Alleluia! Christ is Risen!
Alleluia! Christ is Risen! The Lord is risen indeed. Alleluia!
The following is the text of my sermon delivered this morning at our 8 and 10 a.m. services.
Trinity Episcopal Church
Hartford, Connecticut
Easter Sunday, 2012
Year B
Acts 10:34-43
Poor Peter. Holy Week is not a good week for him. Every time he turns around it seems he is stepping in something.
n First of all, with every reading of the Passion story – at least twice, once on Palm Sunday and once on Good Friday – we are reminded of Peter’s denial that he even knows Jesus, not once, but three times – all as Jesus had predicted over Peter’s protestations.
n Then at the Last Supper, Peter refuses to let Jesus wash his feet until Jesus sets him straight.
n Then in the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus asks Peter to keep watch with him while he prays in the garden. Once again, not once but three times, Peter falls down on the job.
n When Jesus is betrayed by Judas, one of the Gospel’s says Peter took out his sword and cut off the ear of one of the Roman soldiers. Again, he has to be admonished by Jesus.
n And then, in the passage we just heard this morning, Peter actually walks into the empty tomb, looks around and sees the linen cloths, and says, “Hmmm…” and leaves.
For all of his professed devotion to Jesus in the Gospels, it is pretty clear that Peter has at best a pretty foggy notion of what it is Jesus is trying to do, or what it is that Jesus expects of his followers. He kind of bumbles through the Gospels as a fickle friend and a sometimes clueless leader.
And so it is particularly refreshing to read in this morning’s passage from The Book of Acts that Peter eventually DOES get it, even if it takes a supernatural dream and a decade or so to get him there. This morning’s passage is actually a sermon preached by Peter in the home of Cornelius, a Roman Centurion. But the sequence of events that brought Peter to be in Cornelius’ house to begin with is a story of the life changing power of the risen Lord.
It seems Cornelius – a leader in an elite division of the Roman Army – had a dream one day. He saw an angel from God coming to say to him, “Cornelius, your prayers and your alms have ascended as a memorial before God. Now send men to Joppa for a certain Simon who is called Peter.” So he dutifully sends several of his men to Joppa. While they are on their way, about noon the next day, it turns out that Peter was going up to his roof to pray. He became hungry and asked for something to eat, and while it was being prepared, he had his own dream. He saw the heavens opened and a large sheet coming down, and in it were “all sorts of four-footed creatures and reptiles and birds of the air.” Then Peter heard a voice saying, “Get up, Peter, kill and eat.” Now of course, being a good Jew, Peter is horrified at this suggestion, because in the Book of Leviticus Jews were forbidden to eat many of the things caught up in the sheet. So Peter protests, “Lord, I have never eaten anything unclean in my life – I’m not going to start now.” But the voice replied, “What God has made clean, you must not call profane.” This happened three times – that’s the Bible’s way of telling us this is important – and then the sheet was taken back up into heaven. Now just about this time Cornelius’ men arrive at Peter’s house – timing is everything, isn’t it? – and they are knocking to come in. Right on schedule, the Holy Spirit speaks again to Peter, telling him to go with the men to see Cornelius because God has sent them.
So to sum up, we now have Peter on his way to visit a Centurion named Cornelius, but he doesn’t know why. And Cornelius, for his part, has sent for Peter, but again, HE has no idea why. Both of them are acting for no other reason than that God told them to. It’s not unlike all of the Gospel reports of that first Easter morning – disciples appearing at a tomb and having no idea what is going on, but following the instructions they are given through God’s messengers. What do you suppose God was up to in this story of Peter and Cornelius?
Well, remember the sheet containing all of the creatures that God told Peter he could eat – creatures that under the Law were ritually unclean? Go back to the first two verses of the passage from Isaiah this morning. There the prophet foretells the coming of the Messiah:
[On this mountain God will destroy] the shroud that is cast over all peoples, the sheet that is spread over all nations, he will swallow up death forever... . It will be said on that day, Lo, this is our God; we have waited for him, so that he might save us. This is the Lord for whom we have waited; let us be glad and rejoice in his salvation.
