our God. It can be frustrating, difficult, challenging. It can be rewarding, inspiring, filled with awe. But, the journey is required if we are going to grow. wE can not stand outside that tomb, alone, proclaiming, OK God we’re in without moving. God call us to move with the Spirit. To walk on the journey. To celebrate how we know God, hear God, respond to God. And we can not do that alone at the tomb.
We have come so far. We believe. But today, we must make a new commitment to thrive through our unity. Our unity in belief. Our unity in faith. Our unity in the healing power of God, the Good News that we are not inadequate. That we can not let God down. That we can celebrate our very being as enough witness to God.