From the perspective of the prophets, the role of the Messiah was to transform the way the world does business – not through clever politics or power struggles or brute force but by changing fundamentally the way we look at the world.
Easter turns everything upside down. It certainly did for Peter. Before the resurrection, Peter thought the idea of a crucified Messiah was crazy (Mt. 8:27-33), and he argued forcefully that gentiles like Cornelius would have to become Jews before they could be counted among the followers of Christ. He believed God’s covenant promises were to the people of Israel, not to the gentiles. And yet, here he is years after that first Easter morning, experiencing the power of the resurrection in a new way. The vision he received from God of the sheet filled with what he considered to be both clean and unclean foods changed his understanding of how the world is supposed to work, and it radically changed the way he looked to the future.
Before his vision and his experience in Cornelius’ house, Peter’s world was divided between those who, like himself, were the original “witnesses” to Jesus’ life, death and resurrection, and those who, like Cornelius, hail from “every nation” (v. 35), who may have no previous experience with Jesus or familiarity with the Jewish faith. After his vision and his openness to enter the experience with Cornelius, Peter understands more fully that God does not show partiality but desires all creation to be one – not the same, necessarily, but one.
It’s so easy, isn’t it, for us to fall into the pattern “pre-vision” pattern. Look at our politics, look at look at our world, look at the matters even Christian denominations argue about – no matter what the context, we are always inclined to think of ourselves as “the witnesses” – the ones who hold the truth, the ones who really understand, the ones who are entitled, the ones who really belong, the ones who “get it.” My guess is that if you are among those who regularly attend Trinity on Sunday mornings, you may have bristled -- if only just a bit -- when you had trouble finding a parking space this morning, or found someone you don’t recognize sitting in your accustomed seats. Who let them in? Who gave them my parking space? Who gave them my seat? The answer, according to Peter’s sermon in Acts, is that God did. Because in Jesus Christ, EVERYBODY is called to be a witness, and everyone is welcomed to bring whatever it is they have to offer to the gathering.
And in this Chapter, Peter finds his long-held assumptions about Jesus, the man, replaced by the new thing that God is doing in Jesus Christ, the Messiah. God acts, and when God acts, we are often surprised. That’s why God is God and we are us. How else can we explain a King who is placed in a manger, the Son of God murdered on a cross, an empty tomb with an angel at the break of the third day?
Beginning with the events of Chapter 10 of Acts, those distinctions of witness and stranger, Jew and Greek, male and female, slave and free – any worldly distinctions that make us think of others as “different” – they are all erased, the doors of the Christian community are opened wide, and the world is welcomed to come in and join the party. When our text begins, Peter’s mind is closed tight. By the end of his sermon, the Holy Spirit has pried his mind open, and we along with him can begin to think of a day when we, and the world around us, can be transformed into a place of unity, harmony and peace.
Focusing on this story about Peter may not be the typical “Christ is Arisen” sermon you came to hear on Easter Sunday. Easter at its heart is about the defeat of death through the resurrecting power of God. But I want to suggest that not many of us will ever witness an empty tomb with an Angel greeting us. But we can and will have experiences like Peter’s. What we can learn from Peter’s experience is that the way WE experience the power of the resurrection is through God’s life-changing power over us -- if we will only open ourselves to it. God wants to do a NEW THING in us. Perhaps the best Easter message is that blessing from the daily office: Glory to God, whose power working in us can do infinitely more than we can ask or imagine. It tells us that the power of the Resurrection is not something that we passively marvel over 2000 years later – because then it is simply an icon sitting in a museum, an interesting article in Wikipedia that we talk about. The power of the Resurrection continues through the ever growing, wildly diverse body of “witnesses” who have experienced that power and who share it with others.
But I do have a “Christ is Risen” closing to this message. Friday morning, at our Children’s Walk Through Holy Week service, I had just concluded the service, and I was taking questions from the children . When there was a pause in the questions, young Margaret Rousseau – one of our young parishioners and a student in our choir school -- stood up in the front row, turned around to the assembled group and announced: Wait, wait, the story is not over yet. Jesus Christ is risen. We need to tell everyone that Jesus Christ is risen.”
I can’t say it any better. The story isn’t over yet – today is a new beginning. Let us rejoice, tell the story, and be glad in it! Amen.
The following is the text of my sermon delivered this morning at our 8 and 10 a.m. services.
Trinity Episcopal Church
Hartford, Connecticut
Easter Sunday, 2012
Year B
Acts 10:34-43
Poor Peter. Holy Week is not a good week for him. Every time he turns around it seems he is stepping in something.
n First of all, with every reading of the Passion story – at least twice, once on Palm Sunday and once on Good Friday – we are reminded of Peter’s denial that he even knows Jesus, not once, but three times – all as Jesus had predicted over Peter’s protestations.
n Then at the Last Supper, Peter refuses to let Jesus wash his feet until Jesus sets him straight.
n Then in the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus asks Peter to keep watch with him while he prays in the garden. Once again, not once but three times, Peter falls down on the job.
n When Jesus is betrayed by Judas, one of the Gospel’s says Peter took out his sword and cut off the ear of one of the Roman soldiers. Again, he has to be admonished by Jesus.
n And then, in the passage we just heard this morning, Peter actually walks into the empty tomb, looks around and sees the linen cloths, and says, “Hmmm…” and leaves.
For all of his professed devotion to Jesus in the Gospels, it is pretty clear that Peter has at best a pretty foggy notion of what it is Jesus is trying to do, or what it is that Jesus expects of his followers. He kind of bumbles through the Gospels as a fickle friend and a sometimes clueless leader.
And so it is particularly refreshing to read in this morning’s passage from The Book of Acts that Peter eventually DOES get it, even if it takes a supernatural dream and a decade or so to get him there. This morning’s passage is actually a sermon preached by Peter in the home of Cornelius, a Roman Centurion. But the sequence of events that brought Peter to be in Cornelius’ house to begin with is a story of the life changing power of the risen Lord.
It seems Cornelius – a leader in an elite division of the Roman Army – had a dream one day. He saw an angel from God coming to say to him, “Cornelius, your prayers and your alms have ascended as a memorial before God. Now send men to Joppa for a certain Simon who is called Peter.” So he dutifully sends several of his men to Joppa. While they are on their way, about noon the next day, it turns out that Peter was going up to his roof to pray. He became hungry and asked for something to eat, and while it was being prepared, he had his own dream. He saw the heavens opened and a large sheet coming down, and in it were “all sorts of four-footed creatures and reptiles and birds of the air.” Then Peter heard a voice saying, “Get up, Peter, kill and eat.” Now of course, being a good Jew, Peter is horrified at this suggestion, because in the Book of Leviticus Jews were forbidden to eat many of the things caught up in the sheet. So Peter protests, “Lord, I have never eaten anything unclean in my life – I’m not going to start now.” But the voice replied, “What God has made clean, you must not call profane.” This happened three times – that’s the Bible’s way of telling us this is important – and then the sheet was taken back up into heaven. Now just about this time Cornelius’ men arrive at Peter’s house – timing is everything, isn’t it? – and they are knocking to come in. Right on schedule, the Holy Spirit speaks again to Peter, telling him to go with the men to see Cornelius because God has sent them.
So to sum up, we now have Peter on his way to visit a Centurion named Cornelius, but he doesn’t know why. And Cornelius, for his part, has sent for Peter, but again, HE has no idea why. Both of them are acting for no other reason than that God told them to. It’s not unlike all of the Gospel reports of that first Easter morning – disciples appearing at a tomb and having no idea what is going on, but following the instructions they are given through God’s messengers. What do you suppose God was up to in this story of Peter and Cornelius?
Well, remember the sheet containing all of the creatures that God told Peter he could eat – creatures that under the Law were ritually unclean? Go back to the first two verses of the passage from Isaiah this morning. There the prophet foretells the coming of the Messiah:
[On this mountain God will destroy] the shroud that is cast over all peoples, the sheet that is spread over all nations, he will swallow up death forever... . It will be said on that day, Lo, this is our God; we have waited for him, so that he might save us. This is the Lord for whom we have waited; let us be glad and rejoice in his salvation.
From the perspective of the prophets, the role of the Messiah was to transform the way the world does business – not through clever politics or power struggles or brute force but by changing fundamentally the way we look at the world.
Easter turns everything upside down. It certainly did for Peter. Before the resurrection, Peter thought the idea of a crucified Messiah was crazy (Mt. 8:27-33), and he argued forcefully that gentiles like Cornelius would have to become Jews before they could be counted among the followers of Christ. He believed God’s covenant promises were to the people of Israel, not to the gentiles. And yet, here he is years after that first Easter morning, experiencing the power of the resurrection in a new way. The vision he received from God of the sheet filled with what he considered to be both clean and unclean foods changed his understanding of how the world is supposed to work, and it radically changed the way he looked to the future.
Before his vision and his experience in Cornelius’ house, Peter’s world was divided between those who, like himself, were the original “witnesses” to Jesus’ life, death and resurrection, and those who, like Cornelius, hail from “every nation” (v. 35), who may have no previous experience with Jesus or familiarity with the Jewish faith. After his vision and his openness to enter the experience with Cornelius, Peter understands more fully that God does not show partiality but desires all creation to be one – not the same, necessarily, but one.
It’s so easy, isn’t it, for us to fall into the pattern “pre-vision” pattern. Look at our politics, look at look at our world, look at the matters even Christian denominations argue about – no matter what the context, we are always inclined to think of ourselves as “the witnesses” – the ones who hold the truth, the ones who really understand, the ones who are entitled, the ones who really belong, the ones who “get it.” My guess is that if you are among those who regularly attend Trinity on Sunday mornings, you may have bristled -- if only just a bit -- when you had trouble finding a parking space this morning, or found someone you don’t recognize sitting in your accustomed seats. Who let them in? Who gave them my parking space? Who gave them my seat? The answer, according to Peter’s sermon in Acts, is that God did. Because in Jesus Christ, EVERYBODY is called to be a witness, and everyone is welcomed to bring whatever it is they have to offer to the gathering.
And in this Chapter, Peter finds his long-held assumptions about Jesus, the man, replaced by the new thing that God is doing in Jesus Christ, the Messiah. God acts, and when God acts, we are often surprised. That’s why God is God and we are us. How else can we explain a King who is placed in a manger, the Son of God murdered on a cross, an empty tomb with an angel at the break of the third day?
Beginning with the events of Chapter 10 of Acts, those distinctions of witness and stranger, Jew and Greek, male and female, slave and free – any worldly distinctions that make us think of others as “different” – they are all erased, the doors of the Christian community are opened wide, and the world is welcomed to come in and join the party. When our text begins, Peter’s mind is closed tight. By the end of his sermon, the Holy Spirit has pried his mind open, and we along with him can begin to think of a day when we, and the world around us, can be transformed into a place of unity, harmony and peace.
Focusing on this story about Peter may not be the typical “Christ is Arisen” sermon you came to hear on Easter Sunday. Easter at its heart is about the defeat of death through the resurrecting power of God. But I want to suggest that not many of us will ever witness an empty tomb with an Angel greeting us. But we can and will have experiences like Peter’s. What we can learn from Peter’s experience is that the way WE experience the power of the resurrection is through God’s life-changing power over us -- if we will only open ourselves to it. God wants to do a NEW THING in us. Perhaps the best Easter message is that blessing from the daily office: Glory to God, whose power working in us can do infinitely more than we can ask or imagine. It tells us that the power of the Resurrection is not something that we passively marvel over 2000 years later – because then it is simply an icon sitting in a museum, an interesting article in Wikipedia that we talk about. The power of the Resurrection continues through the ever growing, wildly diverse body of “witnesses” who have experienced that power and who share it with others.
But I do have a “Christ is Risen” closing to this message. Friday morning, at our Children’s Walk Through Holy Week service, I had just concluded the service, and I was taking questions from the children . When there was a pause in the questions, young Margaret Rousseau – one of our young parishioners and a student in our choir school -- stood up in the front row, turned around to the assembled group and announced: Wait, wait, the story is not over yet. Jesus Christ is risen. We need to tell everyone that Jesus Christ is risen.”
I can’t say it any better. The story isn’t over yet – today is a new beginning. Let us rejoice, tell the story, and be glad in it! Amen.
posted by Don+ @ 1:09 PM
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